THIS U.S. CITIZEN

Psychological Warfare for Conservatives

2015-12-24T05:00:00.002-06:00

How do grossly unqualified individuals like Barack Obama become President of the United States? Why is the Second Amendment under continual attack? The root cause is, in both cases, conservatives’ failure to understand psychological warfare and failure to understand the concept of the Propaganda Man.
Colonel Paul M. A. Linebarger's classic, Psychological Warfare, defined the Propaganda Man as the "lowest-common-denominator of a man who can be reached by enemy propaganda and by yours." Linebarger then adds the need to understand the Propaganda Man's mentality, fears, and aspirations.

Make up the prewar life of the Propaganda Man. …What kinds of things did he like? What prejudices was he apt to have? What kind of gossip did he receive and pass along? What kind of words disgusted him? What kind of patriotic appeal made him do things? What did he think of your country before the war?

The Republican Party and the National Rifle Association both seem to omit this basic and vital first step of successful public relations. Consider for example the numerous responses to my American Thinker article, “The Felon in the White House.” Examples include:

"Who would prosecute the president for any crimes? The Department of Justice. Who owns the Department of Justice? President Obama."
"No one will ever care about this, ever" (in all caps).
"His worshippers wouldn't care if he was caught robbing a Brinks' truck."

What all fail to understand is that the article was not directed to:

The Justice Department
The big city urban Democrats who would probably vote for the head of ISIS if he ran for office with a D after his name. We will not, as the commentator said, change their minds.
Rural, Southern, and Mountain State Republicans who will vote for whomever the Republicans nominate. We do not need to change their minds.

The article's Propaganda Man is the swing voter, the independent voter who holds the balance of power in almost every national election. We won't convince the Obama Democrats and we don't need to convince the solid Republicans, but if we can persuade the independent voters, we win. The independent voter is proud of thinking for himself or herself, and generally takes the time to gather the facts. If the facts show, as they do, that Barack Obama gained his position through the commission of a felony, and was apparently given the kind of pass that an ordinary citizen could never expect, these voters will turn against him and anybody associated with him.
The Propaganda Man is Our Friend
It is absolutely vital, though, that we be sure of our facts before we present them to the Propaganda Man. Trust is the foundation of effective psychological warfare and, the instant we lie to the Propaganda Man, we will rightfully lose his trust. Consider for example these potential attacks on Obama.

The fact that the Obama Administration did not allow consideration of pro-ISIS social media postings makes Obama the "third San Bernardino shooter."
- I was actually preparing side by side photos of Tashfeen Malik, Syed Farook, and Barack Obama for this purpose when I discovered that, contrary to the original story, Malik had not posted publicly visible pro-ISIS messages on Facebook. We cannot therefore blame the Obama Administration for failure to act on Malik's social media activities, although the act of Islamist violence still says a lot about the DHS vetting process as a whole.
The rumor that Obama is not a U.S. citizen is at best not provable, and has in fact been discredited. "In 1961, birth notices for Barack Obama were published in both the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on August 13 and 14, 1961, respectively, listing the home address of Obama's parents as 6085 Kalanianaole Highway in Honolulu."
"Obama is a Muslim."
- There is nothing wrong with being a Muslim as long one does not belong to the subset of Muslims (aka Islamists) who believe they have an Allah-given right to hurt infidels, including the wrong kinds of Muslims. This argument does little more than reinforce the other side's denunciation of our side as Islamophobic, as in prejudiced against all Muslims rather than those who engage in easily identifiable problem behaviors.
- A Muslim would have probably not worshiped in a Trinity United Church of Christ. We can however cite repeatedly Jeremiah Wright's racist sermons, and his blood libel of Israel and the United States for purportedly developing an "ethnic bomb" and the AIDS virus respectively. To this we can add the racist quotes (with page numbers) from Obama's Dreams From My Father, and Michelle Obama's racist thesis from Princeton. The racist content of the latter can be verified from the original, and it shows clearly that Michelle Obama cannot be First Lady for all Americans. The inarguable truth is on our side, so why tout a dubious rumor?

A Weak Argument is Worse than No Argument
The latest rumor that Michelle Obama is actually a man is totally counterproductive, and General Patton made that clear more than 70 years ago. Patton said that it is worse than useless to fire a rifle at a tank because (1) it wastes ammunition and (2) it tells the tank crew that you don't have an antitank weapon because you would have otherwise used it. A weak argument is therefore worse than no argument. There are enough things genuinely wrong with Barack and Michelle Obama that we don't need the kind of material that might come from the Jeff Rense Show.
We can also win the Propaganda Man's support by proving that the enemy has lied to him. The anti-Second Amendment Million Mom March, for example, engaged in fraudulent fundraising practices by (1) lying to its donors about firearm misuse killing 12 or 13 children a day, and (2) concealing from its donors its plans to divert 501(c)(3) tax exempt money to Democratic political campaigns.
The Second Amendment's Propaganda Man (or Woman)
Second Amendment advocates make the similar mistake of talking about "our Second Amendment rights." The nation's 100 million or so law-abiding firearm owners should already be on our side. If they are not, we need to prove to them with the enemy's own words that the enemy is indeed after their sporting firearms as well as so-called "assault weapons."
The swing voter who does not own firearms does not, however, care about "our" Second Amendment rights. A woman who has been indoctrinated by Michael Bloomberg's lies via Everytown for Gun Safety is quite likely to take the position, "Your rights end where my safety and that of my children begins." This Bloomberg video, for example, shows a domestic abuser breaking in a woman's door to take her child, and then shooting her when she tries to resist. We need to address our arguments to the Propaganda Woman whom this Yellow Press-style video may have terrified into voting Obama Democrat, and not to people who are already on our side.
If the video is not copyrighted, or if "fair use" could include modification for educational purposes, I would do the following. When the abuser kicks the door in, stop the video and point out that this is the video's sole useful learning opportunity. I learned at a defensive gun class at Luzerne County Community College (LCCC) that a home invader can kick your door in more rapidly than he can open it with a key, let alone a lock pick. I therefore installed a strike plate that screws into the wall studs, and also a Nightlock security device. This protects the prospective home invader too because, if he doesn't get into the house, the person inside is probably not justified in using deadly force on him. If he continues to try to break in, the police can read him his rights when they arrive.
Next we deal with the home invader's gun by pointing out that, unless he is attacking somebody like Cynthia Rothrock or Ronda Rousey, his superior weight and upper body strength create a disparity of force situation in which he is a deadly threat even without a weapon. This means he can beat her to death or strangle her with his empty hands, and then abduct or kill her children after she is dead or too badly hurt to protect them. Disparity of force justifies her use of a firearm against him but, if Obama Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg, and Dannel Malloy get their way, she won't have a firearm. Underscore the issue of "authority without responsibility or accountability" because crime victims cannot sue government officials the way a victim of gross medical malpractice can sue a quack -- and make no mistake, Clinton, Bloomberg, Cuomo, and Malloy are quacks when it comes to public safety.
Then we support this position with real-world examples such as this one from FrontSight. Both involve home security videos of actual home invasion crimes. In the first part at about 1:10, a mother is beaten almost to death (by an unarmed male assailant) in her own home. In the second, three home invaders, one with a handgun, kick in the door of another woman's home. They get an unpleasant surprise in the form of a rifle, and a warning shot convinces them to flee. This is the only part with which I disagree. First, if you are not justified in shooting your assailant (as this woman was clearly justified), you are not justified in shooting at all. Second, a warning shot wastes a cartridge and gives the aggressor time to kill you. The incident still ended well for the homeowner, though, as it would not have done had she lived in a gun-free paradise like Cuomoland or Bloombergland.
Here is yet another genuine news story in which a mother tried to hide her child and herself from a home invader, but he found them anyway. That was when she emptied a 5-round .38 revolver at him, but did not hurt him badly enough to prevent him from fleeing (or, had he chosen to do so, killing her anyway). This says plenty about proposals to limit magazine capacities; unless you are using a caliber that starts with .4, you may well have to hit your assailant 10 or more times to stop him. Thomas Lifson's Go ahead #BlackLivesMatter: Make my Day features a video of a man who could have been Barack Obama's brother (re: Obama's statement that Trayvon Martin could have been his son) punching a police officer in the face and then shooting him with a .357 Magnum. The officer's return fire with 14 rounds of 45-caliber ACP failed to drop the aggressor, which underscores the fact that Andrew Cuomo is simply not competent to tell anybody what kind of firearm he or she "needs" for self-protection.
In any event, though, when we give the Propaganda Woman enough real world examples of defensive gun use, as well as information on where she can learn to use firearms safely and effectively, she is likely to take the position, "Your snake oil gun control ideology ends where my safety and that of my children begins."
William A. Levinson is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.

The Coming Economic Crisis

2015-11-21T07:44:00.003-06:00

By Catherine Sellers

Among the topics discussed in the last Republican debate was Senator Rand Paul’s advocating an audit of the Federal Reserve. Senator Ted Cruz is also cosigning this bill to have Congress exercise its auditing and oversight authority of the Fed, a duty that has been sorely lacking throughout the Fed’s murky history. The Federal Reserve, a major contributor to our highest-ranking debtor status, has become a central banking debt machine that exerts tremendous control over the U.S. economy; yet many Americans are barely aware of its existence or the power it wields.
Created in 1913 by Congress to combat financial panics, the Federal Reserve is composed of the twelve regional big commercial banks. The controlling board is composed of five members from those banks and seven members, nominated by the president, including his appointed head of the Federal Reserve -- currently, Janet Yellen. This unholy alliance of government and private banks is supposed to help the economy and employment through bank regulation, setting interest rates, and controlling the supply of money. It is no coincidence that the 16th amendment instituting the personal income tax was passed in the same year as the Federal Reserve’s creation as a means to fund ever-growing government debt.
Today, the Fed banking cartel simply creates money with computer keystrokes and lends this new money to Wall Street banks, which, in turn, lend it to government. The huge national debt is the result of the government’s ability to borrow an unlimited supply of money at low rates. Inflation, the devaluation of the dollar, is caused by the creation of ever more new dollars. Think how little a dollar buys today; most of that inflation has been caused by the Fed’s money-printing. By setting extremely low interest rates, the Fed creates an environment for the misallocation of money, causing financial bubbles that repeatedly burst, such as the 2008 housing bubble.
In response to the 2008 financial crash and in a doubling-down of its failed policies, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to nearly zero and created $4.5 trillion dollars. That money was borrowed by the federal government, used to bail out the big banks, and funneled to Wall Street, where it was spent to buy back company stocks, inflating stock values. This money was not used to grow or improve company infrastructure, hire more employees, or pay higher wages. Almost none of the money was used to help people who were losing their homes or stimulate job growth.
The Fed’s policies of currency creation (inflation) and zero interest rates are responsible for the biggest redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the rich elites in national history. The distribution of money has gone to Wall Street, not the sluggish Main Street economy. Seven years into an economic recovery of the Fed’s financial engineering, homeownership is at its lowest level since 1965; and the median household purchasing power is equal to that of 1989. The Fed proclaims concern about employment and wages, but labor participation is 62.6%, the level of 1977, and real wages are lower than in 2009. Saver’s earnings are virtually zero, meaning that retirees and those with little capital suffer, or are coerced into risking their IRA’s and savings in the stock market.
This economic malaise and growing national debt is not limited to the U.S. Central banks in China, the European Union, and other countries have followed the Fed’s program. Global debt increased from $87 trillion in 2000, to $225 trillion in 2014. While debt rises, there is now a major decline in world trade and commodity prices such as oil, gas, and copper, all symptomatic of a slowdown in the global economy that is rolling like a snowball downhill. Recession red lights are flashing in bloated manufacturing inventories, falling sales, and declining transportation of goods.
Now the Federal Reserve is supposedly in a quandary over increasing interest rates in such an environment. Donald Trump has said that Yellen is not raising rates to forestall a financial crisis during Obama’s administration. Fearing its Wall Street bubble will burst, the Fed has only strategically hinted at raising rates. If the Fed does increase rates in December, expect a mere .25 percent, or less, increase that will cause only minimal stock declines. But in truth, the Federal Reserve cannot restrain rates forever nor prevent the bursting of financial bubbles. As history has repeatedly shown, market forces will eventually overwhelm the Fed’s control and spin us into another crisis that the Fed never sees coming. The next financial crisis will be much worse because of overvalued stocks, sky-high debt, and an economy already in recession.
What weapons does the Federal Reserve have in its arsenal to fight the next economic crisis? Will it lower interest rates into the negatives and require people to pay for bank deposits, or take a percentage of depositors’ checking and savings accounts, IRAs, or 401ks? Will it print more currency, spurring inflation or even hyperinflation? Congress has already passed a law to put taxpayers on the hook to bail out the “too big to fail” banks, which we bailed out the last time, and which now hold more trillions in risky derivative debt than in 2008.
The Federal Reserve has never been able to foresee or halt a crash, not in 1929, and none in this century. The Fed refused to reveal secret deals, including deals with foreign banks, made during the 2008 crash. We should join Senator Paul and Senator Cruz and demand that Congress calls for this audit and examines the Fed’s activities. Congress created the Federal Reserve and has the power limit the Fed’s control or dissolve it. Interest rates should be set by free market supply and demand, and only the U.S. Treasury should issue currency. The Federal Reserve should be abolished.

Obama Really Doesn't Like People

2015-11-19T17:02:00.000-06:00

By Ed Lasky

A comment made by one of President Obama’s closest aides explains his blasé attitude toward the lives of Americans. In late 2012, Neera Tanden, who had been one of President Obama’s closest aides, observed:

Clinton, being Clinton, had plenty of advice in mind and was desperate to impart it. But for the first two years of Obama’s term, the phone calls Clinton kept expecting rarely came. “People say the reason Obama wouldn’t call Clinton is because he doesn’t like him,” observes Tanden. “The truth is, Obama doesn’t call anyone, and he’s not close to almost anyone. It’s stunning that he’s in politics, because he really doesn’t like people.

Barack Obama had been warned that leaving Iraq without a residual American force could lead to genocide. When questioned about this risk, he complacently answered that preventing genocide was not a good enough reason to have troops in Iraq .
Barack Obama’s coldness towards Americans -- and others, for that matter -- was obvious before 2012.
Barack Obama has long had an Empathy Deficit, as I wrote in 2010. He easily and coldly boasted he would destroy the coal industry and kill thousands of jobs with the aplomb of Chairman Mao and Josef Stalin reengineering their societies. The jobs that were promised after passage of the trillion-dollar stimulus plan never materialized because as Barack Obama jocularly put it two years later “shovel-ready was not as shovel ready as we expected.” When Texas was hit with devastating forest fires, Obama was cracking jokes at a California fundraiser, “You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change.” He has articulated his contempt for so called everyday Americans many times (see my 2012 column, What Obama Thinks of Americans and my 2014 column, Obama Thinks You Are Stupid, That’s Why)
Barack Obama seems particularly complacent when it comes to Americans endangered and murdered by Islamic extremists.
Here are some examples (with more undoubtedly to come as President Obama oversees a massive influx of Muslims into America, hence fulfilling his promise to “fundamentally transform America”). Obama’s Syrian asylum policy continues apace, despite the role of at least one Syrian “refugee” in the massacres in Paris. Obama wants to welcome at least 10,000 more Syrians into America (Hillary wants 65,000). What could go wrong? Ben Rhodes, Obama’s chief liar now that Susan Rice has outlived her usefulness in that role, appeared on numerous broadcasts to assure us these “asylum seekers” will be thoroughly vetted to eliminate security risks -- contradicting the widely respected FBI chief, James Comey, who testified before Congress that vetting Syrian “refugees” will be challenging. Can’t we trust the competency of an administration who can handle the IRS, the VA, the stimulus program, green energy projects, and security of government employee records so well?
When Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was murdered by Islamic terrorists the best that Barack Obama could offer was that his “loss” had “captured the imagination of the world.” Captured the imagination? Mark Steyn had some choice words for Obama’s lazy tribute to Daniel Pearl. There was no indignation or rage.

First of all, note the passivity: "The loss of Daniel Pearl." He wasn't "lost." He was kidnapped and beheaded. He was murdered on a snuff video. He was specifically targeted, seized as a trophy, a high-value scalp. And the circumstances of his "loss" merit some vigor in the prose. Yet Obama can muster none. (snip)
Well, says the president, it was "one of those moments that captured the world's imagination." Really? Evidently it never captured Obama's imagination because, if it had, he could never have uttered anything so fatuous. He seems literally unable to imagine Pearl's fate, and so, cruising on autopilot, he reaches for the all-purpose bromides of therapeutic sedation: "one of those moments" – you know, like Princess Di's wedding, Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, whatever – "that captured the world's imagination."

After Barack Obama announced that American journalist James Foley had been beheaded by Islamic extremists he raced off to the links to yuck it up with NBA star Alanzo Mourning and others.

Obama's golf pals on Wednesday included NBA legend Alonzo Mourning (left)

George Bush gave up golf as president because he felt it unseemly for a commander-in-chief to be playing golf while Americans were serving overseas in the military. Clearly Obama has different seemliness standards (see his interview with the YouTube comedian GloZell who bathes in milk and cereal in a bathtub).

When Americans were killed in Benghazi the White House refused to give an honest accounting of who murdered them (it was an offshoot of Al Qaeda). Their deaths were, in Obama’s cold phrasing, were not “optimal.” Well, they certainly weren’t optimal for him and his re-election campaign, so he and his Praetorian guard lied about their murders. Who got the blame? An obscure Coptic Christian who had directed an equally obscure video that may have riled some Muslims -- had they seen it (which, basically, no one had). The spin was that Muslims had been (“legitimately”?) enraged by the video that mocked Mohammed. Survivors were lied to and are still awaiting a call from the President to honestly explain why their loved ones had been murdered. They will be waiting a long time.
At times, he seems intent on justifying Islamic terrorism,or at least relativizing such violence by putting it in “historical context.” Last year, at the National Prayer breakfast (of all places) he invoked the Crusades while talking about Islam and terrorism:

At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Obama noted there was a time when people mass-murdered in the name of Christianity, too:
And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.
As many were quick to point out, the Catholic Church's Crusades began more than 900 years ago, and the Inquisition began in the 13th century.

The comparison was absurd but part of a pattern of Obama being an apologist for Islamic terrorism. The violence perpetrated by Muslim terrorist never has anything to do with Islam in the rose-colored view of Barack Obama and his officials and they have all but covered up the role played by Islam in the murder of Americans.
John Kennedy wrote of Winston Churchill “he mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” Barack Obama has thumbed through the thesaurus and mobilized the English language in ways that George Orwell had foreseen -- as a way for regimes to hide the truth from people. In this case, camouflaging an enemy.
The Muslim Brotherhood becomes a “mostly secular” group-this gem from Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. Islamic terrorist attacks become “man-caused disasters.” The 2009 Fort Hood massacre is described as a case of “workplace violence” despite the murderer, Nidal Hassan, having business cards describing him as a “soldier of Allah.” When a Chattanooga Navy recruitment center was attacked by Mohammad Abdulazeez, a Muslim who justified his attack because he was displeased by America’s war on terror (and therefore committed terror), the White House all but ignored the murder of our Navy personnel. Those murders merited almost zero notice. The White House has focused a lot of attention on violence on college campuses but was silent in the wake of the recent stabbing spree by Faisal Mohammed at a California university campus.
One wonders at what point, to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, did American lives ever matter to Barack Obama? After all, his moral compass, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., celebrated 9/11 as America’s chickens having come to roost and routinely spouted anti-American diatribes as Barack Obama and his family stayed in the pews (Oprah Winfrey and others quit the church). Israel’s Ambassador to America, Michael Oren, read both of Obama’s books and what struck him the most was that Barack Obama never had one good thing to say about America. Not one. Is that what they teach at private prep and Ivy League schools or was that an ideology inherited from his parents?
Meanwhile, Barack Obama extolls the role of Islam in America and the world, fabricating history to do so. He also fabricates in real time, too: erasing the role as much as he can of Islamic radicalism in violence around the world. Indeed, “Islamic radicalism” and “Islamic terrorists” are banished from the lexicon of Obama and all his officials. If one cannot name an enemy it makes it harder to fight them.
Maybe that is the point.
Compare and contrast the treatment meted out to the Cambridge policemen who were merely doing their job when they merely arrested Barack Obama’s friend, Henry Louis Gates Jr., for apparent breaking and entering. From his perch in the White House Obama called the police “stupid” and indicted police nationwide for racism. One can do the same exercise regarding Obama’s complacency when Americans are killed by Muslims to his over the top reaction to the deaths of Trayvon Martin (“if I had a son he would have looked like Trayvon”) and Michael Brown -- both cases cleared the people who shot them as having done so in self-defense, despite the efforts of the federal government to coerce state governments to find otherwise.
Do some American lives matter more to Barack Obama than others? Given the disparate treatment shown one can speculate so.
Meanwhile, a Texas high-school boy whose feelings were hurt when a teacher confiscated what appeared to be a bomb but what he represented as being a clock he had built (and was probably just a disassembled Radio Shack clock) was acclaimed as a Muslim Rosa Parks and granted a White House visit. The whole affair now appears to have been a contrived effort by the his activist father to create a cause celebre and another Muslim martyr (though not in the most radical sense, though now that the family has moved to Qatar…that clock making may come in handy).
President Obama has an agenda that is becoming increasingly visible. Marc Thiessen recently wrote in the Washington Post of “Obama’s stubborn, willful complacency on terror”:

Somehow, to paraphrase President Obama, it has become routine — the president dismisses the terrorist threat, only to see terrorists carry out horrific attacks that give lie to his complacency.
On Sept. 6, 2012, Obama boasted at the Democratic National Convention that “al-Qaeda is on the path to defeat.” Five days later, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists attacked two U.S. diplomatic compounds in Benghazi, Libya, killing the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
On Jan. 7, 2014, Obama dismissed the Islamic State as the “JV” team in an interview with the New Yorker, adding that the rise of the Islamic State was not “a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.” That same month, the Islamic State began its march on Iraq, declaring a caliphate, burning people alive in cages and beheading Americans.
Then on Thursday, Obama did it again, telling ABC News, “I don’t think [the Islamic State is] gaining strength” and promising “we have contained them.” The very next day, the Islamic State launched the worst attack on Paris since World War II, killing at least 132 people and wounding more than 350 others.
How many times is this sad spectacle going to repeat itself?

Well, chronologically, for at least one more year. Barack Obama is not interested in pursuing a war against radical Islam -- he doesn’t think there is or should be a “war on terror” (another banished phrase) and seems more intent on burnishing Islam, even if it is at our expense and at the cost of our lives. Neera Tanden was right; he doesn’t like people and couldn’t care less what happens to (most) of us: our lives don’t matter.

The Taqiyya Factor

2015-11-12T19:47:00.002-06:00

By Carol Brown

Taqiyya is an Islamic doctrine that allows Muslims to deceive non-Muslims. As in lie to them. Dr. Sami Mukaram, author of Taqiyya in Islam, writes: “Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it… Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.” (Specific references to taqiyya in the Quran, the Hadith, and in Islamic law, can be found here.)
One of the most common and persistent forms of taqiyya we are witnessing today is noted at Islam-Watch:

When placed under scrutiny or criminal investigation, (even when there is overwhelming, irrefutable evidence of guilt or complicity), the taqiyya-tactician will quickly attempt to counter the allegation by resorting to the claim that it is, in fact, the accused who are the 'the victims'. Victims of Islamophobia, racism, religious discrimination and intolerance. Currently, this is the most commonly encountered form of distraction and 'outwitting'….

Indeed. We see this manifest just about every day as Muslims claim to be victims when it is they who are the aggressors. And the goal is always the same: deceive the non-believer in order to advance Islamic supremacy. Of course, the non-believers can only be outwitted if they are also non-thinkers.
Here are three among a seemingly infinite number of examples of taqiyya in action.
The first example is of taqiyya played out at the highest levels of politics and world affairs, as Raymond Ibrahim recalled an anecdote brought to his attention by Daniel Pipes.

Back in the 1980s, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan, explained to Ronald Reagan how it was no problem for the Pakistanis to sign the Geneva agreements and yet continue supplying weapons to the Afghan jihadis (“freedom fighters”) combating the Soviet Union.
Why wasn’t it a problem? According to Zia, “We’ll just lie about it. That’s what we’ve been doing for eight years.” He added, “Muslims have the right to lie in a good cause….”

The second example is when Boston bombing jihadist, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, became a suspect (posthumously) in an unsolved triple murder that took place on 9/11/11. The Boston Globe reported:

It was one of the most gruesome killings in Greater Boston in many years: three young men found with their throats slit inside a Waltham apartment….
Now, police and prosecutors are stepping up their investigation into the unsolved 2011 triple homicide at the request of victims’ relatives who believe that suspected Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have played a role, noting that Tsarnaev had been close friends with one of the dead men.
What is more, the grieving relatives say the killings took place on a highly symbolic date for Islamic extremists: the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What the Boston Globe article omitted was that all three of the young men were Jewish. The fact that one of them was Tsarnaev’s “friend” is a classic example of how some Muslims may outwardly befriend non-believers, only to turn around and kill them. (For more examples of this pattern, see here.)
The third example is when, most recently, Muslim academics claimed that Ben Carson’s comments on taqiyya were false (which they weren’t), as reported by Raymond Ibrahim covering a Washington Post story:

…according to the Muslim professor, “there is no concept that would encourage a Muslim to lie to pursue a goal. That is a complete invention.” (snip)
Apparently it never occurred to the WaPo’s Kessler that El Fadl himself may have been exercising, in Zia’s words, his Muslim “right to lie in a good cause” — in this case, to prevent Americans from ever being suspicious of Muslim individuals and organizations in the U.S.

Taqiyya about taqiyya.
The obvious problem with lying is that once you know a group of persons will intentionally deceive, everything they say or do is called into question. And therein lies one of the rubs with Muslims. How can any non-Muslim know when a Muslim is telling the truth or telling a lie? We can’t. For the sake of self-preservation, one must err on the side of caution and maintain skepticism at all times. Because taqiyya can only work if the person being lied to is uninformed.
As Daniel Pipes wrote (emphasis mine): “…Taqiyya has been used by Muslims since the 7th century to confuse and split 'the enemy'. A favored tactic was 'deceptive triangulation'; to persuade the enemy that jihad was not aimed at them but at another enemy. Another tactic was to deny that there was jihad at all. The fate for such faulty assessments by the target was death.”
And there you have it. Deny jihad and invite your demise.
The Islamic world has got the West coming and going. When they truthfully tell us what they plan to do (such as with ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood), the West opts for deaf, dumb, and blind. When the Islamic world deceives us, the West falls for it every time.
How can any nation survive such willful stupidity?

A Plague of Unruly Children

2015-11-12T19:46:00.002-06:00

By Michael A. Thiac

On Halloween in National Review, the estimable David French opined that the Spring Valley High School video of a deputy dragging a child out of a chair wasn’t “disturbing,” I beg to differ; it’s very disturbing, but not for the reasons he listed.
As Mr. French noted, the “child” was told by the teacher to leave the class, then by an administrator, and finally by Deputy Ben Fields. She refused each time. The initial video showed only a teenager being pulled back and forth and assaulted by a man twice her size. Based on this limited knowledge, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott terminated Deputy Fields less than 48 hours later.
It is disturbing that a senior law enforcement executive fired a man when the situation was not fully known at the time. However, what I saw in the video is greatly disturbing but a multiple levels. To borrow the phrase from our president’s favorite pastor, “America’s chickens…have some home…to roost!”
We have generations of children now who were born but not raised. I don’t know the particular circumstance of this student’s family, but in far too many black families (and a growing number of white and Hispanic families) the norm is a single mother. The stats are three out of four black children are born out of wedlock. While there is no question this is the worse situation for the child and the “parental unit,” it’s been encouraged since the “Great Society,” an oxymoron almost as bad as “rap artist.” The federal government told one generation after another, “Young ladies, have kids, Uncle Sam has become Uncle Sugar, we’ll pay for the kid. We’ll send you money, a rent voucher and food stamps. Young men, have as many kids as you want, don’t worry about supporting them, we’ll ‘raise’ them and you don’t have to worry about getting a job. We got disability for that, you can chill….” Professor Thomas Sowell said it best, “The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state.”
We’ve given birth to generations (and imported others) of people who were not raised to be respectful and functional citizens of this nation. In ages past, the parents knew the primary duty to raise their children was theirs, but this was also reinforced by other adults outside the house. Part of the raising was the respect given to teachers and other school officials, police, and adults in general. A child raised properly would have never had a phone out in class or at least would have put it away immediately after the teacher told her to do so. As writer and talk show host Mark Levin said, the civil society was reinforced by the parents; children would learn the world does not revolve around themselves and they must show their elders respect.
That notion now seems rather quaint, and the losers are society in general and the children in particular. They don’t know the discipline that they need to make their way in the world, delay gratification, and that they must prepare to support themselves. I’ve been in law enforcement for almost two decades, mostly on patrol and often in “Da Hood”. I’ve seen the disaster these types of policies have brought upon society. In one family after another, the child is not disciplined or told “No,” accustomed to delayed gratification and or told there are things more important to himself. In years past in a similar Spring Valley situation, the parent would be called and actually be embarrassed by the way her child acts. Now as we see with later videos the 16 year old refused to leave and struck the deputy, the family is still proceeding with a lawsuit. Money and 15 minutes of fame are very enticing things and they don’t care the child is the worse for it.
On patrol I’ve had calls where a mother is reporting to the police, “My children won’t do their homework.…” I must explain to this “adult” that it’s not the job of law enforcement to raise her child, and where is the father to assist you? But this is a symptom of a bigger issue. The mother was not raised to by two parents with discipline, guidance and love to steer her to a better life, particularly out of the ghettos of the major cities. In many public housing projects you have generations of the same family living in a subsidized unit, and they’ve never known anything but this hellhole; and they are quite content to live there. Sad, pathetic and not surprising.
In one particular incident I remember a mother (36 years old) and her daughter (16 years old) in a fight that required medical attention for the daughter. The issue started over the mother telling the daughter she could not go out and the daughter refusing. I thought to myself: “Lady the problem is not that you’re trying to discipline your child at sixteen. The problem is you didn’t discipline her at six.”
Another part of “Da Hood” is what is idolized, what is reinforced, what is shown as your way to a better life. Education and vocational training? No, often black students working hard are told they are “acting white.” Discipline in getting up, going to a job, putting in a full day’s work for a day’s pay, saving for your future? No. Successful businessmen and women who achieve in small industries, such as the store manager, mechanic shop owner? Or minorities that made it out of poverty and achieved greatness like Dr. Ben Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice? Not much. Who are revered in today’s ghettos? Sports stars, “rap artists,” people who are famous for “being famous,” or people who made it onto “America’s Got Talent.”
America took generations to get into this fix and it will take decades to get out of it. The first step for any recovery is to admit you have a problem. We have to convince young ladies to not start families before they get a diploma, to graduate, to have children only with their husbands. And we have to insist these young men honor the mother’s of the children, more than their “baby mama.” Both will require time, reinforcement and the reintroduction of a sense of shame for certain actions. The future is to be determined but this a critical matter that must be worked on.

Keeping Up With the Real Racists

2015-11-11T07:20:00.003-06:00

By Kimberly Bloom Jackson

The definition of “racist” has changed so much it’s hard to keep up.
Remember the days when a racist was someone who believed in the innate superiority of one race over another? Tragically, this ideology provided the basis for racists to segregate, victimize, and deny the rights of others. Nevertheless, this is precisely what defined a real racist.
America isn’t perfect, but a lot has changed for the better. Just look at all those of color who want to come here and all the white America haters who won’t leave for what they think is better grazing. To me, this speaks volumes.
Still, progressive rabble-rousers must keep their investment in race current. In 1997, for example, UC Berkeley sponsored a conference, The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, where activists “critically” examined whiteness. Within three days, they concluded that white people are the “passive inheritors of a system of privilege and wealth.” You know it by its more fashionable name white privilege.
Such sweeping Marxist pronouncements have helped real racists forge their own definition of racism, not as acts or attitudes committed by individuals, but a racism that permanently links all white people. And since no white person wants to be associated with racism, many whites today have enthusiastically embraced feigned diversity oriented reforms and policies just to disassociate themselves from any taint of historical racism. This is called white guilt and it’s the real racist’s secret weapon.
But have you been keeping up with all the new definitions of a racist that these real racists have invented lately? Chances are you fit squarely into some.
1. Wave the American flag? You’re a racist, especially in leftist states like California where everyone knows that waving the Mexican flag is way more cool.
2. Pro-life? Then you’re a racist who doesn’t care about women’s “reproductive rights.” New York City, with over 110,000 abortions each year, obviously cares. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger cared too, having initiated The Negro Project to get rid of black babies through sterilization. Even Hillary Clinton agrees as evident by her 2009 statement, “I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision.” Naturally, black lives don’t matter to real racists.
3. Believe “all lives matter?” Clearly, you’re a white supremacist. When Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley stated “all lives matter” in response to a “black lives matter” protest, he was promptly shouted down by a mob of real racists until he apologized for being insensitive and not realizing how much his life benefits from rampant white privilege.
4. Gun owner? Again, you’re a flaming racist. The most demented of racists are supposedly members of the NRA, which I find kind of strange given that it’s America’s oldest civil rights organization. But then, it all makes sense when you realize real racists are obsessed on discrediting the NRA because it helped train newly freed blacks when the Democratic Party denied them access to personal security and the ability to exercise their Second Amendment right after the Civil War.
5. Support traditional marriage? You’re obviously a racist homophobe like Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson. Ironically, Americans love Duck Dynasty precisely because it represents the America that real racists like to mock.
6. Believe America should secure its borders? No doubt about it -- you’re a Mexican hating racist. In fact, you’re so bad, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) decided to team up with those sweet little folks from La Raza (“The Race”) to try and “punish” Americans for opposing amnesty.
7. Support photo identification for voting? Then you’re a racist who wants to disenfranchise minorities. Actually, real racists think minorities are too stupid to get the proper identification in time to vote Democrat. Meanwhile, photo identification remains a requirement upon admittance into the Democratic National Convention.
8. Fan of the Tea Party? You’re a militant racist that believes in everything real racists despise, like limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility. Take it from Senior NPR executive, Ron Schiller, who apparently knows about this kind of thing. He described the Tea Party as “seriously racist people.” Hmm … as opposed to not serious?
There you have it, 8 new definitions of a racist. But seriously, I wouldn’t fret about it too much. It’s the real racists who have the long history of racism.
However, I think real racists know their name-calling tactic is losing its luster and in need of a serious makeover. Unfortunately, they’ve started to play a very dangerous game where false allegations of “racist” are being replaced with “terrorist.”
Remember the Department of Homeland Security report that erroneously cast suspicion on liberty lovers, gun owners, pro-lifers, and Christians? This report marked a new era when American citizens became the focus in the war on terror. According to a 2013 Rasmussen poll, 26% of Obama supporters now believe the Tea Party is the nation’s top terror threat. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has openly labeled lawful gun owners terrorists stating, “We cannot let a minority of people … hold a viewpoint that terrorizes the majority of people.”
Of course, fear mongering propaganda always seems to make a big appearance on college campuses where, for example, one student who, incapable of thinking independently from her professor, likens pro-lifers to “domestic terrorists.” Meanwhile, her professor -- an aspiring real terrorist -- was caught on video assaulting a pro-lifer. The professor, who pleaded not guilty, was charged with battery, misdemeanor theft, and vandalism.
In short, these totalitarian-minded types, like Hitler and Stalin before them, are notorious manipulators of language. They use their perverted lexicon to target people they don’t like in an effort to create a massive shift in public perception and, ultimately, transform our culture. And we all know how things ended with Hitler and Stalin.

Where Will American Refugees Go?

2015-11-11T06:24:00.000-06:00

By John T. Bennett

If immigration completely transforms America, where can Americans go to preserve our national identity? Nowhere. This land is our one chance.
There is nowhere else to turn for Americans who want limited government, truly free speech, the norm of personal responsibility, and Judeo-Christian Enlightenment culture. Americans don't have the option of moving to another nation and replacing that nation's culture with our own.
The countries within Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia proudly preserve their national cultures. Plus, their immigrants come here and change American culture, and attempt to do the same to Europe. The immigrant is entitled to do so under the bipartisan doctrine of multiculturalism. The total lack of reciprocity is noteworthy; this imbalance is unsustainable. If America maintains multicultural dogma while non-Western nations remain culturally intact, the eventual outcome will be an inhospitable America. Where will the traditional American refugees go, in the “world community”?
Today’s immigrants enter an increasingly secular, multicultural society where assimilation is decimated, where minority group membership carries tangible benefits from the state, and racial resentment is taught with messianic zeal (see “Critical Race Theory”). In response, obtuse politicians like Lindsey Graham find it persuasive to quote the obsolete poem on the Statue of Liberty, as if a sonnet is going to turn statists into libertarians, resolve ethnic grievances, or maintain social cohesion as the foreign-born population approaches an unprecedented share of the overall U.S. population.
There is no place else for us to go and escape the welfare state, tyrannical speech codes, and the plagues of victimhood and relativism. Americans cannot migrate to any other nation and transplant our culture. Neither Mexico nor Canada is the New World. Besides, few Americans could afford to uproot themselves and their families. Cost is an even greater barrier to far-away places like New Zealand. Even for those willing to emigrate, other countries generally have their own distinct legal and political systems. They don’t want to hear how the Founding Fathers did things.
What happens then, if mass immigration is allowed to continue? America (and the West) will be nothing but cauldrons of conflicting, competing factions and ethnicities. That’s the opposite of stability, for those keeping score. Whichever ethnic special interest group is the most aggressive, embittered, and vocal will come to set the tone for the entire society. It will be as if the West were occupied by those who detest it.

There is no nation on earth where Western Europeans or Americans can go once our own nations are transformed. The nations of Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia will maintain their distinct national identities, while their immigrants move outwards with a sense of entitlement to reshape the West in their image. Why wouldn’t they? American society seems to contort and fracture itself to accommodate just about anyone. There is no reciprocity, and the West shies away from enforcing the very standards that account for our distinction. America is forced to change, along with Europe, as the nations sending their immigrants out remain the same. Where is our sense of self-preservation?
The dilemma described above is not going to be resolved by optimism. That's why Scott Walker’s facile homage to optimism as he left the campaign trial was so absurd. Reagan invocations are fine and good, but Reagan and the Republicans went along with a transparent fraud in the 1986 amnesty act. Regular Americans have been paying the price for that blunder ever since.
It may be that optimism about immigration is unwarranted. Optimism about immigration “reform” in the form of a path to citizenship is certainly unwarranted. No ethnic interest group will say, “Thank you for the amnesties of 1986 and 2015, we won't ask for any more.” Instead, more immigration means more chain migration of family members, more clamoring to nullify American immigration law, and more gutless guilt and pandering on the part of politicians who cave to the ethnic pressure groups. This whole process creates a vested interest in the undermining of American sovereignty. Any path to citizenship would be a blueprint for perpetual illegal immigration and racial favoritism in response to that illegal immigration. No one with an appreciation for human nature and public policy should be optimistic about these circumstances.
We don't need reflexive optimism right now. Happy noise is not a strategy. We need to restore our sense of national self-preservation. We need leadership that will look at the world for what it is, put the interests of American citizens first, and limit immigration.

The Center Holds

2015-10-06T09:35:00.000-05:00

By Fritz Pettyjohn

That's my prediction for 2016 in a nutshell. We have two extremes in our politics today. On the right are furious populists, on the left socialist misfits. Neither represent a majority. As always, the center is the key.
Kasich and Rubio are mainstream conservatives. Kasich's record and Rubio's rhetoric line up quite nicely. Either of them will have natural appeal to the center, where elections are won. The other plausible candidate, Ted Cruz, is essentially a mainstream conservative. If he is extreme it’s because of his style and the measures he advocates, not the outcomes he seeks. The Church Lady and other pundits worry that the Trump purported appeal to nativism will tarnish the Republican brand. Nonsense. The winning candidate will be the brand.
While the Republicans will not nominate an extremist, the Democrats will. Like Wilson before him, Obama has taken his party far to the left, too far. The political pendulum is just starting to swing to the right, but Obama will demand that the Democrat candidate resist, and run for his third term. Hillary, Biden, and Sanders will comply with his wishes, or lose the essential black vote. This is a recipe for disaster. Centrist voters will have a clear choice. A center-right conservative vs. a hard core leftist.
And hardcore the Democrat will be, we are assured of that. All the whack jobs on the left are becoming more shrill and militant, and Hillary and the others feel they have no choice but to embrace them. The D's have endorsed Black Lives Matter, and there's a great chance that could blow up in their face. Soros money is at the ready to spread on the flames, and the next police shooting of an unarmed black, justified or not, could be turned into another urban conflagration. Law and order has won elections before.
They kowtow to the earth-worshiping econazis, who are wildly out of touch with the American people. Their global warming fraud is seen as such by ordinary Americans. They respond with heightened hysteria.
The Democrats cater to pro-abortion extremism, cheerfully celebrate the war on men, and sympathize with the mentally ill who complain of micro-aggressions. The fanatical prosecution of college boys who have sex with drunken coeds will not win the hearts of regular Americans.
Gay marriage is the tip of the iceberg of the homosexual agenda. They will always want more. They want their lifestyle celebrated, and the D's will gladly comply. Forcing little girls to share a bathroom with some confused little boy will not win many votes.
The war on coal is just the start of a campaign to seize total control of the energy industry. They want to eliminate fossil fuels, and to hell with the consequences. The war on white and Asian men that masquerades under the euphemisms of affirmative action and disparate impact widens in scope. HUD plans to disrupt residential areas it deems too "homogeneous", as in affluent white. The smothering regulatory state marches inexorably on, laying waste to private industry. I could go on, but this gets depressing after a while.
The point is that the Democrat is going to have a hell of a time appealing to the center, which the Republican can do effortlessly. The progressive left is intellectually exhausted. It is out of ideas, and is playing defense. ObamaCare, the regulatory state, affirmative action, and wealth redistribution are all under assault, and the Democrat Party is now a reactionary force. All the ideas and energy are on the right.
I try to pay attention to the other side, keep an eye on them, watch how they think they're going to win. The whiz kids at 538.com are always good for a laugh. Right now they’re trying to predict Trump’s prospects by using “…regression of name recognition against net favorability.” I’m serious. It's all mechanics, and statistics, and social media, and turnout models, and demographics, money, and race. That's all they've got. They don't have any issues. And they don't have any candidates. They've got nothing to brag about, and a lot to defend.
They've got nothing. And no prospect of getting anything. The trifles they do have on offer will be flotsam in the tide.
I have to say this. How can we lose this one? How can we possibly screw this up? It's all set up to fall into our hands, as long as we don't blow it. Political ineptitude has cost us before, as in 1948. But I don't see that happening. I haven’t felt this confident in 35 years.
And 1980 was a very good year.

'Gun Control' Is Actually Conservative Control

2015-10-06T09:29:00.003-05:00

By Jeffrey T. Brown

Any casual observer of reality in America can figure out which citizens are likely to embrace the Second Amendment, and which will need to change pants at the mere thought of a gun. Liberals are terrified of guns in a way that is utterly detached from logic and reason. They aren’t terrified of their cars. They aren’t frightened of their carving knives, or pruning shears, or hammers, or baseball bats. Liberals are terrified of guns because they’ve been conditioned to believe they are possessed of evil, and can only do evil. By extension, many of them further believe that to touch one, or use one, is tantamount to a betrayal of their own imagined morality. This same set of fallacies enables them to comfortably indulge their considerable capacity for bigotry and unabashed hatred for those who have no use for superstitions and delusions.
The people most likely to possess guns are rational Americans who still understand and cherish the Bill of Rights -- not just the Second Amendment, but all of them. For the most part, such persons are generally politically conservative, since gun phobia is a uniquely liberal affliction. Already having an understanding of the Bill of Rights, gun owners also are aware of the history and reason for the Second Amendment, why it was included in the Bill of Rights, and what part it plays in the Bill as a whole. They know the threats to individual liberty posed by centralized government. They are fully aware of history, and what comes with an all-powerful government that no longer feels beholden to its citizens. They know that without the Second Amendment, all the others will become mere platitudes, temporary grants of protection from the government so long as the populace behaves itself, to be rescinded or canceled as soon as the citizenry fails to understand its place. You may cheer endlessly, but booing will have consequences.
Gun control has nothing to do with saving lives. If lives mattered, Planned Parenthood would have been deconstructed long ago. If lives mattered, the nightly “mass shootings” in Chicago, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and every other Democrat-run city with “gun control” would be openly acknowledged and confronted. We all know that those shootings, as well as the other horrific shootings we’ve seen in the last several years, were not carried out by people who embrace conservative American values. People who believe in freedom don’t deprive others of theirs. Rather, sociopathic deeds are carried out by people who reflect the culture of devaluation which liberalism has brought us.
The casual taking of lives is a uniquely liberal phenomena. When people are trained to be victims, and that their “right” to take from others is both fair and commendable, it is only a matter of time before they take everything that belongs to another, including his life. Liberals are professional victims. Whether it’s the punishment of pregnancy, as the president termed it, or that someone else has obtained through work what the leftist wishes to steal, it’s only fair that someone else’s life be taken to assuage the harm done to the liberal. He has been conditioned to believe that he has been so mistreated in his outcomes, it is fair that someone should pay the ultimate price for his disappointment. This same warped mindset has brought us the ‘kill the cops’ mantra of the Black Lives Matter movement. The innocent and the dead are only being made to pay for the perpetrator’s subjective unhappiness.
This intellectual deformity is not a product of conservative values or beliefs. It is a product of liberal conditioning. The statistics on mass shootings which liberals instantly and breathlessly recite when regurgitating their gun control talking points are almost entirely comprised of the urban slayings in which Democrats pull the trigger and liberal politicians seem entirely uninterested. I know I am not alone in observing that as the beliefs and values of the left have assumed greater prominence in our society, the number of shooting deaths has risen proportionately to their control of the culture. Similarly, as they have more purposefully begun to infringe rights valued by conservatives, we have become increasingly unsafe. We have seven years of knowledge that others’ lives are the last things this president or his party cares about.
Despite all this, at whom is gun control directed? Obviously, at that portion of the citizenry that owns guns but doesn’t use them to harm anyone. That is, primarily at conservatives, who are morally averse to doing harm to those who do not seek to harm them first. Conservatives, you see, do not pose any risk to the public at large by their ownership of guns. They do pose a risk, however, to those whose pathway to totalitarianism would be vastly easier without hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of those whom they would see subservient to the government. It is those steadfast citizens, and only those citizens, against whom the president speaks every time a product of the liberal culture he embodies decides to exact his revenge for his inadequacy.
The fact is that liberals have already not only surrendered to servitude, they have embraced it. They have bought the lie that government is the solution, rather than the cause of nearly every problem which besets this country. They are fine with fewer rights, because they seem to think that the government they worship and depend upon would never turn on them when the money dries up or the issue becomes which priority a totalitarian regime will indulge: freebies to its supporters or its own self-preservation at the barrel of a gun. They see that same paternal government targeting their philosophical enemies, conservatives, and think that because they are politically aligned, it is perfectly fine that government targets some of its citizens. They don’t understand that a time will come when such a government doesn’t need liberals, either.
Conservatives understand that to be disarmed is to hasten the end of freedom and individual liberty. They understand that to own guns, and know how to use them, is to refuse to surrender. They know, as shown by history, that government unmoored from its role as servant of the public will pursue complete control. Speech is no longer as free as it was, and is becoming less so. Look at the price Ben Carson has been made to pay for telling the truth about Sharia. The president has just informed us that the newly minted rights of the LGBT crusaders will trump historic Constitutional protections concerning religion. Government is deciding its supporters will have rights, and the resistance will not. The last hedge against full serfdom is the knowledge on the left that conservatives will not become slaves of Democrats without a fight.
Gun control is purely and simply a political tool to achieve the disarmament of that portion of the populace that will not surrender to Marxists and fascists. The president wishes to politicize the deaths brought about by his culture, and that of his followers, to achieve total political domination through manipulation of the weak-minded. The left has no intention of being forever checked by those who preserve the America he has sought to overwhelm. The last breath of that America will occur when citizens can no longer forcefully resist the malfeasance of their own government. No one knows that better than a fundamentally transformative tyrant.

No Coherent Identityitis

2015-10-04T10:09:00.002-05:00

By Clarice Feldman

There’s an illness sweeping the country and even the White House has succumbed to it: No coherent identityitis.
In the way that the media highlights and frames mass shootings as a sort of ghoulish entertainment and ignores far more serious events, you might have missed the connection between the shootings in Oregon and Obama’s conduct this week. There’s a great deal of commonality between those murders and the disaster in the Middle East that Obama touched off with his ridiculous Arab Spring and Iran deal, a disaster that certainly has resulted in many more deaths and holds out the terrible prospect of millions more.
Symptoms of No Coherent Identityitis
A. Confused Backgrounds and Absent Fathers
Both Chris Mercer and Obama are mixed-race males. Both had foreign fathers who skipped out on them, leaving them without a fixed role model so critical to an integrated personality which is necessary to process information (reality) and make informed decisions. As a result, neither seems to have a firm fixed identity. Their conduct is without integrity. It is out of accord with actuality. Instead it is erratic and inexplicable, a reflection of their inner chaos.
That Obama’s self-history is confused and incoherent is obvious from his two “autobiographies” which are full of inexplicable contradictions. Looking at what is publicly reported about the shooter -- that he is a conservative and a white supremacist -- the great Daniel Greenfield observes:

i'm not an expert on "White Supremacism", but being half-black and then shooting a bunch of white Christians would make him the worst White Supremacist ever. If being half-white and hating white Christians makes you a White Supremacist... then Obama should be investigated for being a White Supremacist.
[snip]
Right now there's no coherent identity here. And that's normal for crazy people. And it's either that or Mercer was one of the half-white Neo-Nazi IRA anti-Christian Republican killers. And you know how big of a problem they are.

Compare with Obama, who has lied about his Muslim background. By birth and early education he was clearly a Moslem who has steadfastly denied his early history after converting to the Reverend Wright’s bizarre version of Christianity.
B. Incoherent Views and Actions
It would be hard to catalogue all of Obama’s inconsistent words and deeds, but this week they were particularly and repeatedly glaring.
The man who armed the Mexican drug lords and the thugs in Syria and who is giving Iran the green light to develop its nuclear weapons and wreak further havoc in the world, chose the Oregon incident to press for gun control.
As Michelle Obama’s Mirror noted:

In a lecture filled with lies Barry told us yesterday that mass shootings are “something we should politicize,” as if we haven’t.
A visibly angry Obama blasted Congress for being unwilling to change the nations [sic] gun laws in response to a wave of mass shootings that have cast a cloud over his presidency.
I guess we are all to agree with his flawed logic, submit to his will, and by-pass the do-nothing Congress that we elected as stipulated in the Constitution because we need some common sense gun control laws; like repealing the 2nd Amendment. Because, you know, Obama’s Amerika: and we don’t want Barry to look bad.
I don’t know about you, butt I would be more inclined to listen to a President lecture us on “common sense gun control” if he weren’t the president that armed a Mexican drug cartel.
[snip]
And gave Iran, the single most important state sponsor of terrorism in the world, the go-ahead to build their nuclear bomb. Now that’s something some of us think should be politicized. Because, you know, they’ve announced their intent to annihilate Israel. What a bother.

The normally more sedately ironic Tom Maguire was incredulous:

What Was That?
Did Obama just have a press conference or was I watching a "Best of Saturday Night Live" sketch?
[snip]
On Syria, Obama mentioned Assad's despicable use of barrel bombs on his civilian population several times. But is a no-fly zone a good idea? NOT SO FAST, haters -- it's complicated, and has been for years. And Obama won't do half-measures. Far better to do no measures. And Hillary's call for a no-fly zone is just political grandstanding, unlike the calls from the Republican haters, who are just "half-baked" and full of "mumbo jumbo.
[snip]
In a moment even more detached from reality Obama addressed the question of why there seems to be a growing perception that Putin is winning and Obama is losing.
His gist -- the US economy is growing, we are the world's economic bright spot, and the Russian economy is shrinking. Putin is shoving his troops into the Syrian quagmire, which will be a long term mistake, and anyway, his only allies in the region are Libya and Syria (but not Iran?!? With whom he is coordinating air strikes, while monitoring their compliance with the nuclear deal?), and how is that working for him, so c'mon, haters, this is what winning looks like!

Even on the topic of gun control where for the second weekend in a row 50 people were shot in his home town Chicago which has very strict gun control laws, the incoherence of Obama’s positions are impossible to ignore. Returning to Tom Maguire:

In any case, his gist is that all Republicans oppose gun control, so let's not talk about the Democrats who also oppose it; let's talk about the kooky Republicans reasons for opposing common sense gun safety laws. Those reason range from unconvincing to silly, but let me spend the most time on the absurd idea that I want to confiscate everyone's guns and permanently empower myself. C'mon, haters, serious up!
Well, he omitted "half-baked" "mumbo jumbo", so there is that. Such a small, unimaginative, divisive President committed to leading half the people. Is this really his idea of away to promote national dialogue? I am sure that in his mind he scored this as 'Obama 1, Strawmen 0", but acknowledging the actual concerns of serious opponents is often a better negotiating ploy.
[snip]
Obama also noted that on the mean streets of Chicago the level of violence we saw in the Oregon shooting is an everyday (or at least, every weekend) occurrence, so of course stricter laws would help there as well. How that coexists with "Black Lives Matter" and the end of stop and frisk in New York City was left unexplained.
[snip]
Most socially liberal gun control champions don’t see themselves as pushing policies that would abet racial profiling or worsen the problem of mass incarceration.
[snip]
Yeah, we are going to get guns off the streets of Chicago without arresting any young black men, or even ruffling their feathers. Obama is right -- he can't do that by himself.

He cited approvingly the UK and Australia ban on guns -- ironically just as there was another shooting in Australia linked to terrorism while at the same time saying “but let me spend the most time on the absurd idea that I want to confiscate everyone's guns -- This prompted Ignatz Ratzkywatzky’s response: "Yeah, why would anyone entertain that absurd idea when his only two examples of how to deal with "gun violence" are the UK and Australia, who dealt with it via confiscation.”
He regularly insults and jeopardizes the safety of our allies and cozies up to our enemies. Just this week he pulled John Kerry and Samantha Powers out of the UN when Bibi Netanyahu made his impassioned speech about the UN’s failure to condemn Iran’s call for the destruction of Israel. Nor did he comment to my knowledge on Mahmoud Abbas’ claim that Palestine was no longer bound to the Oslo accords .
For all the bleating about gun control, its proponents have no solution.

Professor Gene Volokh suggests the problem is alcohol and notes how ineffective prohibition was to deal with that.
Maybe it’s a mistake to consider Obama’s angry contradictory battles with unarmed strawmen merely politically opportune oratory designed to demonize his opponents. Maybe he’s just a man with no sense of himself or of reality who cannot process facts at odds with his fixed notions and is now so over his head that his mental illness is now unmistakable. He lives in his own head and has made the real world the rest of us live in far more perilous.

Comment discussion on what to do about mass shooters..

2015-10-04T09:47:00.003-05:00

This U.S. Citizen • 2 days ago

These attacks are nothing more than a military ambush. The US Marines train to react immediately to an ambush. We are trained to "assault through" the ambush. Don't take cover. Don't drop and shoot. Don't retreat. You assault through the ambush. People dying is already a given at the point a shooter like this appears. If people are taught to immediately assault these shooters, yes a few will die but casualties and death will always be minimalized. A much better option than to stand there and answer questions like sheep to the slaughter waiting for someone to decide if you are worthy of living. I will take my chance and assault.

Liberty or Death This U.S. Citizen • 2 days ago

That was my thinking this morning, after hearing this psycho thought it would be cute to interrogate people about their religious affiliation, prior to executing them.
If I am in this situation, I make my peace with the Lord and "roll." I'd like to take my last breath choking the life out of this guy, rather than wait in line for my bullet. In those moments, it would be incredibly difficult to summon the courage to face a man with a gun, and I certainly don't think any less of those who couldn't... but that's what I would hope for in my case.

aRdent This U.S. Citizen • 2 days ago

The worst possible thing to do in an ambush is "nothing." You are already in the kill zone, so there is no wrong way to move as long as you do it fast and with determination. Hoping the worst will not happen is just as effective as hoping for whirled peas. The problem is most of us are not trained or even vaguely encouraged think in terms of immediate action.
Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.
God_Guts_Guns This U.S. Citizen • 2 days ago

Good luck trying to train a bunch of metrosexual pajama boys to do anything other than pass their pants
- This U.S. Citizen God_Guts_Guns • 2 days ago
  
  Not worried about them. You cannot teach everyone. Just teach your kids and practice thinking about it and walking through it mentally about the scenario. Since 9/11 its something I do on a plane, in crowds, etc. Scenario planning. In a worst case scenario like this, almost anything you do will create a better outcome.
  
  Videre Licet God_Guts_Guns • 2 days ago
  
  We could train them to drop down, curl in a fetal position and generally get out of our way.
ShermanLogan This U.S. Citizen • 2 hours ago

Great theory, doesn't work so well in practice.
Marines are trained to work as a group. They are also trained in how to respond when ambushed and at the moment of the ambush are generally expecting it as something that might happen.
In a scenario like this one, people are surprised, most take at least a few seconds, those critical few first seconds, to even figure out what's going on, much less how to react.
You also run into the game theory of John Nash. Yes, if we all rush the shooter at once, he gets off only a few shots. But if I charge alone or with only one or two others, I will almost certainly be killed. Whereas if I lay quietly and avoid drawing his attention, I may be one of the lucky survivors.
IOW, the strategy that is best for the group is not necessarily the best for any of the individuals in that group.
EDIT: Doesn't mean I don't hope that if I'm ever in this situation I die, if I must, attacking rather than cowering.
- This U.S. Citizen ShermanLogan • an hour ago
  
  Mandatory "shooter/reaction" orientation. Every student, every year. But then again, teaching people to be aggressive vs passive in these situations might not be politically correct. But people keep asking what to do. You cannot ban guns. Background checks and magazine limits will not stop this. Gun free zones is just a stupid concept since only law abiding people follow laws. No, It has to be mitigated when the situation presents itself and the only ones who can do that are those involved. At that point, there are no wrong answers. Deadly force, misdirection, hell just everyone learning to throw every book they have on their desk at them then doing a mad rush will save lives.
  Regarding "You also run into the game theory of John Nash. Yes, if we all rush the
  shooter at once, he gets off only a few shots. But if I charge alone
  or with only one or two others, I will almost certainly be killed.
  Whereas if I lay quietly and avoid drawing his attention, I may be one
  of the lucky survivors."
  I believe you have more chance by being on the offensive rather than hope for the best and leave it up to a lunatic with obvious bad intent and a weapon. No thanks. The shooter has likely only thought about how he would follow his plan. If his plan goes downhill immediately, he is now on a path he probably had not thought through and will be at a disadvantage at that point. Those who have had repeated training or at least discussed the scenario will have better odds than if they had not. You are right, Marines are trained as a group and civilians need to be trained as a group for this particular situation. Their life depends on it.

25 Ways to Be a Real Man

2015-10-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

By Craig Dunkley

In its Men's Style section, The New York Times recently published a somewhat ridiculous, liberalism-infused article entitled "27 Ways to Be a Modern Man." While a few of the 27 ways made some sense, many of them were so soft-handed and weak that one wonders if the article was meant as a joke. Sadly, it appears that the writer was serious:

When the modern man buys shoes for his spouse, he doesn’t have to ask her sister for the size. And he knows which brands run big or small.

Does the modern man have a melon baller? What do you think? How else would the cantaloupe, watermelon and honeydew he serves be so uniformly shaped?

The modern man cries. He cries often.

Well, if a modern man is supposed to be a mushy, fashion-conscious crybaby with a melon-baller, then I want no part of it. It's far better to be a real man. So what are the traits of a real man? There are many, and this list isn't comprehensive, but it should be a good start.
A real man:

Has integrity. If he gives you his word on something – or shakes on it – then you can put it in the bank. A real man does what he says he's going to do.
Treats people with dignity and respect. He adheres to the Golden Rule: treat others as you would have them treat you. All people get the same treatment, whether he needs something from them or not.
Respects women. For a real man, chivalry is not dead. He will open a door for a woman, give up his seat for a woman, and never, ever abuse a woman.
Has principles and a moral compass. The real man knows that there are objective truths. He makes decisions based on them, conducts himself according to them, judges the character of others based on them, and won't compromise them.
Is not afraid to take a stand. He is not a "yes man" at work or anywhere else, nor is he difficult just for the sake of being difficult. However, he's not afraid to express his opinion.
Loves and supports his family. A real man understands that he can't abandon his responsibility to provide for his family. He doesn't have to do it alone…but he needs to be in the game.
Is willing to fight. The real man should be slow to anger, but he understands that sometimes, he has to fight, whether it's figuratively in a courtroom, boardroom, or some other setting, or physically on the street. He will protect his family from harm or die trying.
Has some martial arts training. Maybe he wrestled in high school, learned to box in a local gym, or competed in karate, judo, or some other art. It all counts.
Understands the gun. He respects the pistol and rifle, and he knows how to use them safely and effectively.
Reads. The real man doesn't have to be a top-flight intellectual, but he isn't afraid to read a book every once in a while, and he knows what's going on in the world.
Doesn't keep a diary. Unless he's an important political or military figure, a great scientist, a modern-day explorer, leading businessman, or some other figure of historical significance, the real man knows that most of his day-to-day life isn't worth writing down. If he wants to write out a diary to "explore his feelings," then he might not qualify as a real man.
Isn't afraid of his emotions, but knows how to control them. The real man is not a crybaby. He can cry over something major, like the death of a close friend or family member. Aside from that, there aren't many reasons to pull a John Boehner.
Has some mechanical ability. The real man can do things like change the oil and filters in his car (or better yet, his truck), use – and repair – a lawnmower, change a flat tire, hang a ceiling fan, and do some basic plumbing work or similar things.
Knows how to use tools. Related to number 12 above, the real man knows how to turn a wrench, drive a nail, and cut wood. He doesn't need to be a master carpenter, but he should have some basic skills.
Knows how to back a trailer.
Isn't afraid of manual labor. A real man can be in a white-collar or blue-collar profession. For those in white-collar jobs, it's important to have done – and continue to do – some work with their hands and their backs.
Has self-discipline and self-control. Whether it's his job, diet, exercise routine, personal finances, or other elements within his personal control, a real man knows how to stay on track. He's not a prude, but he does know when to conduct himself in a more dignified manner…and when it's okay to loosen up.
Loves a good steak.
Isn't afraid of a good cigar and a glass of whiskey.
Knows how to hunt or fish. He also knows how to clean and prepare the game or fish he takes.
Is not a narcissist. He is not overly introspective, and he understands that there are things larger than himself.
Knows what the term "inalienable rights" means, and what those rights are for every individual.
Takes his work seriously, and strives to be the best he can be.
Understands that the world owes him nothing. After reaching adulthood, the real man understands that he is entitled only to what he can earn. Anything else is a gift, for which he should be appreciative.
Doesn't pretend he's something he's not.

While this nation's future might rest with the modern man, its greatness most certainly rests upon the shoulders of the real man. We need more of the latter.

Obama's perfect storm to destroy Israel

2015-10-03T08:21:00.002-05:00

By Lauri B. Regan

As the country’s electorate focuses on the Roseburg shootings, three very important items leaked onto the news wires on Thursday that deserve broad, nationwide attention.
Sadly, I am not referring to the drip, drip, drip of Hillary’s emails, the deaths of our service members in a plane crash in Afghanistan, or the attack by a Palestinian terrorist who murdered the parents of four young children.
I awoke to a breaking story in Politico with the headline “Exclusive: Obama brushed off Reid’s plea on Palestinian State.” From that story we learn:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on two different occasions this year went to White House chief of staff Denis McDonough seeking a public commitment from President Barack Obama that he would veto any U.N. resolution calling for an independent Palestinian state.
Both times, Obama did nothing.

While this would be unprecedented, so would abstaining from, rather than vetoing, a U.N. resolution condemning the United States for its embargo on Cuba. But that is exactly what the administration is threatening to do. This is arguably treasonous, given that Obama swore to uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the country, but given the fact that he has not been impeached for all of his other unconstitutional offenses to date, what does he have to lose by screwing over our most important ally in the Mideast?
Shortly after reading the Politico article, I turned my attention to watching Bibi Netanyahu’s much awaited speech before the U.N. General Assembly. Noticeably absent was the United States’ U.N. ambassador, Samantha Power, and Secretary of State John Kerry, both of whom were in New York City for the UNGA events this week. Later in the day Breitbart broke the story with the headline “Obama Pulled John Kerry and Samantha Power from Netanyahu UN Speech.”

“Ambassador Power and Secretary Kerry were unable to attend Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before the General Assembly because they were called into a meeting with President Obama, which they participated in via video teleconference,” a State Department Official told Breitbart News.

Is it possible for our president to get even smaller with his vindictive, childish, and unpresidential treatment of Israel’s prime minister? Presumably he decided that pulling our ambassador and SOS would destroy any credibility that Bibi had and detract from his compelling message. And sadly, this is not the first time that Obama has spit in Netanyahu’s face; unquestionably, it will not be the last. But watching Bibi’s speech, it was clear that the only grown-up in the room, the only hero in these first decades of the 21st century, the only world leader history will look back upon without shame and condemnation is Israel’s prime minister.
Finally, despite thinking that things could not get worse, someone sent me an article with the following headline: “Argentine President: Obama Administration Tried To Convince Us to Give Iran Nuclear Fuel.”

Kirchner said that two years into Obama's first term, his administration sent Gary Samore, former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Argentina to persuade the nation to provide Iran with nuclear fuel, which is a key component of nuclear weapons.

There is no doubt that the White House will deny this accusation. In fact, Kirchner stated that when she asked Samore to put his request in writing, “he disappeared” – so there is no smoking gun. But given what we have learned about Obama’s outreach to the Iranians from his first moments in office in 2009 and his capitulations throughout the Iran deal negotiations, this story is more than plausible, although lord knows what he was thinking.
While those of us who were actually paying attention to who and what the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was are not surprised that an unleashed second term has led to Obama bringing chaos and violence to the Middle East as well as Israel’s survival to the brink, we did not expect that he would do everything in his power to hand to Iran a nuclear weapon on a silver platter. But that is exactly what he is doing.
And he has handed over the Middle East to Russia and Iran to run amok, decimating any remaining stability or ability for America to protect its interests. But it is Israel that will pay the most expensive price in the near term as ISIS moves on Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank and Hezb’allah’s power is buoyed by our enemies’ projection of their own military might.
In an appearance on The Kelly File Thursday evening, Charles Krauthammer issued a devastating critique of Obama and his Syrian policy. Kelly asked if we are watching the end of our status as a super power. Krauthammer replied

We are watching the culmination of a policy begun by Obama when he came into office to get out of the Middle East. That’s all he cared about….
You leave, everything implodes and our allies…are in absolute panic over the fact that the umbrella America has held over the region for half a century has been folded – deliberately by Barack Obama.

Watch the full interview here.
Netanyahu concluded his UNGA speech pointing out that Israel is on the front lines of the war for the survival of Western civilization. He beseeched the world to “[s]tand with Israel because it is not just defending itself. More than ever, Israel is defending you.” Would that the world’s leaders, Barack Obama, and the American people wake up before it is too late.

The Most Dangerous Man In the World

2015-10-03T08:19:00.000-05:00

By Andrew Logar

…is neither Russia’s Vladimir Putin nor China’s Xi Jinping, nor at this time, Ayatollah Khamenei – it’s none other than America’s Barack Hussein Obama. This is not because of any aggressive, risk-laden actions he has taken, far from it. It is because of those he has failed to take at critical times to credibly dissuade strategic competitors and potential aggressors, such as Russia and China, from actions that may suddenly compound into destabilizing confrontations, even war. When the Middle East cauldron spawned the barbaric ISIS, Obama’s indecisive, pusillanimous response allowed this Islamic malignancy to rapidly metastasize, compounding and accelerating an existing refugee problem that will involve America. Additionally, throughout his tenure, overt actions Obama has taken served to steadily and materially, degrade American military capabilities, while enemies grow stronger.
In retrospect, divining Obama’s foreign policy should have been relatively easy given his background – a world seen through the eyes of someone whose father was a Muslim, as was his step-father, whose early education was in a Muslim madrassa, followed by mentoring from the known communist Frank Marshall Davis, associations with Columbia University’s Palestinian activist Edward Said and later, Harvard’s leftist Brazilian socialist Roberto Unger, later close association with admitted communist and Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, then followed by 20 years of anti-American and anti- Semitic sermons by Reverend Jeremiah Wright who, placing much of the world’s ills at America’s doorstep, culminated a post 9-11 sermon sententiously intoning, “…America’s chickens have come home to roost.”
Ironically, other chickens have indeed come home to roost. American liberalism’s pernicious obsession to eradicate the odium of slavery long gone and any vestiges of remaining discrimination in one fell swoop, blindly promoted the candidacy of the first black president, propelling a relatively unknown, unvetted and remarkably unqualified candidate to two electoral victories. That most unfortunate occurrence followed by resultant deleterious fallout at home and abroad, are liberalism’s chickens coming home to roost – in the White House – where they’ll cluck away until January 20, 2017.
After winning the 2008 election, Obama launched his now infamous “Apology Tour,” covering three continents in some 100 days, during which the Heritage Foundation identified 10 major apologies Obama made for America’s past behavior. Mitt Romney, in his book, “No Apology,” correctly criticized Obama’s gratuitous apologies. Indeed, unnecessary apologies by our president projected a weakness in resolve, confidence and appreciation of our nation’s accomplishments, our beliefs and values. While in Europe, when asked if he believed in American “exceptionalism,” he said yes – in the same way that, “ …the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism.”
This was an arresting, if not downright stupefying statement – coming from the head of state of the world’s most powerful nation, with a manifestly unrivaled history. This is a nation which in 239 years since the Declaration of Independence, grew from 13 colonies and 3 million people to 50 states and 320 million people, a nation victorious in its Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 and which fought its bloodiest of wars, the Civil War, to expunge slavery; this is a nation victorious in the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, WWI and WWII, that introduced the incontestably successful Marshall Plan critical in European post war recovery, that sent men to the moon and back, 6 times – and the nation that won the Cold War - a nation that has consistently led the world in Nobel prizes in medicine, science and technology. This is unequivocally a nation like none other, a nation of unparalleled achievements and sadly, one whose president does not consider particularly exceptional.
The historical record now shows global competitors and enemies have taken their measure of Obama: the Russians have acted with impunity in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria, the Chinese are establishing a stranglehold on the South China Sea while Russians, Chinese and Iranians are engaged in flagrant cyber-espionage against America, ISIS is growing, while Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are all in play.
Barack Obama’s sophomoric efforts at geopolitics derived from his warped, kaleidoscopic misreading of 20^th century history have now spiraled into a veritable tragicomedy of incompetence. Witness his administration’s $500 million program to train Syrian rebels to fight ISIS: not only didn’t that produce the projected 5,000 trained fighters, or even 500, but only, according to General Lloyd Austin, “…four or five.” This is grist for a Marx Brothers movie and attributable to abysmally poor leadership, planning and organization which can only be placed at the doorstep of the White House.
An objective review of the Obama administration’s policies reveals they have consistently posed a direct or indirect threat to national security:
- The unilateral cancellation of the Easter Europe ABM deployment without securing a tangible quid pro quo from Moscow and no counter to Russia’s recent decision to sell the potent S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran.
- The ill-advised support for the overthrow of long-term ally of the West, Egypt's Mubarak and the inexplicable enthusiastic White House support of the Muslim Brotherhood.
- The equally ill-advised and ill-planned toppling of Libya’s Gaddafi, resulting in a country without a functional government now overrun with Islamists, where at Benghazi four Americans died needlessly.
- The withholding of vital intelligence from the Senate that Russia had been flagrantly cheating on the existing INF treaty to advance ratification of New START in 2010. Seventy-one Senators voted for ratification without full background knowledge.
- The 2011 withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq by Obama while blaming the Bush administration for inadequacies of the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). This allowed Iraq to descend back into sectarian chaos, giving rise to ISIS and advantage to Iran. A war won at high cost in blood and treasure was thus lost.
- The military drawdown in Afghanistan – mindlessly pre-announced to the enemy – may lose that war as well if continued.
- The release of five dangerous Taliban in exchange for Sgt. Bergdahl is beyond rational justification and/or discussion.
- The manifest dereliction of duty in not taking strong measures to protect America from devastating EMP attack – which can be done at very affordable cost.
- The lack resolute policy has turned Syria into a graveyard of American credibility. Nothing substantive has been achieved to slow, let alone destroy, rapidly metastasizing ISIS, unconscionably leaving a compounding problem to future administrations.
- The opening of our southern border to a tsunami of illegal immigration, arguably to permanently bias future voter demographics toward a one-party (Democratic) state. That many of those gaining easy entry may wish us harm is apparently of no concern to Obama.
- The continuing undermining of America’s military superiority is increasing the likelihood of confrontation with adversaries. According to the Heritage Foundation Index of Military Strength, our Commander-In-Chief has allowed our military power to degrade to “Marginal,” leaving the US Army at its relatively weakest level since the end of WWII, while our antagonists pour money into their armed forces.
- Finally (but Obama is not through yet!) - during recent post-summit remarks, China’s Xi Jinping suggested tough U.S. response to Chinese hacking would bring retaliation; obligingly, Obama affirmed sanctions wouldn’t be directed against governments. Essentially, Xi stepped forward, Obama blinked and stepped back – signaling a major geopolitical sea change. Cyberespionage by Russia and Iran haven’t been addressed.
Before winning the 2008 election and still a senator, during the Bush administration’s then ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran, Obama, in a brazen and historically unprecedented move, secretly sent a personal emissary to Iran, William G. Miller, a former Ambassador to Ukraine, essentially conveying this message: Obama will very likely to be elected president, after which time Iran will find negotiating with him far easier. The Bush negotiations reportedly then reached a stalemate. Fast-forward to 2015, through Obama’s and Kerry’s “hard” bargaining, we’ve reached an agreement with Iran whereby monitoring Iran’s programs will be left to the Iranians as they now have the right to self-inspect” and so as to take the sting away from such an onerous deal, we’ll give them $100 billion of frozen assets - with which to do as they please – while America agrees to protect Iran’s nuclear facilities from cyber warfare.
Though Red China, Russia and Iran increasingly challenge America, the Middle East bloodshed continues and ISIS grows stronger, President Obama has declared “…no challenge--poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change." This extraordinarily vacuous statement is from either a hopelessly delusional ideologue, woefully untutored in world history, geopolitics and the unequaled greatness of America, or a brilliant Manchurian Candidate marching to his own drumbeat. In any case, Obama is a president like none other - and may we never see the likes of him again.

Why Conservatives Hated John Boehner

2015-09-30T12:22:00.001-05:00

By Berny Belvedere

On Friday morning, John Boehner announced he will be resigning from his position as speaker of the House, and from his congressional seat, in October. Many conservatives greeted this news with unbridled adulation. Breaking the news to his audience at the Values Voter Summit on Friday morning, Marco Rubio sent the crowd into a frenzy, despite adding that he’s not “here to bash.”
How did it get to this point for Boehner? Where did it go wrong for the person who Vox’s Dylan Matthews claimed “did more to reduce the size of the federal government than any other politician in recent memory”?
We can boil down conservative dissatisfaction with the speaker to two main criticisms: (1) he did not resist President Obama’s liberal agenda as fully as he could have, and (2) he did not articulate a conservative alternative to Obama winsomely enough.
In his nearly five full years as speaker, Boehner did much to slash spending. But he also did much to avoid putting the kind of pressure on Obama that conservatives clamored for. Recall that Boehner was elevated to speaker during the 2010 midterm elections, widely regarded as the high political moment of Tea Party sentiment. The resounding message from conservative voters was that they wanted significant pushback against the president’s agenda – not just in terms of winning legislative victories, but in terms of vocalizing their deep antipathy toward the president’s attempts to "fundamentally transform the United States of America."
Certainly Boehner’s speakership generated outcomes that conservatives far preferred to those achieved during the Obama-Pelosi partnership. But Boehner was too much of a deal-maker, too much of a backroom tactician, to satisfy the conservative political yearnings of the moment. Obama’s presidency portended sweeping liberal changes, announced in lofty, soaring language. Combating this program with backroom compromises was never going to be enough. The people demanded visible resistance; they got covert counterproposals instead.
But it would be a mistake to leave it at that, for Boehner’s failure went beyond mere appearances. There is a substantive point here about how political aggressiveness can become electorally inspirational. The last five years have provided example after example of conservative disaffection with Washington’s Republican compromisers. Had Boehner adopted a stronger policy of denunciation, an absolute refusal to compromise, he might have engineered conservative victories – not in the legislative sphere, which would have been repelled by Obama, or, until recently, defeated by Harry Reid, but in the political sphere more broadly, in the form of American approval.
Jonathan Chait writes: “Boehner and the party leadership have resisted [shutting down the government] not because they agree with funding Planned Parenthood, but because this tactic has no chance of success.” But could it be that there are ways of measuring success other than simply registering whether a bill is passed or not? Could it be that the American people, as a result of being exposed to an endless loop of the Planned Parenthood videos, have come to see Obama’s refusal to strip funding for the abortion provider as the cause of the shutdown? Why take the view that Republicans will always endure the blame for a shutdown? This was never even debated. It was accepted that Obama would never go for it, so the Republican leadership – not just Boehner, but McConnell, too – laid off. But this reveals a troubling lack of political imagination, which brings us to the second criticism.
Boehner, unlike Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s, has lacked anything resembling a political vision able to win over the American public. I have spoken of Obama’s ability to present his policies in shiny packaging. There was nothing of comparable political allure from Boehner, nothing approximating a captivating ideological profile that could run counter to the president’s project to reshape America along even more liberal lines. In short, Boehner lacked the political imagination to succeed as the president’s most visible legislative opponent.
It’s striking that Boehner, who played an important role in Gingrich’s "Contract with America" in 1994, would fail to understand how important it is to captivate the public. Gingrich’s Contract, issued under circumstances similar to the opportunities Boehner himself enjoyed in 2011, was a sharp, forceful, and dynamic alternative to Bill Clinton’s political agenda. By contrast, 2010’s "Pledge to America" came up well short of offering a lasting, winsome conservative alternative to Obama. It was too defensive, too reactionary, too negative. (Interestingly, it was penned by Kevin McCarthy, the current odds-on favorite to assume the speakership once Boehner resigns next month.)
John Feehery notes that “Mr. Boehner knew how to cut deals and how to make good laws. What he didn’t know how to do was reconcile an angry conservative movement with an implacable liberal president. … But no political leader could have brought those two forces together.” But why should it be the Republican leader of the House’s job to “bring those two forces together”? That assumes a liberal understanding of governance; for conservatives, obstructing bad policies is arguably more important than passing legislation. If conservatives are for smaller government, then it follows they won’t be pursuing legislative changes with the same expansive zeal that possesses their liberal counterparts. But crucial to rightly understanding American electoral politics is that this negative, or destructive, approach needs to be articulated properly and winsomely if the conservative agenda is going to have success. The act of demolition doesn’t naturally inspire; the people have to be shown how an agenda that pushes back against government encroachment is the most life-affirming program that there is.
This is where political imagination comes in. And Boehner, for all his accomplishments, did not have any.

Want to upset a liberal/Democrat? Tell them the truth...

2015-09-27T07:57:00.001-05:00

Am I Still a Racist?

By Eileen F. Toplansky

To see the emptiness of liberal/Democrat logic, try the following at the next dinner party.
If I vote for Ben Carson, am I still guilty of being a racist, considering the way you hurled that accusation at me when I told you that Obama was a very bad choice because of his ideology and his acquaintances?
If I vote for Carly Fiorina, am I still guilty of a war on women, given that this woman has broken through the glass ceiling, overcome a deadly disease, and still come out fighting?
If you insist that the federal government fund Planned Parenthood even after the uncovering of illegal sales of aborted body parts, I am confused. Wasn't Obamacare supposed to provide universal coverage for all Americans? Why, then, does the federal government need to continue funding Planned Parenthood?
If you vote for Bernie Sanders, will your house in Chappaqua be available for the government's use if Sanders decides you have no right to private property anymore? As Thomas Sowell has opined, "what exactly is [the] fair share of what someone else has worked for?"
For the environmentalists who maintain that we have no right to use trees to produce paper towels for bathroom use, did you know that "dryers use electricity which produces a 'carbon footprint' that liberals link to global warming"?
By the way, "if 11 million illegal aliens are supposed to assist the U.S. economy, why didn't they help the Mexican economy before they left?"
Why aren't you pounding the table extolling the virtues of Obamacare now that premiums have skyrocketed, Americans cannot keep their doctors, and small businesses are threatened with $35,500 in IRS fines for helping employees with health costs?
Explain the compelling reason why we returned five known terrorists for one questionable American soldier, but we cannot get back kidnapped Americans from the Iranians.
As a pacifist, you extol the virtues of military reductions. How, then, should we defend ourselves against ISIS when they promise to invade our shores and conquer us?
Explain Mr. Obama's immigration policy, where people "can illegally enter and work for decades without filing income tax returns and then as an extra bonus have the IRS allow them to qualify for up to $35,000 in tax refunds."
Since racism is a charge that Democrats constantly use, how do you justify that Al Sharpton, a well-known race-baiter and anti-Semite, is an advisor to Obama?
If "Obamacare is so great, why do Americans need a law to make them buy it and if they don't comply, they are fined?"
How do you explain that "in the United Kingdom where there is a total gun ban they have the second highest overall crime rate in the European Union whereas the U.S. is not even in the top ten countries in the world for violent crime"? These are 2011 FBI Crime Statistics.
Dinesh D'Souza wonders, as do I, "why liberal tolerance extends to Marxists, transsexuals, and Islamic radicals – but not to conservatives or Christians[.]"
Please explain why it is fair for Congress and the president to exempt themselves from Obamacare, but then force it upon the American people.
John Hayward has described "ObamaCare [as] so well-written its text must be ignored, so healthy it's kept alive with exec orders, so affordable everyone needs subsidies."
Another logic puzzle for you: "People who say thugs is a racist expression are making the false assumption that all thugs are black." How do you rationalize this?
In the brouhaha about Baltimore and alleged white racism, did you know that one half of Baltimore's officers are non-white; the population is 63% black; and the mayor, city council, and police chief are all black. Yet the depressing state of affairs in Baltimore is somehow about white racism!
I know that Democrats evince concern for human rights. But when "Iran hangs homosexuals and China leads the world in the number of executions without due process and Saudi Arabia stones women for being raped and Lebanon exercises apartheid against Palestinians," the only country singled out for opprobrium is Israel, which extends human rights to all of the above. Please clarify.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz cannot seem to distinguish between Democrats and socialists. Might it be because, according to "Saul Alinsky, the way to create a socialist state is to (a) control healthcare to control the people; (b) increase the poverty level because poor people are easier to control; (c) increase the debt to unsustainable levels; (d) remove people's ability to defend themselves by increased gun control; (e) divide the people into the wealthy and the poor in order to produce class warfare"? Obama has successfully accomplished most of these. Sanders and Clinton promise more of the same.
Did you know that the federal government now mandates that educators take training courses to help prevent discrimination and harassment? Under the heading of "Gender Identity and Expression," one learns that "[g]ender identity is frequently defined as an individual's internal, personal sense of being a man, a woman, a transgender person or a different gender entirely."
Would you please explain what is meant by "different gender entirely"?
In the same training, we are informed that "Tangible Employment Actions" means "that the recipient of the harassment loses pay or experiences some significant change in workload, assignments, or hours of work."
As an adjunct instructor, I have lost hours of work, resulting in a reduction in salary, and ultimately pension benefits, because Obamacare has forced my employers to cut my hours. How is this not an abuse by the federal government?
I know that you have a visceral hatred "toward President Nixon[,] but what's the difference between Nixon and Obama – could it be that the press uncovered the crimes of one and covered up the crimes of the other?"
In an attempt to be affronted by the facts, you will state that only a small number of Muslims are radical and wish to destroy Western civilization. If there are a billion Muslims in the world, and 10-25% avow that they wish to destroy America, that equates to 350,000,000 people. For those visual learners among you, "imagine a bowl of M&Ms with [only] 10% of them poisoned. Would you eat a handful?"
Why do you get riled up about the death of a lion but seem to ignore the "fact that in the 1,400 year history of Islam, Muslims have murdered over 270 million people" and continue to do so with impunity? They murder Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Yazidis, and even Muslims who disagree with them.
Which time was Obama telling the truth: when he said he could not unilaterally change the law because that is Congress's job and there is separation of powers, or when he did unilaterally change the law – all the while basking in the knowledge that he would be exempt from the consequence?
Much of the above comes from BreitbartOneVoice, Liberal Logic 101, StandWithUs, RightWingRantsRaves, ThePatriotNation, Bookwormroom.com., UncleSam'sMisguidedChildren.com, RightFightofLeft, and Jan Morgan.
As George Orwell has said, "the further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those [who] speak it."

Watch how candidates react to the de-Boehnification of the House

2015-09-26T08:05:00.002-05:00

By Ed Straker

This is one of those times when breaking news can shed a little more light on the candidates. There have been quite different reactions among the candidates to the news that John Boehner is resigning. Unlike Patrick McGoohan's "Number 6," there really is no mystery as to why Boehner resigned – he was too accommodating of the entire Obama agenda, be it funding Obamacare or the illegal amnesty or now, in his final act, the subsidizing of abortions and the sale of baby parts.
Here's how Jeb Bush reacted, commenting in English on Twitter:

John Boehner dedicated his life to public service. Bringing the Holy Father to Congress was a fitting cap to a great career.

Wrong. He had a terrible career, participating in racking up huge amounts of debt and enabling the Obama agenda. A symbolic visit from the pope changed none of that. From his statement, it is clear that Jeb Bush quite liked Boehner's accommodationist policies.
Now here's how Ted Cruz reacted: he was hysterical with joy, actually joking about Boehner's demise and calling for other establishment politicians to get the boot.

"You want to know how much each of you terrify Washington?" Mr Cruz asked the audience of grassroots evangelical conservative at this annual conference. "Yesterday, John Boehner was Speaker of the House. Y'all come to town and somehow that changes."
"My only request," he quipped, "is, can you come more often?"

Clearly, he didn't agree with Bush that Boehner had performed some great "public service" by carrying the water for the Obama agenda.
As for Marco Rubio's reaction: in a very serious tone, he said, "Speaker Boehner announced he will be resigning." And while the crowd cheered with joy, Marco, looking very uncomfortable, looked down and scowled. As the crowd kept cheering for several moments, he looked upset, as though he was about to cry. Check out the video, especially around the 1:05 mark. It was as if, instead of being told that a political enemy was leaving the field, Marco had just discovered additional credit card debt he didn't know about.
Ben Carson gave a middle-of-the-road reaction:

"I appreciate the fact that he has worked so hard for so many years. I know that he is a person who is kind and tries to get along with a lot of different factions," Carson said Friday to J.D. Hayworth on "Newsmax Prime."
"However, I believe that has not served the constituency well because a lot of people have been sent to Congress over the last few elections for the purpose of changing the direction and opposing the current administration.
"That's not necessarily a good place to have somebody who just wants to get along."

That's a rather dry, intellectual sort of criticism of a politician who had thwarted conservatives for years. Additionally, what "hard work" of Boehner does Carson appreciate? Carson's reaction seems to treat Boehner as someone who tried his best but wasn't good enough, rather than characterizing him as an active enabler of the Obama administration, which he was. Remember that everything Obama has done since 2010 could not have been done if John Boehner had not agreed to fund it. In that light, Carson's criticism seems rather tepid.
Donald Trump's reaction speaks for itself:

"I think it's wonderful, frankly. I think it's good," Trump told me. "It's time. I think it's time for somebody else to go in."
"We have a country that's in such danger and such trouble, we don't have the time to be politically correct," Trump said. "Speaker Boehner – some people like him on a personal basis. Do people like him on a personal basis, anybody?" the crowd answered "No."
"We want to see the job being done properly," Trump said. "We want people that are going to get it done and I don't understand – they get elected, they're full of vim and vigor, they're gonna change things! They're gonna get rid of Obamacare! They're gonna do all of these things!"
"They come down to these magnificent vaulted ceilings that you see all over Washington and what happens?," the former Democrat said. "They become different people. They become different people."

You can see Carly Fiorina's reaction at the 45-second mark of this video.
She says: "He is doing the right thing, stepping aside now, and I look forward to a conservative leader for the House." Sounds great, right? But just look at the video. Like Rubio, she looks terribly, terribly uncomfortable, as if she had just announced her own firing from HP. Why the long, glum face?
If she thought this were good news for conservatism, or the country, she would look happy, not really uncomfortable.
So to recap, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were excited to see Boehner go. Ben Carson was sort of critical of Boehner. And the rest – Jeb, Carly, and Rubio – just seemed kind of sad.
Res ipsa loquitur.

Ben Carson's Strange Answer

2015-09-14T18:27:00.003-05:00

By M Catharine Evans

Presidential candidate Ben Carson's latest comments on the Michael Brown shooting defy logic. Following a Friday morning appearance with Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder and Ferguson Mayor James Knowles, Carson was asked by a St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter if he was in Officer Darren Wilson's shoes, would he have shot Michael Brown.

“It’s hard to say. I probably, knowing who he was, I probably just would have arrested him.”

Carson also said he would have waited for backup.
According to the official report from the Department of Justice, Wilson was waiting for backup when the 'gentle giant, ' still in bully mode from robbing a convenience store and roughing up a clerk, attacked the law enforcement officer inside his car.
Does Carson know the eyewitness accounts claiming Brown was surrendering with his hands up, turned out to be false?
A preponderance of evidence in the year-old Brown case indicates Wilson feared for his life. Here's a refresher for Dr. Carson:
From the DOJ report:

The evidence, when viewed as a whole, does not support the conclusion that Wilson’s uses of deadly force were “objectively unreasonable” under the Supreme Court’s definition... Accordingly, under the governing federal law and relevant standards set forth in the USAM, it is not appropriate to present this matter to a federal grand jury for indictment, and it should therefore be closed without prosecution
Wilson was on duty and driving his department-issued Chevy Tahoe SUV westbound on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, Missouri when he saw Brown and his friend, Witness 101,2 walking eastbound in the middle of the street.
Brown and Witness 101 had just come from Ferguson Market and Liquor (“Ferguson Market”), a nearby convenience store, where, at approximately 11:53 a.m., Brown stole several packages of cigarillos.
Wilson then called for backup, stating, “Put me on Canfield with two and send me another car.” Wilson backed up his SUV and parked at an angle, blocking most of both lanes of traffic, and stopping Brown and Witness 101 from walking any further. Wilson attempted to open the driver’s door of the SUV to exit his vehicle, but as he swung it open, the door came into contact with Brown’s body and either rebounded closed or Brown pushed it closed. Wilson and other witnesses stated that Brown then reached into the SUV through the open driver’s window and punched and grabbed Wilson. This is corroborated by bruising on Wilson’s jaw and scratches on his neck, the presence of Brown’s DNA on Wilson’s collar, shirt, and pants, and Wilson’s DNA on Brown’s palm.

Dr. Carson's response is so unbelievable we have to wonder if he has seen the video of Brown robbing the store prior to his assault on Wilson. Earlier that day, while visiting Ferguson, Carson told a press gathering, “I heard more than one time how the thing that really inflamed the community was the fact that Michael Brown’s body laid out on the street for four hours.”
Carson has to know what “inflamed” the community on August 9, 2014 were outside agitators and their media shills pushing the fake ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ narrative before the body was cold.
Is Carson playing nice with leaders in the black community who are using Brown's death to incite a war on police? Or does he honestly not understand the facts surrounding the case? Both explanations do not bode well for Carson.
Suggesting Wilson should not have shot Brown in self-defense could be a game-changer for Carson. The justifiable shooting led to burned businesses, looting, riots and turned Ferguson, Missouri into a hotspot for activists from Black Lives Matter to the CPUSA. The town is still smoldering from the fallout.
So far the retired neurosurgeon has been able to smooth over a controversial statement he made to Glenn Beck in 2013 that people in urban areas shouldn’t be allowed to own semi-automatic weapons. And a few months ago he stealthily avoided a serious backlash from his supporters after receiving a warm welcome at one of Al Sharpton's decidedly race-stoking National Action Network events.
With radicals ratcheting up the war on police and firearm fatalities of police officers up 56% in 2014 from the previous year, will Carson be able to explain away what appears to be a politically correct nod to race-obsessed troublemakers?

Strategic Lying and Obama

2015-09-09T21:52:00.002-05:00

By Eileen F. Toplansky

In the chapter entitled "The Arts of Selling" from 1958's Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley wrote that "[t]he survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information. A dictatorship, on the other hand, maintains itself by censoring or distorting the facts, and by appealing, not to reason, not to enlightened self-interest, but to passion and prejudice [.]" Which is why under the soft dictatorship of Barack Hussein Obama, the American people may be hard pressed to make realistic choices since they are far too susceptible to the distortions of language.
Logical fallacies are really "weaponized irrationality" gussied up to catch people unaware. Ad hominem attacks against an individual instead of the merit of an idea have been a hallmark of this administration. In 2014 when attempting to persuade the country on his immigration policy, Obama utilized the ergo decedo fallacy by attacking Republicans for their party position rather than for their argument.
Logical fallacies have long been the lifeblood of dishonest politicians and in Obama, we find an abundance of them. A favorite fallacy is the strawman, which is an attack on a position that is not even held by the other side. Obama's strawmen have been those never-named naysayers Obama claims are "urging him to sit on his hands at the White House and do nothing to address any of the economic or national security problems facing the country." Some telltale indicators that the straw man tactic is being used are the words "there are those who say" or "some say" as in Obama's "[s]ome people say that maybe I'm being too idealistic." Then there is the false choice embedded inside another straw man as in his "You can't have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience"-- yet no one ever asked for 100 percent of these things in the first place.
More currently, Americans who oppose the Iran nuclear deal are "crazies." Those Jewish groups who still cannot perceive the existential threat to America and Israel need to recall that Islamic Iran allows lying to unbelievers in order to defeat them. Taqiyya is saying something that isn't true while kitman is lying by omission. Thus, to advance Islam, one gains the "trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them." Coupled with his use of logical fallacies and his schooling in Islam, Obama surely knows these tenets which is why he can blithely claim that Iran will be compliant.
Demonizing conservatives as teabaggers is another ad hominem attack that eliminates Obama's need to actually defend his position since he has now demeaned his opponents. His intentional "targeting of conservative and Christian organizations and individuals for harassment, intimidation, and ultimately for political destruction" shows his mastery of this fallacy. Furthermore, in 2012, when Mitt Romney was talking about economic plans and policies, Obama attacked Romney's profession, thus distracting the listener from Romney's factual arguments. The other blame-it-on-someone fallacy known as Post hoc ergo propter hoc has been in constant use by Obama as he blamed Bush, Israeli settlements, and gun owners, rather than taking responsibility for his actions.
When using a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad antiquitatem, or appeal to antiquity, Obama twists the truth. Steve Hanke at Cato explains that Obama, by referring to the Declaration of Independence, made an "illegitimate appeal to ages past in order to justify his case for collective or state action." Thus, "while invoking America's founding documents . . . to justify collective action" Obama brazenly and incorrectly makes parallels that simply do not exist.
In 2011 when our credit rating was downgraded, Obama referred to Warren Buffet who said "If there were a quadruple-A rating, I'd give the United States that." Yet this allusion has nothing to do with the burgeoning debt. It is an appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam) -- but it is irrelevant what Buffet thinks of the credit rating and serves only to muddy the real issue of a serious economic downturn for the U.S.
Michael K. Baranowski explains that when Obama was elected in 2008, the U.S. imported 57% of its oil. By 2010, dependence on foreign oil was down to under 50%, thus giving the impression that Obama had done a really fine job of reducing dependence on foreign oil, a notion that Obama was only too pleased to highlight. But the 44th president conveniently neglected to state that such reduction in dependency had actually begun four years before he took office. This is an example of a Post Hoc fallacy that Obama used to take credit for something he had nothing to do with. In the same vein, this fallacy can be used when someone does not want to take credit for an event. Thus, an insignificant filmmaker is punished for the Benghazi debacle, rather than the administration owning up to the actual events which transpired.
The tu quoque fallacy or appeal to hypocrisy is the "you, also" appeal that tends to discredit the validity of an opponent's logical argument because after all someone else has done a similar thing. It is the "wave it away" approach. Thus, dismissing the ISIS bestiality that assails us every day, Obama will cite the Crusades, which happened centuries ago -- thus implying an equivalency. One can almost hear the banal schoolyard chant committed by children who respond by saying “[s]o and so did it too" as if that explains everything away.
Another of Obama's favorite logical fallacies is that of oversimplification and exaggeration. Consequently, the actual causes for an event are massaged to the point where there is no longer a genuine, causal connection. Consequently, in Obama's worldview if Republicans would only agree with him, then everything would be better.
Then there is the either/or false dilemma fallacy where "only two choices are presented yet more exist, or a spectrum of possible choices exists between two extremes." According to Obama, either we sign this not-so-terrific Iranian deal or we go to war. He has de facto eliminated other possibilities such as continuation of sanctions or making concrete non-negotiable demands. The most egregious is his claim that American sanctions were some of the toughest and they really did have an impact on Iran, when, in fact, he had actually opposed those very sanctions.
The Jewish proverb that "a half-truth is a whole lie" surely describes Obama's moral stance. His whining about the nastiness of the [Iranian] pact's critics while at the same time being unwilling to own up to the toxic tone and insults that he has employed to pressure Congress to back the deal" is a constant theme.
Regarding climate change/global warming, Richard Larsen asserts that Obama uses the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy which "confuses correlation with causation." Closely related to this is the "regression fallacy, which ascribes cause where none exists." This fallacy is created by failing to account for natural fluctuations in global temperatures or other factors such as solar activity.Obama and his ilk also employ the faulty generalization fallacy, where a broad generalization about climate change is concluded from weak premises, i.e., CO2 emissions hurt the environment. Moreover, led by Obama, global warming "alarmists also rely heavily on the Argumentum ad populum, also known as the bandwagon argument, where a proposition is claimed to be true or good solely because many believe it to be so" notwithstanding the many scientific and credible challenges to their ideas. And the appeal to emotion ". . . compels us to be 'green' lest we destroy the earth."
If we cannot identify and comprehend the onslaught of logical fallacies being employed, then we ignore the real agenda which is that of "controlling, regulating, and taxing human activity."
Essentially, ObamaCare was a manipulation of peoples' emotions in order to initially induce them to accept a set of claims as being true. Americans were told they could keep their doctors and that health insurance premiums would go down. Anyone daring to expose the manipulations became an object of scorn and humiliation, via ad hominem attacks. Yet the Obama White House knowingly mischaracterized the healthcare plan. “More and more people, while hesitant to call the President of the United States a liar are concluding, based on all the available evidence [that one is hard pressed to reach] any other conclusion [.]"
Obama is a pathological liar whether he engages in statistical fraud, i.e., the war on women, or claims in a 2007 speech that Congress did not assist New Orleans black residents during Hurricane Katrina. Yet, stunningly, Obama was one of only 14 senators who voted against the waiving of a provision that would have provided relief. He is a breathtaking hypocrite who projects his own worldview and claims his opponents are engaging in attacks, when, in fact, he is the one doing the attacking. Hence, he can condemn Afghans for releasing killers of Americans, but urges Israel to release Palestinian killers of Jews. Thus, he can decry racism, but continually "plays the race card in order to inflame racial tensions."
From contortions of logic to outright lies, Obama continues to "infect the body politic."

Should we take a deportation page out of the Mexican playbook?

2015-09-08T20:09:00.002-05:00

By Silvio Canto, Jr.

According to news reports, Mexicans are scared of Donald Trump:

The longer he floats atop the polls, the more Trump has started to make people here feel a bit queasy, forcing them to contemplate whether his candidacy is really something they need to worry about.
As Trump published his immigration proposals this week, Mexicans expressed growing concern about his bid for the Republican nomination.

I guess that they fear that illegal immigrants will be deported and flood their northern states with people. In other words, they fear that the U.S. will be like Mexico and deport those in the country illegally.
For the record, I do not support mass deportation. There are better ways of dealing with illegal immigration, such as making life miserable and very costly for the employers who continue to hire them. They will go back when the jobs disappear!
Also, I do favor a modest legalization for some of the kids who are excelling in schools or wish to serve in the U.S. armed forces.
And I favor the reenactment of the "brasero" program that was so effective in the 1950s. It brought Mexicans here legally to work and they went home with their wages. For more on "the brasero" program, read John Fund. The brasero program was cancelled by Democrats pandering to the labor unions in the mid-60s.
Nevertheless, the Mexican reaction to Trump's deportation idea takes me back to a time when I worked in Mexico.
A few years ago, a U.S. company took advantage of my Spanish and sent me to Mexico. It was a great experience.
I recall going down to the Mexico consulate to fill out the paperwork. I had to prove that I wouldn't be a burden to Mexico, It felt like I was applying for my first mortgage loan, specially given all of the economic information that I had to provide.
Once in Mexico, our company attorney came by once a year and we filled out more paperwork. It was to prove to the Mexican government that we paid our taxes, stayed out of trouble, and did not engage in political activities, i.e. Article 33 of the Mexican Constitution forbids foreigners from domestic politics.
Furthermore, my business visa clearly said that I was to carry it with me just in case I had to prove that I was in the country legally.
I recall our Mexican attorney discussing Article 67 with us:

Under Mexican law, Article 67 reads, “Authorities, whether federal, state or municipal, are required to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country, before attending to any issues.”" (via CNN)

Again, I had a great time in Mexico. Loved it. I did not mind that I had to respect their immigration laws. After all, wasn't I a guest in their country?
It seemed totally logical to me that I had to respect their laws living in their country. It never occurred to me to march down the street with a U.S. flag complaining about Mexican laws!
We read a recent story that Mexico now deports more Central Americans than the U.S.:

Between October and April, Mexico apprehended 92,889 Central Americans. In the same time period, the United States detained 70,226 "other than Mexican" migrants, the vast majority from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Mexico has a very tough policy against illegal immigration. And there is nothing wrong with that! Every sovereign country has the right to decide who comes in and how long they stay. Controlling your borders is the essence of sovereignty.
It's time for the U.S., and our elected officials, to defend our right to have immigration laws. And to say so publicly! I fear that our wimpy political class, intoxicated with a heavy dose of PC, is too quiet about the U.S.'s right and duty to protect its borders.
As a legal immigrant, and naturalized citizen, I understand the contributions that we've made to the U.S. At the same time, let's get serious about immigration laws and their usefulness in the real world.

The Psychobiology of the Second Amendment

2015-09-08T20:08:00.003-05:00

By Deborah C. Tyler

When working with clients who are experiencing post-traumatic anxiety, I tell them to thank and bless their brain for doing its most important job of remembering danger. I explain that the first purpose of a healthy brain is to preserve life, which is why the brain takes as job #1 to remember trauma. I urge them to thank the brain for recognizing and remembering danger to create a grateful acceptance between the reasoning center and emotionally reactive functions of the brain.
A false philosophical dichotomy has developed that the prefrontal cortex, which is especially developed in humans and associated with executive functioning such as reasoning, planning and abstract thought, is the higher part of the brain while the limbic system, which enables fear, aggression, love, long-term memory and the fight-or-flight response, is the lower part of the brain. This is an oversimplification. For example, the prefrontal functions often keep very low company. Even very able reasoning centers can be conditioned to rationalize immoral, or even monstrous, behavior as the Planned Parenthood videos are reminding us.
On the other hand, the limbic system's automatic response to danger enables behaviors which are termed heroism. The capacity to feel fear and react aggressively is essential for survival, protection, and loyalty. A long and happy life results from choices based on a fluent and mutually respectful conversation between the executive functions of abstract reasoning and the emotional portions of the brain that enable fear. The happiness and survival of the American constitutional republic also depends on a sufficient number of such balanced brains willing to protect and preserve the nation.
The United States was founded on the belief that God grants human beings an ineffable, unalienable right to try to live happy and free. The amendments to the Constitution are attempts to reconcile that immutable gift and to enable people to make the most of it through man's law. The amendments are the work product of top-flight American prefrontal lobes. Just understanding them requires pretty good working grey matter behind one's forehead. The amendments start with enabling the premier neocortex skills such as the free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech. Then comes a passel of legal rights pertaining to judicial proceedings. There is the right to live free of the legal conditions of slavery or involuntary servitude, and a good two dozen legalisms about citizenship, voting, taxation, and the presidency.
There are rights about unenumerated rights. You don't have the right to manufacture alcohol -- hold on, on second thought you do have the right to be in the booze business. But of the twenty-seven amendments to the Constitution, one doesn't ring as legalistic as the others. One reads not only as a right but as a personal responsibility. Only one amendment is starkly based in the brain's healthy conversation between the ideal of freedom and the fear of the ever-present threat of violence, and that is the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment alone says you have the right to take your own survival into your own hands. You have the right to live armed so as not be killed forthwith by evildoers in the world and to preserve freedom for posterity.
Brilliant brains wrote the Second Amendment. It resulted from a theory of freedom, conditioned in their prefrontal cortexes, by the ideals of a recently reformed and modernized religion conversing with the limbic memory of death from Redcoat rifles. Those intracranial conversations between justice and fear resulted in an unbridgeable right to bear arms.
Quite a few things have changed since 1789. The American people have submitted to government control of their thoughts, words, and deeds in ways unimaginable to the revolutionary generation. Underwritten by scientific and technological advances and a relative dearth of war on American soil, government totalitarians have done what they could to neutralize the healthy intracranial conversation in American brains between life-saving fear and law. The political enslavement of the American people depends upon their being convinced that personal firearms can no longer help to keep them safe or free.
A widely drugged and electronically distracted populace is being brainwashed into believing that their enemies are not evildoers, like criminals or terrorists, that can be stopped by bullets. They are fed dopey ideas that their worst enemies are abstractions like racism, or mythology like climate change. To a great extent, government lies and bribes have conquered the American spirit and the USA, like many other countries, has become a constitutional republic in name only. For example, if Americans had not been brought to shirk the duty of being a standing militia, the invasion of America by millions of illegal aliens would not have been possible.
Yes, a lot of things have changed since 1789, but the human brain isn't one of them. We are watching a devastating campaign against our Constitutional freedoms. But the right and the will to bear arms seems to be standing firm. Today, the president is ramrodding a treaty, mislabeled an “agreement”, to enrich Iranian bank accounts and isotopes, even though Iran is a committed enemy of our nation. The federal government sued Arizona for that state's attempt to protect its own borders from invasion, and a woman is locked in jail in Kentucky for not renouncing her Christianity.
But the American people are not listening to the government and disarming themselves. On the contrary. It is clear that the one change the government cannot effect is to convince people they don't need to protect themselves with guns. Whether left-wing elites who believe the benefits of armed protection should be reserved for them alone, or the main street majority, who are swiftly acquiring arms, it will not be possible for a turncoat and treacherous government to overcome the brain's job one to remember danger.
The American people will not be disarmed. Bless and thank your brain for that.

An Open Letter To Jonah Goldberg – RE: The GOP and Donald Trump

2015-09-08T20:06:00.001-05:00

Posted on September 7, 2015 by sundance

A few days ago I took the time to read your expressed concerns about the support you see for Donald Trump and the state of current conservative opinion. Toward that end I have also noted additional media present a similar argument, and I took the time to consider.
While we are of far lesser significance and influence, I hope you will consider this retort with the same level of consideration afforded toward your position.
The challenging aspect to your expressed opinion, and perhaps why there is a chasm between us, is you appear to stand in defense of a Washington DC conservatism that no longer exists.
I hope you will indulge these considerations and correct me where I’m wrong.
On December 23rd 2009 Harry Reid passed a version of Obamacare through forced vote at 1:30am. The Senators could not leave, and for the two weeks previous were kept in a prolonged legislative session barred returning to their home-state constituencies. It was, by all measures and reality, a vicious display of forced ideological manipulation of the upper chamber. I share this reminder only to set the stage for what was to follow.
Riddled with anxiety we watched the Machiavellian manipulations unfold, seemingly unable to stop the visible usurpation. Desperate for a tool to stop the construct we found Scott Brown and rallied to deliver $7 million in funding, and a “Kennedy Seat” victory on January 19th 2010.
Unfortunately, the trickery of Majority Leader Harry Reid would not be deterred. Upon legislative return he stripped a House Budgetary bill, and replaced it with the Democrat Senate version of Obamacare through a process of “reconciliation”. Thereby avoiding the 3/5ths vote rule (60) and instead using only a simple majority, 51 votes.
Angered, we rallied to the next election (November 2010) and handed the usurping Democrats the single largest electoral defeat in the prior 100 years. The House returned to Republican control, and one-half of the needed Senate seats reversed. Within the next two election cycles (’12 and ’14) we again removed the Democrats from control of the Senate.
Within each of those three elections we were told Repealing Obamacare would be job #1. It was not an optional part of our representative agreement to do otherwise.
From your own writing:

[…] If you want a really good sense of the damage Donald Trump is doing to conservatism, consider the fact that for the last five years no issue has united the Right more than opposition to Obamacare. Opposition to socialized medicine in general has been a core tenet of American conservatism from Day One. Yet, when Republicans were told that Donald Trump favors single-payer health care, support for single-payer health care jumped from 16 percent to 44 percent. (link)

With control of the House and Senate did Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or House Speaker John Boehner use the same level of severity expressed by Harry Reid to put a repeal bill on the desk of Obama for veto? Simply, NO.
Why not? According to you it’s the “core tenet of American conservatism”.
If for nothing but to accept and follow the will of the people. Despite the probability of an Obama veto, this was not a matter of option. While the method might have been “symbolic”, due to the almost guaranteed veto, it would have stood as a promise fulfilled.
Yet you speak of “core tenets” and question our “trust” of Donald Trump?
We are not blind to the maneuverings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and President Tom Donohue. We are fully aware the repeal vote did not take place because the U.S. CoC demanded the retention of Obamacare.
Leader McConnell followed the legislative priority of Tom Donohue as opposed to the will of the people.   This was again exemplified with the passage of TPPA, another Republican construct which insured the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal could pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of 3/5ths.
We are not blind to the reality that when McConnell chooses to change the required voting threshold he is apt to do so. Not coincidentally, the TPP trade deal is another legislative priority of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Yet you question the “trustworthiness” of Donald Trump’s conservatism?
Another bill, the Iran “agreement”, reportedly and conveniently not considered a “treaty”, again we are not blind. Nor are we blind to Republican Bob Corker’s amendment (Corker/Cardin Amendment) changing ratification to a 67-vote-threshold for denial, as opposed to a customary 67 vote threshold for passage. A profound difference.
Yet you question the “ideological conservative principle” of Donald Trump?
Perhaps your emphasis is on the wrong syllable. Perhaps you should be questioning the “ideological conservative principle” of Mitch McConnell, or Bob Corker; both of whom apparently working to deny the will of the electorate within the party they are supposed to represent.   Of course, this would force you to face some uncomfortable empirical realities. I digress.
Another example – How “conservative” is Lisa Murkowski? A senator who can lose her Republican primary bid, yet run as a write-in candidate, and return to the Senate with full seniority and committee responsibilities?
Did Reince Preibus, or a republican member of leadership meet the returning Murkowski and demand a Pledge of Allegiance to the principles within the Republican party?
Yet you question the “allegiances” of Donald Trump?
Perhaps within your purity testing you need to forget minority leader Mitch McConnell working to re-elect Senator Thad Cochran, fundraising on his behalf in the spring/summer of 2014, even after Cochran lost the first Mississippi primary?
Perhaps you forget the NRSC spending money on racist attack ads? Perhaps you forget the GOP paying Democrats to vote in the second primary to defeat Republican Chris McDaniel. The “R” in NRSC is “Republican”.
Perhaps you forget. We do not.
Yet you question the “principle” of those who have had enough, and are willing to support candidate Donald Trump.
You describe yourself as filled with anxiety because such supporters do not pass some qualified “principle” test? Tell that to the majority of Republicans who supported Chris McDaniel and found their own party actively working against them.
Principle? You claim “character matters” as part of this consideration. Where is the “character” in the fact-based exhibitions outlined above?
Remember Virginia 2012, 2013? When the conservative principle-driven electorate changed the method of candidate selection to a convention and removed the party stranglehold on their “chosen candidates”. Remember that? We do.
What did McConnell, the RNC and the GOP do in response with Ken Cuccinelli, they actively spited him and removed funding from his campaign.   To teach us a lesson? Well it worked, we learned that lesson.
Representative David Brat was part of that lesson learned and answer delivered. Donald Trump is part of that lesson learned and answer forthcoming – yet you speak of “character”.
You speak of being concerned about Donald Trump’s hinted tax proposals. Well, who cut the tax rates on lower margins by 50% thereby removing any tax liability from the bottom 20% wage earners? While simultaneously expanding the role of government dependency programs?
That would be the GOP (“Bush Tax Cuts”)
What? How dare you argue against tax cuts, you say. The “Bush Tax Cuts” removed tax liability from the bottom 20 to 40% of income earners completely. Leaving the entirety of tax burden on the upper 60% wage earners. Currently, thanks to those cuts, 49% of tax filers pay ZERO federal income tax.
But long term it’s much worse. The “Bush Tax Cuts” were, in essence, created to stop the post 9/11/01 recession – and they contained a “sunset provision” which ended ten years later specifically because the tax cuts were unsustainable.
The expiration of the lower margin tax cuts then became an argument in the election cycle of 2012. And as usual, the GOP, McConnell and Boehner were insufferably inept during this process.
The GOP (2002) removed tax liability from the lower income levels, and President Obama then (2009) lowered the income threshold for economic subsidy (welfare, food stamps, ebt, medicaid, etc) this was brutally predictable.
This lower revenue higher spending approach means – lower tax revenues and increased pressure on the top tax rates (wage earners) with the increased demand for tax spending created within the welfare programs. Republicans focus on the “spending” without ever admitting they, not the Democrats, lowered rates and set themselves up to be played with the increased need for social program spending, simultaneously.
Is this reality/outcome not ultimately a “tax the rich” program?
As a consequence what’s the difference between the Republicans and Democrats on taxes?   All of a sudden Republicans are arguing to “broaden the tax base”. Meaning, reverse the tax cuts they created on the lower income filers? This is a conservative position now? A need to “tax the poor”? Nice of the Republicans to insure the Democrats have an atomic sledgehammer to use against them.
This is a winning strategy? This is the “conservatism” you are defending because you are worried about Donald Trump’s principles, character or trustworthiness.
Here’s a list of those modern conservative “small(er) government” principles:
• Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Who gave us the TSA? The GOP
• Who gave us the Patriot Act? The GOP
• Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage? The GOP
• Who created the precursor of “Common Core” in “Race To the Top”? The GOP
• Who played the race card in Mississippi to re-elect Thad Cochran? The GOP
• Who paid Democrats to vote in the Mississippi primary? The GOP
• Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia? The GOP
• Who supported Charlie Crist? The GOP
• Who supported Arlen Spector? The GOP
• Who supported Bob Bennett? The GOP
• Who worked against Marco Rubio? The GOP
• Who worked against Rand Paul? The GOP
• Who worked against Ted Cruz? The GOP
• Who worked against Mike Lee? The GOP
• Who worked against Jim DeMint? The GOP
• Who worked against Ronald Reagan? The GOP
• Who said “I think we are going to crush [the Tea Party] everywhere.”? The GOP (McConnell)

And, you wonder why we’re frustrated, desperate for a person who can actually articulate some kind of push-back? Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are what the GOP give us? SERIOUSLY?
Which leads to the next of your GOP talking points. Where you opine on Fox:

“Politics is a game where you don’t get everything you want”

Fair enough. But considering we of questionable judgment have simply been demanding common sense, ie. fiscal discipline, a BUDGET would be nice.
The last federal budget was passed in September of 2007, and EVERY FLIPPING INSUFFERABLE YEAR we have to go through the predictable fiasco of a Government Shutdown Standoff and/or a Debt Ceiling increase specifically because there is NO BUDGET!
That’s a strategy?
That’s the GOP strategy? Essentially: Lets plan for an annual battle against articulate Democrats and Presidential charm, using a creepy guy who cries and another old mumbling fool who dodders, knowing full well the MSM is on the side of the other guy to begin with?
THAT’S YOUR GOP STRATEGY?
Don’t tell me it’s not, because if it wasn’t there’d be something else being done – there isn’t.
And don’t think we don’t know the 2009 “stimulus” became embedded in the baseline of the federal spending, and absent of an actual budget it just gets spent and added to the deficit each year, every year. Yet this is somehow smaller fiscal government?
….And you’re worried about what Donald Trump might do?
Seriously?

Liberalism and Optional Law

2015-09-06T10:15:00.002-05:00

By Tom Trinko

Conservatives are split on whether or not the Kentucky clerk, Kim Davis, should be in jail because she refuses to allow an illegal edict by the Supreme Court to overrule the democratically passed law of Kentucky.
On one hand, because conservatives believe in the rule of law there is a natural tendency to say that even if we, especially government officials, don’t like a Supreme Court ruling we have to abide by it.
On the other hand, there’s the fact that liberals constantly break the law with impunity. For example, Jerry Brown refused to defend Prop 8 and Obama refused to enforce DOMA yet neither are in jail.
Essentially the question is should conservatives accept rule of law for conservatives but not for liberals?
The sad reality is that rule of law -- that the laws apply equally to all Americans -- no longer exists in America. Obama’s imperial presidency, sanctuary cities, and the liberal establishments refusal to enforce laws they don’t like means that the law does not apply equally, even in principle, to all Americans.
Some cite the Constitutional remedies such as impeachment but the reality is that the liberal politicians have no honor and will support their own no matter what, as they did when Bill Clinton committed perjury to protect himself from sexual-harassment charges.
Remember that in contrast, when Nixon did illegal things, conservatives condemned him.
Effectively both impeachment and amending the Constitution are nearly impossible to achieve unless conservatives have overwhelming majorities since liberals have no honor. The Supreme Court can issue rulings and Obama can use his pen far faster than legal remedies can be implemented, giving those who think the law does not apply to them a big edge.
The question then is: is it worse to accept chaos? Liberals and conservatives both ignoring certain laws, or tyranny, only liberals get to ignore the laws they don’t like.
Clearly good conservatives can disagree on which option is better.
But ceding only to liberals the right to break the law with impunity gives them a huge leg up on converting the country to the liberal run “paradise” they desire.
For example, if that philosophy had been in place in 2000, then Al Gore would have been president since only votes in Democrat-leaning districts would have been “recounted”.
We’ve seen this sort of asymmetry before where laws were passed that prohibited peaceful protests in front of abortion mills but allowed protests in front of military bases. That asymmetry however did not result in people losing their jobs or being ghettoized.
If we accept the ruling on Kim Davis we face a serious potential problem in a number of other areas. Liberals have fought for example to force doctors and nurses to participate in abortions and to require doctors to learn abortion procedures in medical school.
If we accept the fact that conservatives must bow to the law even though liberals don’t, it will set the stage for laws compelling nurses at public hospitals and in the VA to participate in abortions since they too are “government employees”.
We’ve already seen Catholic adoption organizations with great records for helping kids shut down because they won’t put kids into gay “families”. Just recently a Catholic organization with an amazing record of helping women who were being sex trafficked was forced to stop because it wouldn’t refer those women for abortions.
We also see this in the cases where gay bakers aren’t required to bake a cake saying "homosexuality is bad" but Christian bakers are required to bake cakes for gay “weddings”.
We have no obligation to obey unjust laws that force Blacks to the back of the bus or deny religious liberty to people. But do we have an obligation to follow unjust laws that persecute Christians? Most people would probably say no.
Is it time to resist the enforcement of unjust laws? Is today like the 1960s, a time when unjust and immoral laws should be ignored?
Given that liberals have no problem using the full force of the government against anyone who objects to unjust laws our options are either acceptance of second-hand citizenship for the American people or standing up to the liberal elites and saying no moreThe issue of gay “marriage” is clear-cut. The Constitution never mentions marriage but it does say that whatever the Constitution does not cover is reserved to states. That’s why the 14th Amendment had to be passed -- to ensure that blacks were treated fairly -- and why an act of Congress was required to grant Native Americans citizenship. As a result it’s clear that Chief Justice Roberts is right when he wrote:

The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent.

But if we accept that conservatives must adhere to any whim coming out of the Supreme Court, especially when it overthrows laws voters have supported, then conservatism in American is doomed.
We all know that if the Supreme Court should someday rule that being gay is a crime -- which also has no basis in the Constitution -- that liberals would get away with not enforcing that with impunity.
When deciding how we should address the case of Kim Davis, we need to keep in mind that liberals have demonstrated that they don’t believe in the rule of law. We’re not fighting with honorable men but with people who believe they are better than the rest of us.
We are in an ideological conflict with liberals who are at heart monarchists or oligarchists. Liberals reject the rule of law because they believe that they are right and that we should all be forced to live as liberals wish us to live. That’s why liberals have no problem forcing American schoolchildren to eat what liberals say they should.
The question we face is what is the best path to get us back to an America where the rule of law applies to everyone and where laws come from the political process not judicial edicts.
While the answer is not obvious it would seem true to say that it’s easier to get to freedom from chaos than from tyranny since in chaos neither side has the full power of government while in tyranny one side does.

What will Nancy Pelosi make Boehner do to save his Speakership?

2015-09-06T10:10:00.002-05:00

By Ed Straker

When someone challenges the Speaker of the House (by a technical procedure known as declaring the office of the speakership "vacant"), usually the leadership holds what is basically a vote of confidence immediately to show that a majority of the members still support the Speaker. Otherwise it raises doubts about whether the Speaker still has the support of the majority of the members.
But that's not what happened when Rep. Mark Meadows declared the office of the speaker vacant in late July in protest against the accomodationist policies of Speaker John Boehner. The House didn't hold any kind of vote at all, and the delay is telling.

Meadows, one of 24 members who at the beginning of this Congress voted for a Republican alternative to Boehner alongside one—Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) who voted “present,” which was technically a meaningless vote—believes it’s safe to assume that that 25 members will vote once again to remove Boehner as Speaker of the House should he bring his motion to vacate the chair up as a privileged resolution in the fall. At least three more—Reps. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), and Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ)—have publicly pledged they will join him. Several more, including major power player conservatives, have behind the scenes promised they will not support Boehner’s re-election as Speaker. If every member of the House is present and votes, then the benchmark for Boehner to lose re-election is that 29 Republicans must vote to get rid of him—assuming no Democrats vote for Boehner. With 28 now publicly opposed to his re-election, as many more are privately opposed to his re-election, it looks more and more likely that if such a vote came up—Meadows or any other member could force it within two days of offering the motion as a privileged resolution—Boehner would not be re-elected without help from the Democratic Party. If Boehner loses re-election, then the House will go into a briefly chaotic process of finding a new Speaker before more official business can be conducted. That person could be any citizen of the United States, but more likely than not will be a different member of the House than Boehner.

So it looks like Boehner will need Democratic support to stay as Speaker, which would be unprecedented. That means Boehner would be at Nancy Pelosi's mercy. She could demand anything from him and likely get it.
Of course, she is already getting most of what she wants. Boehner has passed spending bills fully funding Obamacare. He has fully funded Obama's illegal amnesty. He has fully funded Planned Parenthood, and the Export-Import Bank. He has refused to set up any select committees to investigate Obama. He has been cooperative on Obamatrade and the Iran deal and many other issues. It's not clear what else she could demand of him, but it seems from here out that Boehner will be her hostage. And I suspect we'll see a lot more of this.
Exit question: Will Republicans tolerate a situation where the Republican Speaker is only speaker by virtue of Democratic votes?

This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.

Why Conservative Pundits Despise Trump

2015-09-05T18:42:00.002-05:00

By James Lewis

A lot of conservative pundits are spittin' mad about Donald Trump's spectacular rise in the polls. Mad to the point of unreason. But the same folks claim to admire the founder of Anglo-American conservatism, Edmund Burke, who placed his trust in the intuitive good sense of everyday people.
It was Burke who first identified the ideological insanity of the French Revolution, when fantasy-prone intellectuals grabbed absolute power to destroy a whole social class through the Terror, fully intending to keep killing until all the enemies of the Revolution were dead. The same kind of murderous ideologues have been pursuing total Revolution ever since, under the heading of Marxism and now Islamofascism, which also seeks to revolutionize the world by hook or by crook. Obama grew up in that part of the left.
Against the French Revolution Burke placed his faith in the moral intuitions of ordinary people. Well, you can't get more ordinary-sounding than Donald Trump. That's what seems to bug the intellectual right. It's a sort of class snobbery. But it's also a failure to see how cleverly Trump is playing the game.
Trump plays the part of a narcissistic blowhard, and his fans enjoy the joke. But when push comes to shove Trump is a very smart businessman who does know how to negotiate tough deals. He has faced business failure more than once, and managed to come back. Obama is a narcissist who has never experienced failure and who lives in his head; but it is failure that can turn narcissists into realists. The business world is all about reality. Trump's obnoxious habit of naming every phallic building he owns into Trump X is also a PR gag. But whereas Obama is a grim and ruthless narcissist who really wants to run the world, Trump has a sense of humor.
And he has enough common sense to ask, “Why in the world are we giving hard-earned money to countries who hate America and want to hurt our citizens?” The answer is “Because the Left hates America and wants to bring us down.” Trump doesn’t have to say that. All he needs is to ask the question. So far Jeb Bush has not been able to say those commonsense words.
Take the Jorge Ramos incident, when Ramos interrupted Trump's press conference by shouting down other journos. Ramos has appointed himself as the spokesguy for all Hispanics (who come from totally different cultures). Ramos does his own macho schtick by proclaiming that he votes illegally both in the U.S. and Mexico. When Ramos tried to take over Trump's press conferences, Trump appropriately had him escorted out. Our political class was shocked, shocked. But it was just a mano-a-mano game. Trump invited Ramos back into the presser, gave him his chance to talk if he followed the rules, and then spent private time making friends with Ramos. I'm willing to bet that Trump got on the phone to Ramos' boss Carlos Slim and talked the whole thing out.
Trump isn't in business to make enemies, but he will play the confrontation game when it suits him. Dealmakers have to operate on two levels, but the shared goal is to come to a deal that benefits both sides. You don't alienate the big players. The Republican elites are afraid that Trump will alienate "all" Hispanic or "all" blacks, but that is not Trump made his money. He doesn't just provoke. He also makes friends and allies. His show biz career is all about walking a thin line between provocative headlines and showing himself to be a good guy. Trump's black and Hispanic fanbase must be in the millions.
In U.S. history the closest precedent is Teddy Roosevelt, who was also a boastful blowhard. Americans loved the theater of Teddy charging up San Juan Hill and his hunting jaunts to the West. In the end, Roosevelt wasn't the worst of the lot. Arguably it was Woodrow Wilson who came after Teddy who was the liberal fascist, as Jonah Goldberg has argued; Wilson was a sly and deceptive, humorless ideologue, much like Obama, and a governmental control freak with globalist pretensions.
Conservative pundits don't recognize the Burkean answer, which is to appeal to the "mighty oak" of intuitive common sense, ignoring the leftist "insects of the hour." Trump does that by openly challenging the PC witch hunters who harry this nation 24 hours a day. Trump pulls Alinsky tricks on the Left.
I admire conservative writers like Will and Krauthammer. But on Trump they have forgotten their basic Edmund Burke. More successfully than anyone else, Donald Trump is tapping into a deep popular unease about the moral and intellectual sleaziness of the ruling Left. The Left has been turned the country into a daily freak show, with Obama and Hillary smashing the constitutional furniture just because they feel like it. They are a national disaster.
Worse than that, Alinskyites like Obama and Hillary are extremely dangerous, as Obama's surrender to a nuclear Iran shows. Historically American statesmen aim for stability: Obama opts for revolution -- like the "Arab Spring" that was supposed to bring the fascist Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt. Today, Obama is pulling another revolutionary move by flipping American support to the fanatical priests of Tehran. Nobody believes Obama's barefaced lies anymore, except the U.S. media and their mind-numbed voters.
In his "community agitator" fashion Obama has betrayed every U.S. ally whose defense depended on us, including the Saudis, Egypt, the Sunni Gulf states, and Israel. Libya was simply destroyed and its ruler executed. Why? Because NATO decided to do so. But NATO is just the United States under Obama. For whatever bizarre and indeed criminal reason, Obama decided to push Libya into a civil war that is still raging today. These are the actions of a revolutionary sociopath, not a normal American president.
Obama's actions go totally against American tradition. Syria, Libya, and Iraq, are still burning. Real people are dying. ISIS is rising with the aid of Obama's allies, Turkey, Qatar, and the Ikhwan. Russia is now intervening directly in the Syrian war. The examples of Obama's overreach are endless, and the next U.S. government will face a huge job to recover from the mess Obama made.
What's the answer to eight years of Obama fanaticism, both domestically and in foreign policy? It's normal American pragmatism. Almost all our presidents have been practical people who didn't follow some radical script to coerce human perfection. When you look past all the pizzazz, Trump has a long history of being practical. And unlike any Republican candidate I can remember, he is genuinely popular. He has Burkean common sense.
Will and Krauthammer don't seem to see that a popular conservative movement for these times may look more like Liberace than Mozart. They think Trump is a wild man, when he is in fact cleverly appealing to the side of us that feels constantly violated by the aggressions of the Left.
Trump has a talent for challenging those insane puritanical strictures. When you think about the freak show of Bill's Monica affair, about the impeachable sale of U.S. missile secrets to China, about Hillary's endless, vulgar, and blatant lies, about Michelle's wacky food faddism, and most of all, about Obama's out and out corruption of the IRS and the Justice Department -- we are overwhelmed by endless violations of deeply valued American laws and customs. The results are so bad that people don't know how to cope.
Would I vote for the Donald? I don’t know. So far, Ted Cruz looks very competitive. I like Ben Carson, who could reverse the entire radicalized black narrative of ethnic hatred and revenge. We are lucky to have a good field.
But the Republican panic against Donald Trump is just silly.
Get over it, and let’s see the candidates strut their stuff.