Vladimir Plays Obama Like A Finely Tuned Stradivarius

     This week may bring a "resolution" to the Ukrainian/Russian conflict that will allow Barack Obama to claim a diplomatic victory, while at the same time bringing Vladimir Putin closer to reconstructing the Soviet Empire. Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama and their surrogates have been negotiating for a peaceful disposition to the Russian amassment of 100 thousand troops on its border with Ukraine. And though the talks have centered on those troops and a myriad issues ranging from "international" monitors in Ukraine to the ability of other regions to distance themselves from Kiev, the West seems to have given up on Crimea.
     Say what you want about Vladimir Putin, but he is a brilliant chess player. After absorbing Crimea into Russia using groups of pro-Russian armed thugs to foment a succession movement from Ukraine, and holding a hastily and suspect vote to insure the same, he amassed 100 thousand troops along Russia's border with Eastern Ukraine. The troops, I think, were never intended to be used for military conflict, but as a diversion from the annexation of Crimea. And it worked! President Obama and the "internationals" were so concerned about the troop build up, that they were willing to give Mr. Putin his victory in Crimea and call it a victory for the West.
   And so brick by brick, just like Hadrian's Wall, Vladimir Putin will rebuild the Soviet Empire, all the while allowing his obtuse adversaries like Barack Obama to think they have been victorious by avoiding war. Because in the end, all that is needed for bad men like Mr. Putin to succeed, is for hubris men like Mr. Obama to think that peace is simply the absence of war. Vladimir Putin is well aware of the flawed weakness of President Obama's all-consuming desire for peace to the point that he is willing to allow Russia to gobble up chunks of sovereign nations, as long as there are no military conflicts involving thousands of deaths.
     Those on the Left like Barack Obama and the "international community" have been given a false solace by the Russians' seeming willingness to find a "diplomatic" solution to the Ukrainian crisis. But Russian, or should I say Soviet, diplomacy is not defined by the same intentions as the West. Ronald Reagan understood this, Jimmy Carter did not. That is why President Reagan was successful in dealing with the Soviet Union and President Carter was an utter failure. It is also why President Obama is music to Vladimir Putin's ears.
     In the final analysis, Mr. Putin is negotiating from a position of strength. He has Crimea and the troops on Ukraine's border with which to "bargain." Pulling back the troops leaves him with Crimea, which was his goal from the beginning. Barack Obama and the "internationals" only have their enervated sanctions as they attempt to extricate themselves from the corner in which they have taken up residence. 
    

How Ukraine Can Capture Obama's Attention

     The extremely flaccid and enervated response by the Obama administration to the Russian encroachment on Ukraine sovereignty, is illustrative of Barack Obama's facile world view. A view that only sees the use of United States influence around the world as provocative of conflict instead of the resolution of it. If Ukraine were Mexican narcoterrorists who owned green energy companies and contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, they would have already received billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in "low interest" loans and untraceable guns.
     Ukraine might have also lobbied the Obama administration for free contraception and abortions in an attempt to receive the attention from the detached United States president. It is also a shame for the Ukraine government that it does not have among its population a brother in-law of Nancy Pelosi, who just received over 700 million dollars of taxpayer money to provide support for his solar company. I wonder if President Obama's response to Ukraine would have been any more favorable if they were to say they were a nation of same-sex couples, and Vladimir Putin was preventing them from marrying each other.
     Truth be told, Mr. Obama wants nothing to do with the messiness of geopolitics or the entanglements thereof. It is part and parcel to his leading from behind strategy in which he abrogates the United States' responsibility in world affairs, in lieu of handing it off to the corrupt and feckless "international community" represented by the United Nations. But the world has seen the results of this strategy festooned in all its incompetence and failure. From removing sanctions on Iran to helping radical Islamists gain control of much of the Middle East through the "Arab Spring," the results of leading from behind have been devastating to peace and freedom throughout the world.
     And now as Vladimir Putin has amassed 100 thousand of his best trained troops along the Ukrainian border, the American people's complacency is exemplified by the first family. She, her mother, and the first daughters on yet another lavish vacation at taxpayer expense, this time in China, where word is they are quickly wearing out their welcome. And he, playing world leader and trying to get back some of his "cool factor" via an audience with the Holy Father, whose flock in the United States is having their religious conscience bludgeoned by Mr. Obama's heavy handed policies.
     The entire situation is scarily reminiscent of the late 1930s, when the president was spending more time on his yacht than in the Oval Office, and the American people were sure that the elfin Austrian with the funny little mustache was of no danger to them and their carefree life style.   

Hobby Lobby And The Founding Principles

     This week is a very important one for the magnitude of American exceptionalism that has been placed in the hands of the nine lawyers in robes that we call the Supreme Court of the United States. I am of course speaking of the Hobby Lobby religious conscience case as it applies to the Affordable Care Act. This case is about more than whether or not a for profit company has the right to object to following a law that aims to force compliance against religious conscience. It rips at the very core of the founding of this great nation.
     Many on the Left, as they are so apt to do, are mis-characterizing the Hobby Lobby position as a desire to prevent their employees from practicing legal forms of contraception. Nothing is further from the truth. Their health care plans included coverage of multiple types of contraception before the heavy handed ObamaCare was born of tyranny and oppression and placed upon the yoke of a free people. They are only asking the Supreme Court, the necessity of which the Founding Fathers would have found abhorrent under the circumstance, to allow them to opt out of paying for abortia fascias, which they and many others consider to be the ending of a human life inside the womb.
      The Founding Fathers knew that in order for the new republic, which they created by putting quill to parchment giving birth to the greatest documents of freedom the world has ever seen, to survive, the culture must remain a religious one. Religiosity is inextricably tethered to liberty in a way that nothing else is or can be. Amongst a non-religious society, freedom becomes the tool of tyrants to be used to build a larger and more powerful government than the people it governs.
     The wild-eyed advocates that want to figuratively lynch Hobby Lobby by taking away their first amendment rights, are clueless of the implications to all freedom-loving people that this decision could have. For if government at any level can compel any citizen to violate their religious conscience, then the Constitution is made neutered and useless in propagating freedom and liberty for everyone, in this generation and those to come. But more than that, it will be one more step in the staircase of tyranny which leads to the basement of the human spirit, a dark and dreary place where religion and faith is suffocated by the obesity and grotesqueness of an evermore powerful government.
     Those who do not agree with the religious values of Hobby Lobby, and advocate for submission of those values to the will of government, should take heed. Because if mere men are given the authority to expunge the natural right of man to fulfill his religious charter with his God, then no right, God-given or otherwise, is safe from the executioner of a heavy-handed government.

We Need More Farmers In Washington

     Intellectual honesty being in short supply in the media and politics, it is incumbent upon the average American to articulate the truth that our representatives in Washington are somewhat deficient in representing the best interests of this country. Among the myriad problems with our elected officials is that they spend trillions more dollars than they receive in tax receipts, creating the 17 trillion dollar debt under which we are currently suffering. Joni Ernst, an Iowa legislator running for the United States Senate, has a campaign commercial in which she proudly reveals the fact that she grew up castrating hogs on the family farm. Exactly the kind of pork cutter we need in Washington.
     After hearing Ms. Ernst's commercial, I thought to myself how much better off this country would be with a congress full of farmers instead of lawyers. Actually, this nation and its government would be more fully aligned with the Founders' vision for it with a congress populated with any other profession besides lawyers. I do not have anything against lawyers, one of my best friends is a lawyer, and they serve a useful purpose when their clients need someone to navigate the sausage mill that can sometimes be our legal system.
     Lawyers have a characteristic, almost to a man, that make them lousy representatives of the people they are suppose to serve. That characteristic is an innate superiority complex and a desire and a talent to over-complicate laws and regulations so that only they can understand their secret code. For which the writing and interpretation requires extensive taxpayer dollars. There is no matter that is so simple that a Lawyer can not create a multi page document to explain. And the cabal of lawyers we call the United States Congress, combine their powers of complication to drain simplicity from the every day lives of millions of Americans.
     Farmers spread fertilizer to encourage growth, lawyers just spread a lot of manure that stinks. Farmers awake before sunrise and their day is not done until well into the evening, all for pennies an hour. Lawyers find ways to double bill for the same hour at hundreds of dollars. A farmer will look you straight in the eye and tell you the God's honest truth without regard for hyperbole. Lawyers avoid the straight truth like a homeless man avoids an honest days work. A farmer's most valuable tool is honesty, a lawyer's is a quick tongue that would be as out of place at a truth convention as a blind man at an optometrist's office.
      Ms. Ernst's campaign commercial is sure to be the butt of jokes for those on the Left who have become so out of touch with America, that they see honest work and traditional values as a scourge. The thought of someone like Joni Ernst, who spent her childhood engaged in manual labor on a farm and is a Lt. Colonel in the Iowa National Guard, being elected to the United States Senate, scares the hell out of those on the Left. A farmer matriculated into the august body of the Senate is as anathema to those on the Left as the values, traditions, and common sense that Ms. Ernst represents.  

The Vanishing Of Civilization

     "In order for civilization to survive, man must remain civilized." The preceding words were uttered by Rod Serling over fifty years ago in the context of one of his many operatic shorts about the human condition as he saw it. Those words could not be any truer today, especially in light of the uncivilized behavior engendered by our modern technology.
     Civilization is constructed of a moral code adhered to by its citizens, not at the bludgeoning of government regulation, but out of a sense of decorum and common respect. The governor that individuals possess to mute their behavior and guide their speech away from the crass, sadly is missing from modernity as a result of the veil of anonymity afforded to us by social media. The Internet in general, and social media in particular, have provided their users with a sense of immunity for anything they may say or do.
     People will say things and show images of themselves on social media sites that they would never do otherwise. Could you imagine, for example, a teenage girl showing nude pictures of herself to a stadium full of people she does not know. But yet many young girls, and young boys, are doing exactly that and worse when they post something on social media. It has the potential to be shared with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of strangers.
    One of the tenets of civilization is a deep and abiding respect for one's fellow citizens, a respect that shields them from the darker side of our natures. But social media eliminates the need for that respect by providing a forum for the basest of our instincts to run free and wild. And almost without exception, the price paid for such ugliness is spared the individual, the full brunt of such barbarianism being absorbed by the culture with the loss of civilization.
     I shutter to think how little civilization will remain in 20 years, once a generation of children raised on a steady diet of unfettered "self-expression" through words and photos become adults. There seems to be no appetite by many modern parents to guide their children through the sewage of social media into becoming responsible participants in that medium. Many parents, when confronted with their children's online behavior, simply excuse it by saying it is just kids being kids.
     Meanwhile an entire generation grows up with narcissistic tendencies encouraged by the instant celebrity culture of social media. Children, and many adults as well, become ensconced in a cyber universe that revolves entirely around their participation in it. Far too many of our children never develop the interpersonal skills required to survive and thrive in the real brick and mortar world outside the Internet.
     It is the self-centered nature of social media that contributes to the break down in decent society and the vanishing of civilization. A culture can not remain civilized when selfishness replaces respect, and barbarism replaces decorum. Mr. Serling knew this to be true fifty years ago, long before the existence of Face Book, Twitter, or even the Internet. It is axiomatic of the human condition, whether one is considering the disposition of ancient civilizations or our own. 
    
  

The Pity About Pity

     There is a growing trend in this country which I believe the Left has deliberately encouraged in order to increase the dependence on government. Dependence being one of the many destructive devices that the Left employs to achieve their goals. This particular trend involves attaching a twisted honor and veneration to those who both practice the destructive emotion of pity, and those who are the target of that pity.
     Pity is one of the worst human emotions because as it emulates one of the best human emotions, compassion, it drains all humanity from the practitioner and the practiced upon. Whereas compassion lifts up both the transmitter and receiver, pity drags both parties down into a chasm of victimhood and hopelessness. Compassion says, "I will help build your strength, if that is what you need, to jump the hurdles placed in your way." Pity only looks at the hurdles with watery eyes and laments their existence.
     I know an exceptional young man who is in high school, intelligent, and full of life. He is also in a wheel chair. He recently lost his older brother, whom he loved very much, to heroine addiction. But he insists on doing things for himself and making his life the best it can be. There is a woman who is a social worker who also knows this young man, and she told a mutual friend that she pities him. I wished she would have said that to me because I would have asked her, "Why? He does not pity himself, what gives you the right to pity him?"
     Pity is a negative human emotion because it only prolongs the torment of the afflicted, and strangles the life from compassion. Pity simply sits on the sidelines of life and drains the strength from the afflicted, while compassion takes an active role in fortifying those who are disadvantaged in some way and making them more self-reliant. Social programs of the Left are entirely based on pity and expel compassion from the arena of public policy. There is nothing less compassionate and more pitiable than making a person dependent on money confiscated from their fellow citizens by government.
     Compassion dictates lifting up, while pity only serves as an anchor that drags down the pitied and the one who pities. Compassion creates self-sufficiency, whereas pity's outcome is complete dependence. Compassion receives its charter from love, pity marches to the music of selfishness and reliance on others. Compassion is Mother Theresa and pity is the modern day Democrat party. For there is no more honorable a thing than a human heart filled with compassion, and no greater profanity than one filled with pity.
    
    
    

A Case For Impeachment

     According to the Constitution, a president can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors." The object of this post is not to argue the chances of a successful impeachment of President Obama. Success being defined as articles of impeachment being passed by the House of Representatives, those articles being prosecuted by the Senate of the United States, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court finding in favor of that prosecution. That scenario has as much chance of becoming reality as Joe Biden has of getting a clue. No, my contention is that even with a snowball's chance in hell of success, Republicants should attempt it, if for no other reason than to make a stand for liberty and against tyranny. The process would also slow down the implementation of President Obama's radical agenda.
     Actually, the Republicants should have challenged President Obama on legal grounds from the start of his presidency. The General Motors bailout, which included a violation of contract law with the federal government transferring equity from legitimate bondholders to the president's union buddies, was a blatant violation of the constitutional mandate of that law. I think that a president's violation of 200 years of civil law qualifies as "high crimes and misdemeanors." The President repeated the same behavior with his numerous programs to bailout mortgage borrowers who were in default, or in danger of being in default, on their home loans. He placed the federal government in the role of unilateral modifier of private contracts between lenders and borrowers.
     President Obama also committed fraud when his administration cut and pasted the signatures of experts they hired to assess the effects of shutting down drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill. The experts' original report did not support the administration's desire to shut down the rigs, so they pasted the signatures from the original study to their own that did support it. To add fuel to the fire of lawlessness and deceit, President Obama blatantly disobeyed two different federal Judges' orders not to shut down the rigs. I think that behavior qualifies as "high crimes and misdemeanors."
     And then there is ObamaCare, which in its passing alone qualified for the most egregious forms of bribery, graft, and corruption. But the almost two dozen ad hoc changes to the law by the president without the support of congress, certainly qualifies for "high crimes and misdemeanors." Maybe the American people have been so dumbed down by the deliberate conspiracy of the Left with the U.S. education system over the last 5 decades, that they do not realize that the constitutional responsibility of the president is to execute the laws, not write them on the fly to support his political agenda.
     Even with the preceding evidence against President Obama in favor of impeachment, the piece de resistance is his conspiring with a foreign leader against the interests of the United States. The conspiracy happened prior to the 2012 presidential election when he told then Russian president Medveded to transmit to Vladimir Putin that he, Obama, would have more "flexibility" once he was safely reelected. The comment was picked up when President Obama thought he was off-mic. If conspiring against your own country with a foreign leader does not qualify for "high crimes and misdemeanors," well then I just do not know what does.
     There are many more examples of the complete lawlessness of this president that would certainly qualify him for impeachment. The ones mentioned here are only seasoning to the main course of "high crimes and misdemeanors." If the Republicants do not mount an articulate and reasoned prosecution of Barack Obama's deliberate assault on the United States Constitution, then history will judge them to be complicit in the cowardly act of dismantling liberty for future generations.

Momma Fed Continues Legacy Of Economic Ignorance

    This week saw the first Federal Open Market Committee meeting to be presided over by Janet Yellen, the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. And while the Fed's bought and paid for lapdogs on Wall Street, and elsewhere in the financial industry, gave Ms. Yellen high marks for her comments, one would expect nothing less from a coddled industry that has received the benefit of over three trillion created-out-of-of-thin-air dollars from the Federal Reserve in the last four years. But to this realistic viewer of the economy as it is, Chairman Yellen was a worthy successor of the dimly lighted torched passed to her from Ben Bernanke, the previous Fed Chairman.
     Proof of Ms. Yellen's firm grasp of the title Glittering Jewel of Colossal Ignorance was exemplified by one statement she made at her press conference after the two day meeting. She said that the Fed would eliminate the trigger of a 6.5% unemployment rate to increase its interest rate from the historic low of zero to a quarter percent it has held since 2008. She said the reason was that the employment situation has improved more rapidly than expected. I do not know what dim bulbs like Janet Yellen had expected, but thank God her expectations were not met, seeing as how after five years into an economic recovery, the nation has a record number of working aged persons unemployed, and the lowest percentage of that population participating in the work force in almost 40 years.
     The stated goal of the Fed's Quantitative Easing program was to stimulate the economy and spur job growth. After more than three trillion dollars, neither of these goals has been met, unless one considers record unemployment and sub-two percent GDP growth an acceptable outcome for the money. And while companies stock prices have done very well in the age of easy money from the Federal Reserve, earnings of those companies have only done well to the extent that expectations have been dropped so low they would have to look up just to see mediocrity.
     The dirty little secret about the Fed's bond-buying program is that since 2011, the Chinese have been severely curtailing their investment in U.S. bonds, having calculated that they are no longer a good investment. This was about the same time that Standard and Poors downgraded the U.S. credit worthiness for the first time in history. With the Fed's current tapering seeing an end to their bond-buying by this Fall, the Chinese reducing their investment in U.S. debt, the Russians threatening to flood the market with their sizable stash of U.S. bonds, and the threat of hyper-inflation as a result of the Fed's irresponsible monetary policy over the last few years, this country is headed for economic hardship that will make the 1930s seem like an economic boom.
     Of course Momma Fed was left an untenable situation by Poppa Fed Bernanke, who will now be paid gobs of money to be a university president and/or give speeches about economic issues after having helped ruin the U.S. economy. And We The People will be left holding the bag of a rapidly deteriorating economy caused by the crony capitalism of the Obama years.

The "Big Brain" Foreign Policy Of Barack Obama

     The capitulation of Crimea to Russia is illustrative of the real outcome of the dovish foreign policy stance of the Left in general, and Barack Obama specifically. President Obama took time away from his important work of creating his March Madness bracket, golf, and his ongoing life style of the rich and famous, in order to issue a proclamation of weakness to Vladimir Putin. The U.S. president telegraphed to the Russian president that he has essentially taken military action off the table, instead choosing toothless sanctions as a means to make Mr. Putin behave as a world citizen.
     President Obama, with his doctrine of weakness on foreign policy issues from Benghazi to Syria, has made military conflict more likely. For the past five years he has signaled to our enemies like Putin that the United States is no longer interested in defending democratic ideals militarily. Instead, our current president has replaced peace through strength with peace through superior brain power, meted out in diplomacy. In order for diplomacy to be successful, your enemy must be as dedicated to it as you are. Vladimir Putin is not. Therefore, without fear of U.S. military reprisal, he will push the conflict toward a military solution.
     The mistake that the community agitator Obama makes, is treating global bad guys like Putin as he treats his political opponents. To Barack Obama, as to most of the Left, Republicants are the same as Putin, who is the same as Islamic terrorists. The way to defeat them is with lofty words and empty platitudes. Barack Obama uses the same kind of threats against Putin as he uses against Republicants. But where Republicants collapse into little puddles of Jell-O, Vladimir Putin laughs at the Lefts boy wonder who plays world leader on the delusional stage in his mind. Barack Obama is a man of words and Vladimir Putin is a man of action. The man of action will always best the man of words in geopolitical contests.
      Words can inspire men to action, as Thomas Paine's words did during the American Revolution, or Winston Churchill's during World War II. Barack Obama's words are not inspirational, except to inspire hatred of his political enemies, which they are intended exactly to do. The goal of words spoken by community agitators is not to inspire defense of values or ideals, but to attract political power to themselves. Barack Obama has always had the good fortune of having his words translate into political power, but very few solutions to real problems. His brand of sycophantic race and class baiting does not translate to the world stage when confronting anyone more dangerous than an amateur film maker.
     The recent announcement by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel that the administration intends to reduce U.S. military troops to pre-World War II levels, signals that Barack Obama has the utmost confidence in his "big brain" to solve any and all international conflicts. The very real danger to U.S. security is that Putin and others have big brains that understand the world is, and has always been, governed by the aggressive use of force. In the absence of U.S. leadership willing to at least threaten force, Mr. Putin's willingness to do so, will easily defeat Mr. Obama's "big brain"  foreign policy every time.

    

Republicans Need To Change Their Focus

     Republicants appear to be migrating toward two different camps of electoral strategy for this November's mid-term elections. One camp looks at the recent victory by David Jolly in Florida's 13th district as a sign that Republicants' should make ObamaCare the centerpiece of their Fall campaigns. The other camp is proffering the alternative analysis. That Mr. Jolly won because of the economy, and that ObamaCare should be just part of a larger discussion by Republicants that focuses on the economic failures of Obama policy that congressional Democrats have supported.
     I, of course, think that neither camp has the right fuel to stoke the fires of victory this Fall. As usual, the Republicants in Congress, and who populate positions in the establishment outside of Congress, are myopic in their obsessive focus on the next election, instead of educating people in hopes of changing the culture. A good example of this behavior is the complete lack of attention paid to the Financial Reform Act, better known as Dodd/Frank. This law, which was supported by many congressional Republicants, is almost as dangerous as ObamaCare. It is ObamaCare for the financial industry, and it puts government bureaucracies in control of private enterprise in a way not seen before in this country.
     Dodd/Frank codifies future bailouts for the largest financial firms, while it has closed the doors of smaller, community-based institutions because they can not afford the compliance costs associated with the law. Republicants, if they are to insure victory for the American way of life, must run against the ethos of the Obamaites that gives birth to laws such as Dodd/Frank, ObamaCare, et. al.
     The Republicants can win elections and return the country to one of free choice, but only by decentralizing their message away from ObamaCare or the economy. Instead, they should illustrate the folly of Obama and the Lefts desire to move the country away from an opportunity society to a dependent one. The biggest mistake that Republicants have made in recent elections has been to allow Democrats to steer them in a direction that leads to issues rather than the fundamental principles and values that made this country great.
     I am not recommending that Republicants abandon issues, but rather fold them into a larger campaign based on educating the voter why conservative principles work and Leftist ones do not. The Founders knew that an educated populace is the life blood of democracy. They intended for the free press to be key in the education process. But since most media today has become nothing more than propaganda shills for the Democrat party and failed Leftist policies, it falls upon Republicants to inform voters about the foundational values of America, and why they work for the greatest number of persons.
     If Republicants fail to articulate the founding principles of the republic, and instead strictly adhere to defense of policies, Democrats will defeat them most of the time. The reason is that conservatives have abdicated their sacred responsibility to conserve the founding principles over the recent decades. Which has allowed the Left to inculcate many voters with a sense of entitlement and dependence on the government programs that are the bricks that form the foundation of the modern Democrat party. Republicants must use the hammers of freedom, liberty, and self-reliance to smash into bits those bricks of dependence, entitlement, and tyranny.

When Will They Ever Learn?

     As Russian president Vladimir Putin signed an agreement officially recognizing Crimea as part of the Russian empire, Leftists around the world, including in the United States, celebrated Putin's statement that he does not want to divide Ukraine. A statement made moot by his actions to absorb Crimea into Russia. Only those on the Left could experience such comfort and solace from the words of a communist. Actually, in order to keep his word about not dividing Ukraine, Putin must absorb the rest of the country.
     In the 1960s there was a song called Where Have All The Flowers Gone, which communists like Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Joan Baez use to sing. Throughout the song the line "when will they ever learn," was repeated at the end of each verse. Of course, the song criticized the supposed blindness of those who saw the necessity of war. It is ironic that the singers' ideology has been proven in the ensuing years to be the most blind, and the cause of much suffering around the world.
     The most frightening thing in the world today is not Putin, Kim Jong-un, or even Islamic terrorists, but that the people charged with fighting such tyranny were all raised on the communist pap of songs like Flowers. After decades of suckling on a steady diet of their own poisonous regurgitation, those who control the reins of government have abdicated their duty to reason and common sense in favor of a twisted Utopia where no harm comes to those who provide no resistance to tyranny.
     During President Carter's ill advised negotiations with the Soviets about nuclear arms reductions (better known as SALT), my ninth grade math teacher, Brother Rogers, told us that communists could not be trusted. He said they could not be trusted because they defined terms differently than the West. After almost forty years, the Left still believes they can trust communists and take them at their word. Brother Rogers knew what Ronald Reagan would say a few years later, "Trust, but verify."
     Now President Capitulation and his cohorts in the "international community" have quietly ceded Crimea to Vladimir Putin. Something those familiar with the limp-wristed foreign policy of Barack Obama said would happen from the onset of this crisis. Once Crimea has become firmly ensconced in the Russian family, Vladimir will set his sights on the next chunk of real estate he wishes to add to the empire. And just like with Crimea, there will be a lot of bluster and toothless sanctions from the "international community." In the end, Mr. Putin will achieve his goals because his opposition is so committed to "peace at all costs," that fulfillment of those costs will be drawn on the account of  fidelity to the principles of liberty, freedom, and common decency.

U.S. Stock Market: A Government Sponsored Enterprise

     One may wonder why, with the tinder box in Ukraine and the free falling economy at home, the stock market continues to reach new highs. This question can be largely answered by examining the behavior of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's soaring share prices just before the financial crisis of 2008. But even years prior to the crisis, their balance sheets were almost entirely constructed of toxic assets backed by sub-prime mortgage loans they bought from the banks who were forced by government authorities like the Justice Department to originate, knowing they would never be paid back.
     If you have not guessed by now, the thesis of this post is that the stock market has become a Government Sponsored Enterprise, somewhat in the mold of Fannie and Freddie. Partial evidence of my theory is something I read today, the theme of which has become the dominant driver of the market over the last five years. The piece I read seriously considered how the Federal Reserve could prop up the market if the situation in Ukraine escalated. We have long ago abandon a time in this country when the financial markets were coupled to the economic health of the nation. Recently it has become clear that the markets see themselves as insulated from the economy. Because no matter what happens, Big Momma Fed will be there with her trillions of monopoly money to pour into the empty hole of the market.
       More evidence that the market has become a prattling child grasping tightly to the apron strings of the Federal Reserve, is the anticipation of new Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen's forthcoming comments this Wednesday. The direction of the market being dependent upon what some government official says or does not say is a sign of an unhealthy relationship between the markets and government. There was a time when the market rose or fell based on hard economic data, not based on some artificial solace provided by a shill of the administration.
     Barack Obama, shortly after he became president, said he wanted to "even out the markets so there were no busts or booms." When the market does not reflect economic reality in this way, it loses its credibility and becomes a buffoonish instrument of the administration. As such, the market becomes impervious to reality because it lives in a manufactured world where Momma Fed is ready on the pump handle to flood it with trillions of created-out-of-thin-air dollars.
     The problem with this approach, besides the obvious hyper-inflation that is bound to come, is that government has removed the natural fear from the market. The two emotions that run the market are fear and greed. Each emotion keeps the other in check when their counterpart begins to dominate. When government interferes and upsets this natural balance, greed in the market becomes out of control and causes a much bigger fear-induced crash when the Fed can no longer mask and veil the very real and fearful aspects of the economy.
     The government sponsored enterprise of the stock market is bound for failure like any other private sector business controlled by government. The reason is simple: Those who populate government in general, and especially those who populate it specifically in the current administration, have the hubris to think they can run private enterprise, coupled with the severe ignorance as a result of never having worked in the industries they control. This leads to spectacular failure like the one caused by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were at the epicenter of the crisis of 2008. Of course those in government that cause the crash are never held responsible, in fact their disastrous economic theories and ignorant policies are recycled and repackaged as some new "brilliance" in the future that is bound to start the cycle all over again, and it is the average American who pays the price for such foolishness.

Obama And The Peace Whores

     The outcome of the vote in Crimea to succeed from Ukraine and join Russia was about as surprising as President Obama taking another vacation. And while the feckless, useless, and evermore irrelevant United Nations voted not to recognize the outcome of the Crimean vote, Putin, I am sure, had already laid in a course for his next move. As has been the case in the modern era of Obama and his pseudo-intellectual peace whores throughout the world, Putin has out maneuvered them again. If Vladimir Putin was not such a commie bastard, I would almost have admiration for his skill in making President Obama and the "international community" look about as useful as a valet at a hobo convention.
     While Crimea is sorting out the particulars of just what matriculation into the Russian family means, Putin has his eye on more chunks of real estate in eastern Ukraine. And who could blame him, he has not exactly had worthy adversaries opposing his expansionist appetite. While Putin is more than willing to use force to achieve his goals, he knows that the lack of resolve to do the same by Obama and the peace whores, makes their protestations nothing more than static in the distant background of his well scored symphony.
     Vladimir Putin has a memory of history that reaches back further than just the most recent mind-numbing speech by President Obama. He remembers that United Nations proclamations and resolutions hold about as much water as a paper bag with a hole in the bottom. He remembers how Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at the U.N. and their useless resolution. Until, that is,  U.S. president George W. Bush provided the backbone for that resolution and added heft to the empty words of the United Nations' intellectual elites who need a courage transplant just to enter a darkened room.
     Mr. Putin is well aware that without courageous U.S. leadership to lead the world, he can be fairly certain to have his way with Ukraine, and possibly even more of eastern Europe. Watching the phony bluster consisting of the impotent words of Barack Obama, John Kerry, et al, is analogous to watching a nest of rabbits confront an angry grisly bear.
     Meanwhile Mr. Putin has played his cards wisely. The invasion of Crimea was masterfully orchestrated as a grass roots effort by the Crimean people themselves. And now with a vote by the Crimean parliament last week and the people this past weekend to join Russia, Putin has standing to protect the wishes of those ethnic Russians. The fact that the "international community" does not recognize the outcome of Sunday's vote in Crimea, means little in the face of the current situation's reality. It is analogous to Saddam Hussein's Ministry of Information representative going on Iraqi television, with what was clearly U.S. forces in the background, and saying American troops had not breached Iraqi borders. Therein lies the inherent weakness of the intellectual elites, i.e., their unwillingness to see things as they are, instead choosing to believe that their big brains can solve every problem in the world without messing their finely tailored suits and calf-skin shoes. 
    

Paul Ryan Demonstrates Republican Weakness

     In the past five years Republicants have taken some very limp-wristed stands on important issues. It seems that even when they take the right stand, they are easily backed off it by criticism from the Left. To Witt: Congressman, and House Budget committee chairman, Paul Ryan recently made a statement on a radio talk show about the cultural rot that has caused poverty, especially in the inner-city. To be precise, Congressman Ryan said that the generational dependence on government that exists in impoverished areas has required generations of young boys to grow up witnessing the men in their lives not working and not even having the desire to work.
     Mr. Ryan correctly and succinctly illustrated that poverty in the United States is a cultural problem and not an economic one. Congressman Ryan was excoriated by those on the Left like Al Sharpton, who characterized his statements as racists, as he does with any truth that comes from a conservative. In fact the entire Left has trouble accepting or debating any truth when it opposes their agenda of dependence. The fact that trillions of dollars have been transferred from producers to non-producers in the last fifty years since the War On Poverty began, and it is worse today than ever, is proof of the validity of Mr. Ryan's statement.
     I applaud Paul Ryan for his courage, and yet I am chagrined that I must immediately rescind that applause for his apologetic statement that followed the criticism. He couched his apology in terms that characterized his statement as being "not well articulated," and other such back-peddling gobbly gook. His original statement was articulate and factual, but it may have been offensive to those who have a vested interest in continuing the cycle of poverty that their policies are intended to propagate. Leftism has deliberately destroyed the meaning of manhood in impoverished areas. Young boys are not being raised to value work and responsibility for the families they create. They are not taught the manly virtues of honesty, courage and respect for ones community that built this great nation. The family business in the inner-city has become dependence.
     Paul Ryan destroyed the effectiveness of his argument by essentially mitigating it with apology. I never understood why Democrats can say the most outrageous things and never have to apologize, but conservatives self-censor and apologize for telling the truth. This seems to be a Republican disease, that even when they have the right ideas, they underscore them with weakness by apologizing for them.
     Conservatism demands and deserves unapologetic defense. Republicants can not expect the American voter to support them when their own support for their ideas seems flaccid, and acquiescent to criticism. Republicants would be wise to remember that of all the great and inspiring words written and spoken in defense of American liberty, not one contained even the hint of conciliation.

What The Market Movers Are Trying Not To Tell You

     I have recently read much analysis of the stock market by executives of some of the larger investment firms in the United States. The general flavor of their analysis is that the market is headed for a downturn, but that investors should not abandon stocks just yet. This of course is a signal for individual investors who are not dupes to head for the hills. The market movers are always one step ahead of the rest of us, and I have learned that when they say stay put, that is exactly when you should be moving your money into cash. These market mavens are basically saying, "Don't get out until we have had our chance to divest away from stocks."
     One of the methods used to fool the unsophisticated investor into losing his money, is the old bait and switch instrument used for hundreds of years by con men. The way it works in the market was aptly illustrated with the Commerce Department's retail sales data for the month of February. Retail sales rose by three tenths of a percent in February, which was, as they say, "better than expected." But it is better than expected by the very persons telling you to stay in the market. So it behooves them to prepare everyone for a horrible number so when it merely comes in bad, it looks good in comparison. During normal economic times and during previous recoveries from recessions, retail sales increased by whole numbers, not by tenths.
     The trick used by market movers to keep unsophisticated investors in the market is analogous to your employer telling you that your pay is going to be cut by 15%, and then when it is only cut by 10% you consider it a raise. Historically, the month of February is a boon month for retail because the normal lull in January is over and people are buying again. So the three tenths of a percent increase looks even more pathetic in this context.
     The market did lose ground yesterday, the DOW's 231 point drop being exemplary of this fact. But it was based on uncertainty over the Ukraine situation and the fear of a global slowdown highlighted by lower than expected economic data from China. It has been interesting to watch the market react negatively to a drop in Chinese production and consumption that is still much better than the United States, whose pathetic data has lately been blamed on Winter weather.
     Whether or not yesterday's significant drop in the market was the end of the bull market that just began its sixth year, is hard to say. But as an investment strategist once said, "I would rather miss an opportunity than miss capital." With both the U.S. and global economies heading into a slowdown and probable recession, uncertainty in the Ukraine, and the Federal Reserve pulling away its artificial supports that have been propping up the market for the last five years, stocks are even a riskier asset than normal. Follow the advice of market movers, whose job it is to keep one step ahead of the average investor, at your own risk. 
    

Republicans Hope For Jolly Mid-Terms

     Republicant David Jolly had barely been crowned the victor in Florida's 13th district's special election for the vacated House seat of deceased congressman Bill Young, when the champagne corks on the Right began to fly uncontrollably. The most oft repeated refrain was that Mr. Jolly's victory was a harbinger of what was to come for Republicants in this November's mid-term elections.
The theory goes that if a flawed candidate like Jolly, a former lobbyist and recent 41 year old divorcee with a girlfriend 14 years his junior, could win in a district that voted solidly for Barack Obama in 2012, then Republicants will glide to easy victory over the Democrats in both the House and Senate races this Fall.
     Mr. Jolly was not supported by the Republicant establishment in Washington during the primary, in fact he was their favorite whipping post during that process. As far as his election victory being a harbinger of better things for his party in November, I can not say one way or the other. I do not think anyone can accurately predict, based on one event, the support of voters this Fall. Mr. Jolly was  supported by the Tea Party, placing another victory firmly in the column of that oft abused, and mis-characterized movement, both by the Left and the Right.
     Assured victory for Republicants this Fall is not unequivocal as a result of this special election, but it does illustrate two things very aptly as far as I am concerned. One is that the Tea Party is not some extremist organization that only supports radical candidates as they have been accused by both the Republicant and Democrat establishments. Mr. Jolly was a committed centrist in the mold of his predecessor, Bill Young. Secondly, this victory, along with the many others by Tea Party-supported candidates since 2010, shows the electoral influence and heft possessed by members of that movement.
     If Mr. Jolly's victory is a bell weather of this Fall's mid-terms, it disproves the supposition by some pundits that the Republicants will have to find more to run on than simply replacing ObamaCare. David Jolly constructed his campaign almost entirely of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. Even his Democrat opponent, Alex Sink, campaigned on "fixing" the major problems with ObamaCare.
     Maybe David Jolly's victory will turn out to be an augury of November's mid-term elections. However, I am very solicitous over the frolicsome predictions of a mass Republicant victory that I heard yesterday by many in talk radio. If there are two things I know about politics they are that nothing is a sure thing, and Republicants recently have found new ways in which to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. 

The Case For Compassion-Less Law

     Leftism is rife with dichotomy and hypocrisy, so much so that intellectual support has abandon the ideology many years ago, and the only defense of it is purely emotional. A case in point is the Lefts insistence that those with money, i.e., the evil wealthy people, should not be given special privileges by the legal system. That the ladder of justice should, in essence, have no top and no bottom, and all should be equal under the law. The very core of Conservatism is constructed of this idea, but those on the Left prove their antipathy towards this ideal every day.
     The Left is very vociferous in their support of a compassionate legal system where a person's upbringing and economic status is considered when being punished for a crime that they committed of their own volition. However, that compassion, according to Leftists, should only apply to the disadvantaged and the poor, and not to those who are wealthy. If special treatment by the legal system is wrong to bestow upon the rich, then it is just as wrong when bestowed upon the poor. This is a concept of which Leftism does not have the slightest understanding, or willingness to acknowledge.
     Barack Obama and the modern Lefts idea of "social justice" is anything but just. Justice demands equal protection under the law, which special dispensation based on race, economic status, or family heritage violates in the most grandiose manner. No one should be given privilege under the law because of political or social status or connections, nor should that privilege be given because of a lack of status. In order for the law to carry the sacred duty of justice, it must be free of discrimination. Something the Left does not understand is that it is just as wrong to discriminate in favor of someone as it is to discriminate against them.   
     So as in the case of the Constitution, the law which receives its duty from it, must not contain compassion or charity. Otherwise both can be set aside for reasons that are politically manipulative. When the law is mitigated for those who have money and connections, it can be said to have lost its legitimacy. Setting aside the full effects of the law for reasons of poverty and dire circumstance is just as illegitimate.
     The Founders of this great nation, and framers of its legal system, knew that no civilized society could long exist if its laws were subject to the whims of emotion, and not guided by the steady hand of reason. Compassion is one of the finest human characteristics for individuals to posses, but when done so by a legal system it leads to the tyranny of unequal application of the social code upon the citizenry based on arbitrary metrics created by politicians and judicial activists. Law guided by compassion is not law but suggestion based on the subjective nature of the emotion-filled moment.

"Son Of God" No "Passion"

     It is to the detriment of history that movie makers have a penchant for using the big screen to proffer their own interpretation of the past. So it is with the Christian-produced film, Son Of God. The producers of Son Of God, which primarily retells the story of Jesus of Nazareth's public life and crucifixion, seem to be comfortable taking more liberties with scriptures than the much more effective, Passion Of The Christ. For those familiar with scriptures, the variations of popular New Testament accounts of Jesus' life are significant in their lack of purpose in telling the story.
     The revision of history begins almost immediately with the scene of the Savior's birth, which includes a Joseph as young as the Virgin Mary. As any Sunday school participant or otherwise Bible-educated Christian knows, Joseph was quite an old man when he was commanded by the Angel of God to take Mary as his wife. There are several other key scriptural accounts which are given short-shrift by the film makers. One in particular is when Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times before the cock crows. In the movie, Jesus just says, "...by morning." The denials in the movie happen one right after another, where the scriptures are clear that Peter denied Jesus three times over the space of the entire night, and when he hears the cock crow he remembers Jesus' prediction.
     One of the most egregious repackaging of the scriptures in which the movie engages, is when Jesus walks out of the temple and bends down to speak to a small child and says, "Look at these stones. Not one will remain standing." In the scriptural account Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and others inside the Temple. He states that He will destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. This is an important point because it is the foundation of Christianity, for Jesus is speaking about Himself and His resurrection, which is the fulfillment of man's salvation.
     Beyond the scriptural inaccuracies of Son Of God is the troublesome portrayal of Jesus. The movie Jesus, I thought, had an air of hubris about Him. When the Pharisees tried to verbally trap Him, and his response made them look foolish, movie Jesus displayed a self-satisfied smirk that smacked of arrogance and condescension.
     I do think Son Of God did a good job of portraying the political pressures that surrounded Pontius Pilate. He was the classic "pickle in the middle," caught between the Jewish religious leaders and Caesar. He could not allow himself to be held responsible for the Jewish uprising which the elders convinced him would happen if he allowed Jesus to live. A parenthetical aside; years after the death of Jesus, Pontius Pilate converted to Christianity and was executed for his faith.
     While I appreciate a big screen movie about the life of Jesus Christ, I fail to understand why key scriptural accounts must be sacrificed to the gods of artistic interpretation. In my opinion, changing scripture is a dumbing down of them for the sake of appealing to a contemporary audience. The film makers missed an opportunity to expose the scripturally uninitiated to an accurate account of the life and death of Jesus Christ. I think Son Of God is worth seeing, even with its inaccuracies, but I would recommend waiting until it is released on DVD and save the price of theater admission.

Warren Buffet: Believing His Own Con

     One of the modus operandi of a con man is to constantly reaffirm his trustworthiness. That is how he prompts his marks to keep pouring money into his rigged game. Recently, billionaire investor and con man, Warren Buffet, said he does not think the stock market is a rigged game. This statement by one of the market's richest men is analogous to Vladimir Putin denying that there are Russian troops in Crimea. I am not saying that the average person can not make money on their investments in the market, only that the market movers like Mr. Buffet have rigged the game through their political connections and influence to insure their success.
     Primary to my analysis of Warren Buffet is the image he and others have created of him as the king of the buy and hold strategy. This strategy says that if an investor buys stock in a company and holds it for many years, they will make money. This is true if the investor picks the right companies, however, Mr. Buffet does not even live by his own advice to others. Eighty percent of the stocks purchased by Mr. Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway are held six months or shorter, making Warren Buffet  a trader eighty percent of the time and a long-term investor only twenty percent of the time.
     Mr. Buffet's fraudulent persona is necessary to convince the average investor to zig when he and his cohorts are zagging. Evidence of this fact is that during the period between 2004 and 2007, when the market was hitting new highs every week, Mr. Buffet was putting very little money to work. Which in itself is not bad. But Mr. Buffet used his influence to constantly talk up the market to attract evermore new money into it. Once the market crashed in 2008-2009, Mr. Buffet started buying up the shattered dreams of average Americans who lost much of their life savings.
     Buying low and selling high in and of itself is not corrupt. But Warren Buffet used his political connections with the Obama administration to profit. For instance, Mr. Buffet was able to wrangle a deal for preferred shares in General Electric Corporation after the share price had plummeted to $6 a share. This was after he was informed by the Obama administration that GE was going to receive billions in TARP bailout funds. Talk about insider trading!
     Warren Buffet, again using his close connection to the Obama administration, was able to invest in Bank of America and essentially receive a dividend on his money, at the same time that federal regulators were denying such payouts to the average investor of BofA shares. This special treatment of the market's power brokers by government regulators is nothing new. Bernie Madoff bilked fifty billion dollars from investors, partly with the help of regulators turning a blind eye to his financial shenanigans. I am not comparing Warren Buffet to Bernie Madoff. However, the way in which government regulators lavished favorable treatment on both men because of their overwhelming statures in the financial markets, is in its process similar even if the outcomes are dissimilar.
     Warren Buffet obviously is a shrewd man who has made himself and his shareholders very wealthy. And I am sure that he considers his actions, as fraudulent as they are, to be financially perspicacious. This is, after all, the mark of a good con man, i.e., to believe his own con. 
       

Corporate Cash A Sign Of Failing Economy

     The delusion of an improving economy was given further fuel yesterday with the release of the non-farm payroll number which showed that 175,000 jobs were created in the month of February. The news was reported as being "above analysts estimates," but those estimates were originally for 180,000 jobs added (still pathetic 5 years into a supposed recovery), and over the last two weeks had been lowered to 149,000. In this way, the free-falling economy can hide behind the veil of low expectations.
     Anyone who doubts that the economy is in decline only has to examine the balance sheets of United States corporations. They are burgeoning with over 4 trillion dollars in cash. This record amount of cash on U.S. corporate balance sheets nosed out the previous record attained during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In both instances, the United States had presidents that took the reins of power during an economic downturn, and extended it for the purpose of imposing socialist policies. Franklin Roosevelt once quipped that the more he criticized business, the more votes he got. But FDR was a piker with regards to animus towards U.S. business compared to Barack Obama, as evidenced by corporate America's aversion to putting its cash into the sinking ship that is the Obama economy.
      The Obama administration and others on the Left have demonized corporations for not spending their cash. But corporations are not entities which are sanguine about piles of cash on their balance sheets. They are about making money, and money makes more money when it is in motion, and not when it is statically sitting as cash on a balance sheet. Corporations would rather invest their money in their own businesses and others, if they thought they could make more money. Not doing so shows a lack of confidence in the economy. So it is not greed, as the Left claims, that keeps U.S. companies from spending their cash reserves, but fear.
     The criticism of corporate America for not spending its cash is illustrative of the Left, who create a result by imposing their failed policies and then complain about that very result. The Obama administration has scared corporate America away from spending its cash through mountains of regulations that change on a daily basis, never providing any stability. The administration has also used its Justice Department to intimidate businesses into complying with some twisted notion of "social justice," further adding to fears about investing corporate cash.
     Those in the financial world can delude themselves that the economy is improving by constantly lowering their expectations for it so they are never disappointed. But the piles of cash sitting in the coffers of corporate America tells a very different tale. A tale of business people who are afraid to fully participate in an economy that has become overrun by government bureaucracy and intimidation.
    

The Irrelevance Of Low Approval Rating

     Some on the Right are given solace by a recent Fox News poll that shows President Obama's approval rating at the lowest level of his presidency, a George W. Bush-like thirty eight percent. And while some conservatives are gleeful over Barack Obama's low popularity, I am disappointed that they are seemingly clueless that, in the words of Hillary Clinton at her infamous Benghazi hearing, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"
     My fellow conservatives, and others on the Right, must realize that Barack Obama is not running for anything again, so low poll numbers mean nothing. Some may say that with low poll numbers the president, any president, can not muster support for his agenda in congress. As he has so brazenly stated many times, President Obama does not need the support of congress to advance his agenda. Between the Affordable Care Act and Financial Reform legislation, he has the bones of a government monster that he can infuse with eternal life with the help of bureaucracies that now make laws. Add to this formula the president's unbridled willingness to use executive orders, and the democracy of Jefferson and Madison lies struggling for breath under the heavy boot of tyranny.
     ObamaCare was passed by Democrats in congress as a 2,000 page behemoth piece of legislation, but has grown to over 20,000 pages with regulations added by the Department of Health and Human Services and other bureaucracies. Financial reform, also known as Dodd/Frank, has similarly been made obese by laws masquerading as regulations passed by bureaucrats and not by the people's representatives in congress, per the constitution. And if President Obama does not need congress, he certainly does not need the approval of the American people. So approval ratings and job performance reviews by the citizens of this country are completely irrelevant at this point in his tenure.
       Another reason that low approval ratings for Barack Obama do not matter is that they virtually go unreported by the media. I remember during the second term of George W. Bush, when his approval rating dropped below forty percent, it was headline news every day in the main stream media. Which in itself is illustrative of media bias, disproving those who say there is none.
     In the words of Aldous Huxley, it is a "brave new world." A world in which a community organizer slacker has "fundamentally transformed" a representative republic into a bureaucratic oligarchy. And far from being opposed and fought until the dying breath, this oligarchy has been joined by members of the "opposition" party who care more about poll numbers and elections than they do about girding their loins in the battle for liberty.

The Gaping Hole Of Ignorance

     Liberty can hardly survive in an environment of ignorance. And when that ignorance is deliberate, it infects the very soul and weakens fidelity to the higher principles present in the United States constitution. We have witnessed the elevation of ignorance to the status of religious faith by those on the Left who now control not only our government, but the culture as well. It is this gaping hole of ignorance created by Leftist ideology that has been on full display during the current Russian/Ukraine crisis.
     It is the gaping hole of ignorance that informs former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that it is Vladimir Putin who is delusional, and not the members of her cabal which have pushed policies in recent years that have strengthen the Russian Bear, while deluding themselves with a fascination for their own words. It is that same gaping hole of ignorance that motivates the current Secretary of State John Kerry to manufacture a 21st century world of non-aggression, and then expect the aggressive to mind his rules.
     It is the gaping hole of ignorance that gives world Leftists comfort in the magic of the word "sanctions." It is this one word that sums up their entire foreign policy, and causes men like Vladimir Putin to laugh openly at their ineffectual and feckless attempts to play grown ups in the real world drama of geopolitical chess. It has been the gaping hole of ignorance that has motivated Barack Obama to dangerously reduce American nuclear arms, thinking that the rest of the world will follow, only to have Mr. Putin this very week test fire intercontinental ballistic missiles into the Caspian sea.
     It is the gaping hole of ignorance that has swallowed intellectual elitists like Barack Obama, only to expel them into the spittoon of reality once their elitism has escalated strife and suffering throughout the world. They fail to understand that peace at all costs is always too high a price to pay when it consists of the borrowed liberty of future generations. Those on the Left that foolishly think they can propagate peace simply by weakening the ability of the United States to prepare for war, have only served the masters of war with their ignorance.
     It is a nation's ability to conduct war which keeps its enemies from testing their resolve to do battle. Nothing deters war and insures peace better than overwhelming military strength. But it is the gaping hole of ignorance that keeps this truth from those on the Left  and makes war and oppression more likely. I am not proposing that military intervention in Ukraine should be implemented by the U.S., only that the aversion to do so signals our Russian enemy that our commitment only rises to the level of peace pandering platitudes and italicized intellectual intimidation that spew from the gaping hole of ignorance.

Obama and the Internationals Fail Putin's Test

     Monday, world markets and others were solicitous over the Russian incursion into the Ukraine. Tuesday, the markets rebounded at an astounding rate. Western politicians were bruising their hands patting each other on the back and the "international community" breathed a collective sigh of relief. All this optimism is because of one word missed by these supposedly smart and worldly people in an otherwise conciliatory statement by Vladimir Putin. He said that there is "no need yet" to use Russian military force in Ukraine.
     If you have not guessed by now, the all important word Putin used was "yet." Putin has left the door open for further military incursion into Ukraine, and in the mean time has tested the "international community" and President Obama's resolve to oppose him. Both have failed this test miserably.Without firing a shot, Vladimir has been able to learn much about the weakness of his enemy.
     He knows for instance that the current president of the United States is so unlikely to use military force as to eliminate it as an option to prevent his rebuilding of the Soviet empire. He also knows that any sanctions imposed upon his country by Western powers will be made non-effective by his control of much of Europe's oil supply and a good chunk of American investments in his country. Mr. Putin has also learned that the hubris of his enemy is his best weapon against them. Barack Obama, John Kerry, et. al., will gleefully cede large chunks of territory to Russia if their rather large egos are made to believe that they have schooled the Russian president using their empty platitudes and "stern" warnings.
     The Putin plan was simple; begin military exercises by the Ukraine border, invade the Russian-friendly Crimea region of the Ukraine, recall the Russian troops participating in the exercises thereby placating the "international community" and allowing him to keep Crimea. Vladimir Putin has telegraphed his next move, visible to anyone who is not wallowing in their own arrogance and self-aggrandizement like our president. Putin will negotiate to have Russian troops deeper inside the Ukraine, ostensibly to protect ethnic Russians trapped by what he has already called a coup that ousted his puppet, Viktor Yanukovych.
     In this way he can continue to stroke the rather obese egos of the U.S. president and others, while he incrementally captures more of the Ukraine. He may, with any luck, be able to capture most of Eastern Europe in this way, especially if another Democrat is elected to the United States presidency in 2016. In the contest that is international politics, Vladimir Putin is Garry Kasparov and Barack Obama is a neophyte who has only just recently seen the board and pieces for the first time.
    

It Aint Over Yet !

     One thing that can assuredly be said about Barack Obama is that he lives a charmed life. Growing up as a child in the lap of luxury has not precluded him from claiming some kind of victim status with which the poor are inexplicably infused. His political career has taken him from the Illinois State House to the United States Senate, and onto two terms as president of the United States, all with little to no accomplishments or effort. And now, just when the weather has overstayed its welcome as the latest excuse for Obama economic policy failure, the Russians invade the Ukraine, and provide a poissible excuse for an economy in free fall.
     Barack Obama knows that by the time the "international community" gets their act together enough to mount an effective counter to Vladimir Putin and his Russian military, the situation will have escalated to the level of causing, or at least appearing to have caused, economic weakness throughout the world. Once again the charmed president will be held blameless for his destructive policies.
     Tuesday morning the world awoke with a smile because Putin pulled his troops off the Ukraine border where they were conducting military exercises unrelated to the recent occupation of Crimea. And while the Keystone Cops in the persons of Barack Obama and John Kerry congratulate themselves for "talking tough" and ostensibly scaring Vladimir Putin into submission, Mr. Putin is rubbing his hands together with glee. Not only has he taken a major port in Ukraine without expending military treasure, but he has given his buffoonish enemy reason to be over-confident and blinded to his ultimate goal of rebuilding the Soviet empire.
     I think it was Rush Limbaugh who said, "The world is governed by the aggressive use of force." This truism can not be denied when one performs an exhaustive study of history. In the current situation, Vladimir Putin has set the rules of the game with his "aggressive use of force." The Russian president will now appear to retreat, with his latest conquest in tow, and wait for his next opportunity to seize control of more of Ukraine's sovereignty. He knows that he can continue in his march to rebuild the Soviet empire because of the aversion to war that the U.S. president and the "international community" possess.
     Each time Vladimir seizes control of sovereign land, he will back off and allow his clownish opposition to huff and puff with hubris. And each time he will maintain control of the lands he seized. It is Barack Obama and the Lefts fear of war that makes it much more likely to occur. Whether it is the Ukraine, the Middle East, or South America, the spread of Soviet-style communism and influence has made a resurgence. We ignore the facts of history at our own peril.

Putin's Time

     As was the prediction made by many observers of the growing tinder box in the Ukraine, Russian troops have this past weekend incurred into the sovereign lands of that freedom-loving country. The Crimean peninsula, which is located on the Black Sea in the South-Eastern part of the Ukraine, is currently being occupied by Russian troops, and the Ukrainian government has called upon its citizen army to prepare for war. Crimean bases and armories have been surrounded by Russian soldiers, and the fledgling Ukraine government is transmitting not so subtle messages to the United States and Great Britain that they may need help in stemming the Russian incursion before more of their sovereignty is gobbled up by a hungry Russian bear.
     I fear that the Ukrainian pleas for help will tumble from the slight and ineffectual shoulders of President Obama and his administration. Beyond the platitudinous warnings and empty threats about the Russian violation of international law, Mr. Obama is ill-equipped, both ideologically and in intestinal fortitude, to meet the Russian Bear in the arena of courage and moral certitude. And Vladimir Putin knows, except for empty words and even emptier resolve, he will meet no resistance from the United States as he has his way with the Ukraine.
     It is at once the worst time for the world, and the best for Vladimir Putin, as he tries to rebuild the old Soviet empire. Would he have felt as strongly about taking such a bold chance in the Ukraine if the United States was lead by a strong, virtuous, and liberty-determined president? We will never know. We do know that he has no fear, respect, or deference to the over-educated and under-experienced President of the United States. It is as if the Russian prime minister is playing chess and the American president is playing checkers. The complexities and strategies of world politics, let alone that of Russian/Soviet politics, is beyond the limited experience and arrogantly simplistic world view of Barack Obama.
     I can not help but wonder when the moment was that Vladimir Putin knew Barack Obama was an unworthy adversary, and would provide only flaccid and vacuous opposition to Soviet aggression. Maybe it was before Barack Obama's re-election when he told Russian president Medvedev to transmit to Putin the message that after he, Obama, was safely re-elected, he would have more "flexibility" in dealing with the Russians. Or maybe Vladimir knew Obama was his when he was able to recently manipulate events in the Middle East to his advantage, making the U.S. president look buffoonish and amateurish.   
     The twentieth century has often been called, "America's Century." The prosperity, advancement in the human condition, and the value of liberty spread throughout the world by the United States in those hundred years is unequaled in human history. But I fear that the twenty first century is rapidly becoming Putin's time, when Soviet aggression will once again rule a large chunk of Eastern Europe. And the United States, under feckless leadership, will sit idly by, lacking the strength of both will and ability to honor the cause of liberty and fight under the flag of freedom.