The Reduction Of Civil Rights By The Left

     By now everyone who pays attention to the news of the day is aware of the Indiana law which reaffirms the 1993 federal law supporting the religious freedom enshrined in the First Amendment of the United States constitution. Indiana not only enjoins the federal law but matriculates itself into the body of dozens of states with similar laws. Of course those other states, many run by Democrats, did not face the Tsunami of criticism that Indiana Governor Mike Pence and his legislature have faced after passing a law that simply parrots what the framers of our constitution saw as the linchpin of all freedom, i.e. religious freedom.
     The founders of this great nation knew that when religious freedom is classified as a burden to society in the name of a tortured tolerance for any one group in that society, then the civil rights of the whole will have been compromised. For there can only be civil rights for the whole when the religious conscience of individuals are respected and defended. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. knew this to be true and it is why he acknowledged the inextricable link between civil rights and religious conscience.
     Many on the Left have treated religious freedom as some sort of after thought by the founders, as if it was the cherry on top the sundae instead of the ice cream that forms the very foundation of the thing. But the Founders understood religious freedom to be essential to the success of any free and libertarian republic. For if a man could not practice the tenets of his conscience, informed by religious faith, then no other freedom could be guaranteed or possible.
     The opponents of religious freedom on the Left surmise that such defense of the constitution could lead to certain groups (in this case homosexuals) being discriminated against. But they have convoluted the definition of discrimination to mean an unwillingness by a person of religious conviction to participate in an event that violates their conscience, as opposed to the active pursuit to prevent a person from participating in the general benefits of society simply because of their sexual orientation.
     The Astroturf opposition to the Indiana law, when there was no such opposition to similar laws throughout the country, shows an attempt on the part of the Left to intimidate Americans into subjugating their constitutional right of the free exercise of religious faith to the gods of political correctness and petty politics. I doubt that those like Apple CEO Tim Cook, who so quickly took up the banner of intolerance for religious conscience, even read the Indiana law or were aware of the federal law that it mimicked. No, they are far too busy trying to impose their will on small business owners who refuse to participate in gay marriage ceremonies, and in thus doing they have diluted and reduced the civil rights of all Americans.
    

The Legacy Of Harry Reid

     The announcement by Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, came as a pleasant surprise to those on the Right, and somewhat of a disappointment to those on the Left. The Minority Leader's rather macabre video announcement aside, Republicans should not get too excited and Democrats too downtrodden over a United States Senate sans Harry Reid. The Democrat Party has no shortage of yank-nuts who will slide easily into the position of Senate jester in place of Mr. Reid. The more intellectually honest among us will of course be hard pressed to find anything praise-worthy about the long and corrupt senate career of Harry Reid.
     Senator Reid's net worth of ten million dollars, as reported in 2013, begs the question how someone who has never had a real job outside of government could amass such a fortune. In fact, Senator Reid's digs in Washington while the Senate is in session is a $30,000 per month suite at the Ritz. For anyone who learned mathematics outside the current Common Core system, it is not hard to compare the rent on Mr. Reid's luxurious Washington abode to his $200k a year salary as Minority Leader and see the inconsistency therein. How far we have come from the early days of our government when congressmen often slept several to a rented room above the taverns of Washington.
     Being able to influence legislation to increase the value of land holdings, as Harry Reid has done in the past, is only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to his corruption and vile lack of values and convictions. Republican Senator Vedder recently illuminated Senator's Reid's flaccid convictions when the former made a speech on the senate floor in favor of eliminating birth rite U.S. citizenship for children of illegal aliens, i.e. anchor babies. When he finished his speech he revealed that every word he said was a speech that Mr. Reid had given in the 1990s.
     This week during an NPR interview with Senator Reid in which President Obama called in so the two could slobber all over each other, Harry Reid actually said that history will show the Obama/Reid years to be the most productive in American History. Beyond the laughable hubris of that statement is the inescapable truth that the United States Senate under the control of Harry Reid was the least productive in history. They failed to pass a budget for 6 straight years, even though they are constitutionally required to do so. Over three hundred bills were sent over from the House of Representatives, none of which were even brought to the senate floor for debate, let alone a vote.
     Far from showing the former Senate Leader as a workhorse for the American people, history will inevitably show him as an accomplice in making possible executive authority to circumvent the authority of the people's representatives in congress. And as Harry Reid rides off into the sunset he will leave in his wake a country that is less free and more in debt. He will be remembered as a clown with big floppy shoes and baggy pants. However, this clown's shoes and pants will be stuffed with taxpayers' money gained over a lifetime of suckling at the public teat.
    
    

The Ravages Of War

     The ravages of war have had their effect on this great country in the hundreds of thousands of families that have lost sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and other family members. The ravages of war have separated families for long periods of time, fathers and mothers from young children, husbands from wives and wives from husbands. The ravages of war have reached their bloody knuckled hands into the lives of those who do their country's bidding even after they have left the theater of operations. My own family was touched by the ravages of war when my cousin, who served two tours of duty in Iraq, died from the remnants of battle after he returned home.
     The thousands of men and women who died to liberate Iraq, and provide the people there with that which all human beings deserve as a birthright, i.e. freedom and self governance, have had their herculean effort voided by the current Commander in Chief's inability to see any cause larger than himself. The troops under Barack Obama's command in Iraq and Afghanistan who have suffered more casualties than under the former Commander in Chief, have had to sit and watch as the current Commander in Chief has snatched defeat from the jaws of the American military's victory. The current occupant of the Oval Office has stood brazenly on top the graves of all those who died defending freedom and has spat his acrimony for his own country upon them.
     Yemen is in turmoil and being bombed by Saudi Arabia, without consultation of the United States which would have been a fait accompli prior to the Obama era. Libya is a haven for radical Islamist terrorist, a far worse place for its citizens and more dangerous one for the region than it was under the dictator Kaddafi. Iran has captured four Middle East capitals and have continued to fund and promote terrorist activities throughout the world, and now with the seeming blessing and support of the United States government under President Obama. And America's only real ally and friend in the region, Israel, has been abandon in her hour of need by her once staunch ally, the United States of America.
     The visible ravages of war, the death, the destruction, the displacement of the innocent, have in the past lead to more freedom and prosperity when allowed to carry through to their ultimate conclusion. But the ravages of our recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are beyond the normal horrors of necessary military intervention because the current Commander in Chief has seen it his duty to deny victory, to deny regional stability in the Middle East, to deny the superior American culture of personal Liberty, free markets, and a de-escalation of radical Islamist extremists.

Is The Republican Establishment Ready To Win With Ted?

     There has been a great amount of consternation on both the Left and the Right over Senator Ted Cruz's announcement that he is throwing his hat into the 2016 presidential ring. The fearful on the Left are worried that he may get the Republican nomination and beat the Democrat nominee culled from an especially weak field. Those on the Right who are like scared little rabbits having kept the GOP from providing the muscular opposition to President Obama that Mr. Cruz has never abandoned, are fretting that their apparent lock on Republican mediocrity is about to end.
     The perennial purveyor of all things RHINO, Peter King, met the announcement by Senator Cruz with invective and bloviating that was long on ignorance and short on substance. Mr. King called Mr. Cruz a loud mouth while at the same time exemplifying and illustrating that term through his own behavior. Others were not as rude and churlish as Congressman King, but were as every bit unsuccessful at mounting an intelligent argument against the first term Senator, instead opting to allow their disagreement with his politics to serve as their only contribution to the debate.
     The most ridiculous charge against Ted Cruz is that he is "unelectable." Unelectable is a meaningless term applied to candidates by those who are their same-side opponents. It is a term that is non-quantifiable and empty. No one is unelectable until such a time that they have not been elected by the voters. There is no litmus test for determining the electability of a candidate, because the one thing that is for sure about politics is that nothing is for sure.
     Some on the Right have said that Ted Cruz has no experience, that he is a first term senator and we see how electing a first term senator worked out in relation to our current president. As if being a first term senator was Barack Obama's overwhelming character flaw that has lead him to do the things he has done, and his radical ideology played no role. These same persons have also accused Ted Cruz of having no leadership skills. I would say capturing the attention and support of the rather sizeable wing of conservatives in the Republican Party shows all the leadership skills I would want in the next president.
     Let us not forget that Jeb Bush or any of the other moderate candidates have not been able to capture the support of conservatives, and without it, Republicans will once again lose the presidency. If Mr. Cruz can articulate conservatism, as I know he can, he will also win a good chunk of the Independent votes. This election is the perfect opportunity for Republicans to put a conservative in the White House because no matter who the Democrats find under the couch cushions of their failed policies, the American people will be ready for a positive change. I just hope the Republican establishment is as well.

Howard Schultz: Arrogant Racist

     Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, has begun a new program at his coffee shops that is the most blatant example of Leftist intellectual arrogance I have seen in a very long time. He has instructed his employees to write "Race Together" on cups of the chain's overpriced beverages in an effort to spark a "conversation" about race in America. This conversation is of course a sermon consisting of Mr. Schultz's Leftist views delivered to his customers by his mind-numbed baristas.
     The utter hubris of Mr. Schultz, and others on the Left, to think that not only is his political ideology somehow a moral imperative to be imparted on the ignorant masses in order to enlighten them, but that his employees actually believe as he does, shows an arrogance almost bordering on narcissism. The obtuse Mr. Schultz completely misses the obvious fact that to the extent that their is racial division in this country, it is the result of his own ideology that is shared by others on the Left like our current president and Attorney General.
     In his "rollout" of this new initiative CEO Schultz intimated that customers need to be inculcated with the knowledge that apparently he and the rest of the Leftist intelligentsia instinctively understand by virtue of their grand sense of fairness and obsessive devotion to equality. That knowledge is that there is racial inequality in this country, even though we have elected a black man president twice, the highest levels of the United States government are populated with blacks, and there are more blacks enjoying the middle-class lifestyle than at any time in this nations history.
     Mr. Schultz also talked about the person that may come into a Starbucks for a cup of coffee harboring subconscious racist feelings that the intrusive new policy may help to re-educate. In other words, Mr. Schultz just like the rest of the racist Left think that even if racism is unexpressed by whites, it exists nonetheless. This, in my opinion, is the worst kind of racism because it assumes certain ideas and opinions based purely on a person's skin color, i.e. white.
     Beyond the inherent racism and ideological snobbery of Starbucks' new program is the violation of personal boundaries between business and customer. I have never been what one would call a regular Starbucks customer, but now I will definitely not be even a casual one. The idea that along with an overpriced cup of coffee I must endure a lecture on race from one of Mr. Schultz's automatons, is a bridge too far and an incursion into my personal privacy. I hope Starbucks and Mr. Schultz suffer a rebuke of his ideologically driven new policy where it really maters, the bottom line. Maybe then he and other falsely perspicacious Leftist CEOs will learn to separate their politics from their business.

Clinton Inc. Vs. Obama Inc.

     Anyone who even pays a cursory attention to politics has heard about the Clinton machine. It is said by some to be so powerful and wide-spread that it will be able to impose Hillary Clinton on this nation as its next president. Even though this same machine was not able to accomplish the same task in 2008. But never mind say the purveyors of the Clinton power machine as some kind of political perpetual motion apparatus.
     It is true that the Clintons have not only been able to raise enormous amounts of cash to fund a presidential campaign, but up until recently they have had an almost exclusive lock on the highest echelons of the Democrat Party. But the Clintons' power, to the extent that it is still relevant, has been centered in the halls and vestibules of the national party, very 20th century. It is a model that has served them well for most of their careers, but the political model, at least for the Democrat Party, is changing.
     The new model of political power is embodied by the Obamas. Barack Obama has not only maintained a tight control over national Party politics, but he has developed a community organizing network that spans the country. He will leave office in January 2017 with billions of taxpayer dollars having funded an organizational behemoth that makes Bill and Hillary look like pikers. If Barack Obama wants a couple hundred protesters in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, he can have them virtually in a matter of minutes. with professionally made signage and advanced community organizing strategies.
     With most of the constituencies of the Democrat Party, the Obamas are the future and the Clintons are a distant political memory. The fact that Hillary Clinton is trying to gin up support for her 2016 presidential aspirations by invoking what she and many Democrats see as the glory days of the 1990s, is not going to play well in a Party that is becoming more dominated by the Obama radicals than the Clinton centrists. Even the Washington Democrat power structure has been molded by Barack Obama to suit his purposes. Through two disastrous mid-term elections which saw Democrats cede majorities in both Houses of congress to the hapless Republicans, Barack Obama has cleansed his Party of most moderates that might not be loyal to him and his agenda.
     Barack Obama has already said that he is going to stick around Washington after his term is up. He is not going sightseeing, but will be an active force in Democrat Party politics as well as public policy decisions of the next administration, whether it is Democrat or Republican. And with the national network of community organizations he has built, funded by billions of dollars from the stimulus, son of stimulus, green energy loans to bankrupt companies, etc., it will be a force with which to be reckoned for many decades to come.
    

Secular Utopians On The Left Paved The Way For Religious Utopians In Islam

     I have finally figured out the link between Leftism and radical Islam, it is the quest for Utopia. The former's quest is secular and the latter's is religious. It is also this quest for something that can never exist here on earth that has caused more death of innocent people and more destruction of the pursuit of opportunity than any one thing in human history. Because since Utopia can never exist among the flawed human race there will always be the need in such a system for an authoritarian power to enforce it, thereby destroying the very thing they are trying to achieve.
     People have asked, especially lately, how young girls and young boys who have grown up in Western culture can give it all up to join ISIS in their effort to establish a caliphate in the Middle East. It is easy, the caliphate is seen by many devout Muslims as a religious Utopia, and given that Multiculturalism has destroyed any sense of belonging in their own cultures, these young people want to be part of the promised Utopia of the radical Islamists.
     So one of the primary sacraments of Leftism, i.e. Multiculturalism, has enabled the rise and spread of radical Islam and their desire to institute the caliphate. By preaching that a Utopia exists only by means of a strong central power, and by severing any opportunity that that strong central power can be anything but the caliphate, the Leftist religion has unwittingly married itself to the goals of radical Islam. Young people, who by their very nature hunger for decisive direction, and not finding it in their own severely diluted cultures, are attracted to the extreme tenets of radical Islam.
     The young joining ISIS, just like the rest of the Muslims that do the same, are not joining to lop off the heads of infidels or burn them alive. They look at those activities as a necessary evil to cleansing the world of non-believers and those who are weak in their faith, so that the caliphate can unite the world under the banner of Islam. Very much the way in which the Left sees their agenda as uniting the world under the banner of the Leftist Utopia to which they are committed.
     Many have seen radical Islam as evil, but this characterization oversimplifies the complex issue of not only the extremists' radical ideology in Islam, but in the ethos of Leftism as well. The rise of the religious Utopians in Islam have had the path paved by the secular Utopians of the Left. Prior to the last half century most nations on earth had a strong national culture that kept their youths from feeling disenfranchised from their own countries. Today, the trouble is not with Islam as much as it is with any alternative culture being absent without leave.

Hillary Confirms Private Email Server Was Preemptive Coverup

     Yesterday the world heard from the horses mouth, in this case Hillary Clinton, about a brewing scandal regarding her exclusive use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State. In a nutshell Mrs. Clinton tried to convince anyone who would listen that her use of a private email server was not unique, although no one else in government has ever done it. She said the server was secure because Secret Service agents guarded it at her property, showing she does not understand how computer hacking works. And she said that the public can trust her when she said she culled through the emails on her server and turned over to the State Department any emails that were not personal in nature.
     The last point in particular is illustrative of the Clinton hubris that has imposed itself upon this nation for the last four decades. In my opinion once Mrs. Clinton decided to conduct all of her communications through her own email server, whether personal or in the execution of her job as Secretary of State, she gave up the right to call her private server private. It should have been considered, for all intents and purposes, part of the government network. After all this was not some low level government employee that sent a couple of government emails from his personal email, this is the chief diplomat of the United States sending all her emails from outside the government's protected network.
     Mrs. Clinton's reasoning that it was for convenience sake because she did not want to carry two devices, either betrays her as a liar or an incompetent. It is hard to believe if that was the issue, the same IT guys that setup her email server would not have told the Secretary that it was possible to have multiple email accounts on a single mobile device, thus eliminating the trouble of setting up the server in her home.
     Mrs. Clinton further fed the laugh machine by stating categorically that her server security was never breached. There is no way she could have known this since most hackers, especially those hacking for the purpose of gaining sensitive information, will not announce that the hack has occurred. And as a cabinet-level member of the government, we can almost be assured that Mrs. Clinton's email server guarded by those Secret Service guys, was indeed hacked.
     It is obvious to anyone who has followed the unethical and sordid career of Hillary Clinton that she setup her own email server in her house when she became Secretary of State as a means of preemptive cover-up. She knew that any correspondence of corruption and memos of malice on her private server would be outside the grasp of the Freedom of Information Act. Furthermore, she knew she would have absolute control over that server to release only the information she wanted released. And it is that blatant entitlement to occupy the space above the law that is the real reason this scandal should disqualify her from any position in government, especially President of the United States.

Expecting President Obama To Think On His Own May Be Racist

     George W. Bush shocked and dismayed the media when he was president by saying he did not read the papers because, as President of the United States, by time something is in the news he has already known about it for some period of time. The Bush model of being well informed does not quite work for President Obama, in fact he chooses to allow himself to be an intellectual void until the media comes along and fills him with information. This has been the case with so many scandals in his administration, including the most recent one involving Hillary Clinton's private email server while Secretary of State.
     The president's dependence on the media for relevant information could be the reason he thinks the economy is doing so well. After all, the media was able to convince many Americans that the economy was on the verge of collapse during most of the Bush years when it was thriving, so to are they able to convince those same Americans that the economy is growing and recovering under the Obama economic policies.
     The reason this subterfuge has been so successful is the sound byte mentality of many Americans. This mentality is best illustrated by the unemployment rate. Most Americans, when asked, would say that unemployment is 5.5 percent, what is called the headline number. This number is the result of the real unemployment rate being forced through a grinder of exceptions and exclusions. It is the most misleading statistic because after being tortured and twisted the result is meant to fool the American people and make politicians look economically heroic.
    The recent "decline" in the unemployment rate is based largely on the decline of the Work Force Participation Rate. This statistic counts as a percentage the number of able bodied adults who are working or looking for work. Work force participation has declined from approximately 64% when President Obama was inaugurated to around 62% today. Which means that if the Work Force Participation Rate were the same today as it was in 2008 the unemployment rate would be a staggering 9.7%.
     Considering the all important Work Force Participation Rate would mean that the unemployment rate has gone up by over two percentage points during the Obama presidency. That would explain the most working aged people being unemployed than at any other time in our nation's history. Of course these are numbers and calculations that the main stream media will never report. Maybe that is why the president appears to be so obtuse about the economic hardship his policies have caused many Americans. After all, we can not expect President Obama to think on his own. I am not sure, but I think that expectation may be racist.

The Most Overused Word On Social Media

     Social media has many ills, but one of the positive effects it has had in my life is connecting me to the often times unvarnished opinions of those who claim the sacred ground of the constitution as I do. Some I have met through social media actually promote unconstitutional means to "save" the constitution. Somewhat analogous to when George W. Bush said he had to "abandon free market principles in order to save the free market" during the financial crisis of 2008. Similar in theory to our former president, the extreme Right-Wingers I have met on social media wish to engage in an armed coup against the current president.
     Their purposed actions are based on what they say is blatant evidence that Barack Obama is a traitor. The dictionary definition of traitor is "one who betrays a friend or his country." The definition of betray is "one who treacherously shares his country's information with its enemies." Barack Obama has no doubt been the worst president this nation has seen in modern times. He also has authoritarian tendencies, which motivates him to expand the constitutional authority of his office beyond the bounds of that document's good graces.
     But that word traitor means something specific, and it characterizes a very profound form of treachery. Unfortunately I have witnessed the devaluing of that word by its overuse and over application to everyone who does not share the politically puritanical constraints of the person applying the term. It has been applied to Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority McConnell, two men for whom I have lost respect as a result of their jelly spines, but hardly traitors in any responsible application of that word.
     One of the most insidious outcomes of the Obama presidency, whether it was planned or not, is not only the political divide between Right and Left, but the divide between Right and Right. Mr. Obama has cleverly provoked a segment of the Right to extremism, and has been successful in convicting the entire Right based on the opinions of these "extremists." It has been the misuse of words like traitor, applied to President Obama, et al that has lent credibility to the Lefts claims of extremism against the Right.
     Barry Goldwater, one of the fathers of modern day conservatism, once said that, "Extremism in defense of Liberty is not a vice." But where the extremists on the Right in Senator Goldwater's day were motivated by conservative principles, the modern extremists on the Right are perceived as being motivated by hatred. That is not to say they have abandon conservative principles, only that peppering their political rhetoric with extreme words like traitor, makes them seem to be extreme. Words matter in defining ideas. If one wishes to define conservatism, one must abandon the emotional urge to characterize its opposition with meaningful words that have been mangled into invective for the sake of effect.

States Sell Out Rights For Thirty Pieces Of Silver

     This has been one of those weeks when the flurry of political activity is so great that it is extremely hard to focus on any one thing. From the historic speech by Israel's prime minister and the childish response to it by Democrats, to the revelation that Hillary Clinton had a private email server setup in her house that she used for all her correspondence during her four years as Secretary of State, in violation of the law. From a decision in the Ferguson Missouri case in which the Eric Holder Department of Justice supported officer Darren Wilson's account of the shooting death of Michael Brown, to Speaker of the House John Boehner's complicity with Barack Obama in the violation of the constitution with regards to immigration policy. It certainly has been a dangerous and busy week for our country.
     One of the less talked about issues that arose this week is the results of President Obama's commission on community policing. A commission formed in the looted-out rubble of Ferguson and several other "victim" deaths at the hands of police in New York and Cleveland. The report recommended "suggestions" for local police forces to implement to better serve their communities and be more sensitive to the plight of the populations therein.
     Of course these "suggestions" and "recommendations" are mandatorily enforced by the federal government by threatening the flow of federal tax money to any state that does not implement the commission's findings. Many on the Right have suggested that this is paramount to the Obama administration federalizing police forces across the country in direct violation of the constitution. But I think that over exaggeration for the sake of effect misses the larger point of who is to blame for the federal government having such powers of extortion.
     The federal government has absolutely no authority to tell states how to operate unless it involves inter-state commerce. The reason that the federal government has the power of extortion they do is the states' and voters' fault. States, and the populations within them, have become addicted to federal taxpayer funds. The voters in most states vote for the politicians who promise to bring the most federal tax dollars to their states. And in so doing the states have made themselves subservient to the federal government in matters that are strictly forbidden by the constitution of the federal authority.
     Like my mother always told me, "Whoever supports you, controls you." My brethren on the Right can complain all they want about states' rights being violated by the federal government, but that violation could not have occurred without the complicity of the states. They are the ones who have ceded their constitutional authority to the federal government and betrayed their citizens, all for the thirty pieces of silver from their big government masters.

The Sinking Ship Of Hillary Clinton

     This week's revelation that Hillary Clinton broke federal law by using a private email address during her tenure as Secretary of State, has riled up speculation as to whether this scandal will sink the SS Hillary For President. Even Democrats like former Obama administration press secretary, Robert Gibbs, have intimated that the practice of any federal employee, let alone a cabinet member, keeping a private email server in their home and using if for official correspondence, is highly unusual.
     As I have stated prior on this blog I do not think Hillary Clinton will be the Democrat nominee in 2016, whether eamailgate has legs or not. My reason is simple: she is a lousy candidate. She has never had to run for any position in government she has ever held except Senator of New York, which was a gift to her from the Democrat Party for turning a blind eye to her husband's extra-curricular activities.
     Her un-electability is the reason that Democrat Party titans jumped on the Barack Obama bandwagon in 2008. It was of course the impetus for the now famous meeting between Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton where the latter was trying to convince the former to switch his support from Barack to Hillary. Bill Clinton in frustration finally said to Senator Kennedy, "Look Ted, you and I both know that a few years ago this guy would have been bringing us our coffee."
     Hillary Clinton's current email scandal, which after all was leaked by someone in the administration to the Democrat propagandists at the New York Times, is the Democrat Party's way of saying, "Thanks, but no thanks Hillary." They have continued to realize, as Ted Kennedy, et al did in 2008 that Hillary Clinton is not the skilled, polished, and appealing politician that her husband is. She is sure to lose to whomever the Republicans proffer against her.
     The flagrant disregard for the law exhibited by Hillary Clinton in the commission of emailgate has more to do with her inherent dishonesty as a human being, as opposed to any influence of the Obama administration. After all Barack Obama was barely a teenager when Hillary Clinton was being fired from the Watergate commission for ethics violations, lying, and law breaking. She had planned from the start on engaging in activity outside the course of law and common decency, it was why her email server was installed before she was even confirmed as Secretary of State.
     Hillary Clinton will survive emailgate, there will always be enough slobbering Clinton devotees to keep her in pant suits (though apparently not enough to buy copies of her book to cover her advance). But for those Democrats who wish for a Hillary run for the president, believe me your party is better off with someone else. And for all those Republicans who would rejoice in the dashing of a Hillary presidential campaign, be careful what you wish for, she may have been the easiest win for Republicans since Walter Mondale.

Benjamin Netanyahu: The Real Deal

     If one thing dominated Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech before a joint session of congress yesterday it was his unwavering love, not only for his own country of Israel, but for the United States of America. Even prior to Rudy Giuliani's recent comments about President Obama not loving America, there have been doubts among many in this country as to whether he does or not. I do not know the answer to that question, it is not for me to judge what is in any man's heart. One thing is clear though, Benjamin Netanyahu expressed more positive emotion for America in one speech than the current president has expressed in six years.
     The prime minister did what I wish this nation's politicians could do, express the facts without personal animus. He left not one shred of negativity in the well of the House chamber for anyone except Iran. He praised President Obama, Harry Reid, Republicans, and Democrats. He did a better job of weaving together the political factions of this country into a tapestry of resolve against a common enemy than anyone has ever done.
     The stark difference of the mature and reasoned words of a true leader like Benjamin Netanyahu, and the petulant childlike response to his words by Barack Obama, reminded me of the difference between gallery art and refrigerator art. President Obama could not even be gracious in the face of an ally's concerns just because he saw those concerns as a personal attack against the will and brilliance of Barack Obama.
     The antipathy towards Prime Minister Netanyahu exhibited by President Obama over the last six years is palatable. The reason is a matter of ideology, the Leftist ideology of Barack Obama. It is an ideology that sees evil in the existence of man as he relates to his environment, but not the evil that lurks in the hearts of real enemies. It is an ideology which informs its votaries that it is incumbent upon them to hate those who confront evil men, not the evil men themselves. It is an ideology that proffers the naïve notion that the words of smart, educated people will somehow trump the evil intentions of radical zealots.
     Mr. Netanyahu's speech was about the danger of a nuclear Iran, and how the deal currently being negotiated will ensure that status as reality in the next ten years. Benjamin Netanyahu's vision extends not only to the next ten years, but the next several generations. He knows that the responsibility of a world leader is not only to the current political winds, but to those generations to follow whose freedom, happiness, and prosperity depend on current challenges being met by men of rectitude and strength, not simply avoided and pushed down the road by paper men lacking depth. 
    

Netanyahu Comes As A Fire Bell In The Night

     Today is the day that Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks before the United States congress in a desperate attempt to sway the American political system away from the catastrophic deal that the Obama administration seems intent on making with Iran. The prime minister has a herculean task before him, having to explain why a nuclear-tipped Iran is a threat not only to the Middle East, but the United States, without being too critical of President Obama.
     One concept that is sure to reside in the context of Mr. Netanyahu's speech is clarity. Unambiguous, morally clear, and unapologetic clarity. The kind of clarity for which this nation has hungered, but has been left wanting for the last six plus years. The kind of clarity that tells evil it will be banished even if it requires every drop of breath that is domiciled in the lungs of liberty and justice. The kind of clarity that is not afraid of the alternative to the bad deal that Barack Obama and John Kerry seem intent on making with the radical Islamists that control Iran.
     The Obama administration has treated its "negotiations" with Iran as the Left treats all their negotiations with evil aggressors, with conflict resolution techniques that are not appropriate for the school yard, let alone international politics. Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama, through recent comments, seem to be under the absurd assumption that a bad deal with Iran is better than no deal at all.
     As President Obama, as well as the entire Left, is so want to do, creates a false choice between a bad deal and war, many on the Right have suggested that a more extreme solution than a bad deal and less extreme one than war does exist. Severe sanctions would be that alternative, especially with oil prices at a multi-year low, the sanctions against Iran would never have more teeth than now. But just as the community organizer in chief has shown to be his modus operandi, any opponents to his deal with Iran currently in the works are characterized as war-mongers.
     Prime Minister Netanyahu has his work cut out for him in exposing President Obama's negotiations as a permission slip for Iran to develop nuclear weapons in the future. He will also need to gently illuminate the naïveté of the Obama administration in thinking that if they negotiate in good faith so will our enemies.
     There is no better friend in the Middle East, or possibly in the world, that the United States has than Israel. And although that friendship will have laid the foundation of Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech today, he comes as a fire bell in the night, as a harbinger of what could become of ignorance and naïveté. Bibi Netanyahu comes as Churchill, not Chamberlain, as Ronald Regan not Jimmy Carter, and as Pope John Paul II not Pope Francis. Let people of all good faith wish him well and pray for his success.