Federal Injunction Gives Cover To Weak-Kneed Republicans

     So a federal court in Texas has issued a temporary injunction against President Obama's constitutionally-challenged amnesty executive order. And once again some on the Right have been placated by legalese that means very little. My theory is that the Texas court issued the injunction, not to stop President Obama, but to give cover to weak-kneed Republicans who are afraid of standing up for what is right if it involves "shutting down" part of the federal behemoth, namely the Department of Homeland Security.
     For at least the last four years that they have been able to, the Republicans have refused to employ one of the most effective tools available to them, the power of the purse. And before all those moderates out there begin to sing the same old sad song about how government shutdowns only hurt Republicans, the refusal to leave government shutdown on the table as a bargaining chip neuters any attempt to mitigate the destructive policies of this president.
     Besides the Republicans receiving cover from the Texas court, there really is no benefit to the injunction issued. President Obama has a history of disobeying orders by federal judges. Remember the two injunctions against his moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP spill? In that case the administration was even caught red-handed cutting and pasting scientists names to a completely different report than the one they wrote in protest of the president's moratorium.
     And then there was the time when a federal judge issued an injunction to prevent implementation of ObamaCare, which the president also ignored. The injunction was before Chief Justice Roberts twisted himself, and the law, into a pretzel in order to pass constitutional muster, but it is illustrative of Barack Obama's disdain for any Rule of Law that negatively affects his agenda for a "New America."
     So now we have arrived at yet another showdown between President Obama and the Rule of Law. Some on the Right have been strangely mollified by the federal injunction issued yesterday, even though it will be used for toilet paper by the administration currently occupying the White House. But Republicans in congress can use the federal order as a reason to once again do nothing and ensure the continuity of the Leftist domination of the "People's Government."

Texas Sharia Law And The Easily Escalated

     In the high charged, 24/7 information overloaded environment which technology and political evangelism have created in this country, sometimes those on both sides of the aisle cut the tethers of reason which keep human emotions in check. The latest of these tethers comes out of Texas where some on the unhinged Right have convinced their brethren across the country that Sharia Law is coming to every town and hamlet for the purpose of transforming the United States of America from a Christian nation into an Islamic one.
     Let me state for the record that I think radical Islam is a danger to peace, freedom, and the tenets of Liberty enshrined by the founders of this country in its originating documents. But is what is being suggested in Texas anathema to those values, or just a legitimate practice of them? The fact is that the Islamic Tribunal suggesting that Sharia Law be allowed in Texas only applies to willing Muslims in the course of practicing their religion. And they have said that civil U.S. law will take precedence.
     Now of course the solicitude for the American justice system by Mujahed Bakhach, a member of the Islamic Tribunal in Texas, could be just a subterfuge practiced in order to get Sharia Law's foot in the door of the United States justice system. After all, the tribunal's function sounds fairly innocuous; settling disputes among its members, including the practice of Khula, which is when a woman initiates a divorce against her husband.
     Many religious faiths in America have tribunals and courts to mete out the justice of their faith's religious tenets on their congregants. The Catholic church has its council of bishops and even requires votaries of the faith in other countries to follow the edicts of a Pope who is domiciled in Rome, Italy. But always the precepts of any faith's system of justice can not directly challenge the laws of the United States' constitution.
     Many of the easily escalated on the Right have recently been trying to convince others that if the Texas Islamic Tribunal is allowed to engage in the practice of their religion in the same manner other faiths have done in this country since its founding, they will somehow destroy our form of constitutional government and we will all end up slaves of radical Islam.
     We should approach with caution anything which threatens the natural laws which originate the rights of all human beings, and which were outlined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Federalist Papers. But in so doing we should not restrict those rights for any segment of the population, no matter their faith. The legitimate practice of one faith in limitation by civil law is a limitation on all faiths and therefore an affront to the very values and principles in which we believe and hold dear.    

No, No, No To Re-Authorization

     President Obama's request for war re-authorization is his best imitation of a political tight-rope walker. He must at least act as though he wishes to destroy, degrade, deflate, or denigrate ISIS, so as to appear to the vast majority of Americans like he is protecting the homeland. On the other hand, his request is laced with so many restrictions, one would be hard pressed to see it as anything but an obligatory Democrat attempt to look tough on America's enemies, that is if he even admits that we have enemies.
     The president's telegraphy is laced with the seeds of failure. With its timetables, boundaries,  and troop limits, it is analogous to the head coach of a football team making a pre-Super Bowl announcement that during the game his players will only run the ball and never pass and will not traverse the fifty yard line. But still somehow the coach brags that his team will annihilate their opponent.
     It is hard to believe that it was only a year or so ago that President Obama called ISIS the junior varsity team. And yet this JV team has wreaked havoc in the Middle East and been able to recruit fighters, kidnap western hostages, and share video of their executions with the world, almost entirely at will. This JV team has taken control of oil fields and use the wealth therein to supply their terrorist network with almost unlimited funding. This JV team has caused the U.S. victory that was Iraq to be  transformed into defeat like some sadistic magician's trick.
     It has been a busy 6 years for Barack Obama, transforming the Middle East from tentative unrest to complete and utter chaos. But then chaos is the watch word of a community agitator like our president, whether it is racial and class division domestically, or the rise of radical Islam halfway around the world. Chaos, either directly created by Barack Obama or allowed to happen under his watch, is the main ingredient needed for the poisonous stew of big government.
     For any intellectually honest person, the pre-Barack Obama Middle East was much more stable and peaceful than it is now. Iraq, pre-ISIS, was not perfect but was well on its way to peace and self-governance. Egypt under Mubarak was at least a stable U.S. ally, not a country that may erupt into chaos at any moment and oust the seemingly pro-Western government. Libya under Kaddafi's control had been declawed and was subdued. Yemen was not a tourist location, but it also was not a place where the U.S. had to close its embassy either. And pre-Obama Iran was against the ropes and getting very close to abandoning its nuclear ambitions.
     I am not opposed to the president asking congress for re-authorization of war powers, as long as they will be used to their fullest to defeat, destroy, and decimate an enemy called radical Islam. But if this authorization is the tight rope upon which Barack Obama will perform his political dance theatrics, then I say no, no, no.      

What Is Next After ObamaCare?

     Last night I made my annual pilgrimage to my accountant to file my taxes. There was the normal perennial items; the W-2s, the bank statement for interest on my savings account, and the accounting of the small taxable stock trading account with which I play. But this year in addition to those normal items of ritual there was the levying of a penalty by the federal government against me for not buying the commercial product of a health care insurance plan.
     My accountant referred to the penalty as a fine levied by the government against me for staying healthy the entire year. Eerily similar to something I would have read in a George Orwell or Aldous Huxley book in high school. My accountant said I could go on the exchange and find a bronze plan (the absolute minimum of coverage) for a monthly premium equal to what I paid for my penalty for the full year. But to me coverage is not the point.
     I never would have thought back in the 1970s when I was in high school reading those tomes of terror about out-of-control statist governments that that would be the United States in just one generation. My anger, disappointment, and resentment is not focused on the Leftists in congress that passed this law which grants the federal government unlimited power over the lives of the citizens in this country, but the opposition Party which have acquiesced and accepted it as something they must revise and improve.   
     The Republicans won control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-term elections, and control of many state legislatures, based solely on the fact that they promised to do everything they could to rid the nation of the beast, not simply "change it and make it better." Apparently the best they could do was to pass 57 repeals of the legislation they knew were not going to make it to the floor of the Senate, let alone to the desk of the president where they were sure to meet with a presidential veto.
     Then came a warrior for Liberty in the person of Ted Cruz, who took the last stand against the unconstitutional law in October 2013. Senator Cruz was supported by only a few of his Republican brethren, the rest killed his effort to defund the ObamaCare law because...well they always run like scared little rabbits at the mention of a government shutdown. Or maybe there was something else happening in that situation.
     Mr. Cruz's filibuster to defund was actually working. Polls showed that Americans were beginning to support him and his effort, and even Barack Obama had moved from a posture of  "There will be no negotiation on this issue," to "I would be willing to sit down and talk with Republicans."  The moderates in the Republican Party used the mollifying sentiment of "ObamaCare will die of its own weight once the complicated law is fully implemented." A sentiment that was designed to forestall further action against it until the opiate of subsidies addicted a large swathe of the American public.
     The moderate Republicans have accepted the law because they, like their Democrat comrades, are sentinels of big government and use the empty promise of making the law more consistent with free market principles to hang onto their positions of power. After all, that is what the new health care law is about, empowering government, and deflating the citizen. As I sat in my accountant's office and reveled in the light of the intellectually superior in government who were confiscating my money because I refused to buy a particular product, I wondered, "What next?" Is the government going to force me to buy an electric car, and fine me if I refuse?  

Marijuana: Opiate Of The Asses

     Anyone who has not been stoned to the bejesus over the last 20 years realizes that potheads, and the politicians who benefit from a stoned electorate, have been very successful in decriminalizing marijuana in the minds of the many Americans who do not use it. In fact, recent polling has found that a majority of Americans see marijuana as no more harmful than alcohol, and that it should be legalized. That may have been true 30 years ago, I doubt most of those none-users would support legalization if they realized that today's marijuana contains 8 times the amount of THC, the chemical that is responsible for the drug's effect and addictive nature, than marijuana of a generation ago.
     The potheads, and their political masters, have pointed to Colorado's recent legalization as a positive experience for the taxpayers of that state due to the increase tax dollars brought into its treasury. Of course they conveniently ignore the very real statistics from the state's law enforcement bureaus, which show substantial increases in marijuana-related crimes and deaths. Also the state of Colorado has seen a thirty percent rise in the number of 12-17 year olds that smoke marijuana since its legalization.
     The comparison of marijuana to alcohol has always befuddled me. Mainly because if trying to deflect criticism of marijuana by veering into the evils of alcohol is the primary argument from the pro-pot crowd, it shows the weakness of their argument. Even if everything they say about alcohol is true, so what! Does that mean we as a society should legalize yet another substance just as harmful? The fact is that even without legalization, according to the American Psychological Association, there are more teens in rehab in the United States for marijuana addiction than for all other drugs combined. Anyone think legalization is going to decrease that number?
     The potheads have advanced the specious argument that for some patients suffering from pain, smoking marijuana is the only way on earth they can achieve some kind of relief. Smoking marijuana as opposed to getting the same benefits from THC in pill form from the drug Marinol, is like ramming your head into a wall to alleviate a headache. And well over 70% of recipients for medical marijuana in California are males between the ages of 18-25. The vast majority of which suffer from "back problems."
     University studies have continually shown a link between regular marijuana use (which can be defined as at least one time a week) and depression, anxiety, lung disease, heart disease, kidney disease, lack of motivation, and an inability to set and achieve goals. Recently it has also been discovered that use of marijuana can reduce a user's IQ by a full 8 points. There is only one reason that political leaders, mostly on the Left, are supporting legalization of this harmful substance, i.e. it is easier to extract honey from a beehive when the inhabitants are under the influence of smoke. And it is easier to extract freedoms from Americans when a substantial portion are stoned and docile, not to mention made more dependent on government by this "innocuous" drug.
    

Williams A Piker When It Comes To Media Lies

     I have recently become disappointed with my so-called conservative brethren in talk radio and elsewhere. It seems that some on the Right have fallen for the distraction of the tabloid-like story about, surprise, surprise, a member of the mainstream media lying. What a shocker! The fact that anyone who has been even half aware over the last twenty years thinks that it is shocking, and worthy of prattling on about for a week, when a member of the media embellishes and makes themselves part of the news, is shocking in and of itself.
     The Lie(s) told by NBC News anchor Brian Williams is one of those big yawn moments, even for anyone who may be left in this country foolish enough to believe that the media has even a scintilla of integrity and honesty.  Because even if one does belong to this unfortunate group, the lie(s) told by Williams do not affect the average American in the least. It did not cause new legislation to be passed through congress based on it. And it did not endanger the men and women of the military serving abroad.
     Mr. Williams ego-driven fallaciousness was intended only to increase his stature among his ignorant viewers with regards to his bravery, compassion, and ability to keep his head under fire. No one was hurt, excepting Williams himself, and even that is not yet for sure. Unlike other lies told by the main stream media of the past.
     There was of course the lie admitted to by Washington Post editor during the Watergate scandal, Ben Bradlee, who said years later that they knowingly printed stories they knew were untrue just to make a better case against Richard Nixon. Dan Rather, years after Ben Bradlee's admission, defended the practice of deception engaged by the Post during their Watergate reporting by saying, "This was a corrupt administration and we had to use any means we could to bring it down." Gee, and I thought the media's responsibility was to report the news, not "take down" administrations they, in all their intellectual glory, deem corrupt.
     The above media lie actually greatly affected world affairs because it lead to the resignation of Richard Nixon and the Democrats taking control of the congress, which they promptly used to go back on their own government's word to South Vietnam. Which lead to the previously defeated communist North overrunning the South and millions of dying who would have otherwise not died.
     And of course who could forget the years of lies engaged in by CNN news at the behest of Saddam Hussein during the 1990s. The editor of CNN news at the time, Eason Jordan, admitted they were mouth pieces for the Hussein regime, which involved broadcasting stories they knew were untrue. Mr. Jordon glibly said they engaged in this purposeful deception in order to keep their Bagdad bureau open. This deception enabled Saddam to forestall action by the "world community" and lead to much more bloodshed than would have been necessary.
     So in the grand scheme of media lies, Brian Williams is a piker, and his lie is not worth much more than a quick mention and moving on from it. I am still waiting for anyone on the Left or the Right to mention the other media lies I have mentioned, which affected historical events and lead to more instability in the world.

How The Team Culture Devalues The Individual

     Most people, especially those that are politically aware on the Right, have seen the cancer that is Leftism infect the healthy body of corporate America. The politicization of the work place has reared its ugly head with the imposition of the chains of political correctness, from whitewashing humor to interfering with the natural male/female relationship. The latter has revealed a growing dichotomy over the last few decades between a woman's "right" to engage in ever more salacious fashions, and her "right" not to have males (who, surprise, surprise are visually fixated beings) comment on said attire.
     One of the more insidious Leftist diseases to infect the workplace and cause a devaluing of workers is the Team Culture. I have nothing against teamwork to achieve a common goal. But corporate America, advised by high paid consultants with their heads in the cloud of Leftism, have convinced American workers that somehow their worth must be sacrificed to the gods of the Team Culture.
     I have experienced the Team Culture first hand. It is a culture that not only says individual workers are worth less, but any complaint about lower compensation or undefined job responsibilities is met with the accusation, "You are not being a team player." Team work is all fine and good, but no one attends work to be on a team, they do it to make money for themselves and their families. The seeds of Marxism have been firmly planted in the tainted soil of the Team Culture.
     It is no surprise that over the last few decades wages have stagnated while expectations placed on workers have increased significantly. This is all explained by the corporate consultants who sight studies purporting that American workers are more concerned with feeling appreciated and part of a team than they are with higher compensation. Balderdash! To the extent that statement is true, workers have been made to think if they feel differently they are somehow defective. It is how the Left pushes their agenda in every aspect of American life, i.e. by using the innate desire in humans to be part of the group to intimidate them into accepting the shackles of Leftism which aim to replace individualism with the collective.
     Teamwork is just one more concept that the Left has polluted with a corrupt ideology in order to impose their control. It is an imposition that has crept its way so slowly and innocuously into the corporate culture that it is hardly noticed, or it is hailed as having created a more "collaborative" workplace. Meanwhile, the high paid corporate masters and their high paid corporate consultants are grinning all the way to the bank having pulled the wool of self-depreciation over the eyes of corporate workers.