Carlos the Chameleon

Congressman Carlos Curbelo can change back and forth from conservative red to liberal blue with each political breeze that blows. Now he is joining the fully outed establishment Republicans by saying he will not support Donald Trump.

In case you are still wondering exactly who and what are establishment Republicans, it has now become exceedingly clear: those who refuse to give their support to Donald Trump. Lindsay Graham, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Jeb Bush among the politicians, and George Will, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer among the conservative pundits. All would apparently prefer to see Hillary Clinton become President.

Today they are joined in their petulance by my ‘rino’ Congressman Carlos Curbelo. It is hard to imagine what goes through the mind of someone who becomes driven by extreme political ambition. Curbelo ran as a conservative and pulled off a major upset of a sitting liberal Democrat. No sooner was he elected than he started sounding just like the man he had defeated.

Curbelo’s first action in Congress was to give the Spanish language response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address. Mimicking our Senator Marco Rubio, he called for amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens who had violated our immigration laws and sneaked into America. Despite being a large donor to his campaign, when I wrote to the Congressman requesting an English transcript of his speech, I received no response.

The Congressman then followed up by immediately running campaign ads for the next election. The ads that ran in the Florida Keys sounded if they had been taken directly from his Democrat predecessor’s playbook: Stop drilling for oil. Fight global warming. And my favorite, Cross the aisle and work with the opposition.

Now he has made good on his promise to cross the aisle, by teaming with Democratic politicians to work on non-existent global warming. How insulated from reality must a politician be, to think that he is making a smart move by getting in bed with liberal ideologues desperate for a campaign issue? Didn’t he happen to notice that Marco Rubio destroyed his entire career by doing the same thing on illegal immigration?

Deciding to join the Republican turncoats who refuse to support Donald Trump, was an equally brilliant move. To make matters even worse, he has proposed the nutty idea that Trump may be a ‘phantom Republican’ put up by the Democrats to destroy the Republican Party. Congressman, if you want to see a phantom Republican, look in the mirror!

In fact, I don’t know whether the Congressman has changed from red to blue because he is really a liberal, or has just made a political calculation that his district is more likely to re-elect him if he moves to the left. Whatever the reason, he is alienating his conservative base while trying to appeal to liberals who will always vote for the Democrat, no matter what.

As a practical matter, it is too late to find a conservative challenger for this election. In the same way that I am forced to support Trump, I will still vote for Curbelo. It is terribly disappointing at this critical juncture in our nation’s history, that we are unable to come up with Ronald Reagan type conservatives to lead us. However, unlike Curbelo’s dopey refusal to support Trump, I am being realistic, and in both cases accepting the lesser of two evils.

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Collegiate Nonsense

With all the foolishness that goes on in colleges these days, it’s hard to pick out the most ridiculous incident. In fact, what is happening at the University of Wisconsin is so absurd that I’m not totally sure it isn’t a parody from Saturday Night Live.

Apparently some really ‘sick’ student has been chalk writing hate messages on the sidewalks throughout the campus. Vicious catch phrases like vote Trump, all lives matter, and stop illegal immigration, have sent certain ‘communities’ within the university into extreme sensitivity shock. Some of the tender little rosebuds were so appalled that they were in need of therapy after happening upon the repulsive “micro-aggressions.”

The University swiftly mobilized its Hate Response Team (SNL?) to investigate, and bring comfort to the traumatized students. A message from the HRT said, “While we respect peoples’ right to express their opinions, we also recognize that some communities on campus experience these messages as discriminatory or hostile. If you experience any bigotry on or off campus, please turn to trusted friends and/or campus resources for support. Again, please remember that members of our Hate Response Team are here to support the individual and collective impacted by hate/bias and to stand up against all forms of oppression.”

Aww, how comforting! It is so nice to know that a Hate Response Team is on duty to protect our precious little babies from abhorrent bigots who might disagree with them. One can only imagine what it must do to their delicate psyches to have someone insinuate they might be wrong about certain things.

I mean, what next? If they allow this kind of hateful rhetoric to go unpunished, the next thing you know they might start bringing opposing opinions right into the classroom! That could destroy the whole purpose of our university system, which is to indoctrinate our fragile millennials into the glories of socialism – with a little ‘bad America’ and ‘hateful Christians’ thrown in on the side.

Across the nation, students are bullying spineless college administrators with their inane liberal demands. Conservatives are mocked and refused the right to speak, Christians are banned from campuses, the most innocent actions are deemed hate speech, and racial stereotyping can be anything from sporting dreadlocks to wearing a sombrero. Nothing the intolerant students say or do, is ever fatuous enough to motivate trembling professors to stand up for the Constitution and common sense.

How we ask, did these kids become like this? Who are the parents that ingrained in them such a sense of entitlement and superiority? There seems to be a study of everything these days, I wonder if one can tell us what kind of families these spoiled rotten children came from? Without question, this crop of attention starved elitist children, didn’t come from conservative, private sector families.

Certainly pre-college educators have a huge share of the blame, though the relentless breakdown in our culture has pretty much forced them to the left. In particular, the complete breakdown in classroom discipline has put the students in control of the schools. The respect that was demanded for the authority of a teacher no longer exists. Influenced by the cultural deterioration and our liberal media, parents now routinely undermine teachers by taking the side of their unruly children, and attempting to discipline any minority student can bring an instant charge of racism for the hapless educator.

Scarier still, the budding left-wing fascists whining about on our campuses, will be the college professors of tomorrow. The pot crazed hippies and LSD trippers of yesterday that have taken over our higher education system, are in charge of picking professors and administrators for the next generation. Worse, with the liberal legal community hampering every attempt to fix a broken system, it is highly improbable that Trump or anyone else can do anything about it.

Our education system is as much a part of the establishment as the Washington politicians, the federal bureaucracy, and the liberal media. They all will fight to the death to maintain their positions of privilege in our society. With our corrupted legal system firmly behind them, it’s hard to imagine the direction of America changing without some form of peaceful anarchy by the working majority.

I have never been a fan of Donald Trump, and remain that way even as he has won the nomination. Yet, there is not a single other person who has the potential to upset the establishment applecart. I don’t know what other choice we have as Americans, except to support Trump for President and pray for the best.

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Letter to Congressman Curbelo

Copy of letter sent to Congressman Carlos Curbelo – no response

 

Dear Congressman Curbelo, 3/5/2016

A little over a year ago, I supported you as a conservative Republican running against Congressman Joe Garcia, a liberal Democrat and supporter of President Obama’s campaign to ‘fundamentally change America’.

Then like so many others, you went off to Washington and seemed to lose your way. Ever since being elected, you appear focused on getting re-elected. Worse, your campaign ads which have been playing in Key West practically since the day you were elected, are indistinguishable from those Joe Garcia was running.

I did not contribute to your campaign and help deliver votes, so you could fight non-existent, man-made global warming. I did not help you get elected so you could snuggle up to liberals with ‘no offshore drilling’ rhetoric. I did not support you so you could deliver tens of millions of law-breaking, job-taking, welfare dependent, illegal aliens to the Democrat Party. And I definitely did not want you in office so you could ‘cross the aisle’ and work with the same Democrats who decimated our country and our culture, while demanding total government control over every aspect of our lives.

I hope you are taking a hard look at the contempt Americans are showing towards our elected leaders in these presidential primaries. Perhaps you think this anti-establishment mood will pass, and everything will return to ‘business as usual’ after the election. If it does, you may be safe for many years. If it doesn’t, this may be the last election you get a free pass while being viewed as an ‘establishment’ Republican.

Donald Trump is not leading because he is a nice guy, a smart guy, or even a conservative. It is his bold, unapologetic leadership in fighting the left-wing agenda. Maybe you think you have been working quietly towards that end yourself, but I assure you that is not the way you are viewed by the conservatives who elected you.

Senator Rubio would be a shoo-in for the nomination had he sided with Americans and the rule of law, instead of supporting amnesty for tens of millions of new Democrat voters. Like gay marriage, amnesty is one of those issues that conservative politicians become anesthetized to by the media and liberal rhetoric, and then wonder why they lost an election.

Being a freshman legislator, you are certainly allowed some slack for not making foolish statements while you learn how to be most effective. However, a lot of us Key West conservatives worked pretty hard – in a bastion of liberalism by the way – to get you elected. The people you are appealing to with your vaporous campaign ads will vote for the Democrat no matter what, while at the same time you alienate your strongest supporters.

Do not underestimate or trivialize the voter rebellion that is happening in America today. There are millions of frustrated citizens like me, who want a radical change in the governance of our country. In the big picture I am not a shaker and mover, and have never been any kind of political activist, but I am typical of the long silent Republican base that is now making itself heard.

As the owner of a sixty three year old fish house in Key West, I have had many years of experience with both state and federal fishing bureaucracies. With respect to my industry, I have been an activist in fighting excessive government control, even launching a website <fishingforaliving.com>, to publish commentary on fishery issues.

Today, I find myself so concerned for the future of my country, that I quit writing about fishery issues and have dedicated my blog to political commentary. Venting my feelings in writing is little more than my own personal relief valve, yet everywhere I go in liberal Key West, people quietly thank me for voicing my politically incorrect views. Most then assure me that they would speak out themselves if they weren’t in such a sensitive position with their particular jobs, families, or social contacts.

If I sound very critical, it is only because I think you need honesty from your supporters and not the patronizing that always comes to elected leaders. God willing we get Congress and the presidency, you will have two years to undo as much of the Obama disaster as possible. I hope you and your colleagues will be willing to stand up and take the media heat that will surely come.

Sincerely,

Peter M. Bacle
Stock Island Lobster Co.

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Trump Should Go

Donald Trump has been the best thing to happen during this endless campaign for the presidency. He has brought issues into the campaign that would never have been discussed without him, and awakened a seething mass of voters who are fed up with business as usual from their rulers. But as much good as he has done up to this point, he should not be President.

Trump says all the things the silent majority wants to hear. Though a pampered billionaire, he shrewdly taps into the frustrations of average citizens, and so far refuses to bow to political correctness. As an ordinary businessman and citizen, I have longed for another Ronald Reagan who champions conservative values, and consistently bucks the Washington establishment.

The difference is that Donald Trump has no conservative values. He is a man of opportunity and advantage, and he will be as unpredictable as President as he is being a candidate. Sorry Donald, I can overlook my disagreements with you on many issues, but I want to know what to expect out of the person I vote for, once he is President.

In truth, I don’t think a single person can predict what Trump will do on any issue. Voting for him would be a lot like voting for Obama in 2008: what the candidate says is not what the President does. Like Obama, the real candidate is not defined by his campaign rhetoric, but by his past.

From not being raised to love this country, to attending a radical, hate America church for twenty years, Obama’s books and actions told us exactly what we would get in a President. He clearly said he intended to redistribute the wealth, kneel to our enemies, change the social fabric, and bust the budget. Yet people deluded themselves into believing his promise to ‘fundamentally transform America’ was well intentioned, and sucked up the meaningless slogan of hope and change.

Trump is also clearly defined by his past. Whereas Obama is a true left-wing ideologue, Trump is a true man of no convictions. His past is an endless stream of position changes. From marriage to immigration, it is impossible to tell what the man truly believes. At any given time he may unapologetically reverse his position, or even stand on both sides of a given issue.

Donald Trump is about The Art of the Deal. In the same way that Obama forewarned Americans about his intentions with his books, so has Trump’s book let us in on what kind of a president he would be. Whatever needs to be done to close the deal is considered fair play, and ethics, principles, and moral values are strictly for losers.

It’s not that Trump is a bad person, it’s just that he is what he is: A man who sees nothing wrong with changing his mind… A man who will contribute to any politician if they can help him… A man who will patronize supporters he sees as inferiors, with childish personal attacks on his opponents…A man who divides people into winners and losers, and like Obama, a man who truly believes he is the chosen one to turn America around.

There is something very satisfying about Trump giving his ‘New York salute’ to the media, establishment Republicans, Democrats, and political correctness. He has especially turned the table on liberals, and treated them to a campaign of hypocrisy without apology, which is exactly what Democrats have done for the past forty years.

As for the presidency, Donald Trump is the mystery man. I feel like I know what we get with every other candidate, but on any given issue he might change his mind in a heartbeat. Still, if given the nomination I will just have to support him with crossed fingers.

Nothing could ever make me support Hillary. We all know exactly what we get with her – another four years of Obama. Republicans who say they will vote for Hillary rather than Trump are foolish, and allowing their personal pique to come before the welfare of America. None of the Republican candidates would be as bad as a Clinton presidency.

Nevertheless, I am still hoping for a Ted Cruz nomination. It is not that I think he even remotely fulfills my desire for another Reagan, but he has proven by his actions that he is a conservative who will stand up to the ‘business as usual’ establishment. At this point it is probably the best we can hope for.

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The Showdown Gets Closer

For all those innocent, naïve citizens who thought legalizing gay marriage would settle the Constitutional gender issue once and for all, wake up and check out the cultural disintegration. The entire radical gay agenda is nothing less than a war against Christianity and the United States Constitution.

So you thought, ‘well two men marrying and raising children is a little weird, but to each his own, and it doesn’t affect me anyway. I mean, what the Heck! I don’t have anything against gays, and I definitely don’t think they should be discriminated against’. So you sit back quietly while the cultural war swirls around you, because so far you haven’t been directly affected.

In truth, if religious liberty and your Christian values mean anything to you, then it is now or never to stand up for the Constitution. Your religious freedom is rapidly being eroded, and the anti-American crowd that is working feverishly to destroy traditional American values, will stop at nothing to invalidate our Constitutional liberties. The left-wing fascists are experts at character assassination, and count on the average person’s fear of confrontation to allow them to continue unhampered in their destructive war on individual liberty.

Let us agree that the average gay person would probably just like to go on quietly with their life, just like the rest of us. In fact, undoubtedly 99% of all Americans would just like to be left alone to live their own life the way they choose. Unfortunately there is a minority element of power-crazed fascists now in control of public policy, led by President Obama and a handful of powerful judges who are exercising tyrranical authority over all Americans.

Homosexuals are only two percent of the population, and the radical element among them even smaller, yet they managed to fundamentally change six thousand years of marriage tradition. Now three hundred and fifty millions Americans are supposed to allow some infinitesimally smaller minority called ‘transgenders’, to turn common sense on its head. In the surreal new world of ‘sexual diversity’ we are supposed to take psychologically troubled people, and allow them into bathrooms and school showers with our children, all the while pretending that it is somehow fair and normal.

If you are now thinking we should just humor them, and put this gender thing behind us, think again. I read recently that this lunatic fringe has identified seventeen distinct gender identities. Maybe by now it is fifty or even a hundred. The average person simply does not have a twisted enough mind to predict where all this is heading. Suffice to say that if a stop is not put on these nutcases, they will someday be forcing all of us to be participants in their bizarre world. Do not be fooled! Nothing less than total capitulation on every issue will ever satisfy them.

Each day we see the war on cultural and religious values become more visible and intense. Those who don’t see it for what it is, are simply unwilling to look. Refusing to turn around, will not make the monster behind you disappear. Once these Constitutional freedoms are taken from us, they will never exist again, and America will go the sad way of every republic throughout history.

Our Constitution has been rendered so powerless by the President and Supreme Court, that the states themselves are forced to pass laws to protect the religious liberty of their citizens. The Georgia and North Carolina legislatures passed simple laws saying pastors could not be forced to perform same-sex marriages, and people must use rest rooms according to their birth sex. The fascists would have none of this. The laws represent such common sense that there shouldn’t even be a necessity for them, but the ‘hate America crowd’ went into their usual attack mode.

The left-wing fascists immediately started threatening the states with their insane howling of discrimination, so that CEO’s, assorted sports puppets, media celebrities without a real cause, and establishment creeps of all kinds, cowered before the loony rhetoric of the anti-Constitutional crowd. Bowing to threats of almighty dollars being pulled from his state, the cowardly governor of Georgia crawled under the covers and vetoed the bill, while the governor of North Carolina stood firm and signed the bill.

The battle for liberty is being waged each day, and so far it has been a rout. The entire politically correct mob, takes the anti-Christian side on every issue, every time. There is barely a shred of genuine bias against homosexuals anywhere in America, yet it is open season on Christians, and the massive discrimination against them is consistently portrayed by the media as well-deserved.

If politicians and citizens continue cowering before the fascist bullies, all will be lost. The unexpected support for Donald Trump is the first sign that there may be hope for America. Fascists, radical liberals, Democrats, Republicans, the media, and establishment types everywhere, have joined forces for the first time to fight Trump and protect their own ruling power.

Those who see no threat, or imagine that America has been through this before, and everything will be alright, are drifting thru life with blinders on. There have indeed been other corrupt times in our history, and crisis’ that threatened the nation. However, through it all, the Constitution was sacrosanct, and freedom of religion had never before been threatened.

Today we find Supreme Court Justices that miraculously find rights to abortion, gay marriage, and universal health care in our Constitution. If they can invent these rights, they can do anything, including restricting the First Amendment rights to free speech and religion.

America is in free-fall. Culturally, economically, and militarily, we are in crisis. Political correctness by our media and establishment rulers is preventing us from addressing the nation’s problems rationally. If we have not already reached the point of no return, it is certainly not far away. The showdown is upon us, and this presidential election may very well be the last chance to save the greatest force for good in the history of nationhood.

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Starbucks and Hypocrisy

Though liberals by definition are notorious hypocrites, there really should be a stronger word for the sanctimonious Starbucks Coffee gang. Howard Schultz and his suck-up entourage of highly paid yes-men (sorry, should it be yes-people or yes-humans?), are as anti-Christian as any company in America.

It was not enough for them to espouse gay marriage, they had to go out of their way to attack Christians who supported traditional marriage. In their self-righteous arrogance, the liberal Pharisees told all stockholders who didn’t support gay marriage, that they should divest themselves of ownership in Starbucks, and take their Christian bigotry to a company that presumably has no social conscience.

When Christians retaliated with a petition that quickly garnered 59,000 signatures, and started drinking their coffee elsewhere, stockholders became concerned. Once the bottom line came into play, Starbucks backed off from appearing too anti-Christian, and then concentrated all their efforts on supporting the full gay agenda. Instead of going after the traditional marriage crowd, they concentrated their efforts on in your face actions like open bathrooms, while appeasing Christians with a Happy Birthday Jesus cup at Christmas time.

Let us also point out that Starbucks is not just liberal, but radically so with all social issues. Like President Obama, they want to transform America into a country where the government dictates what everyone is allowed to say and believe. They envision an America without guns, religion, majority rule, gender, and conservatives. Starbucks, will of course be allowed to say and do what they please, because they have been on the right side of history, which gives them the moral authority to lead.

Led by their gag inducing CEO Charles Schultz, Starbucks preens their liberal feathers with the usual politically correct terms; inclusiveness, diversity, fairness, gender equality, culture of empowerment, challenging the status quo, and journey of dignity and respect. Starbuck’s thousands of partners, (also known as employees) are expected to actively support every bit of political correctness that spews from their fellow partner Charles Schultz.

When it comes to women’s rights, no business in the world is more self-righteous than good old Starbucks. According to Sandra Taylor, Senior Vice President for Corporate Responsibility, “Starbucks enthusiastically supports The Calvert Women’s Principles because we see a strong business case for gender equality and women’s empowerment. ” The Calvert Women’s Principles ‘focus on business corporations as vehicles for addressing gender inequities and advancing the global empowerment of women’.

With the grand posturing on equality for women fresh in our minds, lets cut to Starbucks in Saudi Arabia. Yes, they actually do operate in a country that does not let women drive, interact with men, leave the house without a male chaperon, wear clothes or make-up that show off their beauty, or even swim and compete freely in sports.

Let us agree that a Starbucks operating in a country with Sharia Law would be a good thing if they conducted business under American principles of freedom and equality. However, the reality of their operation is as far from The Calvert Women’s Principles as its possible to get, and is a glaring example of the corporate hypocrisy in play at Starbuck’s headquarters.

U.N. Watch, an organization that monitors human rights based on the United Nations charter, says Saudi Arabia has “arguably the worst record in the world when it comes to religious freedom and women’s rights.” Starbucks knew coming in that they would have to comply with Sharia laws and customs in order to do business in Saudi Arabia. Placing profit before principle, the holiest of all women’s rights advocates, placed a sign outside their store which read, “Please no entry for ladies only send your driver to order thank you.”

Starbucks stammering excuses included of all things, ‘religious freedom.’ Apparently the company is perfectly willing to accommodate religious freedom for everyone except Christians. It is OK for the Saudis to treat their women as chattel, but unacceptable for Christians to say that a child should have both a mother and a father, or a person with male genitalia should have to stay out of the girls’ bathroom.

Because a handful of power crazed judges have decided to take the law into their own hands, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and Christianity itself is under attack like never before in American history. For all those Christians who are simply praying for help, or worse trying to ignore the threats to religious freedom, take a good look at what’s happening in Georgia.

The Georgia legislature passed a law that simply read pastors cannot be required by law to violate their religious beliefs and perform same sex marriages, and people must use the bathroom appropriate to their genitals.
It is as common sense and constitutionally consistent as any law ever passed. Nothing in it prevents a gay person from marrying or using a restroom. Yet the pathetic and cowardly governor of Georgia vetoed the bill because equally pathetic and cowardly businesses threatened to pull their money from the state if it passed.

Even more pathetic are our sports moguls who threatened to pull the Super Bowl, and the laughable sports media personalities. So frightened are they of the media that they grovel at the slightest complaint. Once tough and proud jocks, now prance around in pink to placate the feminists, beat their backs endlessly over every racial injustice of the past, run nauseating ads about domestic abuse, allow perverted half-time performances to be broadcast nationwide, and blatantly lie about being comfortable with gay players in the shower with them.

In fact, the sports media and jocks are the most pitiable. The high school nerds now running America and paying athletes fantastic sums to perform for them, are reeking their revenge. The geeks who were bullied and humiliated in school by the arrogant jocks are delivering payback. For their part, the smartly dressed media jocks are desperate to stay in the limelight they have always enjoyed, but fail to recognize that they cannot bow down far enough to prevent being secretly despised and ridiculed by the new ruling class they are sucking up to.

What then are we Christians to do, as America is fundamentally transformed into a post Constitutional hellhole. The Bible says the ‘meek shall inherit the earth’, but what are Christians supposed to do while waiting for the inheritance? Some say leave it in the hands of the Lord, and others philosophize that there is ‘nothing new under the sun’, and ‘this too shall pass’. Some say prayer and passivity will win out in the end, and a few even say mind your own soul and let the world go its sorry way.

Well, I am not any of those. I believe the Lord intends us to witness for our faith. That means standing up publicly for what you believe. The minority secularists in America have managed to gain the upper hand exactly because Christians have sat back and done nothing. Liberals are the new bullies of America, and there is no way to win with them except to stand up and fight. Sensing weakness in opponents is like shooting up with Red Bull for liberals. It only makes them more wild and aggressive, and encourages them to push even harder for their increasingly absurd demands.

So, what can we do? Well, what we can do as Christians is exercise our economic muscle. We are not going to be violent like left wing fascists, we are not going to become obnoxious and abrasive like liberal activists, and we are not going to resort to profanity and name-calling intimidation to force our way on everyone. What we can do though, is turn the liberals boycott tactics back on them.

Lets say we pick one high profile corporation like Starbucks and have a Christian boycott of their coffee. Seventy five percent of Americans identify as Christians. The economic power is staggering, and if directed against one company, it could have a monumental effect. Singling out one company makes it easy to implement, and will have a far stronger impact than spreading out a boycott among multiple enterprises.

Starbucks seems a perfect target since they have a strong worldwide profile, and are very active and supportive of all radical liberal positions. They have also shown themselves to be hypocrites, and highly attuned to their profit side. Not only would an effective boycott force them to modify their positions, but other liberal toadies would be forced to take notice.

It would also be very easy for the Christian boycotters. There are a million people selling coffee today, and there is nothing so special about Starbucks that people couldn’t make do with another brand. Sooner or later, Christians are either going to fight, or be forced underground to exercise their Christian faith. The fight can no longer be avoided, unless people are just willing to give up their Constitutional rights. It is also true that the longer we wait to take action, the harder it is going to be to continue worshipping freely in America.

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Trump Protests

Yesterday, we saw another Democrat inspired protest against Donald Trump. If the left-wing fascists keep up their angry demonstrations long enough, they will soon have me, and millions of other non-Trump voters, switching our votes to him. Nothing could point up more clearly why middle America is finally rebelling against the lawlessness of the left.

Preventing the opposition from speaking is the classic way liberalism works. College campuses and the Democrat poverty plantations of the inner cities, are the breeding grounds for left-wing radicals. Brainwashed by educators, the media, and insufferable politicians, recipients of taxpayer dollars are goaded into believing Republicans will kill the goose that lays government benefits.

Hypocrisy being a trademark of the left, they always accuse the right of practicing the very policies that they themselves are guilty of. In their twisted minds, conservatives are the scary proponents of violence because of their support for the Constitution, while the left is peaceful, law abiding, and wants to rid America of guns and violence.

In point of fact however, all violent protests in America are carried out by the left. The current protests against Trump simply give current validation to what always has been true in America; the left has no use for the Constitution, and they believe in imposing their values by force.

Trump is absolutely correct when he says there will be increasing violence over his candidacy. As always, the media and establishment politicians are appalled whenever he states the obvious. Liberals now sense that Trump is a real threat to the welfare state, and worse – their ability to hold the moral high ground in ruling over America. Therefore they do what they always do – resort to violent protests.

To some of us ‘down on the docks’ working grunts, it has long been apparent that America has deteriorated too far to be reformed by peaceful political means. The tens of millions of people feeding off tax dollars are not going to allow any political process to upend their leisurely lives. Cronyism exists at all levels of government, and virtually every non-governmental group in America, from courts and lawyers, to the financial markets and environmental organizations, feed off the tax-paying worker bees.

To imagine for example, that something as sensible and easy as tax reform, could ever happen without a fight to the death by the vested interest is beyond wishful thinking. Lawyers and accountants would give their lives to save the system. Politicians who could not hand out special interest tax breaks would be jumping off the Washington Monument. Unions would turn out millions in violent protest, and the media would be bellowing about unfair it would be for minorities.

Simply put, there is no way reform can happen in America without violence. Of course it will be promulgated by the left, as it always is. The question then becomes; how will the rest of America will respond? The Trump phenomena is the first acknowledgement that working class America is fed up with the direction of the country, and it remains to be seen if the inevitable violence of the left will be met with resolve or the usual capitulation.

The liberal bullies never quit once they get their way, they just move on to the next demand. Their political radar is so sensitive that they can detect a single word of weakness in a ten thousand word speech, and zero in on it like a shark to blood. Then, when confronted by the threatening political correctness of the left, frightened Republicans inevitably recoil in abject apology. At least they did until Donald Trump showed up.

The left has not been this scared since Ronald Reagan captured the heart of America. It is not just the fact that Trump is not phased by political correctness, but the fact that he seems oblivious to it. He ignores the howls of the left, and acts as if he doesn’t even recognize their ridiculous positions. He dismisses every charge they make, and treats them as if they are stupid little kids by insulting them with words like losers, liars, and cheaters. Then to yank their chains one more time, he throws out audacious trigger statements that infuriate his opponents, but draw knowing grins from his supporters.

Since nothing they can say has any effect on Trump, the Democrats are now going to their default position – disruptive protest. What we see today, are merely the warm-up skirmishes. Look for the left-wing fascists to continue turning up the protest fire. The media and radical liberals for their part, thrill to the prospect of violence, and continually fan the flames. All Democrat victim classes are now planning their trip to the Republican Convention in Cleveland, like the rest of us would schedule a trip to Disneyworld.

The one good thing that can come out of the violence will be the certain election of Trump or Cruz. Only a true revolution of the working class can restore the promise of America, and if it is still possible for a return to traditional values, it has to come now. Ideally it would be through a peaceful political process, but one would have to his head buried in the sand, to believe that those vested in big government are going to give up that easily.

Every value Americans have long held dear, including freedom of religion and speech, are being eroded away by the liberals who have taken over our courts, the bureaucracy, and our government. Millions of Americans are now recognizing that it is now or never, and only drastic change gives us a fighting chance. Once these Constitutional rights are completely lost, there will be nothing left but the shackles of big government.

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Carson and Rubio – the difference

Donald Trump was prevented from speaking at a rally in Chicago. Protestors, many of whom were paid to gin up a violent display, pushed and taunted police until the Trump people were forced to cancel the rally for the sake of safety.

Fox news interviewed both Marco Rubio and Ben Carson about the fact that Trump’s freedom of speech was violated, as well as the rights of thousands to hear him speak. The difference in their responses was obvious, and clearly exposed the contrast between an establishment politician who is out of touch with mainstream America, and an outsider who clearly sees what is really wrong in America.

Rubio mouthed the usual platitudes about free speech and how sad it is that a speaker is prevented from exercising his first amendment right. To his credit, he also pointed out that Chicago is known for this type of radical behavior, and professional protestors are routinely trotted out to oppose anything that threatens the welfare state. He then went immediately to the politically correct core of establishment thinking; the rights of the protestors and Trump’s blame for inciting such behavior.

By the next day, Rubio was joining Ted Cruz and John Kasich, as well as all Democrats and the mainstream media, in a chorus placing the full blame squarely on Trump. It is sickening to see so called conservatives siding with the same liberals who believe in shutting down the free speech of those who don’t bow down to their country destroying, political correctness. Rubio’s reaction is a perfect example of what we get with professional politicians.

Rubio’s true political colors started showing with his ‘gang of eight’ amnesty fiasco, but they are now in full view for all conservatives to judge. There is a massive divide in America between those who rule and those who produce the wealth that allows them their power. Rubio has failed to learn anything from the Trump phenomenon, and has been unable to grasp the fact that he is viewed as part of the problem, not the solution.

Ben Carson, on the other hand diagnosed the issue perfectly, and showed why so many of us think he would have made a fine president. He made no excuse for the protestors, and not only placed the blame on the left-wing fascists themselves, but on all those who encourage such behavior, including the media and educators. When asked by Megyn Kelly how a soft-spoken, thinking man like himself, could side with a bombastic person like Trump, he again gave the politically incorrect answer by saying such anti-American behavior needs to be confronted in many different ways.

What Donald Trump has done, is force everyone to take a side. Compromise and crossing the aisle, are weasel words from career politicians, and avoid the inconvenient fact that no one trusts our elected leaders to undo the reprehensible damage that has been done to America. The divide is now so great, that working people want someone as far removed from our political establishment as possible – even someone as pompous and bombastic as Trump.

It is another political lie that Trump is divisive and playing off the fear and anger of an ignorant working class. It is exactly the opposite scenario. The divide created by our establishment rulers has spawned Donald Trump. He is not the cause of the anger, but the recipient of it. It could easily have been a Ben Carson, but his mild demeanor does not fit the angry temperament of fed up Americans.

Despite how thankful I am for Donald Trump, I can’t quite bring myself to support him for the nomination. I still believe the greatest threat facing our country is the fracturing of our Constitution, allowing our leaders to ignore any laws they don’t like. Unless we have a supreme court that quits putting their own political interpretations into the Constitution, America is doomed to be a country run by the courts, bureaucrats, and political correctness.

The next president could have multiple Supreme Court appointments, and as disgusted as I am with the Ted Cruz campaign rhetoric, I still believe he will appoint true Constitutionalists to the bench. Whatever else he may be able to accomplish I don’t know, but like President Obama, he will have a pen and will undoubtedly use it.

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Politically Correct Rubio

Until Marco Rubio became Senator Rubio, I was one of his strongest supporters. Since he joined the Senate and co-sponsored the ‘gang of eight’ amnesty bill with four Democrats, I have been forced to view him in an entirely different light.

I have been mystified as to why an attorney and conservative U.S. Senator, would reward people who not just broke the laws of his country, but take jobs from American citizens, further bloat our already massive welfare roles, and provide tens of millions of new voters for the Democrat Party. I mean, what exactly do Americans get out of this deal – a sixty dollar hotel room and a fifty cent tomato?

Last night I listened to Rubio defend his support for ignoring our immigration laws. Since he may become President, I really wish I hadn’t heard his absurd and insulting explanation, as I will undoubtedly be forced to vote for him if he receives the nomination. Treating me and other conservatives who revere the rule of law, as if we are heartless, brain dead dunces, only drives us further away from his candidacy.

It is particularly infuriating to hear him use the same amnesty arguments put forth by voter hungry liberals. Those in favor of adding tens of millions of illegals to the welfare roles and registering them all in the Democrat party, love to paint some picture of the old cowboy roundup of wild horses. Rubio’s particular phrase was that the American people would not stand for a ‘militaristic roundup’ of undocumented immigrants.

First of all, lets dispense with the politically correct term ‘undocumented immigrants’. They are in fact, illegal aliens. If you don’t like the word alien then substitute intruder, infiltrator, or some other appropriate designation for someone who sneaked into our country. An immigrant is someone who is legally in America. Undocumented immigrant is therefore as much an oxymoron as athletic scholarship.

But it’s the reference to a ‘militaristic roundup’ that really makes my blood boil. This shallow dismissal of a monumental problem shows Rubio to be a true establishment politician. Like other Trump and Cruz supporters, I am sick to death of professional politicos who refuse to discuss the damaging details of amnesty. Everyone who says you can’t just round up fifteen million people, is saying it to end the discussion.

Other than Cruz and Trump, I have yet to hear a single person refute this completely inappropriate, politically charged word, and replace it with the correct word – deport. The reason liberals refuse to use the word deport, is because it is patently obvious that you can indeed deport millions of people. All it takes is the will to do it. Ambitious politicians and media elites simply don’t have the backbone to do what’s right for America.

Our establishment rulers are easily identified as those who substitute the term ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ for the scary word ‘amnesty’. Republican politicians twist themselves into pretzels trying to deny they favor amnesty, while at the same time dodging the charge of ‘bigoted racist’ by the liberal media. In truth, our immigration laws are perfectly fine to handle the problem of illegal entrants. It is only our lame government that needs comprehensive reform for refusing to enforce our laws.

It always seems a shame to have to point out the obvious, but here it is: Deporting fifteen million illegals is not only possible, but simple. First; enforce the border. Second; every person found to be in America illegally, gets sent back to the country of their origin – whenever and wherever found. No exceptions. Third; no welfare benefits for anyone here illegally. If emergency medical service is needed, treat them and send them back. And fourth; enact heavy penalties against anyone who employs an illegal alien.

Guess what? We don’t need comprehensive immigration reform to do this, and we don’t even need a single new law. Just enforce the laws as they are currently written. What exactly is so radical about what Trump and Cruz are saying? Has it gotten so looney in America that the ones who demand the laws be enforced are the radicals?

Once foreign nationals understand that they will never be allowed to benefit from breaking our laws, there will be little incentive to sneak in. There will also be no reason for those here illegally to remain, and we will see millions quickly self-deport and presumably apply to come here legally.

Whether it is a Republican or Democrat, spouting out the word ‘roundup’ is nothing but demagoguery, and is just another protective devise for career politicians. Illegal immigration is the single greatest threat our Republic faces, and America will be dramatically altered if the issue is not handled quickly and decisively. Every citizen supporting Trump or Cruz knows this to be true, but our sheltered political elites seem unable to grasp the fact.

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Germany – Scalia – Starbucks

In Germany, a hotel being converted into a refugee center for some of Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s millions of Muslim immigrants, has been destroyed by fire. German citizens stood by and cheered as the building burned. Clueless liberal politicians condemned the actions of the crowd, and called them heartless criminals.

I suppose looking in from the outside it is easier to see that Europe is under invasion. Nothing has happened like this since Adolph Hitler decided to take over the entire continent. Apparently still reeling from the horrors of Nazism, Merkel has decided to allow Europe to be taken over without a shot being fired.

The cold reality that they are losing their countries and their cultures to a swarm of immigrants who have no intention of ever giving up their own culture, is starting to hit home with working class citizens. Even as Americans are now revolting against establishment politicians who believe patriotism is a relic of America’s ‘dark age’, so Europeans will soon be revolting against their own elitist politicians.

President Obama and Democrat leaders are incensed that Republicans say they will filibuster any Supreme Court nominee he submits as a replacement for Antonin Scalia. We are supposed to believe presumably, that if Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died in George Bush’s last year, the Democrats would have sweetly acquiesced to the President’s nominee.

There was no single person in America more important to the preservation of our Constitution than Scalia. It is a disaster that he passed away during Obama’s presidency. Perhaps it’s just a fatalism brought on by the lameness of our Republican Congress, but the feeling persists that the Democrats will surely find a way to get another liberal activist on the bench to replace Scalia before Obama leaves office.

Then Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, says the bombastic rhetoric in the presidential campaign is causing him ‘grave concern’ about the future of America. As a strong supporter of Barack Obama – and if possible an even more radical ideologue – Schultz is frightened half to death of having a Republican President who will actually defend the Constitution.

As the CEO of one of the most popular name brands in the country, Schultz has done more for the liberal transformation of America than any other business leader. He comes across as almost virulently anti-Christian, and if he has his way, the First Amendment will be turned on its head, and the government will actually take over religion in the name of tolerance.

If Christians ever decide to fight back against the growing intolerance towards their faith, Starbucks would be a perfect place to start. They supported the gay marriage crowd several years ago when they tried to boycott Chick-fil-A. That one backfired when Christians turned out in droves to support the chicken restaurant. Then he attempted make his employees discuss racial tension in America with patrons. That one also backfired when even his yuppiest customers objected to being forced to stir their morning coffee with Schultz’s liberal stick.

Turning the tables with a Christian boycott of Starbucks, would send a message throughout the entire grievance community. According to government figures, there are more than two hundred million Christians. So whose boycott has the most chance of making an impact? No one wants to deprive any minority of their legitimate rights, but majority rule is the foundation of a democracy, and thanks to the radical left legal community, its been taking a beating lately.

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Rubio and Trump

If it ends up being Marco Rubio against Hillary Clinton, of course I will vote for Rubio. However, I believe if he wins, he will be the last Republican president. With him as president, there is no question that tens of millions of illegals will eventually find a path towards registering and voting Democrat.

After trying mightily with his ‘gang of eight’ to get the law-breakers legalized, Rubio now swears there will be no “amnesty” for illegal aliens. Well, a dumpster by any other name smells just as rank. Of course it won’t be called amnesty, but by whatever name, the result will be the same.

Rubio’s problem is that he has lost the trust of people like me. From day one I supported him in his senate race. I had hopes that he would be the Ronald Reagan of the twenty first century. Then he went off to Washington, and lost his way. Like most of our legislators, he imagined that if he had the power to make a law, he had the power to ignore it if he pleased.

So now Rubio, the attorney and senator sworn to uphold the law, finds himself on the side of millions of people who broke the law. When our national leaders violate the rule of law, is it any wonder people feel they can take over university buildings, state capitals, and Forest Service offices with impunity?

Donald Trump, like Rubio, is a man I would vote for if he wins the nomination. However, I haven’t come to the point where I could support him in the primary. I love what he has brought to the Republican Party, but I am not convinced the Trump we see, is the President Trump we would get.

Trump says he has been saved, and is now a born again conservative. Maybe, but I am always suspicious of the quick conversions. The primary revival meeting is not the best place to become a true believer. It took decades for Reagan to convince himself and others that his had given over his political life to conservatism. This Trump conversion is moving a little too fast for me.

Meanwhile, with all news outlets from NBC to Rush Limbaugh obsessing on the presidential sweepstakes, the takeover of America continues apace. Not only are illegal aliens still pouring over the border, but President Obama has ordered the Border Patrol to stand down, and no longer detain the law-breaking foreigners. Up North, thousands of Muslims are being brought into the country. Of course Obama assures us that they have been vetted by the same exacting system being used by Germany and France.

With the spotlight shining only on the presidential circus, the Democratic administration continues to ‘fundamentally transform America’. Republicans, led by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell – two career establishment politicians – piddle around with insignificant hearings, and whimper that the minority Democrats are thwarting all the conservative actions they promised to take.

So maybe the real defining issue of the primary is: Which Republican can get conservative policies in place without the support of congress. Democrats are experts at enacting liberal policies. When they are in the majority they just ram everything through. When in the minority, they simply thwart everything the Republicans want to do. When they only have the Presidency they do it with executive orders. Democrats do not play compromise. They get everything they want, all of the time.

Donald Trump scares both Republicans and Democrats for the same reason: He doesn’t play by the incumbents rule book. The most fundamental rule is that Democrats are always on the offense with political correctness, and Republicans are always on defense. By continuing to play fair with each other, they get to achieve the number one goal of all elected officials – staying in office.

However, what really frightens the Democrats is Trump using their election playbook to run for office. Personal attacks, innuendo, past indiscretions, twisting the record, and rewriting history are all classic Democrat tactics to be used against Republican opponents. Right now Trump is using them against his fellow Republicans. But imagine the horror if he gets the nomination and goes after Hillary. There is no one in American politics more vulnerable to personal attacks than Clinton, and there is no doubt that Trump will go for the jugular.

The question for conservatives is whether to continue working within the bounds of the Constitution and attempt to get things accomplished the right way, or fight liberals with their own rules of engagement. Donald Trump is the ‘hit man’. He is our Barack Obama. He will use any means possible to get his way, and you just have the feeling that he will prevail.

Since Ronald Reagan, every elected conservative has been a failure, and there is no reason to believe that anyone in the current crop except Trump, will be any different. Americans finally seem to be coming out of their deep sleep, and instinctively recognize that our country is on the brink of destruction. God help us if Donald Trump is America’s only hope.

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Newsday – January 30, 2016

San Francisco is today’s hot spot. The capital of the left coast has been trying to stop public urination. Apparently the free spirits in San Francisco feel free to relieve themselves whenever the urge hits. Some ten thousand metal light posts are now being inspected after one corroded and fell from a ‘combination of dog and human urine’.

The whacky city council first tried to control the problem by instituting a five hundred dollar fine. When that didn’t work, they painted the preferred spots with a paint that would spray the urine back on the peers. Then they started rolling through the city with solar powered mobile toilets. Now they have placed attendants to clean and restock supplies, and prevent people from doing drugs and sleeping inside the numerous public restrooms.

When all of this didn’t solve the problem, they finally came up with the perfect San Francisco solution: Just say that it is now OK to pee in public. To make it even more inviting for the thousands of perverts who flock to the liberal Mecca, they are going to place open-air urinals in the public parks. Looks like the ‘sanctuary city’ can tolerate anything – except Christianity.

Also, in the city of tolerance, diversity, and understanding, a group of high school students was expelled for having a party where the participants ‘emulated the language, gestures, and dress popularized by rap and hip hop videos’. According to a school administrator, the party “appropriated pervasive negative stereotypes, and had racial overtones and racial implications”. The school principal added “Its disheartening and incredibly sad that this type of thing exists. Not just for our school, but for the entire city”.

I guess even for someone from Key West, it’s practically impossible to get into the minds of San Franciscans. For decades white kids have been adopting the dress of black youth. African Americans have been the trend-setters for everything from hats and shoes, to baggy shorts and sophisticated suits. They have also come up with thousands of catchy words and phrases that have been picked up by white kids, while their music – which often includes extreme profanity, racially derogatory terms, glorification of drugs and profligate sex, as well as anti-police rants – is practically all the kids listen to today.

So what exactly is San Francisco so ‘disheartened and sad’ about. Do they see something wrong in the black culture? I mean, what is it about black dress styles or their musical culture that they object to? It surely can’t be that the self-righteous champions of political correctness, just don’t want their organic little yuppies to emulate the culture of the hood?

So what’s happening on the other side of the world? More and more, it is appearing as if stopping terrorists is about as difficult as purging the world of drug smugglers. The Islamic Jihadists seem infinitely creative when it comes to delivering their terrorist attacks. The latest creation comes from Australia.

A small group of Islamic radicals discussed placing bombs in kangaroo pouches, and turning them loose on the police at a Veterans Day celebration in Melbourne. These terrorists don’t seem to realize they are going one step too far. If they don’t want to lose the support of their liberal apologists, they better stick to blowing up humans. Killing an innocent animal is a sure way to lose the tender-hearted, dog poop crowd.

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Newsday – January 28, 2016

On any given day there are dozens of news items to draw one’s attention. Searching for the good news, or even upbeat stories is difficult, because most of them are either messages inspired by political correctness, or stories disseminated to promote some agenda.

A perfect example today is a home video that has gone viral, showing a girl of about ten becoming overjoyed and even crying, over the prospect of seeing Donald Trump. Despite being a recently converted Trump admirer – though not necessarily a voter – I think the video is awful for several reasons.

First and foremost, is the fact that her parents have put out a highly personal home video of their daughter for the world to view. Worse, with the worldwide internet, this is a video that will be there forever and follow the girl throughout her life. The fact that it could embarrass their daughter later in life, or even define her life, seems of little consequence to the parents.

To make it even more reproachable, they are using their child to promote their own political agenda. There is an increasing trend towards adults using children to further some cause or agenda they are passionate about. I suppose in an America where body parts are harvested from unborn babies, a cute video of a little girl excited and crying seems harmless enough, but it is something that once would have drawn criticism from all sides.

At a fishery hearing about lobster trapping, several busloads of environmental extremists traveled a long distance to try and further restrict fishermen. Using a little girl with a ‘save the baby lobsters’ tee shirt, they stood her on a chair at the microphone, and had her plead their cause.

Even the rudest commercial fisherman was appalled at the blatant exploitation of a child. Throughout forty years of fishery hearings, at which fishermen were actually losing their livelihoods, I never heard a single person propose using children to plead for their daddy’s jobs. Unfortunately, in our new world nothing seems off-limits, and too many people lust after the ‘fifteen minutes of fame’, even for their children.

While on the subject, a grand jury in Texas investigating Planned Parenthood, has inexplicably indicted the people who exposed the illegal harvesting of unborn baby parts. Claiming the whistle blowers used fake ID’s to gain access to the clinic, and illegally attempted to buy body parts, they are being charged with felonies that carry a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison.

Let us forget for a moment that Planned Parenthood is engaged in one of the most abominable practices ever made public, and look at the selective enforcement of the law in America today. Of the fifteen million illegal aliens in our country, millions are using fake ID’s and lying to government and everyone else about their status. When is the last time one of them was prosecuted for such crimes?

However, when it comes to Planned Parenthood, anyone who dares even criticize them, is subject to extreme verbal harassment or threatened with jail time. Unlimited abortion is dear to the hearts of liberals, and the nation’s largest supplier must be protected at all costs. Anyone who doubts that the rule of law has become a political game, need look no further than the Texas Grand Jury, immigration, and the IRS.

Then, out in Wisconsin, the anti-religion forces made a little boo boo. A manufacturer told employees they could only pray on their scheduled break, and not while they were on the production line. If only Christians were affected there would be no problem. But uh oh, there were nine Muslims who are required to pray five times during the workday. Get ready for the scramble.

The biggest story today is Trump skipping the latest debate. The other candidates and the media are primarily postulating that he is afraid of Megyn Kelly. A few correctly see that he is trying to control the media, instead of allowing them to control him.

Again, they have not read The Art of the Deal. Control is what business and politics are all about. The candidates are simply the performers in the media’s Presidential Circus, and Donald Trump is refusing to put on the clown outfit and ride backwards on the donkey.

In Oregon, the FBI has killed one of the protestors who took over a Forest Service building. So far, other than saying he deserved to be killed, we have no details as to why he was shot during a supposedly ‘routine traffic stop’ by the FBI. Presumably he was not armed, or the FBI would certainly have given out that detail. Good for them he was a typical white guy.

Then finally, Pope Francis met with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. The perpetually offended Muslims were most recently up in arms over some anti Mohammed remark made by the Pope. The Pope has since apologized profusely, and presumably wanted the meeting so he could convey his mea culpa in person.

I don’t profess to know a lot about the politics of the Vatican. I do know that Iran persecutes and kills Christians, children, apostates, unmanageable women, and homosexuals. Incidentally, they also vow to wipe Israel and all its’ Jews off the face of the map and to destroy the ‘devil America’ as well.

So I don’t know, maybe a personal apology and covering up all the nude statues and paintings so Rouhani wouldn’t be offended, is the true Christian way… By the way: Did the Pope meet with Adolph Hitler?

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Establishment Conservatives

Since it’s founding in the 1950’s by William F. Buckley Jr., National Review has been considered the leading academic publication of conservative thought. Today they came out with an entire issue dedicated to stopping Donald Trump.

Twenty-two leading conservative commentators voiced their disapproval of Trump. Though I did not read the articles, I am well aware of their positions, and only surprised that they would go to such lengths to undermine the massive legion of Trump supporters.

Rich Lowry, editor of the magazine, says Trump is not a true conservative, and naïve supporters could find a President Trump doing the opposite of what he is promising. In other words, he could end up being like all the other ‘conservative’ Republicans we have elected.

Lowry goes on to say that Trump could be a strong executive who forces his will on America. Sure, he could end up being another Obama – except trying to rebuild America instead of tearing it down. National review does not like the idea of a strong President – even a Republican – and would apparently prefer that the country be run by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

The idea that liberals need to be fought by using their own methods, never seems to occur to the Republican establishment. While we are holding fast to the Marquis of Queensbury Rules, liberals are kicking, eye-gouging, and “bringing a gun to the knife fight.” So it is hardly a surprise that Republicans and conservatives lose every single fight.

The twenty-two writers are as much a part of the power establishment in Washington as the politicians and bureaucrats. None are what we would call liberals, or even Rhinos, but as with each of us, self-interest comes into play. Each writer has carved out a respected niche for themselves among the political shakers and movers, and the unpredictable Donald Trump has them in a panic.

None seem to understand that this is not so much a conservative movement as it is an anti-establishment statement. Along with the rest of Congress, My own senator, Marco Rubio, and congressman Carlos Curbelo, have done nothing that they said they would when they were asking for my support – and my money. So what reason is there to believe that President Rubio would be any different with even more power.

While I respect the intelligence and writing ability of all the columnists, a supercilious conceit exudes from their distaste for Trump. They either directly or by innuendo, charge that; Trump supporters are naïve rubes being taken in by a calculating humbugger, who has the simpletons blinded by his slippery promise to ‘make America great again’.

So, do I trust Trump? Of course not! Trump is a deal maker, and while I am not so worried about the deals he might make with China or Iran, I am very concerned about what kind of deals he might make with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

Do I trust any of the candidates running for president? Of course not! But like the old saying Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, I would rather be taken in by the bamboozler I don’t know, than be tricked once again by someone I already know to be deceptive.

I suppose the message being sent by Trump supporters is just too simple for the conservative intellectuals who continue to bash the Donald. By this time you would expect every person even remotely connected to politics – especially the conservative talking heads – to understand, that the more they criticize him, the stronger his support.

I started out liking what Trump was saying, but never imagining him as President. But now that I see establishment conservatives joining with liberals to defeat him, I get an even stronger feeling that it’s all the Washington insiders against the rest of us.

Worse, I am feeling that the billionaire egotist is actually one of us, and unlike the Washington crowd, is concerned enough for the future of America to endure the scorn of the mainstream media. So no more ‘leading from behind’, and no more leading from the middle like Republican politicians. If America is truly to become great again, we need a leader out front on his stallion with sabre flashing.

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Love Those Ironies

When I am desperate for something to laugh at on the world scene, it is always fun to look at the many ways that liberals are forced to squirm from their own political correctness.

Yesterday for the first time I found myself supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. To celebrate Martin Luther King Day, they decided to blockade San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, and ‘reclaim Dr. King’s legacy of radicalism’.

Citizens were delayed for hours from entering San Francisco, as the radicals ran a chain through car windows and prevented angry motorists from passing through. The ‘sanctuary city’ was no doubt proud to be the scene of such a protest, especially the radical, left wing city council. However, for most of America it was a ‘hee, hee, hee’ moment as the liberals were hoisted from their own petard.

Meanwhile, out in Hollywood, the elite moralists of the movie industry are hiding behind their Ferraris: Black performers are boycotting the Oscars because no blacks were nominated.

Spike Lee, Will Smith, and other African Americans are outraged by the ‘lack of diversity’ and ‘institutionalized discrimination’. Then, surprise, surprise! Al Sharpton, who has long battled Jesse Jackson for the distinction of being America’s greatest race hustler, has thrown his weight into the boycott. According to President Obama’s advisor on race, ‘Hollywood has “locked out” people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds’.

President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Cheryl Boone Isaacs, did an Obama special, and acted as if the Academy itself was an outsider looking in. Isaacs claimed the Academy was “heartbroken and frustrated” by the all-white nominations, and vowed to improve diversity among the Academy’s membership. How sweet it is!

Then there’s England. The same Brits who fought to the death with the Nazis, are hiding in fear from an invasion of Muslims. With over a million Muslims in London alone, British politicians are so fearful of offending anything Islamic, that they are debating in Parliament whether to ban Donald Trump from entering the country.

Like American liberals – only worse – all of England’s politicians are in total denial. Their own country is being taken over while they avoid talking about Islamization at all cost. Muslims make up about 6% of the population, but over 10% of the children under five. Fifteen percent of the prison population is Muslim, sexual assault against ‘white’ women is a national plague, and there are at least 85 Sharia courts within densely populated Muslim enclaves that the government denies are no-go zones.

Meanwhile, Britain’s goofy politicians are debating whether they should ban someone who might be the future President of the United States. I think tiny little Israel will be the last reliable ally for America in the inevitable next world conflict.

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Afraid and Scared? – Nonsense!

A popular talking point from liberals these days, is that those who oppose unlimited immigration are just frightened little Americans who are cowering behind their guns and the flag. It is the classic liberal display of moral superiority, and political condescension towards the bourgeois masses.

The claim that conservative opponents of political correctness are afraid, scared, and fearful is the only argument liberals can muster for the shocking support Donald Trump is receiving. In their worst nightmare, the mainstream media and establishment politicians could never imagine they are in the minority simply because they are wrong.

By the same token, they are unable to admit that the real emotion driving the people is anger: Anger over the mendacity of politicians. Anger with a corrupted government. Anger with an arrogant and tyrannical bureaucracy. Anger with an anti-America media and educational system. Anger with the collusion between big corporations and government. Anger with a judiciary that is facilitating the war on Christianity and all other traditional Americans values. And especially angry that our grandchildren are destined to live in a less free and less safe America.

I don’t know a single person who is afraid, scared, or fearful, for their own personal safety. The only fear they have is for the future of their country. Even then, it is fear that would be defined as ‘gravely concerned’. Why liberals don’t share this concern is a mystery. It is hard to believe they purposely wish to bring harm to America, but it is even harder to believe that they cannot see the damage they are doing.

The mind of a liberal is a true enigma. Ostensibly intelligent people, they worship the theology of political correctness as if it was divinely inspired. What happened to their powers of reasoning and sense of right and wrong, may never be revealed to us lesser citizens. However, there is one thing we do know. They can never be convinced. They can only be overcome.

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The Art of the Deal – Trump’s Muslim Ban

Donald Trump is at it again. Now he says Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to enter the United States until our leaders figure out what’s going on. Trump says a cross section of Muslims ‘have animosity’ towards the U.S., and it makes no sense to allow them to enter.

The liberal media is apoplectic over his remarks, and Republican politicians are uniformly shocked that a presidential candidate would speak such electoral heresy. The White House says he should remove himself from the race, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, is desperately trying to distance the elite establishment Republicans from his remarks.

The entire mainstream media – including many claiming to be conservative – is piling on. From Tom Brokaw at NBC, to the purportedly conservative Daily Beast, Trump has become the common enemy. News outlets have abandoned all pretense of reporting, and gone into full attack mode. Sensing they have lost their power with Trump and American voters, the talking heads are in complete panic, and flailing away with every detestable weapon in their arsenal.

In the course of two days Donald Trump has been called a fascist, neo-fascist, racist, race-baiter, mendacious racist, demagogue, bigot, xenophobe, and public enemy number one. He has been compared to Mussolini, Hitler, and according to one ostensibly conservative columnist, “As President, he would be the most dangerous man on the planet”. My, my, my! Pretty impressive for a simple billionaire businessman who has never held public office.

Meanwhile, those of us who agree with Trump, are described as ignorant, less educated, misled, radicals, racists, neo-cons, crazies, and mindless followers of a demagogic Pied Piper. Apparently Trump supporters just haven’t had the opportunity to become enlightened by left-wing college professors. Missing, as usual in the establishment rhetoric is any calm discussion of the actual issue. As always, the mainstream media depends on journalistic hysteria to cower Republicans into quick submission.

Almost as one, they claim it would be illegal, unconstitutional, and ‘not who we are’ to discriminate against Muslims by not allowing them to enter the U.S. Typically, there is no basis in fact for their claims. How about they point out the law that says Muslims have a right to come here. Show us in the Constitution where we are required to accept people who say homosexuals are to be executed, women are just chattels for the men, infidels and apostates must be put to death, and Sharia rule is preferable to a democratic republic. Again, more liberal lies and hypocrisy.

Politicians and presidential candidates are also showing their true establishment colors. From Paul Ryan, to Jeb Bush, to Dick Cheney, they are trembling at the common sense, politically incorrect candor of Trump. That he continues to rise in the polls, has them in mortal fear of losing their niches within the elitist power structure of government. At this point they don’t know what else to do except combine forces to take him out.

Missing in the anti-Trump bigotry of the establishment, is any attempt to rationally analyze both the man and his appeal. Liberals always prefer to create their own political universe. They form conservative straw men from the dust of the earth as if they themselves are the Almighty, and give life to their own prejudices by inventing positions for every conservative they see as a threat – from Donald Trump to Rush Limbaugh.

They have no need to actually listen to Rush Limbaugh. They already know he is a right wing radical, so he is bound to be guilty of any lunatic position they can embroider from his actual words and context. Be assured also that they have never read The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump. If they had, they might better understand how Trump is making them dance to his squawking accordion.

Neither establishment politicians, nor mainstream journalists know the first thing about business. With few exceptions, they have no real world experience, and perceive the corruption in capitalism to be far worse than a little tyranny by big government. All they really understand is that business is the goose that lays the golden tax eggs. As much as they would love to serve up the goose for their ‘holiday’ meal, they must treat it carefully, lest it stop laying.

On the other hand, virtually every Trump supporter understands that Trump is an extraordinary businessman, and is simply approaching politics as he would any other mega-deal. The most plebian tax-paying citizen understands the basic rules of business far better than the most sophisticated politico: If you want to realize $100,000 out of your house sale, you start by asking $150,000. In other words, negotiating price is the foundation of all business deals.

Whether on purpose or purely from instinct, Donald Trump has transposed his business strategies into the world of politics: Start out high – even outrageous – and negotiate down. So Trump says: Build a wall and kick out all the illegals! Place a ban on all Muslims entering the country! Bomb the ISIS women and children! Treat China as our enemy!

Behind closed doors Trump must be laughing his head off. Liberals take the bait every time; hook, line, and sinker, as the fishermen say. The average American voter understands that the joke is on the elitist media and politicians, and cheers Trump on with ever more support.

What the media and Democrats think is of little concern. It is the Republican establishment that is failing to get the message. What in the world will it take for them to finally understand? The Republican establishment seems incapable of seeing that they are in a different lane than Democrats, but they are both on the same road to the same destination.

Without a strong and unapologetic conservative message, Republicans will lose the election to Hillary Clinton – the most corrupt politician in America. Abandoning political correctness and allowing open dialogue on the problems facing our nation, is what Trump’s appeal is all about. It always comes back to free speech – the foundation of all our freedoms.

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Pearl Harbor Day – 2015

For those who think 9/11 will never be forgotten, and those who realize that it actually has been forgotten, today is Pearl Harbor Day – the day that will “live in infamy” and the last day that will never be forgotten. I first looked at the Key West Citizen to see what they had to say about remembering Pearl Harbor. I no longer subscribe, but my ninety four year old mother, who lives next door, reads it cover to cover each day.

This morning I found her highly agitated. Dad was stationed with the Navy in Guantanamo Bay when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and he and mother had plans to marry. Like so many other couples, the war forced them to marry immediately, and mother barely saw him for the next four years. “You know, they didn’t even mention Pearl Harbor in the paper! I know it is very liberal, but it’s just not right”!

After rechecking the Citizen – it did have one line under ‘This Day in History’ – I then checked the Miami Herald. The Herald is every bit as liberal as the Citizen, but I still have to read a sports page in the morning. I did not read through the entire paper, but there was no mention of it on the front page. Apparently it has taken seventy years for Pearl Harbor to enter the dustbin of history. It took less than fifteen for 9/11.

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After San Bernardino

It doesn’t take long after a terror attack for the liberal media and the Democrat Party to start in on damage control. In fact, they were so quick with their responses, that it was obvious they were already prepared. President Obama’s recent statement that ISIS is weakening notwithstanding, liberals knew we were due after the Paris attack.

As they always do, liberals immediately set out to assign blame everywhere except where it belonged. Take your choice, it covers the full realm of liberal excuses: The terrorists were offended by a ‘holiday’ party. (Darn! It would have played much better if it had been a ‘Christmas’ party?)…Workplace violence…Donald Trump’s hateful rhetoric…An ‘all-American type boy’ being radicalized by his new wife…The Republican Congress refusing to work with the President… Global warming making the Middle East inhospitable…and the old standby – Republican failure to enact gun control.

Noticeably missing was any reference to radical Islam, any real concern for the families of those impacted by yet another example of Muslim extremism, or the safety of America. The over-riding response for liberals is always to deflect criticism of their long-running capitulation to Sharia, and then quickly change the subject.

With the Paris attack, we were forced to listen as our own American buffoon, John Kerry, told the people of France – speaking French bien entendu – that he could understand the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but was mystified at what the reason could be for the Paris attack. Meanwhile, President Obama responded by telling France that global warming was a greater threat than terrorism, and he was going to teach ISIS a lesson by still attending the great climate change circus in Paris the following week.

As it becomes ever more clear to most Americans that we can only defeat radical Islamists by annihilating them militarily, liberal politicians and their media supporters remain resolute in their belief that we should capitulate. As they consistently take the side of everything foreign to America’s traditional values, it becomes obvious that they feel not one ounce of patriotism, and are intent on converting our nation into a third world country.

What other reason could there possibly be for wanting to take guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens? Why else would we be accepting Muslims whose fidelity to Sharia law places them against the values that Americans hold dear? Why else would we allow tens of millions of illegal aliens to violate our immigration laws?

What is the justification for downsizing and downgrading our military in the face of worldwide chaos? And, does anyone actually believe that American society is improved by restricting free speech through political correctness, destroying the traditional family unit, waging an all out war on Christianity, legalizing marijuana, and releasing thousands of convicted drug dealers from prison?

At the same time, lets don’t forget the liberal creed: Never let a good crisis go to waste. In the aftermath of Paris and San Bernardino, President Obama is at a global climate change conference. Lord only knows what part of America he is giving away while everyone else’s attention is diverted. The United Nations is lusting after a tax on America’s carbon dioxide emissions, and Obama is feverish to give it to them.

Another coincidental ‘good crisis’ response: Our bootlicking Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, announced in the midst of San Bernardino that women will be placed in all special forces divisions of the military. But, not to worry! Standards will not be reduced! Carter says there will be “no lowering of the standards between genders”.

Well there’s another liberal lie if there ever was one. Not one person in America believes that whopper, least of all the highly trained warriors who will be depending on their buddies to cover their backs. The military already reduced standards in order to induct three women into the Army Rangers. Of course they will continue reducing standards. At least until politically correct numbers are achieved, and Special Forces are no longer a bastion of male privilege.

Let us agree that it is too late to go back to ‘women and children first’. The current political wisdom says that men and women are completely interchangeable, and whatever differences we see are all due to past cultural prejudices. To accommodate this absurd proposition, our radical left administration is going to force the issue by watering down America’s most effective fighting forces. Never mind the consequences. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Since women now have the full right to get killed alongside men in combat, it only makes sense to allow them to do all the jobs that don’t require the extreme physicality of Special Forces. No doubt, in many combat roles women can do as well as men, but until I see the first woman playing in the NFL or NBA, I will not believe that they have the physical strength and dexterity to be in our Special Forces.

President Obama has no intention of changing direction, and the worthless Republican Congress has no intention of forcing him to change. So I guess America will have to survive crisis to crisis for the next thirteen months, while liberals blather on about the religion of peace, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch responds to terrorist attacks by threatening to prosecute anyone whose rhetoric is too critical of Muslims.

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What Freedom of Speech?

A common refrain from conservatives these days is that, ‘freedom of speech is under fire’. Well I believe our first amendment right is further gone than that. It is not just under fire, but for most Americans, it no longer exists! Whether it can ever be reinstituted as the foundation of our liberty, may be the most critical issue facing America in the next election.

As far as free speech has existed under our Constitution, the first amendment has already been successfully repealed by bureaucratic fiat. All government – federal, state, and local – has already banned free speech from their employees. They have also banned free speech from anyone who does business with the government, as well as all those who receive any government funding. All of our schools, including the teachers, students, and parents, have had their first amendment rights rescinded.

Our universities, which were historically bastions of free speech, have put in place speech codes that older Americans recognize as the first cold chill of fascism. There is scarcely a university president left in America who has the guts to speak the truth about anything, or even publicly support common sense. The students – I mean the left-wing radicals, and their mindless followers – are now running our institutions of higher learning.

The last vestiges of free speech exist in the silent world of heartland America. These are the people who are now supporting Donald Trump. Most, I suspect, are like me. They can’t quite put their finger on the reason they support Trump. He is everything that most of us dislike, and he is not even a real conservative. Yet there is something very appealing in his candidacy.

The media is openly frustrated that they have not been able to destroy him. Establishment politicians are practically insane with rage that their faithful voters have spurned them, and are giving their hearts to a hussy like Trump. Psychiatrists and college professors are smugly explaining the subliminal reasons redneck Republicans are allowing themselves to be taken in by another right-wing radical.

They simply don’t understand how satisfying it is to see someone finally give liberals a taste of their own medicine. They now claim that Trump made up his own crime statistics. Not only did he make up the statistics, but he showed his true racism by pointing out that African Americans are killing each other at a hugely disproportionate rate.

Liberals invented the political lie, and they practice it on a daily basis. They might not lie to steal your money or do physical harm, but to obtain their own righteous political goals, they simply believe it is an acceptable path to winning. Nothing! Absolutely nothing can be trusted that comes out of the mouth of a liberal politician or journalist – from the President on down. To hear the greatest liars in America complain that someone else is lying, only gives conservatives a much needed belly-laugh.

Well, I have my own thought on the puzzling Trump support, and I think it’s at least as reasonable as all the expert theories that have been proven to be chronically wrong for decades: Heartland Americans instinctively understand that the free speech critical to liberty is vanishing, and Donald Trump is free-speeching his way across the nation. Neither the media elites, establishment politicians, nor supercilious intellectuals, have been able to shut him up. He is free speech personified.

Freedom of speech is so critical that it should have been included in the Constitution’s Preamble, rather than as an amendment. There is no freedom of religion, the press, or anything else without freedom of speech. Liberals understand this, and have been working for years to conquer America by restricting free speech. The political correctness they worship, is nothing less than the abolition of free speech.

Hopefully the rest of America is realizing before it’s too late, that free speech is the greatest of all rights. Freedom of speech is an absolute. There is no middle ground between free speech and tyranny.

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Trump’s Muslim Registry

In case you haven’t heard, the mainstream media and Capitol Hill Republicans are having their latest Trump hissy over him supposedly proposing that all Muslims be registered.

Let us be clear from the start. A reporter invented the ‘Muslim registry’. Anyone who heard the actual interview in full as I did, understands that this is another mendacious attempt by the power elites to derail Trump’s presidential campaign.

So far, they have tried every trick in their sleazy book to destroy him. Even their specialty – character assassination – has failed to work with Trump. They couldn’t even get his ex-wife to confirm that he is a reprobate. Things are tough these days in the ‘media lies’ business. The ‘Muslim registry’ scam was a classic, and would likely have been the hari kari moment for just about any mainstream Republican candidate, but Trump barely noticed.

Never mind that nobody has any idea what the reporter meant by a ‘Muslim registry’. Our government tracks every single American, listens in on their private phone conversations, and even demands to know how many bathrooms they have in their home. But now Americans are supposed to be outraged that Muslims will be forced to reveal their religious faith. I mean, what next? Are we going to require them to swear that they don’t believe in executing homosexuals, enslaving their women, and killing infidels and apostates?

But then Donald Trump doesn’t play fair. He is too unsophisticated to realize that he insulted all Muslims and liberal saints, and needs to be groveling and pleading for understanding over something he never said. In fact, He should be falling all over himself apologizing to the 600 million Muslims, and tearfully removing himself from the Presidential race. But the vulgar billionaire just does not understand how the game is played!

Worse! His intransigence is catching. Some of the other candidates are becoming hesitant to apologize for every media twist of their words. Some are even fighting back against the reporters, and actually calling them out for being so blatantly anti-conservative. Liberal media stars are desperate to nip this trend in the bud, and are vigorously investigating Trump’s pool boys and keeping a sharp eye on how he treats his dog.

The mainstream media, Democrats, and the establishment Republicans are the power elites of America. Donald Trump is making them panic. Their hold on power has never been more threatened than it is now. That the American people continue to support ‘The Donald’, has them completely befuddled.

The establishment conservatives in the media are not just perplexed, but actually disgusted that rank and file Republicans could be such rubes. The Charles Krauthammers of the Washington political scene, are so absorbed in having credibility with the mainstream media, that they fairly cringe with every new poll that comes out. They simply cannot believe that heartland Republicans are stupid enough to listen to Trump’s crude rhetoric, instead of their sophisticated analyses.

They are like the self-absorbed man whose neglected wife has been cheating on him: Her actions are suspicious. She has lately become moody and distant. She stays with her friends a lot. He refuses to believe what his own friends tell him, yet finds himself kissing up to her suddenly unreasonable demands. Only when she actually reveals that she is leaving him for someone else, is he finally shocked into believing.

So it is with the Republican establishment. They are in denial. They refuse to believe that the citizens have finally had enough of their vote pandering rhetoric with no action, and want a non-politician to lead them. They are certain that the ignorant voters just don’t know the real Trump, and once he is exposed, will turn back to big government for the security that only Washington can provide. Maybe when Republican voters reveal their infidelity at the ballot box, our professional politicians will finally believe.

I talk to people every day who express the same sentiment: ‘I am not a Trump fan, but I sure like what he saying’. Our establishment leaders just cannot bring themselves to believe that they are no longer loved, and that when push comes to vote, loyal Republicans will actually cast their ballot for Donald Trump.

Do I trust Trump? Of course not! But I don’t trust any of our elected leaders, or the Krauthammers either. So why not give a Washington outsider a chance. Someone who doesn’t make the same lame promises year after year, and doesn’t give a hoot about being politically correct. He can’t possibly be any worse than what we have!

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France and Syria

Regarding the recent terrorist attack in Paris, a few observations leap out at us. First, we now know that the ringleader of the attacks had recently come to France posing as a refugee from the Syrian civil war. We also know that since the attacks, more than twenty Syrians have been apprehended trying to enter the U.S. with fake passports.

Despite the clear threat to American security, Obama is still set on allowing 10,000 Syrians to enter the U.S. His claim that all those entering are being thoroughly vetted and pose no possible threat to America, is absolutely preposterous. Yet the ‘emperor with no clothes’ goes about his business of tearing down America, while the opposition party piddles about with feckless rhetoric.

Secondly, France has no second amendment right to bear arms. I wonder how the attack might have turned out differently if a few Parisians had been packing when the action started. Certainly in America there is every reason to believe that the casualty toll would have been significantly less if the terrorists had come under fire before the police arrived.

But what’s really puzzling, is how the attacks even happened? Aren’t we told incessantly by liberals, that we need to take guns out of the hands of the people in order to make America a safer place? Don’t we constantly get chastised by the Democrat elites, that we are the only industrialized country in the world that allows law abiding ‘loonies’ to carry guns? Yes indeed, if we would just listen to the liberal gun banners, America could one day be as safe as France.

And finally, I’m thinking about Obama’s reaction to terrorism compared to President Hollande’s. To be sure, France was the one who was hit, and it’s expected that they would threaten the strongest retaliation. However, to hear our President refer to it as a ‘setback’ in his little personal plan to contain ‘radical terrorism’, (note: not Islamic or Muslim) while Hollande declares war and orders immediate airstrikes, is to embarrass America in front of the world.

But again: the puzzle. France bombed the ISIS headquarters, training facility, ammunition stores and petroleum reserves… What!?… Headquarters, training, ammunition, petroleum!? Obama has been ordering strategic airstrikes against ISIS for a year. What have we been bombing – tents and camels?

Events are moving quickly in America and the world. It seems that America is consistently on the wrong side or makes the wrong decision, both domestically and with foreign affairs. It is apparent to everyone except our President, that without a strong America, world order is devolving into chaos. Somehow we have to survive fourteen more months of Obama’s transformational leadership… God help us!

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From Farce to the Sublime

Every time there is another terrorist attack we have to listen to President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry issue strong condemnations and deliver spurious promises that the the perpetrators will be punished. Pledging solidarity with France, and vowing to bring the ‘radical terrorists’ to justice, they have deplored the ‘senseless acts of violence’ in the strongest possible terms. Between the two leaders they must have the terrorists scared out of their wits.

Is this response beginning to sound familiar to anyone else? If I was into research, I believe I could find a dozen or more times that we have heard the same tune from our dynamic leaders. Off the top of my head I am thinking of Fort Hood, the ‘red line’ with Syrian gas attacks, Ben Ghazi, the mass kidnapping of children by Boko Haram in Nigeria followed by the murder of over 2,000 people, Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and the slaughter of 147 Christians in Kenya.

In each case we heard the same hollow words from our comatose leaders: We will have justice! We will have revenge! We will not allow ‘criminals’ to terrorize us!…But wait: Let’s make sure we don’t paint blame with a broad brush… It is not Islam – the religion of peace!… It is not Muslims, who only want to live in peace, just like us!… Incidents like this – by lone wolf radicals – must not be blamed on Islam.

The President of France labeled the Paris attack an “act of war”, while Obama assured us that it is just a little “setback”. According to our President, the fight against terrorism is going well, and our continued air attacks are weakening them by the day. In fact, the ISIS ‘junior varsity’ now “controls less territory than they did last year”.

Just to show how confident he is, Obama is not going to let a handful of criminal terrorists cause him to back down from his open door policy for Syrian refugees. The fact that the mastermind of the Paris attacks was a recent arrival from Syria is of no significance to the man elected to keep America safe. To prove how fearless he is, he wants to increase the number of allowable refugees from 10,000 to 100,000.

Although the realization is coming to more Americans every day, most have been unable to accept the glaringly obvious fact that we have a President who does not like America. Even though he has stated openly and often that his goal is to ‘fundamentally transform America’, most people still want to believe that he intended to strengthen our country with his transformation.

In reality, every single action Obama has taken since becoming President has been harmful to America. It is simply unthinkable to most Americans that he could actually be purposefully tearing our country apart, yet each inexplicable thing he has done in the last seven years, only makes sense in that light. He may indeed be delusional, but in his mind the transformation of America is taking place exactly as he had planned.

So we have a President who despises America as it was founded, allowing an unlimited flow of immigrants into our country, while lecturing us on ‘who we are as a people’. Forcing Muslims to denounce Sharia – which dictates death to homosexuals, slave status for women, and the killing of all infidels and apostates – before allowing them to enter the United States, is somehow antithetical to the traditional American values that Barack Obama just happens to detest.

Barack Obama functioning as president of our constitutional republic, has blossomed into the greatest farce that has ever played out on the American people. Bullying his way through two terms with only the most faint-hearted opposition from Republicans, it is only natural that the long running farce would eventually devolve into the sublime.

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Chickens Come Home to Roost

Today’s special target for liberals and the media is that notorious hotbed of racism, the University of Missouri. An elite group of intellectuals from the UM football team has detected a shocking undercurrent of ‘white privilege’ dominating life at the diseased educational establishment.

With a prescience befitting their scholarship status, the athletes determined the University President was responsible for allowing the racism to persist, and indeed was found to be a racist himself. In a masterful interpretation of a single sentence spoken by the President while addressing their concerns, the students realized that the chancellor was accusing them of being responsible for 1) racism on campus 2) changing the racism 3) defaming the Confederate flag 4) and the loss to Mississippi State.

Anyway, the players determined he was not only a racist, but also responsible for their horrible team record and had to be fired. Joined by liberal professors, long frustrated at having missed the glory days of campus protests in the 1960’s, they issued a list of eight demands which boiled down to: more money for all things African American, and the firing of the President.

Like the President of Harvard who was fired for having the temerity to suggest that men and women are different, President Timothy Wolfe did not understand that he was among the ‘walking dead’. In the leftist world of higher education, no one survives a campus protest. Sensing blood in the water, pampered professors quickly turned on one of their own, and staked out the high ground on the side of the student protestors.

The following morning Wolfe was gone. With a resign or be fired decision in front of him, he chose to surrender, and hopefully protect his pension and benefits. Across the nation, panicky college presidents are huddling to institute new sensitivity programs and direct more money towards minority hiring lest they be the next one targeted, and tenured professors are rushing from their cushy offices to stand with the winning side.

As with every protest by leftists, lies are accepted as truth, and truth is twisted to absurd lengths. The swastika drawn on a dorm wall with human feces almost certainly never existed. Pick-up trucks flying around campus with confederate flags never happened. The Ku Klux Klan does not have a chapter on campus as claimed by the student body president. Random cries of the n-word from dark corners of the campus have no basis in fact. And of course, the charge of ‘white privilege’ is nothing more than another hollow liberal term used to incite racial tension, like ‘black lives matter’, and ‘hands up, don’t shoot’.

The entire University of Missouri fiasco is stupidity on stage. That it is happening at an institution of higher learning is outrageous enough, but the moronic protestations by young people who are supposed to be our best and brightest is simply embarrassing. Throw in a few groupie professors calling for ‘muscle’ to oust the reporters, and a campus police department urging students to report anything mean that has been said to them, and it becomes the latest farce that entertains America on the nightly news.

So far, the university President, the Chancellor, and a professor have lost their jobs over a scammed up charge of racial bias at a major institution of higher learning. As a Christian, I wish I could drum up some sympathy for the three lives that have needlessly been wrecked. The President and Chancellor ran for their professional lives at the first sound of conflict, and the immature professor got caught up in the protest excitement like a country girl at her first fraternity party.

But, sorry! I can’t gin up the sympathy. They only got what they deserved. Or as a notorious minister once said, ‘the chickens have come home to roost’! Old hippie professors, and latter day anarchists have turned our college campuses into propaganda factories for radical leftists who want one more try at turning America into a socialist role model for the world. The current crop of agitators fully expected to be the crowned leaders of the new utopia.

But wait! Something went wrong at Mizzou. The President and Chancellor – full-fledged members of education’s domineering left-wing – were forced to resign because they were Caucasians who failed to adequately confess that they had their exalted positions because of ‘white privilege’. Worse, Professor Melissa Click, who jumped in with the protestors and advocated force to run off a reporter, has been forced to resign. I’m sure that even now she is waiting for her fellow protestors to rally to her defense. Sorry Melissa. Wrong color.

The temptation is to let out a little hee, hee, hee. But the sickness that has taken over the educational system, is so symptomatic of the values crisis infecting all of America, that the very future of a free country is in peril. The lunatics have taken over the asylum, and anyone who does not fear for the direction of America, is either blissfully ignorant, or has their head stuck firmly in the sand.

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Laugh or Cry

On any given day one can scroll through the news and not know whether to laugh or cry. Of course, the laugh is out of sheer frustration and the cry is one of wonder at how far our society can go before it hits rock bottom.

Democrats are now saying that the Republican congress has ‘squandered’ taxpayer money on the Ben Ghazi investigation. Imagine, with our ambassador and three others murdered and our embassy burned, Congress spent four million dollars trying to find out what really happened – as much as President Obama spends for two of his golf and fundraising trips. By the way, our government spends four million dollars every 30 seconds – year round.

Out on the left coast, the California loonies strike again. Now they are going to provide sex-change operations to prisoners. As a staunch conservative who believes strongly in individual liberty, I couldn’t care less what a person does to himself as long as he pay for it with his own money, and it doesn’t impact my own personal liberties.

I admit I think these people need psychiatrists more than they need surgeons, but I understand even less the arrogant public officials who spend other people’s money to provide such such bizarre treatments for convicted criminals. I would say, ‘only in California’, but as we are ruefully witnessing, nothing seems too stupid for today’s America.

Out in Texas, two high school bands had a traditional exchange of gifts for Halloween. The Atascocita Band gave the other school a fruit basket containing canned pineapple, a whole coconut, watermelon, and candy. Some of America’s perpetually offended claimed the fruit basket was ‘racially insensitive’, and the school has conducted an investigation and handed out punishments.

School spokesperson Robin McAdams says, “Atascocita High School will not tolerate racial insensitivity.” So which of the fruits is the offending culprit? I guessed wrong. I thought it would be the coconut or pineapple. But no, it’s the good ole watermelon.

So now, a long forgotten, sixty year old symbol of racism against blacks, is given new life by the race hustling crowd. I’m sure the last two generations of both black and white kids will be pleased to know that they now have to see the harmless watermelon as a symbol of racism. Once again our educators are doing a better job of keeping racism alive than they are of teaching our children.

Not only are our educators busy rooting out racism, but they also have a sharp eye out for subversive Christian activity. In Washington State, a high school football coach has the audacity to pray on the field after a game. Over the years, he has been voluntarily joined by players from both teams and fans, without so much as an inviting word from him.

The school board has now ordered him to stop praying or be fired. Actually, he is forbidden to even “engage in demonstrative religious activity, readily observable to students or the attending public.” This includes such malevolent actions as bowing his head, or taking a knee. So the war on religious freedom – and Christianity in particular – continues apace.

Here in Key West, our global warming enthusiasts are giddy with delight. The periodic supermoon has brought the expected high tides, and the hoaxsters are praying – sorry, hoping – that rising seas have finally come. A supermoon accurs when the full moon is closest to earth, and last month it coincided with a lunar eclipse for the first time since 1982.

Instead of focusing on the natural phenomena, the man-made global warming crowd – now known as the climate change crowd – has taken it as a sign from ‘mother nature’ that their day is finally coming. Well, at least according to them we are only going to be under two feet of water by 2060, instead of the twenty feet predicted by Al Gore a decade or so ago.

For one that will make us laugh for real, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry chastised a guest who said new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is a ‘hard worker’. She claimed calling anyone (any white person?) a hard worker, is demeaning to slaves and single mothers. Well, Lord knows I wouldn’t want to see any slaves offended – but single mothers??

And a last little gem. In Illinois, a jury has awarded $240,000 to two Muslim truck drivers who refused to transport alcohol. The jury determined that the Muslim men who refused to violate their religious belief had been discriminated against because of their religion. Conversely, the Christian grandmother in Washington who refused to violate her religious belief and bake a cake celebrating gay marriage, got fined $135,000 for discriminating against the gay couple.

It is almost impossible for a rational person to figure out the looney minds of liberals. According to their left-wing interpretation of the Constitution, Muslims can be discriminated against on the basis of their religious faith, but Christians are the discriminating culprits if they hold to their religious beliefs. Or else, the trucking company needed to be in Washington where they would have received $240,000 instead of paying it, and the grandmother would have been awarded the $135,000 had she lived in Illinois.

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In the News Oct 2015

Hillary Clinton testifies before the House committee investigating Ben Ghazi. No one in America believes Hillary, but no one believes she will pay a price for her lying. The corruption of the Washington political establishment is so endemic that all Democrats and a majority of Republicans circle the wagons when one of their own is threatened.

Perhaps Trey Gowdy could at least highlight the audacious lie told to the American people; that the murders and burning of our embassy was the result of a stupid video. The video lie was blatant, and intentionally concocted to cover up the administration’s incompetence while preventing a political black eye with an election pending. Richard Nixon was removed from office for far less.

Today we also see that the innocent little ‘clock kid’ is leaving America. Imagine, in the land of the free, a little Muslim kid named Ahmed Mohamed is detained for bringing to school a homemade ‘clock’ that coincidentally looked like an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). I mean if it had been a little white boy bringing such a device into a school full of Hispanic children, we could understand the fuss. By the way, poor little Ahmed is so traumatized by America that he is moving to Qatar, one of the liberty loving kingdoms of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, out in the foreign Republic of San Francisco, city council members voted unanimously to retain their status as a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. Voting to violate the laws of the United States should amount to an illegal secession from the Union, yet the President and Congress do nothing.

At the order of the President, the Attorney General’s office has taken over control of several dozen police departments for a possible appearance of racism, but San Francisco is allowed to boldly defy federal law with no consequence. It is no longer a question of ‘respect for the law’, but rather a total breakdown of law and order that is happening in America. By the way; where is our great ‘conservative’ Republican congress while the disintegration of law is happening?

And, oh yes, on the law and order front; President Obama and the Democratic National Committee have now fully embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. In case you didn’t hear, this is the group that chants, “What do we want? DEAD COPS! And, Pigs in a blanket – FRY EM LIKE BACON!

Hooray! Hooray! Paul Ryan has agreed to run for Speaker of the House. Democrats can no longer gloat that Republicans are in disarray. A young John Boehner has come to save the day for the entire Washington political establishment. The first order of business will no doubt be; how do we stop Trump?

Speaking of Trump: Republicans, Democrats and the mainstream media still don’t get it. It is not just that Trump is saying what heartland America wants to hear, but that they believe him when he says it. No one trusts the career politicians who deliver their perfectly memorized stump answers, and never get in trouble for being politically incorrect. He may be a billionaire and a borderline jerk, but people believe that – unlike our elected leaders – ‘what you see is what you get’.

Lastly a real beauty about Lois Lerner, the IRS supervisor who targeted conservative groups and deleted thousands of emails pertaining to the abuse, then took the 5th amendment against self-incrimination while refusing to testify before Congress. The Justice Department has been unable to find any wrongdoing on her part, and decided to press no charges.

This case personifies everything already mentioned. The absolute corruption of this administration, the ‘hang together’ mentality of America’s establishment rulers, and the subversion of law to maintain the Washington power hold over the people. It is sickening to think that America has created a ruling class so powerful that even our judicial system is a part of it, and even more sickening to feel so helpless in the face of such brazen political pollution.

In one week we see a city defy the laws of America, the shameful Ben Ghazi incident swept away by political expediency, and the IRS given a pass for flagrant and illegal political bias. Just a few short decades ago, people would have gone to jail, political careers would have been ruined, and bureaucrats by the dozen would have been fired. However, in the current lawless America, the net result of all this corruption? Nothing!

Revolution has always seemed unthinkable in America. But today our country is so divided between the ‘takers’ and the ‘providers’, that it is hard to conceive of any political solution. For all his bluster, Donald Trump understands that drastic measures are needed to save America. If there is not a dramatic and immediate turnaround in the direction of our country, then nothing is unthinkable – even the dissolution of the Union.

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Hillary Defense Team

Democrats and the their media teammates are attacking Republicans on every word with every issue. Using the tried and true liberal method, they never talk about the issue itself, but always slander the speaker on a personal level. Ad hominem attacks have always worked to put Republicans on the defense, and Democrats see no reason to abandon the tactic.

Hillary Clinton, the only viable candidate the Democrats have, is in biiiig trouble. Every day more of her duplicity is exposed. Between Ben Ghazi, the email server scandal, and shady Clinton Foundation contributions, Hillary has seen her poll numbers drop to the lowest levels ever. Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media understand that they have to do something quickly to shore up her candidacy.

Her supporters know all the charges against her are true, but find the fact irrelevant. Since Bill first ran for president, its been known that both the Clintons are liars, cheats, and self-serving ego-maniacs. There is little concern among liberals that the 48% who always support big government and vote Democrat no matter the candidate, might change their vote. They won’t.

The fear is that her image as a scoundrel is becoming so ingrained that moderates – who don’t know what they believe – are becoming so turned off that they might actually all vote Republican. They are also afraid that unless the base is sufficiently motivated to turn out the vote, they might not be able to deliver more than 100% of the inner city vote. After all, with the pesky Republicans continuing to insist on photo ID’s, voter fraud is getting harder and harder to pull off – what with everyone having a camera phone and Facebook and all.

Their other problem is President Obama. It is clear that the Clintons and Obamas detest each other. The President would like nothing better than to see Hillary go up in smoke, and Biden step into the nomination. However, Obama must tread carefully with Mrs. Clinton, as she is the one person in America that could take him down with her – and would.

Obama is now forced to sandbag the FBI investigation of Hillary by saying he doesn’t think there was any national security violations, and that much of the email investigation is politically motivated. The President’s claim that he did not know about her illegal personal server while secretary of state is also preposterous. Of course he knew. He not only knew, but undoubtedly had her messages hacked just like the Chinese and Russians did.

The deceptions and lies coming out of government today are overwhelming the American people. The corruption being exposed with the Clintons and the Obama administration is so extensive, that it just doesn’t seem possible that it could all be true. Democrats and the liberal media feed the public’s incertitude by persistently claiming that all the charges are just dirty politics by Republicans.

Since Democrats cannot win with the actual issues, there is nothing left but to ramp up the personal attacks. They are particularly focused on the popularity of the leading Republicans who are not politicians. Democrats are confident they can handle weak-kneed establishment Republicans. Outsiders like Donald Trump and Ben Carson frighten them half to death, so they dismiss the issues, and go after them personally.

Ben Carson is not really a Christian!– as if they care. Trump does not like women! – war on women again? Carson wouldn’t vote for a Muslim for President! – duh. Trump hates Hispanics and wants to deport all immigrants! – how about just the lawbreakers?

Carson is homophobic because he thinks children need both a mother and a father. – imagine, a whole nation full of homophobes. Trump doesn’t really love America, he’s just feeding his ego. – good luck with that one. And my favorite: Carson is an incompetent surgeon because he has been sued six times for malpractice. Gosh! Six times in only fifteen thousand brain surgeries. What a butcher!

For good measure, they also attack the integrity of all Republicans with the Ben Ghazi issue. Congressman Kevin McCarthy, the once presumptive Speaker of the House, created another tempest in the Washington teapot, by implying that the Ben Ghazi investigation was politically motivated. Highly sensitive liberal ears in Washington immediately perked up, and the Democrat attack team quickly went into action.

Democrats and their media compadres seized the moment to change the subject from Hillary’s irresponsible actions that caused the deaths of four Americans including our Libyan ambassador. Forgotten was her failure to listen to early warnings from our embassy. Forgotten was her failure to send help for the embattled Americans. And forgotten was the obscene lie promulgated by the entire administration that it was all caused by a video.

Meanwhile, out in the real America, millions of citizens are finally expressing their disgust with Washington. Non-politicians Trump, Carson, and Fiorino, along with Washington outcast Ted Cruz, are capturing the support of mainstream voters. The Washington power structure – including the Republican half – is petrified. These Tea Party type conservatives just don’t play fair anymore. They don’t seem to understand that the important thing is to get elected, not deliver on impractical promises.

Let us pray that this anti-establishment mood lasts through the next election. No doubt any of the Republican candidates would be preferable to any of the Democrats, but a career politician just means we will continue a little slower towards full government tyranny. There is no part of America that is functioning well right now. It may indeed be too late to restore Constitutional rule, but if we don’t immediately get radical change in our political direction, then even the smallest ray of hope is lost.

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President Pope Francis

I know Pope Francis is a subject I should stay away from. Religion is such a personal issue, and above all else in our Constitution, I revere the right of everyone to freely believe as they please – as long as they don’t want me killed for refusing to convert. However, Pope Francis himself has chosen to go outside his role as the Vicar of Christ for the Catholic Church and enter the political arena. That makes him fair game for criticism.

To be sure, he couches his politics in the faith of the church, but then again, even non-church going Christians like President Obama and the Clintons will frequently use the Bible to support their political agendas. Taken as a whole, his non-doctrinal positions on capitalism, illegal immigration, and the environment, and his soft postures on so-called ‘social issues’ like abortion, divorce, and homosexuality, exude a strong leftist aura.

Barack Obama, who’s own Christianity is a mysterious mix of faith and liberal politics, can sniff out a fellow traveler even behind a clerical robe. Though not a publicly devout Christian, the President is a devout opportunist, and his razor-sharp political senses have detected a kindred spirit in Pope Francis.

It is not a small thing that the President decided to make a huge fuss over the Pope. Obama thinks nothing of shunning the Prime Ministers of allies like Israel and England, as well as assorted Dalai Llamas and Evangelical Christian leaders. Then, he inexplicably roles out the red carpet for a leader whose Catholic Church holds stated positions on social issues that are directly opposite to his.

So what is it that President Obama sees in Pope Francis? Some say that Obama is just showing the proper respect due to the most popular figurehead of Christianity – the world’s largest religious faith. Others hope to believe that the President’s own Christian faith is moved by the Pope’s appearance, and he is finally putting to rest the charges that he is secretly a Muslim.

However, most thinking people believe as I do, that President Obama’s every action is politically motivated, and he figures to advance that agenda by aligning himself with the Pope. Even as Arab leaders recognize that Obama is inwardly sympathetic to their cause and speaks against them only out of political expediency, so the President believes the Pope is a fellow liberal who is working surreptitiously to liberalize the Catholic Church.

As for Pope Francis, one would have to be blinded by faith to believe all his words are divinely inspired. Senator Marco Rubio – himself a devout Catholic – says he believes the Pope to be infallible on church doctrine, but merely voicing the opinions of a man when it comes to political issues. Pope Francis certainly has a right, and even maybe an obligation to speak out on issues like immigration, but let us recognize that politics are as much in play at the Vatican as they are in our American Congress.

The College of Cardinals – the Vatican’s equivalent of our Congress – is every bit as political as our Washington establishment. Each cardinal is presumably an exceptionally dedicated priest, but still human. Like our elected leaders, they come as highly principled representatives of their faithful parishioners, and then have to deal with the reality of power politics when they convene in the Vatican.

Unlike our government, which is supposed to be transparent, the College of Cardinals is a highly secretive group, and its privileged members rarely blab about what goes on behind closed doors. Technically, they have no power to rule, but only serve as advisors to the Pope. In reality, without the support of the Cardinals, the Pope is in a highly precarious position, as witness Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict was deposed by non-support from the Cardinals. His resignation was not because of his ‘waning physical and mental powers’, but because the Cardinals wanted a certified liberal to lead them through the minefields of the twenty first century. Pope Francis, an Argentinian and the first Pope from the Americas, has proved to be the exact force of change the Cardinals wanted.

The English and Spanish speaking nations of the world – including the United States – supply the money for the Vatican empire. All have gravitated away from the Judeo-Christian values of individual liberty and personal responsibility, towards socialism and secular societies in which all traditional social restraints are eliminated. The Catholic hierarchy recognizes this reality and believes the Church must adapt, rather than try to buck the tide of hedonism and religious indifference that is engulfing the world.

The political words of Pope Francis are pretty much in line with prevailing thought in the western hemisphere. The Spanish speaking nations of the Americas are both envious and resentful of the wealth and political stability of the norte Americanos. Hearing an American president persistently trash his own country gives the Pope and other leaders the confidence to voice their own criticisms of the world’s ‘super power’.

Pope Francis has been highly critical of capitalism – especially the American brand. Yet capitalism is the Vatican’s best friend. It has not only made the Catholic Church the world’s second wealthiest financial power after the United States, but has raised more people out of poverty than any economic system in history. Political expediency seems the only possible motive for Pope Francis’ continuing denigration of capitalism.

The Pope also chastises us on immigration. He seems to think the United States should open both it’s borders and it’s treasury to take in all of the world’s poor. The temptation is to say “you first”. But in the same way that America’s capitalistic wealth and example raise the standard of living for the whole world, the wealth of the Catholic Church is used to accomplish monumental good throughout the world.

Should the Vatican sell off it’s treasures and impoverish itself to feed the world, what would then happen when all the money is gone? Who would fund the extensive number of hospitals, schools and charities that the Church maintains? Who would send workers to third world nations to help ease their misery? And indeed, who would bring the incredible gift of Christian love and salvation to a tumultuous world?

It appears that both the Pope and President Obama seem to think the world would be a better place if the United States is knocked off its pedestal. Somehow the world will benefit if we bring America down to the level of other countries, rather than attempting to raise other nations up the level of America. Sorry to my Catholic friends, but when the Pope delves into these political issues, he can be just as wrong as our President.

As for the Catholic Church’s doctrinal and social issues, I would not presume to voice an opinion. However, it is apparent even to outsiders that the Church has pressing problems with divorce, birth control, abortion, and celibacy. But the eight hundred pound gorilla in the church, is surely the Vatican’s interminable homosexual headache.

From priests who have sexually abused little boys, to the legalization of same-sex marriage, and homosexuality amongst the supposedly celibate priesthood, the Catholic Church has a fractious internal issue that must be dealt with. Additionally, courts around the world are routinely ruling against religious conscience, and it is highly likely that Christians will soon be forced to revise their faiths according to government dictates, or face the loss of tax exemptions and possible imprisonment.

How the Catholic Church will deal with homosexuality is anyone’s guess. In reality, it is not just a Catholic problem, but a critical matter for all of Christianity. At stake, is nothing less than whether the Holy Bible as written is the divinely inspired word of God, or just a book that can simply be edited and revised to accommodate history’s ever-changing political winds.

It is my suspicion that the liberal Pope Francis was selected primarily to deal with the issue of homosexuality. As the world’s most visible face of Christianity, his leadership will have profound consequences not only for all other Christian denominations, but for the principle of ‘religious freedom’ itself.

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Christian Martyrs

When Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona by a mentally deranged person, Democrat politicians and the entire liberal media placed the blame on talk radio and conservative politicians. They charged that the Rush Limbaughs of America were spewing a message of hate toward Democrats that was influencing people like the shooter, and that Republican politicians like Sarah Palin were encouraging the violence with subliminal messaging such as bullseye targets on political advertising.

In South Carolina nine Christians were murdered as they worshipped in a Methodist church. Because the Christians were African American, President Obama and the usual race hustlers did their best to gin up a racial confrontation. Like true Christians, the church members and family offered forgiveness rather than retribution, and the race mongers turned their attention to the innocuous Confederate flag.

In the Middle East, Christians are tortured and murdered on a daily basis by Muslim fanatics. The President steadfastly refuses to recognize that it is religious persecution, and maintains that criminals are co-opting the faith of Islam to do their murdering. Meanwhile Obama does nothing to support the dwindling Christian population in those countries.

In America, left-wing radicals have an ongoing war against Christian values using same-sex marriage as the sword. Liberal politicians and judges accuse Christians of being intolerant forces of hate. Their rhetoric is non-stop and highly publicized by the liberal media as they seek out self-righteous, power-crazed judges willing to overrule democratic votes of citizens and throw harmless Christians into jail.

In Oregon we now have nine college students murdered because they were Christians. Before the carnage was even cleared, President Obama addressed the killings as a gun issue, and somehow missed the fact that they were killed for being Christians. Once again the President exploited the creed of liberalism, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

So when is it that President Obama and his liberal entourage are forced to admit that Christians are the target? According to left-wing radicals who are now controlling the direction of our country, every word that comes out of a conservative mouth is some form of micro-aggression with a subliminal message of hate. Yet liberals studiously ignore the possibility that their own message of hate toward Christians has spawned a volatile atmosphere for peaceful followers of Christ, and a social divide that has not been seen in America since the days of slavery.

The never-ending demonization of Christians by the left has created a religious battlefield in America – the one country in the world that was actually founded on the principle of ‘religious freedom’. Islam is safe from this persecution because cowardly liberals always go after the soft target, and Muslims cut your head off if you criticize the teachings of Muhammad.

Tennessee Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey says Christians now need to arm themselves. So far, I am not prepared to advocate carrying a gun, but Christians do need to start fighting back with every peaceful means, including civil disobedience like Martin Luther King, and Kim Davis – the Kentucky clerk who went to jail rather than violate her Christian conscience.

Those who think the radical left’s fight against Christianity ended with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, need to get their heads out of the sand. The war on Cristianity and Judeo-Christian values, is only at it’s beginning. Get prepared to pick a side, because left-wing radicals allow for no middle ground.

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Not a Christian Nation?

Cal Thomas used to be one of my favorite syndicated columnists. Not that he isn’t anymore, just that the publications I read no longer carry his articles, so I am not up to date on whether some of his staunch conservative opinions may have become somewhat flaccid with time – possibly because of his close association with super liberal Bob Beckel.

His current article about the Kentucky clerk refusing to sign same-sex marriage licenses, left me quite confused. He contends that America is not, and never was, a Christian nation. He proceeds to slam Christians for everything that has ever been wrong with America, from slavery to the roaring twenties. He accuses Christians of every form of intolerance and constantly trying to force their beliefs on the rest of the nation.

The Cal Thomas I remember was nothing, if not fair. Though he came down consistently on the conservative side, you could always expect a reasoned analysis of the opposite side. With the Kentucky clerk, it is fair to argue that she picked the wrong time and wrong place to exercise her Christian opposition to same-sex marriage. It is also fair to mention that America has not always conducted itself as a Christian nation, and that singling out homosexual marriage ignores the many sins we are all guilty of.

However, both the rhetoric and the tone were inexplicable in the light of the anti-Christian mood that’s now prevailing in America. Thomas states “America is a nation in which Christians – and every other religious and nonreligious person – have the right to practice their beliefs in private and public free of government intrusion”.

Is he really that unaware of our courts and governments refusing to make accommodation for Christian conscience by forcing bakers, florists, and other wedding providers to service same-sex marriage? Is he oblivious to the fact that the courts and governments make exceptions for illegal aliens, radical Islamists, and fourteen year old boys who decide they are female and demand to shower with the girls, but put a harmless Christian woman in jail rather than find accommodation for her conscience?

The anti-Christian actions are spreading rapidly. Even today Home Depot refused to make copies of a Christian prayer relative to the horror of Planned Parenthood’s harvesting of baby body parts. Mr. Thomas cannot be unaware of where this is all heading. If Christians don’t start pushing back, they will soon be forced underground with their religious conscience, for the radical liberals will stop at nothing to eradicate all tolerance for Christian belief.

Thomas also repeatedly uses the liberal tactic of inventing a straw man. He talks of imaginary Christians with “this flawed notion of a once pristine nation that reflected Biblical values”. Who are these people with the flawed notion? I have been around Christians my entire life and never ran across a single one who thought like that.

It reminds me of the ridiculous lie promulgated by radical gays, claiming Christians say ‘homosexuals are going to hell’. Again, where are these people? No true Christian would risk his soul by judging someone else more guilty of damnation than themselves. In a half century of dealing with church leaders, including District and Synod Presidents, I have never heard a single condemnation of someone for being a homosexual.

Thomas’ silliest observation is that Christians never talk to anyone about their beliefs on gay marriage and abortion. “If you are pro-life, have you ever tried to get a pro-choice, non-Christian to accept your position? If you believe in traditional marriage and practice it, does your example and argument that marriage should be reserved for ‘one man and one woman’ persuade proponents of gay marriage? …I didn’t think so”.

It’s hard to know how to respond to such a strange statement. Does he actually mean that he thinks proponents of traditional marriage and opponents of abortion never talk to anyone about it, or does he mean it is a waste of time, so why bother? Or, is he possibly implying that Christians don’t talk about it because it is such a weak or even embarrassing position to hold?

Surely Cal Thomas has himself had this conversation with many people? Surely he understands like I do, that it is impossible to get a liberal to discuss the two subjects dispassionately? Unable to defend either position with reasoned logic, they always turn to emotion, and frequently end the discussion with a loud and final discourse on fairness.

Mr. Thomas also inexplicably says that Christians have long tried to force their beliefs on others. He has a very strange perspective on just who is trying to force what on whom. Americans have long opposed both abortion and same-sex marriage, yet a handful of judges have forced the view of minorities on both Christians and the entire country. Would it have been too much to ask that Thomas at least mention that fact in his article.

Mr. Thomas concludes “Kim Davis chose the wrong issue for her martyrdom”. Thomas sees himself as a man with ‘common sense solutions for America’. He may be right about Kim Davis, but he may also be wrong, and I can’t help but wonder just where he would draw the line with his own conscience?

Civil disobedience was considered an honored approach when used by Martin Luther King to fight racial discrimination. Apparently Mr. Thomas sees no parallel with religious discrimination. It appears he doesn’t even recognize the organized attempt by radical leftists, the judiciary, and compliant politicians, to restructure Christianity so it fits into the liberal ideal of political correctness.

Many remain in denial, but the war on Christianity keeps moving inexorably forward, and soon enough everyone will be forced to either take a stand for religious freedom and liberty, or capitulate completely to judicial and governmental tyranny.

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The Kentucky Clerk and Hypocrisy

I made the mistake of watching Governor Huckabee on Fox News as he defended Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue a same sex marriage license. That subjected me to a montage of media comments slamming Miss Davis, Christianity, and all who support her.

The level of invective and pure hatred directed towards Christians was enough to send chills up the spine of any follower of Christ. It’s as if these media people have their inner anger bottled up with sensitive liberal issues like racial crime, illegal immigration, and political corruption, and then finally allow their pent up hatreds to explode on the safest target around – Christianity.

Liberals are desperately frightened over Kim Davis. They know it is a wake-up call for millions of Christians who are yet to understand the full implications of the tyrannical Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage. Christian activism is a sleeping giant in America, and if awakened could have a devastating impact on the liberal agenda. A black woman on the Fox News show was horrified at the thought of Kim Davis being compared to Rosa Parks, screaming out, ‘This is not civil rights! This is discrimination’!

I had just settled down from reading a Miami Herald hit piece on Christians when I viewed the Fox clip, and was struck once again by the same word. Hypocrisy! Along with avoiding the issue and attacking personally, it is a foundation of liberal argument to accuse your adversary of the very things you yourself are guilty of. Because of their radicalism, it is almost impossible to tell whether liberals recognize it as a tactic, or just fanatically believe there is no other side.

Radical liberals detest the Bible. Without question they would ban it given the chance. More realistically for the present, they hope to edit the offensive parts or have it censored as a book full of hate speech. One of the more maddening aspects of the Holy Book to liberals, is the way the Bible – and particularly Jesus Christ – dwell on the subject of hypocrisy.

They desperately do not wish to recognize that hypocrisy is a two way street which forces people to look within themselves for enlightenment. Indeed, the Bible describes it far more eloquently than the best writer among us. Hypocrite! First remove the cinder from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Matthew 7:5

What prompted this thought was the Miami Herald’s Leonard Pitts hammering Christians for their intolerance, based on the Kentucky clerk marriage license issue. With the most incredible consistency, the Herald’s Democrat defense team can find fault with everything Republican and everything conservative, all the while exhibiting the most blatant hypocrisy towards liberalism without the least embarrassment.

Mr. Pitts, the Heralds excellent grievance specialist, belittles Christians for their intolerance, while making the reasonable argument that certain things come with the job in positions of public service. However, in the interest of fairness he well could have pointed out that gay marriage was illegal when Mrs. Davis took the job, 75% of Kentuckians voted against it, and incarceration seemed an extreme punishment for such a minor offense.

Unsurprisingly, he displays the typical liberal intolerance to all who disagree with them. “If conscience impinges that heavily upon your business or your job, the solution is simple: Sell the business or quit the job”.

So there you have it. Either fall in line with liberal demands, or go sit in the corner. Liberals have determined that they alone are wise enough to define the boundaries of the Constitutional right to Freedom of Religion. Every American must accept that the rules established by transient judges and politicians always have preeminence over religious conscience. If you can’t control your religious conscience then you may not serve in public office or even have a business that serves the public.

Here’s the hypocrisy. Liberals have no problem making endless excuses and limitless accommodation for inner city thugs, illegal aliens, radical Islam, and fourteen year old boys who decide they are female and demand to shower with the girls. But for religious conscience, they have zero tolerance, and throw Christians in jail to show their resolve.

In fact there were a dozen ways in which the marriage license issue could have been settled. Judge Bunning and Governor Beshear had multiple options to bypass the intransigent clerk, including removing her from office, or simply having her name removed from the license. Both however, chose to show their absolute disdain for religious conscience by throwing a perfectly harmless Christian woman in jail.

By slapping Kim Davis in the slammer for holding her faith more dear than the mighty judge’s order, David Bunning certainly proved he is no paper tiger. No sir! For all those who imply that being the son of a hall of fame pitcher and U.S. Senator had anything to do with his appointment, he showed once and for all that he didn’t need his daddy and is a really tough guy on his own.

In fact, Judge Bunning is probably a perfectly fine human being, but the judicial power he abused by putting this woman in jail is now endemic in the nation’s judiciary. The same judges who allow the President to defy all laws he doesn’t agree with, tolerate millions of aliens who have violated our laws, and repeatedly disenfranchise citizens by throwing out their votes, insist on the strictest enforcement with peaceful Christians.

So, go figure whether the Leonard Pitts’ of this world are oblivious to the hypocritical double standard they place on Christianity, or just don’t care.

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ze, hir, zir, xe, xem, xyr

If you think my computer went on the fritz with the weird looking letter combinations of the title, think again. Those are the new gender neutral pronouns in practice at the University of Tennessee.

No more he, she, him, her, mister, sir, miss or maam. No xyr! Rickey Hall, the vice chancellor – Oh no, that means there’s a chancellor too – for diversity and inclusion says, “It’s about education.”

I wonder what kind of degree Xem Hall has, and whether ze has ever heard of anything ridiculous enough to laugh at? While we double up, ze doubles down by pointing out, “It’s about inclusive practice… and exposing our students to an increasingly diverse and global world”.

Donna Braquet, director of the university’s Pride Center – I didn’t make this one up either – further explains. “With the new semester beginning and an influx of new students on campus, it is important to participate in making our campus welcoming and inclusive for all. One way to do that is to use a student’s chosen name and their correct pronouns.

We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance, nor by what is listed on a student roster or in student information systems. Transgender people and people who do not identify within the gender binary may use a different name than their legal name and pronouns of their gender identity.”

Lest anyone think this particular example of gender identity lunacy is an anomaly, be advised that the same state of Tennessee recently decided to replace mother and father on birth certificates with parent 1 and parent 2. I suppose I am being non-inclusive, judgmental, and maybe even non-binary for all I know, but I always thought of Tennessee as being country and conservative. If this kind of politically correct nonsense goes on in their schools and government, what must be happening in California, Oregon, and Washington?

It is frightening to think that Xem Hall and Xyr Braquet are not only products of our educational system, but are now influencing an entire new generation with even more radical, left-wing, brain numbing nonsense. Instead of teaching our kids and feeding off tax dollars, these pampered binary brats should be put out into the real world to make a living. Maybe then they could get a proper perspective on the unimportance of their pronoun careers.

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The Media’s Presidential Circus

Thanks solely to our national media, we now have to tolerate the presidential circus – with at least twenty separate side-shows – for a full year and one half. The presidential race is the big story that dominates the news every day. Meanwhile, as the country focuses on who will be President two years from now, illegals continue pouring over the border, ISIS continues to expand, judges grab more power, corruption runs apace in our government, and Congress is on vacation.

This go round, Donald Trump is the media darling. Make no mistake. They love Trump. It is professional wrestling at its finest. ‘Trump the Terrible’ is the bad guy they all love to hate. There is more righteous indignation among the media elite over Trump’s rise, than one would find in the most blood-thirsty ‘rassling’ fan. But ratings are through the roof, and after all, the media is just giving people what they want to see…Right?

In reality, the entire spectacle is a creation of the national media. There is not one good reason why citizens should be subjected to such fatuousness so long before an election, except that the media has programmed it. America would be far better served if we gave our full attention to the continuous attack on liberty we are receiving from this administration, a judiciary that has taken over control of the country, our moribund Congress, and leave off the presidential race until next summer.

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Fourteenth Amendment

I am reprinting an article I wrote in August of 2015. Trump was being slammed for his opposition to pregnant women sneaking into America and having babies which automatically were accepted as American citizens. The massive number of children now being smuggled into the United States is essentially the same principle, as once they are legally accepted, all of their family will be allowed to ‘reunite’ with them.


In his own inarticulate way, Donald Trump keeps trashing political correctness and speaking the truth. Now it’s the fourteenth amendment. For liberals, the most sacred words in all of the Constitution are found in section one: equal protection of the laws. With this one mystical phrase, liberals are ruling America.

Trump maintains that the Constitution does not intend to grant citizenship to babies born in America where our immigration laws have been violated. But when it comes to the importation of more Democrat voters, liberal politicians, media pundits, and prissy professors of law, suddenly become strict constructionists and opine teary-eyed over the sanctity of our Constitution. They all seem to be of the opinion that if someone sneaks into your house, you not only have to allow them to stay, but accept them as a full member of your family.

The fourteenth amendment has become a magic hat for left-wing judges across America. As the jurists become braver and braver at making their own law, they routinely pluck opaque rulings from the beguiling amendment, and leave us incredulous as to what might pop out next.

Section one of the fourteenth amendment was enacted in 1868 for one simple and clear reason: to ensure that freed slaves have the same rights as all American citizens. Yet section one, which is referred to as the ‘equal protection clause’, has become Tinkerbell’s wand for liberal justices who wish to enact their own political agenda into law.

With legal legerdermain, the judges leave Americans open-mouthed as they peel off the napkin, and rights to abortion and gay marriage appear before our astonished eyes. As judicial tyranny becomes a reality, we can only look on helplessly while our liberty and the democratic process vanish in a puff of smoke. For in the real world, little can be done to reign in the Constitutional contempt of rogue judges – especially when you don’t even try.

Left-wing radicals, who can twist legal logic for virtually any liberal cause, are unable to accept the clear intent of the fourteenth amendment. Would anyone with half a brain believe that our Constitution requires us to reward people who violate our laws? Yet, they demand that we violate every precept of common sense by accepting anchor babies and their entire extended family as legal citizens.

The same judges who can find rights to abortion, gay marriage, and Obamacare, with smoke, mirrors, and a little pixie dust from the fourteenth amendment, tell us we have to accept blatant law breakers as our fellow citizens. Be assured that if anchor baby families were expected to register Republican, liberal judges would have them on a plane back to their country of origin before you could say presto!

With all that is going wrong in America today, it is difficult to track back to a single cause. However, judicial tyranny looks like a good starting point. Our country’s founders never intended for the judiciary to have the power they do today. They recognized the danger of any one branch of government becoming all-powerful, but never imagined it would be the judiciary.

Typically, politicians shy away from the issue of judicial power. None of them can be depended upon to tackle any problem that doesn’t serve their own hold on power. Sooner rather than later, the American people will have to take on the issue, and either rise up in peaceful revolt, or passively submit to full government tyranny.

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War on Christianity

I listened to a commentator talk about a new Department of Housing and Urban Development rule described by HUD as an ‘affirmatively furthering fair housing program’. We already know from experience that anything described by the government as ‘fair’ means that they will again be tyrannizing citizens, and it will be anything but ‘fair’.

This particular program places all zoning in America under the federal government. It’s intent is to distribute all inner city problems ‘fairly’ among the wealthy suburbs of America, and ensure that being economically successful will not allow one to escape to the safe and orderly life of suburbia. The commentator allowed that once Americans see what this program means to them, middle class America will finally rebel against the inexorable movement towards full government tyranny.

In California parents are taking to the streets over the State’s immunization program. The parents believe the government is overstepping it’s authority and making decisions for their children that should rightly be made by them. A group called ‘Voice for Choice’ referred to the pent up hostility against government authority as a ‘sleeping giant’.

I would respectfully disagree with both as to what constitutes the ‘sleeping giant’ in America. It is not the HUD takeover of local zoning, nor government forcing parents to immunize their children. Neither is it immigration, healthcare, radical Islam, the military, foreign policy, or any other of the issues that ambitious politicians and the media are focusing on.

The issue that is likely to foment a cultural divide like nothing since slavery, is the attack on Christianity initiated by the Supreme Court of the United States. The recent SCOTUS invention of a national right to gay marriage was nothing less than a declaration of war on Christianity. The ruling is not about the law. It is not about fairness. It is not about the Constitution. And it is not even about marriage. It is about eliminating the principles of Christian morality that have guided America since its inception.

For the radical leftists, who are obsessed with fundamentally transforming America, nothing less than the full takeover of society by government will suffice. These driven radicals imagine, like scores of dictatorial maniacs throughout world history, that they alone can remake America and the world into a fair and equitable planet for all humans.

This radical element within the gay community, is well on its way to destroying the libertine culture that has allowed America to rise to the top of the world order. The loony fringe of the ‘gay rights movement’ will never be satisfied until religious freedom is destroyed and Christianity is eviscerated as punishment for centuries of preaching that homosexuality is unacceptable in the eyes of God.

Maybe I am wrong about it being just being gay rights kooks who are driving the war, but my gut feeling says the average American identifying as homosexual is no different than heterosexuals, evangelical Christians, or even conservatives. They have now won their fight over marriage, and just want to get on with their lives. They are perfectly willing to tolerate other belief systems as long as they are left alone to live according to theirs.

Unfortunately there is a radical grievance element within every minority group that is perpetually offended, and can never rest until full punishment is meted out to the common enemy of victimhood – the white, Christian majority. These people are completely self-absorbed, and care not a hoot for freedom of speech and religion, America, children, or even others within their minority group. Vicious personal attacks against anyone who opposes them are their specialty – often most virulently against others within their own homosexual community.

Using the rhetorical tactic of tyrants throughout history, they accuse those they are persecuting of being the villains, and deserving of whatever scorn is heaped upon them. In every state we see small-minded bureaucrats ordering private business owners to cater gay weddings, all the while accusing the peaceful Christians they are persecuting of being the right-wing ‘nazis’. Thus we find gentle people who only wish to live their faith, bullied by gay fanatics, power-mad power government officials, and judges who have no respect for the Constitution.

Across America, most citizens are imagining the battle over gay marriage is finished, and those who oppose it can just continue forward with their own religious beliefs intact. Others have never given the issue much thought, and believe it doesn’t affect them one way or the other. Politicians in particular are ignoring the massive upheaval coming over freedom of religion and speech, and hoping they can just get through the next election without having to take a stand.

Soon. Very soon! The full reality of the SCOTUS decision will begin to impact all citizens. Attorneys across the country are even now preparing a massive number of lawsuits attacking the right of religious organizations to support only traditional marriage. The first wave of the great Christian purge is already upon us.

Radical state governments led by militant Christian haters, are forcing Christian business owners to either cater gay weddings, or close down their businesses. Anti-Christian judges ban prayer from all public gatherings, and school bands are enjoined from playing any music deemed to be offensive to a single left-wing atheist. Even the very word ‘God’, is being censored from all books deemed to be in the public domain.

Meanwhile the military has instituted a massive re-structuring of policy, giving special treatment to homosexuals. From top to bottom, the military is carrying out a forced re-education of personnel to accept all phases of the LGBT political agenda, even going so far as to have advancement set-asides for gays and transgendered personnel.

The military has also carried this ‘thought reform’ into religion. Chaplains are not only forbidden to counsel or preach that there is anything wrong with homosexuality, but also may not read from the Bible regarding the subject. Those refusing to allow the government to modify their religious beliefs have had their careers and lives trashed by the military witch hunters.

The next wave coming soon to a church near you, will be a legal stun force of radical left skinheads supported by the judiciary and media, demanding that all churches refusing to capitulate to the full gay agenda lose their tax exempt status. Once that happens, the hard-core takeover of religion will commence. Carefully selected judges will order churches to perform gay marriages and refrain from ever speaking out against homosexuality.

Next comes the coup de grace – editing the Holy Bible. As long as the Bible exists in its current form, the anti-Christian jackboots can never rest. All references to homosexuality being against God’s command must be changed so that everything gay, including marriage, is acceptable in God’s sight. While they are at it, the editorial committee will perform many other miracles of political correctness on the Bible, and we may even see a Department of Religion to permanently control the religious landscape.

I realize, to many people I sound like a nutcase. To those I can only say ‘open your eyes’. I have spent almost 40 years dealing with fishery issues and management. Having attended hundreds of hearings, served on dozens of committees, panels, and advisory boards, I was intimately connected with the way government slowly sucks power away from the people. Today I find that all of the ‘crazy’ predictions I made 20 and 30 years ago have come to pass, even down to video monitoring of commercial fishermen.

I am neither a prognosticator nor a chronic pessimist, but I do have years of experience with the progression of government control, and I see clearly what’s coming for America. It is not that difficult. It’s there for everyone to see if they are only willing to look. Unfortunately, most Americans choose to hustle past the issue and avoid confrontation, even at the cost of their own liberty. Soon enough, all Americans will be forced to choose between accepting tyranny, or fighting for liberty.

Next: The purge and Christianity

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Angry America

I just finished listening to Marco Rubio being interviewed by Bill O’Reilly. Responding to the unexpected (by the media and political class) support Donald Trump is receiving throughout America, Rubio maintains that Trump is just tapping into the ‘frustration Americans are feeling towards a congress that has not delivered on its conservative promises’.

Rubio says Trump is feeding off the anger, but that America is not an angry country, and he prefers to work with optimism. The Senator claims Trump is off base in promising to make America great again, because America is already great. He knows that because everyone still wants to come to our great country.

Rubio is counting on winning the Presidency by being the calm conservative who can work the political process to solve the nation’s problems. He is smoothly selling the idea that America is basically fine, and the republicanized ‘hope and change’ he can bring will solve nagging problems like ‘anchor babies’ and a judiciary that is legislating rather than adjudicating.

Wake up Senator! I am angry! America is angry! You are the problem. You are the Congress that has not delivered. Trying to remove yourself from the conservative legislators who have not delivered on their promises only makes you sound like President Obama.

I once thought Marco Rubio could be the next Reagan. I heard him speak at a rally in St. Augustine when he was a long shot to even get the Republican senatorial nomination from Florida. He was then full of anger at what Washington was doing to America, and assured us that that he would make a difference if we elected him. Now he’s sounding more like the typical slick politician who is hedging his conservative credentials so he doesn’t offend anyone who might vote next year.

There is a lot to admire about Senator Rubio, and he would undoubtedly be a far better President than most of the candidates – maybe even better than Trump. However, like all politicians who become part of the Washington power establishment, he can no longer feel the pulse of America.

Americans know that we are on a downhill slide. There is not one area in which we are heading in the right direction. Everything is not fine Senator! Maybe we are still the best country in the world, but it doesn’t feel like it will be that way for much longer.

I am just a regular citizen and businessman, but I am angry at what’s happening to my country. I don’t want a presidential candidate who is peddling patronizing promises, neither do I want some politician patting me on the head and saying ”everything will be alright”. I want someone in charge who is just as angry as I am.

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Go Donald Trump!

I never liked Donald Trump. I still don’t like Donald Trump. I doubt that I will ever like Donald Trump. But I sure like what he is saying.

Democrats, establishment Republicans, and the mainstream media are all petrified. Except for Ted Cruz, whom the media has managed to isolate as a lone wolf, not one of the Republican presidential candidates has done anything but patronize voters with tired, vacuous promises to ‘close the border’, ‘reduce the size of government’, and ‘restore American supremacy in the world’. Blah, blah, blah!

Now Trump comes along and does the unthinkable. He dispenses with the nauseating political correctness and carefully controlled responses of weak-kneed Republican candidates, and vocalizes what middle America is actually thinking. Trump is touching the anger and frustration that Americans feel towards a bureaucracy, political establishment, and judiciary that has been corrupted beyond redemption.

As the ruling establishment recoils in horror, Trump bluntly tells us how rich he is and why it matters. He can’t be bought! Nothing weakens the spine of ambitious politicians like the fear of losing their funding. Trump correctly says that all big campaign donors expect a return on their investment. That is common sense to the average voter, but saying it publicly has brought the full force of the Democrat and Republican ruling establishment down on him.

Desperately, they call him names, claim his supporters are ‘crazies’, and demand that he quit the race in order to save the country. When the establishment sniffs their ruling power being threatened, Democrats, Republicans, and the national media join together and circle the wagons. They are doing everything in their power to shut him up, and every day that he speaks only gives him more credibility with voters like me.

Maybe Donald Trump is the kind of man we need to clean out the putrid Washington cartel that is tyrannizing our country. The day he announced his candidacy it seemed unthinkable, but now I don’t know. Could he possibly do more damage than our community organizer President – or Hillary?

According to his detractors, the more he speaks, the more people will come to understand that he is just a self-serving, egotistical billionaire with foot in mouth, trying to buy the presidency. I disagree. He is injecting passion into the boring race for the presidency. If his words sometimes come out wrong, or he says something outrageous, so what! That’s what happens with me when I get fired up, and I think tens of millions of other ‘crazies’ are thinking the same way.

No matter how I feel about him personally, I think he loves our country, and truly believes he can flush out the Washington elitists and return the ruling of America back to the people. Except for Ted Cruz, I don’t hear any other candidate indicate that anything would be different in America with them as President.

An infamous southern Democrat once said ‘there ain’t a dimes worth of difference between the two parties.’ As a lifelong Republican, I no longer have the slightest idea what the party stands for. I know what they say they stand for, but talking and acting are two entirely different things. They have done nothing about Obamacare, the Supreme Court, ISIS, immigration, the border, the military, federal spending, or the threat to freedom of religion from gay marriage.

So, until some other candidate has a spine stiffening operation, I’ll take Donald Trump.

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SCOTUS Strikes Again

Once again the Supreme Court of the United States has ignored the Constitution and made a ruling based on political expediency. Six justices are of the opinion that the clear words written by legislators about limiting Obamacare subsidies are not what they really meant, and fabricated a ruling out of thin air. It is becoming so common for judges to make political rulings instead of issuing legal opinions that it is hardly shocking anymore.

Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito proved once again that they are the only three judges who can be counted on to consistently respect the words and intent of the Constitution. Writing for the minority Scalia called the ruling “interpretive jiggery-pokery”. He said the results show that “words no longer have meaning” and the ruling contains “somersaults of statutory interpretation”.

Across America, power crazed judges routinely throw out voter passed constitutional amendments, order states to fund pet projects, and even direct new laws they think legislators should have passed. No one can go into court today and depend on the clear wording and meaning of the law to support them. Judges have taken on a power that makes them virtually omniscient, and parties in court are completely at their mercy.

When Americans can’t even depend on the President and Supreme Court to abide by the law of the land, how are we to trust any part of our legal system? Between the bureaucracy and our legal system, every aspect of our lives is being controlled. Judges are both lawyers and bureaucrats – a truly frightening combination. That the Constitution not only did not provide for this power, but expressly warned against it, matters not a whit if the people don’t rise up and take back control.

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Look Out Cuba!

Camouflage your banks and cover up all your ’57 Fords. Then ‘pack up the babies and hide the old ladies’. A delegation from the Florida Bar Association is coming to Cuba!

So folks, if you have some idea that you would like to see Cuba before it becomes Americanized, you better go soon. Now that our legal eagles have detected a crack in the communist armor they will swarm in to free Cuba from the bad kind of tyranny, and replace it with the good, American kind.

Fresh from successfully destroying marriage, our immigration system, and the Constitution, the high-flying American legal community now has their sights set on Cuba. Pity the poor Cubans. After fifty-five years of Communism, the people are so desperate for freedom that they hold out hope, even from American lawyers.

Of course it’s not going to happen overnight. Setting up an Americanized bureaucracy and legal system takes time, and after all, in the legal business what is time but money. Besides that, priority number one is churning out the thousands of lawsuits to reclaim assets lost by Americans when Castro took over, and authorized by the Helms-Burton Act – or as quoted in the Miami Herald, the ‘full employment for lawyers act’.

Yes indeed! Soon enough, instead of the Castro brothers taking their pesos and restricting their freedoms, it will be bureaucrats and the legal system – just like the Yanquis do it.

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Marriage’s Last Stand

The battle continues over gay marriage. Proponents of traditional marriage are down to the last few brave souls defending freedom of religion, the democratic process, and the right of a child to have both a mother and a father.

After a puffed up federal judge had ordered the state of Alabama to begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore, ordered state offices not to issue the licenses. The ACLU accused Judge Moore of “grandstanding” for upholding his sworn oath to support the Constitution of Alabama. State by state, gay activists have found a liberal judge who is willing to twist our national Constitution to fit his own political agenda. In this case, a single judge usurped the votes of 80% of Alabama’s citizens.

In San Francisco, Archbishop Cordileone is under fire from gay activists for telling teachers in the Catholic school system to lead their public and professional lives consistently with the church teachings on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and abortion. According to the archbishop, “The intention is certainly not to pry into the private lives of the teachers. We certainly aren’t going to do that. People are entitled to their private lives, but teachers also have to respect the mission of the school in the way they live their public lives.”

Imagine that! The church expects a public face of loyalty from their employees. What’s next? Are they going to require them to remain silent about the crazy idea that a virgin had a baby who died on a cross for their sins?

It’s always dangerous to have an opinion about someone else’s religion, but I can’t help but believe Archbishop Cordileone is a dedicated Catholic priest who doesn’t understand that the ‘fix is in’. The Vatican is very much aware that Christianity itself is under assault in America, and freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution is now a lost cause. No one has more to lose in this changing moral and legal perspective than the Roman Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has billion of dollars worth of schools, universities, hospitals and charities in America. The Vatican also depends on billions of dollars worth of donations from its’ members in America. Soon enough, the courts will rule that the church must fully embrace homosexuality or lose its tax-exempt status. In the real world, that means the institutions of the church will be under the control of the government, and members will no longer be able to expense their donations as charitable contributions.

The Catholic Church will mount a legal defense for a while, but they know that secular momentum is against them, and they will be forced to accept homosexuality or lose their hospitals, schools and charities. It may be just the cynical view of an outsider, but I believe the Vatican has prepared to accept the government decreed change in church doctrine, by forcing out Pope Benedict and installing the more liberal Pope Francis.

At this point in history, it will take a true miracle for the tide to change. Freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution to be the supreme law of the land is now subjugated to the transient political views of state legislators and random judges, who have the power to make laws say whatever they wish. It is very sad to say, but Christianity will lose, freedom of religion will lose, America will lose, and the Catholic Church will be forced by our government to revise their Biblical beliefs and fully embrace the homosexual agenda.

With the Supreme Court about to make their final revision of the Constitution to legalize gay marriage, a Christian group has finally organized to defend traditional marriage. With high profile supporters like Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association signed on, it could have made a difference a few years ago. However, it is now too late. Too many people have sat back for too long, and allowed their religious liberty to be stripped from them.

Soon enough, government will be forced out of the marriage business, as marital combinations become ever more bizarre under the new ‘fairness’ standard. The marriage disaster will be another bonanza for the American Bar Association, but for the rest of America, the social order that has worked for thousands of years is being destroyed to accommodate less than 2% of the population.

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Competition From Tax Dollars

The following letter to the editor was printed in the Key West Citizen on Sunday, April 26, 2015. It is referencing Monroe County’s proposed purchase of a fish house to compete with my own, Stock Island Lobster Co.

Editor – Key West Citizen

Flush with taxpayer money, the free-spending Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) is now buying a seven million dollar fish house for the citizens of Monroe County.

After thirty years of sitting on the sideline as commercial fishing was regulated down from twelve fish houses to three, politicians are now proposing to save the industry by purchasing the former Gulf Seafood Inc. – a property that has failed five times as a fish house due to government down-sizing of the fisheries.

The BOCC is now promoting the bogus theory that developers are responsible for the loss of our fisheries, and they can save the remaining fishermen by buying them their own fish house. I don’t know if they actually believe the false narrative, or whether it is just a back door approach to stopping development, but the argument itself displays an abysmal ignorance of what has been happening with fishery regulation, and ignores the reality of empty space at the two remaining fish houses.

While serving for the past forty years on numerous fishery panels, committees, boards, and commissions, I repeatedly warned of the relentless regulatory down-sizing of our industry, but elected officials were simply not interested.

Now, after the damage is done, posturing politicians are intending to ride to the rescue, and environmentalists – who dislike commercial fishing only slightly less than they dislike developers – are suddenly the fishermen’s new best friends.

In reality, the BOCC doesn’t know what they are buying, what they are going to do with it, what the consequences will be, whether it will help or hurt our commercial fishing industry, and what the long term cost to the County will be. Furthermore they have no interest in finding out.

Apparently the decision to purchase this property is based solely on the fact that the BOCC has the taxpayer’s money at their disposal, and they intend to spend it. If you are among those who liked the Hickory House purchase, you’re going to love this one.

Peter M. Bacle
Stock Island Lobster Co.

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Continuing War on Governor Scott

One thing we have to give liberals and their partners in the media credit for is persistence. Governor Rick Scott has done everything right for the State of Florida, but that means nothing to the rabid public employee unions and the Miami Herald. No matter that Florida has a budget surplus, no matter that Florida has low unemployment, and no matter that Scott recently won re-election. Liberals are never happy unless they have a politically correct suck-up in charge like Barack Obama or Charlie Christ.

The latest attack on Scott is hilarious. Some disgruntled minor bureaucrat in the Department of Environmental Protection who lost his job, has charged Scott with not allowing State employees to say the words ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’. True to their nature, liberals – including the Miami Herald – care nothing about truth, but jump to the attack on any story that they see as harmful to conservatives.

Since liberals are completely incapable of feeling shame, and never admit they were wrong on anything, it is a small matter to add one more unfounded accusation to the dozens of false charges they have been outraged over in recent years. Governor Scott denies the accusation, but even if the charge was true, who would really care except liberals on a jihad against all Republicans. Liberals have already been proven so wrong on global warming that they changed the name of their gold digging mission to ‘climate change’.

The hypocrisy of liberals is unlimited. They have no problem with banning words, speech, books, and even God, as long as the censorship is in line with politically correct, liberal views. Their dictionary of unacceptable words and phrases is growing by the day, and may soon be offered as a college major. They think nothing of rewriting politically correct versions of classic books like Huckleberry Finn, and posture sanctimoniously about banning school textbooks that portray George Washington and other founding fathers as heroes.

‘Free speech’ to liberals is nothing more than a jingo which allows them to say anything they please, while everything said counter to their self-righteous posturing is the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theater or reinstituting slavery. They no more believe in ‘free speech’ as intended by the Constitution, than Barack Obama believes in American exceptionalism.

So let’s see. Hundreds of thousands of Obama administration employees – including the military – are forbidden to utter the factually correct words ‘Islamic terrorists’, but we are supposed to be outraged over an unfounded allegation that Florida State employees are not supposed to refer to the discredited term ‘global warming’…How do they keep a straight face?

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Get What You Vote For?

Disappointment usually comes quick and hard when we send people to Washington to represent us. Supporting any candidate is a crap shoot in which the odds of getting what you think you voted for are about a thousand to one. I rarely agree with President Obama on anything, but he had it right when he mesmerized gullible voters with the word hope.

I have listened to too many campaign promises, and watched too much posturing by candidates to be moved by anything but hope. Unless one is blinded by welfare benefits, racial solidarity, or some other connecting tissue, actually having trust in a politician’s words just reveals a person glowing with naivete.

On the other hand, having faith in a politician is even sadder. Those who maintain faith are the citizen zombies of our age. Despite everything their eyes and ears reveal about a favorite politician, they must shut down their brains and live in denial. Some politicians – like our President – understand how fervently they are worshipped, and use their hypnotic message to offer constant encouragement to the faithful.

Carlos Curbelo is a man I supported for Congress. Though I knew nothing about him, he claimed to be a conservative, and his incumbent opponent was a consistent supporter of President Obama. Against all odds Curbelo prevailed, and we sent him off to Washington with the hope that he would buck the establishment, and help get the nation back on the right course.

In his first true test, he failed mightily. With a chance to show that the laws of America must be respected with the Homeland Security funding bill, he elected to vote with the lawbreakers. Tens of millions of people that entered our country illegally will now be legalized, and President Obama is rewarded again for bypassing Congress, and ignoring the Constitution.

Illegal immigration and gay marriage are fundamentally transforming America. Tens of millions of newly legalized, uneducated welfare recipients, will soon turn into hundreds of millions as our American republic heads towards dissolution. Concurrently, gay marriage ushers in the end of freedom of religion. According to a handful of arrogant judges and the radical left-wingers now in control of our country, religious theology protected by the First Amendment, must now be subjugated to local rulings by this tyrannical minority.

If my Congressman cannot stand up and be counted on these two issues, then any hope I had for a real leader is already dashed. No-brainer votes on issues like the Keystone Pipeline, are not going to turn the country from the direction we are going. I know he is a rookie who is trying to fit in with the Washington establishment, but I don’t want another report at election time, about how he helped save the staghorn coral at Tortugas National Park.

My Senator, Marco Rubio, has turned into a monument of inconsistency. A man who has publicly sworn at least three times to uphold the laws of our land and the Constitution, has been all over the place on immigration. Apparently motivated more by a common Hispanic language and political ambition than respect for the law, he is both for and against a legal path to citizenship for those who entered our country illegally.

Senator Rubio once proposed an amnesty bill, and then backed off after his presidential polling numbers took a huge hit from conservatives. Currently, Rubio has been consistent only in his inconsistency. He has spoken against funding Obama’s illegal amnesty order, and then said the funding bill had to be passed. He says the border must be secured, then lectures about compassion.

I think he voted against HR 240, which conflicts with his rhetoric, but then again he might have voted for it. My minimal research as an ordinary citizen, revealed about a dozen separate votes on the issue, some of which he voted for and some against. I supported Rubio when no one gave him a chance of winning a Senate seat, and now all I want to know is where he stands.

Presidential ambition it seems, is the ultimate test for personal integrity. Few politicians are willing to take a firm stand on the issues, and then let the votes fall where they may. Ronald Reagan expressed his conservative views firmly and convincingly, and then stuck by them to become one of the most revered presidents ever. Barack Obama, for all his lying, has never backed away from his pledge to ‘fundamentally transform America’. Senator Rubio could learn a lot from these two about how to become President by sticking with what you actually believe.

No one expected dynamic conservative leadership out of McConnell and Boehner, but neither did we expect our new representatives to fall in line with the Washington establishment so quickly. So now we are left to hope once again that someone emerges from the confusing field of Republican presidential hopefuls, to offer America something besides another pale candidate like Dole, McCain, or Romney.

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Republican Majority Update 1

Well, let’s have a quick look at how citizen Bacle is making out with the new Republican majority he helped elect.

Foreign Affairs: ISIS continues to expand. A Christian holocaust is taking place in the Middle East. Russia is now openly taking over Ukraine. Iran will be allowed to continue their nuclear program.

Immigration: Illegals continue to pour over the southern border. Mitch McConnell and the Republican senate have been whipped again, and will continue funding of Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty order. The five million (or ten, twenty, fifty – who really knows) newly legal illegals, will each receive a cash payment of 25 or 30 thousand dollars from the IRS once they file, along with food stamps, health care, and every other government handout known to exist. And oh yes! My congressman, Carlos Curbelo, supports Obama’s illegal executive order.

Social Issues: Gay marriage is in as judicial tyranny grows – freedom of religion and majority rule are out. My senator, Marco Rubio, is focused in on campus rape. Indoctrination of our school children has now moved from Twinkie guns, to bullying, to transgender sensitivity training. Meanwhile we are graduating kids who don’t have a clue about the Constitution, can’t add twelve plus twelve without a calculator, and are literate only in text messaging.

Smaller government: The federal government just took over the internet. The IRS is adding ten thousand new employees, Obamacare continues fully funded and growing by the day, and Homeland Security – or somebody – is setting up a whole new bureaucracy to deal with newly legal illegals. Yes sir, those Republicans are really making progress on downsizing that government monster!

Energy: Hooray! The Republicans passed the Keystone Pipeline. Oh no! Obama vetoed it. Gees!… I suppose I am just ignorant when it comes to the sophistication of Washington politics, but doesn’t it seem like this issue is made to order for Republicans to publicly hammer the Democrat senators into overriding the President’s veto?

That’s it for today. It’s too depressing to go on… Anyone else for a new Speaker of the House and Majority Leader in the senate?

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Christian Holocaust

As I write, Christians across the Middle East are being annihilated with beheadings and other sick forms of abuse and murder that are unimaginable to civilized human beings. Though the killers are systematically carrying out this jihad against Christians in the name of Allah, our president refuses to recognize them as anything except ‘radicals’ targeting random victims.

Before Obama no one would ever have predicted that America would sit back as thousands of Christians are publicly exterminated. What kind of outrage would it take for President Obama to mobilize our Special Forces for lightning strikes against these vicious animals? Does anyone doubt that if Christians started rounding up Muslims and beheading them, the President would have Army Rangers on the scene within hours?

Indeed, is there anything outrageous enough to force the President into taking military action? Thomas Sowell, an intellectual giant and African American, says his biggest fear today is that the Islamic terrorists will set off a nuclear device, and President Obama will be too paralyzed to respond. Until he said this, I never thought about the possibility. But, what exactly would be his response if Tel Aviv or even San Diego were incinerated?

That we are not delivering death and destruction to these fanatics is unconscionable. A handful of safe drone attacks and air strikes only make us look like a paper tiger that is fearful of risking a single life to defeat a growing horde of demented religious zealots. The insane political correctness now ruling our country, is telling our enemies that Americans no longer see anything worth dying for.

This same lack of action is allowing millions of aliens to illegally cross our southern border, including tens of thousands of drug gang members and other criminals. No one knows who, or how many, are pouring into our country, and our Washington politicians don’t care enough to take any action other than rhetoric.

Ambitious politicians like Hilary Clinton, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush believe Americans should embrace these lawbreakers, and somehow they will revitalize America. Exactly how forty million or so uneducated, Democrat voting, welfare recipients, will bring about this amazing transformation in America is left unsaid. I suppose we are also asked to believe that no Islamic terrorists are among those violating our borders.

Unless we act swiftly and decisively, routine terrorism will soon come to our Country. Our Washington politicians responsible for the mess, will then call on us common citizens to rally around them, and submit to more government tyranny. The airport security checks could look like a breeze compared to getting into a shopping mall, movie theatre, or football game. If you can’t imagine our military guarding gas stations, restaurants, and schools, then take a closer look at what everyday life is like in Israel.

If you are waiting for Congress to act without the President, think again. The current Republican Congress is shaping up to be the lamest, most helpless majority party in American history, with the weakest leaders ever.

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Christians vs Muslims

Did you ever wonder why liberals are always attacking Christians, but never voice the slightest criticism against Muslims?

Women are treated like personal property by Muslim men. They are not allowed to show their face in public, drive, vote, talk to men, or defend themselves in court. Women are often physically deformed, put to death for infidelity, and at Guantanamo prison the Muslim inmates won’t even allow a woman guard to escort them. Liberal criticism is nowhere to be heard about the Muslim treatment of women, but they inanely scream about some ridiculous ‘war on women’ by Christian conservatives.

Liberals hammer Christians about their opposition to gay marriage. They talk about this recent ‘right to marry the one you love’ as if it is as enlightened as doing away with slavery, and Christians are the barbarians trying to hold back the advance of civilization. Meanwhile, Muslims not only oppose gay marriage, but believe homosexuals should be put to death. Yet, nary a peep from the liberal crowd.

So why the difference? Well, it is simply a fact that the hard core left-wingers now in control of America, are bullies, cowards, and liars. Bullies always sniff out opponents who are either unwilling or unable to fight back. Christians make an easy target for liberals because they really are the religion of peace, and while they may defend themselves, they would never attack back with the same viciousness that liberals target them.

Muslims on the other hand, scare cowardly liberals to death. They know for certain that the Islamic ‘religion of peace’ will tear them to shreds if they offer the least criticism. The super liberal Hollywood crowd should be up in arms over the Islamic treatment of women and gays, yet they cover their fear with weasel words like tolerance, understanding, legitimate grievances, and most importantly – avoiding backlash.

Twenty-one Christians were just beheaded by Muslim terrorists because of their faith. From the golf course, President Obama was unable to fake a little outrage over the actions, or even acknowledge that they were killed because they were Christians. At the recent prayer breakfast Obama showed where his sympathies lie, by clearly enunciating his view of moral equivalence between radical Muslims and Christians.

On the other hand, if he had expressed outrage over the murders, is there anyone left who would believe him?

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Illegal Aliens Vote

Well, golly gee! Who would have thought it? President Obama allows illegal aliens to stay in America, lets them get drivers licenses and social security numbers, and they show their gratitude by illegally registering to vote. Wow! Talk about an unintended consequence. The President must be furious!

In all states except four, you can register to vote without proof of citizenship. All it takes these days is a drivers license or social security number, and there is no way to cross check for citizenship. Incidentally, the Obama administration has not remained silent on this issue. The Justice Department is fighting voter fraud by going after the four states that require proof of citizenship!

Anyone who still doubts the duplicity of Obama’s executive actions for amnesty, must have a brain the size of a pea, or be so immersed in big government dependency that they don’t want to look. Even for those who do care, there are so many scandals in this administration that Americans can no longer focus on just one. This voter registration scandal however, will have more impact than any other, by making big government Democrats the permanent ruling party.

Meanwhile, our big new Republican majority in Congress is shocked! In fact, they are so shocked they are going to hold hearings. Yes indeed! They are going to get to the bottom of this outrage, and then they are going to take action – as soon as they finish their action on Fast and Furious, Benghazi, wiretapping of Associated Press reporters, IRS targeting conservatives, Eric Holder perjury charges, massive budget deficits, the President violating the Constitution, and Solyndra.

Yes sir! You can be sure Obama is not sleeping very well these days with these new attack-dog Republicans breathing down his neck. I bet he is so shook up he won’t be able to sink a two foot putt in todays round of golf.

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Marriage’s Last Stand

The battle continues over gay marriage. Proponents of traditional marriage are down to the last few brave souls defending freedom of religion, the democratic process, and the right of a child to have both a mother and a father.

After a puffed up federal judge had ordered the state of Alabama to begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore, ordered state offices not to issue the licenses. The ACLU accused Judge Moore of “grandstanding” for upholding his sworn oath to support the Constitution of Alabama. State by state, gay activists have found a liberal judge who is willing to twist our national Constitution to fit his own political agenda. In this case, a single judge usurped the votes of 80% of Alabama’s citizens.

In San Francisco, Archbishop Cordileone is under fire from gay activists for telling teachers in the Catholic school system to lead their public and professional lives consistently with the church teachings on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and abortion. According to the archbishop, “The intention is certainly not to pry into the private lives of the teachers. We certainly aren’t going to do that. People are entitled to their private lives, but teachers also have to respect the mission of the school in the way they live their public lives.”

Imagine that! The church expects a public face of loyalty from their employees. What’s next? Are they going to require them to remain silent about the crazy idea that a virgin had a baby who died on a cross for their sins?

It’s always dangerous to have an opinion about someone else’s religion, but I can’t help but believe Archbishop Cordileone is a dedicated Catholic priest who doesn’t understand that the ‘fix is in’. The Vatican is very much aware that Christianity itself is under assault in America, and freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution is now a lost cause. No one has more to lose in this changing moral and legal perspective than the Roman Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has billion of dollars worth of schools, universities, hospitals and charities in America. The Vatican also depends on billions of dollars worth of donations from its’ members in America. Soon enough, the courts will rule that the church must fully embrace homosexuality or lose its tax exempt status. In the real world, that means the institutions of the church will be under the control of the government, and members will no longer be able to expense their donations as charitable contributions.

The Catholic Church will mount a legal defense for a while, but they know that secular momentum is against them, and they will be forced to accept homosexuality or lose their hospitals, schools and charities. It may be just the cynical view of an outsider, but I believe the Vatican has prepared for a change in church doctrine, by forcing out Pope Benedict and installing the more liberal Pope Francis.

At this point in history, it will take a true miracle for the tide to change. Freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution to be the supreme law of the land is now subjugated to the transient political views of state legislators and random judges who have the power to make laws say whatever they wish. It is very sad to say, but Christianity will lose, freedom of religion will lose, America will lose, and the Catholic Church will be forced by our government to revise their Biblical beliefs and fully embrace the homosexual agenda.

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You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Isn’t it really sweet when political correctness collides with political correctness. If you predicted it or made it up no one would believe you, but in real life these wonderful, hilarious things often happen to bite the self-righteous proponents of political correctness in the butt.

Today I am talking about the women guards at Guantanamo Bay, but up until now my favorite had been the seal story in California. The usual contingent of far left environmentalists worked for years claiming that a certain subspecies of seals was so unique and so endangered that it needed its own preserve. Over the protests of local people, commercial fishermen and others, the enviros won the day as they always do.

As expected, the ‘endangered’ seals thrived in their own little bay. Life was wonderful and the human eco-pod patted themselves on the back, and took bows for their selfless work. That is, until the day a curious ‘protected’ killer whale entered the bay and spotted this feast all set out for him. Being a sharing and caring member of ‘one orca family’ he reported his find to his hungry pod. Without going into the gruesome details, nature had its way, and after all their years of battling for the seals, the humans were forced to look for something else to save.

The Guantanamo story is even more delightful. Our modern, diverse, and politically correct military, has run into a major snag. After catering to every whim for a hundred or so Muslim child killers and decapitators, our military is faced with a demand so conflicting that they don’t know what to do. They have supplied the captive terrorists with Korans, special food, traditional clothing, prayer calls, video games, and even virgins for all we know.

Now, after all the nice things our men in arms have done for them, the ungrateful terrorists slap our military brass and our President in the face by demanding that female guards not be allowed to touch them. Yes, even with rubber gloves the unclean women are too tainted to be allowed to touch the sacred, male Muslim bodies. My, my, my, what to do?

Don’t they understand that men and women are the same? Don’t they care about the hurt feelings of the female guards? Don’t they know that we are all just ‘one human family’? Maybe if we show enough empathy, they will agree to a little sensitivity training. Wait, I know! How about we solve the problem by letting them all go!

Well whatever, the sensitivity gurus in our compassionate military had better come up with a solution soon, because the delicate sensibilities of the ladies are suffering more by the minute. The prowling lawyers have already sniffed out gender discrimination, and there’s going to be some mighty rich privates in our army.

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Another Loss For Republicans

It appears that Republicans have now lost on illegal immigration. Unlike liberals who fight to the death on all their issues, Republicans engage in mild word battles for a while, and then throw in the towel and join up with the winners.

Illegal immigration can now be included in the liberal win column, joining abortion, the budget, gay marriage, and Constitutional irrelevancy. Democrats never have to win the argument, they just have to have to wear down Republicans with persistence, and make sure their judges are put in office.

Among the hundreds of Republicans vying for the 2016 presidential nomination, there are none who demand respect for our laws. In one form or another each now supports the Democrat position of amnesty for illegal aliens and a path to citizenship.

How many new welfare recipients we taxpaying Americans get to support is anybody’s guess. All we hear from our politicians are lies and deceptions. Five million, eleven million, thirty million, a hundred million? No one knows what the real number will be when all family members are allowed to join their new American relatives. Suffice to say that it is tens of millions more than deceitful politicians will ever admit to.

While Republicans have now given up on amnesty, we still have to listen to their hollow braying about closing the border first. Sure they will! No one believes that will happen, least of all several hundred million Hispanics who know all they have to do is get here and will eventually be accepted.

Hispanics are now the largest minority in America, and growing rapidly. When the new group of illegals becomes legal, they will be the majority in the American Southwest. Mandatory efforts to Americanize them are now considered discriminatory and demeaning to their culture. So, how long before militant separatists start demanding and receiving, their own slice of America?

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Death of Religious Freedom

If the history books are ever again written without political bias, the new millennium will be recorded as ushering in the death of religious freedom in America. Facilitated by a handful of ideology driven judges, gay marriage is the bullet to the head for religious freedom.

In abject violation of the 1rst amendment, courts and governing bodies across the nation are already ordering such unconstitutional atrocities as a husband and wife bakery team to do a gay wedding cake, a Christian family’s rental barn to be used for a gay wedding, and a great grandmother to arrange the flowers at a gay wedding.

Once gay marriage is fully legalized, the courts will almost certainly order churches to acquiesce, or lose their charities, hospitals, schools, and tax exempt status. Denials by proponents notwithstanding, gay ‘rights’ advocates fully understand that the real issue is not marriage, but fundamentally changing the values that govern our society. What they want is full acceptance of homosexuality, and that can never come if religions are allowed to exclude them.

There is little doubt that gay marriage has won the day. Politicians run from the issue, and our President and judges with increasing bombast, have become ever braver at redefining constitutions to suit their own political agendas. Democrats have now fully embraced the gay agenda in their coalition of ‘victims’, and establishment Republicans – always fearful of taking a stand on social issues – dismiss it as another lost cause, and time to ‘move on’.

In the history of America, citizens have never been more fearful of speaking out than they are today. Proponents of traditional marriage are portrayed as homophobes and right wing haters. The debate seems one-sided because most people – and especially Christians – shy away from such hurtful personal confrontations, while liberal activists and a supportive national media feast on ad hominem attacks that make their opponents feel uncomfortable.

Sadly, the American family has been going down the wrong road for a half century, and gay marriage simply speeds us along the path. Dependency on big government has replaced the necessity for family support in difficult times, and children are schooled to believe the ‘human village’ is more important than the individual family. As a myriad of marital combinations become legal under the new ‘fairness standard’, marriage as a civil union under law will almost certainly cease to exist, and the joining of a man and woman into a family unit will become just another sacrament of the church like communion and baptism.

I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist about the future of America, but rather a realist. Ever more quickly, government is taking over our lives. The 2014 election will be seen as a blip on the road to tyranny rather than a turning point in America. Unelected bureaucrats make laws that only working people must obey, the American Bar Association and its massive army of attorneys have absolute control of our entire legal system, half of America pays no taxes while public employee unions drain the lifeblood from those that do, and our elitist politicians prove daily that they see themselves as above the law.

Anyone who thinks these fundamental violations of our Constitutional liberties are a step in the right direction for a free country, is living a life of blessed oblivion. America was founded by people escaping religious persecution, and has survived for 500 years with religious freedom. Today Christians are again under attack, as the pendulum of history seems to be swinging back once more.

For those who need a ray of optimism to survive, the long view of history tells us that societal norms move in cycles, and if America survives as a free nation, there will eventually be a renewed recognition of the importance of the traditional family for a stable and free America.

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Educational Lunacy

Is there anything that more clearly exposes the lunacy of our American educational system than college football? Jim McElwain, will be paid an annual salary of 3.5 million for the next six years to coach a hundred or so football players, and bring pride to the University of Florida with a winning team. By contrast, university president Bernie Machen will be paid $750,000 to coach 50,000 students and 4,000 faculty members towards academic excellence.

Our nation’s educational system is such a mess from top to bottom that it’s difficult to focus on any single problem. However, if we start at the top, two glaring issues immediately present themselves – tenure and athletic scholarships.

Tenure at any university that receives public funding, is a scam on the American taxpayer, and a detriment to excellence in higher education. That we are supposed to receive something so valuable from these pampered professors that we have to guarantee their jobs for life, is nothing short of laughable. Tenured professors are the vanguard of an extremist left-wing agenda that is radicalizing our youth and destroying our entire system of higher education. To make matters worse, tenure has now worked its way down the system through the teacher’s unions, to the point where it is almost impossible to fire any teacher at any level, no matter how lousy or politically driven they may be.

I know it’s an overworked laugh line, but ‘athletic scholarship’ is still the classic oxymoron. College football has about as much connection to academia, as the salon bar has to the symphony orchestra that’s playing. Most of my friends think I’m either joking or wacky, for saying that all athletic scholarships should be abolished. But in fact that is exactly what I think would be a good first step towards turning our ‘athletic’ institutions, back into institutions of higher learning.

College sports are supposed to be a healthy diversion from total immersion in academic studies for serious students. Instead, college sports have become a multi-billion dollar industry, and have a life of their own within our university systems. Many of our top universities are identified today by the competence of their football team rather than the excellence of their academic program. Our high school scholars must apply and hope for acceptance to the top universities, while athletes are courted by coaches, pro stars, teachers, and prestigious alumni. Once at the university they are segregated, put on a pedestal, and babied through a couple of years of faux academic studies, before turning professional or being put out into the world to fend for themselves.

Whenever I mention eliminating athletic scholarships, I am met with only two arguments: If the colleges don’t have revenue from sports, something awful will happen like the university will have to be downsized, my taxes will go up, or tuition will be raised out of sight. And then the argument that is supposed to shut down all debate – What about all the minority athletes that won’t have a chance to go to college?

If you can believe the numbers put out by the University (I don’t), in 2009 the UF football program spent $25 million, and the 12 Southeastern Conference teams shelled out $240 million for their football teams. UF football generated $70 million in revenue, and funded 85% of the schools total athletic expenditures. The funding argument I heard for maintaining the current program is that people will not support a team unless they have pro caliber athletes, and therefore the university will have to shut down all the other sports teams without football revenue.

This argument is so shallow that it hardly warrants disputing. To imagine that a Gator fan will no longer care about the game because there are only real students playing, not only defies logic, but completely dismisses the reality of fan loyalty. Of course they are still going to support their team! Ivy league schools don’t give out athletic scholarships, and they still have vibrant athletic programs, including football teams. So how about using some of those millions in sports revenue for minority ‘academic’ scholarships?

As for minority access to a college education, it’s hard to think of anything in America that shows racial prejudice more clearly. What are we saying anyway? That minority Americans can only make it in college as our entertainers? As the largest group of minority athletes, far too many black youths have sports figures as their role models in life, and see athletics as the path to success. Replacing sports fame and recognition with academic achievement, would be a long and difficult – if not impossible – transition, but if the focus is changed, there is no reason why a student can’t have both.

While there is nothing wrong with admiring the athletic prowess of Lebron James or Cam Newton, and looking up to them as sports heroes, it seems a far better life choice for black youths to have Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, or Herman Cain as their role models. Only a small number of college athletes enjoy a professional career with a big salary contract. For the 99% of athletes who do not make it in the pros, the cheering runs out at the end of their college careers, and the real world intrudes on their lives for the first time.

Virtually all university athletes were high school stars, but the athletic glory they have enjoyed since childhood is quickly forgotten in the jobs market. Far better I say, for us to ensure that those who do graduate, are fully prepared to participate in the vibrant American economy, and become the role models for the next generation.

With that said let me give the obligatory concessions.

I know some athletes make straight A’s
I know too many white people also idolize athletes
I know many star athletes are also good role models
I know the coaches are worth the money (If you value profit over education)
I know many families depend on scholarships
I know most college athletes do graduate.
I know there are other minorities besides blacks
I know there are a lot of sports besides football, basketball, and baseball

Any other toes I have stepped on, just add to the list.

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Price of Gas

Obama rides again… During the 2012 presidential election, the President and all his liberal supporters mocked Republicans for their slogan ‘Drill Baby Drill’. With the price of gasoline at $4.35 a gallon, the Democrats maintained that drilling for more oil would do nothing to lower the price of energy.

The President and his party did everything within their power to thwart oil production including vetoing the Keystone Pipeline, and shutting down new drilling on federal lands. They wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on green energy scams, and brought our nation’s coal industry to its knees.

From the President and Vice President, down to the lowliest Congressperson, the economic geniuses of the Democrat Party hooted and howled at the stupidity of Republicans. The mainstream media joined in the crowing chorus, and talked endlessly about the dangerous Republicans appealing to the most ignorant among us.

Meanwhile, our energy producing industry was quietly going about their business. Putting good old Yankee ingenuity to work, they developed new extraction techniques, and using only private lands, increased oil and gas production by 61% while Obama was saying it couldn’t be done. During the same period, oil and gas production on federal land decreased by 6%.

Today, the nationwide average for gasoline stands at $2.13 a gallon. The normal human reaction to being publicly humiliated, would be to apologize for being so wrong, or at the very least just shut up. However, proving once again that liberals lie about everything and are incapable of being shamed, President Obama is now claiming credit for the increase in oil production and the decrease in gas prices.

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Gay Marriage

Several months ago, a couple of puffed up local judges fantasized they were supreme court justices, and ordered gay marriage to proceed in Florida against the democratic vote of 64% of its citizens. In response, I had the following letter printed in the Key West Citizen.

I had expected the ire of gay marriage proponents, but what amazed me was the response from citizens at large. For the next couple of weeks, everywhere I went, supporters approached me. Each one thanked me for writing the letter, and then explained why they themselves could not come out publicly against gay marriage; friends, family, business, clubs, social contacts and obligations. Yes, everyone had a perfectly good reason for remaining in the closet.

It truly concerned me that people were so fearful of publicly expressing their opinion, but it was also heartening to know that so many people in a liberal mecca like Key West agreed with me. Gays have now won the legal battle for marriage – winning acceptance will be much harder.

Editor – Key West Citizen

So now a Monroe County judge has joined seventeen carefully selected judges in other states, and usurped the gay marriage votes of millions of American citizens. The judge has imposed his own view of fairness and used a highly personal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to overrule our state constitution and six thousand years of historical precedent.

The current gay marriage question is not about fairness, nor is it a legal or moral issue. The issue is one of majority rule and whether free citizens in a civil society should be allowed to choose the social structure best suited for them. If a very small minority and several dozen sympathetic judges are allowed to impose their wills on the majority, then no civil rights are safe, including our most precious freedoms of speech and religion.

Across the nation, a number of high profile gay activists have frightened citizens, CEO’s, and politicians into submission by equating opposition to gay marriage with hatemongering. To say that proponents of traditional marriage hate homosexuals, is precisely as absurd as saying gay men hate women, and lesbians hate fathers, yet by yelling it loud enough and long enough, our leaders cower before the charge.

America and its citizens would be better served with open debate about the real issues, such as: What will happen when gay marriage and freedom of religion inevitably clash? – What other categories of marriage will be up for legalization? – Do children really not need both a mother and a father?
And, is the family unit proscribed by nature now obsolete?

Neither a handful of judges nor elected officials, should be allowed to overturn the family structure that has existed throughout civilization. It should only be decided by the will of the people.

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The Constitution

The Constitution

For 200 years the Constitution was the undisputed foundation of American law and order. Every child spent endless hours in school studying the relationship between the document and the freedoms and liberty we enjoy as Americans, and came away with a reverence for the collective wisdom that went into drafting it.

Today that reverence is gone. Most (I am tempted to say all) schoolchildren graduate with the barest knowledge of the Constitution and even less understanding of how important it is to maintaining their freedoms. The President of the United States views it as an outdated document that only ‘tells the federal government what it cannot do, while neglecting to specify what it may do.’

The President – supposedly a Constitutional scholar – routinely rules by his own interpretation of the Constitution, and one is left to wonder if he was ever taught the reason for having such a document. Separation of powers, and states rights, have no meaning for him, and with little concern for the legal restraints placed on his office, he wields the power of the presidency in ways that would horrify our founders.

For liberals, the major impediment to absolute power being in the hands of the government is the 1rst amendment. Freedom of speech, religion, and the press must be controlled in order for the liberal agenda to be fully enacted, and give government absolute power over the lives of the people. Clear examples of their success can be seen with hate crime legislation controlling speech, the complete removal of religious expression from the public domain, and shutting out the press by limiting access to the hidden agendas of those governing.

By ignoring the Constitutional limits on his office, Obama is practicing the very tyranny that moved our founders to include the 2nd amendment. It appears that the President and his liberal party either don’t understand that the right to bear arms is a protection for citizens against government tyranny, or they understand, but dismiss the right as simply another impediment to the imperial government they so desire.

Liberal judges routinely overrule popular votes, and act as if the Constitution is the property of the judiciary instead of the people. They twist words and squeeze tortured opinions out of simple language to support their own personal views. The original Constitution is an amazingly straightforward document, and in truth, I can do a better job of interpreting it than activist, liberal judges.

With his blatantly unconstitutional executive order giving amnesty to 5 million illegal aliens, the President showed how irrelevant the Constitution has become to liberal Democrats. Far worse even than it appears, it only takes half a brain to understand that 5 million is just another executive lie. If he says 5 million, then it is probably 10 million, plus another 10 or 20 million of their extended families, which will then be eligible to join them.

Then, if one has the other half of the brain functioning, it is easy to see what comes next. While the media is absorbed in the crisis du jour (this week it’s Ferguson), tens of millions are preparing for their own illegal journey across our southern border, understanding that they too will eventually be forgiven and legalized.

After Obamacare, Ben Ghazi, IRS, etc, we have become numbed to the President misleading us, and no longer take anything he says at face value. But most amazing is that he is allowed to get away with it politically. We all knew what Obama was going to do with immigration, just like we know what the Republicans will do in response – nothing. Supposedly, losing an election is the payback for presidential perfidy, yet no thinking person believes it will do anything but further empower him to go his own way.

After 50 years of observing the increasing corruption of our system, it is difficult to understand how anyone with their eyes open cannot see the future consequences of today’s policies. However, when I expressed this seemingly obvious opinion, an acquaintance accused me of being a pessimist, and chastised me with a somewhat snooty “I prefer to be an optimist.” What he was really saying is “I prefer to be oblivious.”

In fact, I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist, but a realist. Fifty years of fighting the commercial fishing bureaucracy taught me how to lose battles, but I have never been able to concede defeat in the war itself. So it is with my country. Our nation is rapidly gaining momentum on its downward slide as conservatives lose battle after battle, but America is still a wonderful place to live, and my life is wonderful along with it. While the war for liberty is going badly right now, we must not just shut up and crawl into our protective shells.

Politicians are endlessly creative when it comes to putting off the day of reckoning, so barring some national catastrophe, my generation will probably continue to enjoy the American dream. It is our children and grandchildren that will pay the price for our failure to deal with the future, and while it may be impossible to head off the coming economic and social disasters, we must do what we can to mitigate the monumental problems they will be left to deal with.

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O’Reilly Victory?

The other evening I listened as Bill O’Reilly declared victory in the war to save ‘Merry Christmas’. Apparently incensed that major retailers in America were ordering their employees to say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’, he launched a campaign to put the greeting back into the holiday. According to O’Reilly, this year not a single new store eliminated Merry Christmas, and several of the giant retailers actually rescinded the ban.

I applaud O’Reilly’s effort, and certainly think it is a battle worth fighting. Here in my hometown, our politically correct leaders took over a parade started by the Key West Ministerial Association, and changed the name from Christmas Parade to Holiday Parade. Unfortunately, Bill O’Reilly will move on to his next project and never hear about this, or millions of similar actions taking place in America.

In actuality, taking Christmas out of Christmas is only a symptom of the war on Christian values that is taking place throughout the country. O’Reilly’s proud declaration, “We won! We won!” may temporarily be true for his little skirmish, but across America the war is going very badly for Christians. Most all of the battles are losses, and the redefining of the First Amendment is well underway. Expressions of Christian faith are now gone from the public domain, and the legal acceptance of gay marriage will soon relegate freedom of religion to the confines of the church.

The war that is taking place is not about Christmas, marriage, immigration, economics, abortion, or even religion. It is about values. All religions have a set of moral values that infuriate a growing number of strident secularists in America, but the Ten Commandments espoused by Christians are the most visibly threatening to those who crave the elimination of guilt in their lives.

From the first to the tenth, each Commandment poses a threat to those who want to be judged only by their own standards of right and wrong.

1 )    No other gods? Is this invisible God, really as important as tolerance, or the environment?
2 )    No graven images? I hope you’re not referring to my car, my boat, or my cellphone.
3 )    Lord’s name in vain? Jesus! What’s the harm in single expletive?
4 )    Keep the Sabbath Day holy? Hey! I do my shopping on Sunday!
5 )    Honor thy father and mother? What about two fathers or two mothers?
6 )    Shalt not kill? Another judgmental swipe at a woman’s right to choose.
7 )    Not commit adultery? Oh my God! Adultery is such an antiquated term. It is no longer relevant in               modern society.
8 )   Shalt not steal? Easy for you to say. You’re not homeless, or an undocumented immigrant living in the         shadows.
9 )   Don’t bear false witness? The important thing is lying for the right reason.
10)  Do not covet? Get real! I mean is it really fair for someone to have more than others?

Yes indeed! It’s a brave new world we are entering. How long before we have a new Constitution and a new Ten Commandments based on fairness, tolerance, diversity, environmentalism, and safety? Coming soon, or already here?

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Evolving on Immigration

According to Mitt Romney, we Republicans need to swallow hard, and beat the Democrats to the punch with amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens. Yes, according to Romney, there is no longer a point to demanding that the laws of America be respected, since the opposition is routinely gaining political advantage by violating even the Constitution. Presumably, Romney fantasizes that by joining the ‘no respect for the law’ crowd, he will gain enough votes to give him the presidential office that eluded him in 2012.

Politically, I can’t think of anything sadder than a decent person compromising their values in order to gain votes. I don’t know who these mysterious voters are that will desert their patron Democrats to vote for Romney, but he must imagine that they are legion. He must also be blessedly unaware of how many of us conservatives had to swallow hard, to vote for him in 2012.

With both Romney and Jeb Bush now advocating pardons for millions of lawbreakers, look for them to get an easy ride through the primary battles. Much like John McCain in 2010, they will become the liberal media darlings of the GOP – at least until they receive the nomination and then get dumped for Hillary.

As far as conservatives were concerned, in the past presidential election Mitt had one shoe stuck firmly in the mud with state run healthcare in Massachusetts, and now he has managed to entrap the other one with amnesty. Apparently, it has yet to occur to him that four million Republicans stayed home in 2012, because they did not believe he was a true conservative.

After a recent trip to the Bahamas, I waited two hours to get through U.S. Customs on my return. It’s hard to imagine any politician arguing on my behalf, had I purposefully avoided Customs and sneaked back into my own country without a declaration of foreign purchases, and a search of my luggage. Yet residents of other countries will not only be forgiven for violating our laws, but rewarded for their illegal actions with benefits and citizenship.

From the President, to the States and the judiciary, are their any leaders of either party, who still have respect for the laws of our land? It appears today that political expediency and posturing for the media, are the values our politicians revere the most.

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Open Cuba?

President Obama has supposedly opened the door to Cuba. I’m not sure exactly what he did, nor what it means. According to the Obama pronouncement, it is an ‘initiative’ that came after 18 months of secret negotiations, and will lead to the normalization of relations between our two countries.

For once, I agree with President Obama. Diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba should have been opened many years ago. It never made sense to me that we could open the trade door to such repressive regimes as communist China, North Vietnam, and Iran, while shunning an island nation only 90 miles from our border. There is nothing more threatening to communist dictators than open borders, and with the worldwide electronic revolution, the Castros would have been gone or at least neutralized many years ago.

With that said, let me disagree strongly with the way he did it. Obama consistently acts as if he were an imperial president. His entire time as president has been spent doing exactly what he wants, whenever he wants. Since 2008, a compliant Congress has allowed him to bypass the Constitution, and bend all legislative rules to have his way. Even many Democrats are now realizing they created a political monster, but it is too late to rein in the petulant ruler.

Once again, we have to be suspicious of the President’s motives, and wonder what he didn’t tell us: What was it that took 18 months of secret negotiations? Why did he have no consultation with Congress? What will we now be giving Cuba? What did America get in return? What about 60 years of human rights violations by the Castro brothers? And, by what Constitutional authority does he overrule an embargo enacted by Congress?

The older Cubans I have talked to are furious over the President’s action. They believe it will do nothing but give the Castro brothers more money to prop up their repressive regime. They are not so much against normalization of relations, as they are with not getting major human rights concessions first. They simply do not believe that normalization is possible as long as the Castro brothers are in charge.

The younger ones – particularly those born in America – are far more pragmatic, and can’t wait to openly visit Cuba. They believe there will be huge business opportunities for them, and look forward to re-establishing family ties. The damage to their Americanized family is one or two generations removed, and they reason that the Castro brothers are going to die very soon anyway.

As for me, I just don’t know. I have seen first hand the bitterness of Cuban refugees who had their homeland stolen by Fidel Castro. I learned to listen sympathetically, but be very careful about voicing my own opinion. Though part of my heritage is from Cuba, I was born here before the Castro Revolution, and am perceived as a North American who doesn’t fully understand.

Cuban Americans – especially those born in Cuba – may spit out the name Fidel, and denigrate him in the worst possible terms. However, Norte Americanos should be very careful in their criticism. There is a grudging admiration in most Cubans for Fidel. He has successfully defied the American giant for 60 years, and he is after all, of the same blood. You will know you went too far, when you hear, “He may be a communist, but he is a very smart man.”

So now we wait and see what happens next. The Republican Congress may feel a little braver with a million Cubans than they do with twenty million Central American Hispanics, and flex their majority muscle where they think it matters least.

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Crisis of the Day

My political memory goes back to about 1959, when the Castro revolution took place in Cuba. Since then I have followed the national political scene to a greater or lesser degree. While all presidents have had their share of crises during their administrations, the number of incidents that reach critical media mass under Obama is staggering.

There are so many crises that it becomes harder and harder to believe that they all come about by sheer happenstance. If we are indeed looking at a clever manipulation of events and headlines, then Obama is not as incompetent as he appears, and it can only mean that he is far more cunning than his political opponents ever imagined. After observing his supposed bumbling through the first term, I supposed like most people, that it was just his inexperience leading him into so many political eruptions.

It seemed like there was always a new outrageous event absorbing the media for a week or two, and then it would be replaced and forgotten by a new political convulsion. It also seemed that just as the nation was becoming involved, and Obama was taking the harshest criticism for one of these events, a new crisis would fortuitously take over the headlines.

At some point it finally occurred to my disbelieving mind, that Obama was far shrewder than the Republicans, and he was actually doing what he said he was going to do. Even though he had openly stated his desire to ‘fundamentally transform America’, citizens reacted as if it was just politics talking and even a black, liberal president could never make it happen. The real candidate was open to view during the 2008 election, yet voters chose to ignore the fact that ‘Emperor’ Obama had no clothes, and only a few political observers like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, called him out from the very beginning.

Indeed, the guiding light of the entire Obama administration was clearly revealed by his former chief advisor Rahm Emanuel when he said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Certainly Obama is the all time master at using a ‘good crisis’, and his clever manipulation of the political landscape is nothing less than genius, as he relentlessly works his way toward his stated goal of transforming America.

Like most Americans, I can quickly rattle off such high profile administration crises as Fast and Furious, IRS, Benghazi, Eric Holder, Solyndra, Veteran’s hospitals, Obamacare, Libya, NSA wiretaps, and Jonathan Gruber. But since his inauguration there have also been dozens of other scandals and crises to keep the entire nation’s focus constantly shifting, and preclude the targeting any single event for very long.

Using only my admittedly poor memory, I have an overview of the last several months that is fairly consistent with what we have seen since Obama first took office: With the nations focus constantly shifting from Ebola, to Ukraine, landslide elections, Ferguson – New York, CIA torture report, and government shutdowns, Obama illegally slipped in 60,000 unaccompanied foreign children, and then quickly disseminated them throughout America, never to return to their native countries. Then, while he still had a lame duck senate, and the media was preoccupied with Ferguson, he issued an unconstitutional executive order, granting amnesty to at least 5 million illegal aliens.

As I write, the President has once again shifted the nation’s focus. With Congress just going into recess, and Jonathan Gruber admitting the administration lied about Obamacare to ‘stupid’ Americans, the President unleashed another of his imperial pronouncements: After 18 months of secret negotiations, he dismissed an embargo action by Congress, and opened relations with Cuba.

While Barack Obama may not be the smartest President, he assuredly ranks among the most clever and ideologically driven men to ever hold the office. Any person who still thinks Obama is a dummy, or is being swept along by the times rather than directing them, needs to have his head examined.

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New Direction for Congress?

With the indefensible positions of Democrats on virtually every issue today, there is no choice but to support whichever Republican is running for whatever office. However, there is little reason to believe that having a Republican Senate to go with the GOP House of Representatives, will lead the country in any different direction than it is now heading.

History shows us that newly elected Republicans quickly become part of the Washington establishment. However, the country cousin Republicans are no match politically for the city slicker Democrats on Capitol Hill, and quickly become neutered in the game of power politics.

Rookie GOP lawmakers naively believe they can trust the compromise talk Democrats smoothly hand them, while seasoned Republicans in Congress already understand that they don’t have the heart for the rough and tumble liberal politics of our nation’s capital. The veteran politicians just enjoy the social scene and give hollow opposition in their endless media interviews, while the newcomers tilt at a few political windmills, and then concentrate on the real business of Congress… re-election.

It is a sad fact of life that the average Republican lawmaker doesn’t know how to deal with hardnosed liberal ideologues like Obama, Eric Holder, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. The Democratic bullies are always on the offense, and the ‘classy’ Republican wimps live out their careers on defense.

The next two years will see Obama running roughshod over the Constitution and Congress, while frustrated Republican lawmakers whine their way to 2016. The best we can hope for is that gullible politicians will not be foolish enough to side with Obama on critical issues like immigration and spending. (Whoops! The Republicans just passed a budget Obama says he will sign)

So, no folks! Don’t put your faith in the new Republican majority in Congress. It’s going to take a far more decisive voter revolution than we just had, to force our politicians into doing what’s right instead of what’s politically expedient.

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Budget Scare

Praise the Lord! Our politicians have saved us again. To think we were minutes away from a government shutdown. The words are so scary I can hardly write them down. Whatever would we do? How would we survive? How would America survive!?

I mean, we all remember that last government shutdown. How frightening was that! Seventeen percent of the government was shut down for a full two weeks, and then it took another two weeks before everyone got paid for the time they were out of a job. I don’t know about you, but it sure is comforting to know that John Boehner and the Republicans are in charge of the budget, and we don’t have the free-spending Democrats carrying on business as usual.

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Resisting Arrest

I have been trying to envision something dumber than physically resisting a law officer who is trying to arrest you. It is impossible to think of even one good thing that could come out of this kind of futile action. Physical resistance is a red flag to law enforcement officers, and there is not a cop in America who will not respond with force, regardless of one’s color.

Why the men in Ferguson and New York resisted arrest, is probably something the average white person cannot understand. I do understand that those who do not depend on commercial fishing for a living, can never fully comprehend the contentious atmosphere that exists between bureaucratic regulators and working fishermen. In the same way we can never fully understand the frustration of inner city blacks who have been kept in poverty by ostensibly well-meaning liberal policies.

Nevertheless, resisting arrest is a completely non-racial issue. While Key West is not exactly a hotbed of racial discontent, there are frequent examples of resisting arrest, including a recent incident that resulted in death. Since the officer and victim were both white, we did not receive a visit by Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, nor attention from Eric Holder or President Obama. In fact, there were no stores burned, nor even a minor riot, though the local media did try their best to gin up a little action.

In actual fact, virtually all of the resisting arrest incidents can be attributed to the same reason: The person being arrested was impaired by alcohol or drugs. Though I have been studiously avoiding the round-the-clock media circus in Ferguson and New York, I have heard enough to know that one victim robbed a convenience store and the other had 31 prior arrests. It is not necessary to know their color, to make the assumption that drugs or alcohol may well have been a factor.

Anyway, as Sigmund Freud once said, “Sometimes even a cigar is just a good smoke.” And sometimes even a white cop shooting a black man, is just another sad result of resisting arrest.

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The Constitution

For 200 years the Constitution was the undisputed foundation of American law and order. Every child spent endless hours in school studying the relationship between the document and the freedoms and liberty we enjoy as Americans, and came away with a reverence for the collective wisdom that went into drafting it.

Today that reverence is gone. Most (I am tempted to say all) schoolchildren graduate with the barest knowledge of the Constitution and even less understanding of how important it is to maintaining their freedoms. The President of the United States views it as an outdated document that only ‘tells the federal government what it cannot do, while neglecting to specify what it may do.’

The President – supposedly a Constitutional scholar – routinely rules by his own interpretation of the Constitution, and one is left to wonder if he was ever taught the reason for having such a document. Separation of powers, and states rights, have no meaning for him, and with little concern for the legal restraints placed on his office, he wields the power of the presidency in ways that would horrify our founders.

For liberals, the major impediment to absolute power being in the hands of the government is the 1rst amendment. Freedom of speech, religion, and the press must be controlled in order for the liberal agenda to be fully enacted, and give government absolute power over the lives of the people. Clear examples of their success can be seen with hate crime legislation controlling speech, the complete removal of religious expression from the public domain, and shutting out the press by limiting access to the hidden agendas of those governing.

By ignoring the Constitutional limits on his office, Obama is practicing the very tyranny that moved our founders to include the 2nd amendment. It appears that the President and his liberal party either don’t understand that the right to bear arms is a protection for citizens against government tyranny, or they understand, but dismiss the right as simply another impediment to the imperial government they so desire.

Liberal judges routinely overrule popular votes, and act as if the Constitution is the property of the judiciary instead of the people. They twist words and squeeze tortured opinions out of simple language to support their own personal views. The original Constitution is an amazingly straightforward document, and in truth, I can do a better job of interpreting it than activist, liberal judges.

With his blatantly unconstitutional executive order giving amnesty to 5 million illegal aliens, the President showed how irrelevant the Constitution has become to liberal Democrats. Far worse even than it appears, it only takes half a brain to understand that 5 million is just another executive lie. If he says 5 million, then it is probably 10 million, plus another 10 or 20 million of their extended families, which will then be eligible to join them.

Then, if one has the other half of the brain functioning, it is easy to see what comes next. While the media is absorbed in the crisis du jour (this week it’s Ferguson), tens of millions are preparing for their own illegal journey across our southern border, understanding that they too will eventually be forgiven and legalized.

After Obamacare, Ben Ghazi, IRS, etc, we have become numbed to the President misleading us, and no longer take anything he says at face value. But most amazing is that he is allowed to get away with it politically. We all knew what Obama was going to do with immigration, just like we know what the Republicans will do in response – nothing. Supposedly, losing an election is the payback for presidential perfidy, yet no thinking person believes it will do anything but further empower him to go his own way.

After 50 years of observing the increasing corruption of our system, it is difficult to understand how anyone with their eyes open cannot see the future consequences of today’s policies. However, when I expressed this seemingly obvious opinion, an acquaintance accused me of being a pessimist, and chastised me with a somewhat snooty “I prefer to be an optimist.” What he was really saying is “I prefer to be oblivious.”

In fact, I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist, but a realist. Fifty years of fighting the commercial fishing bureaucracy taught me how to lose battles, but I have never been able to concede defeat in the war itself. So it is with my country. Our nation is rapidly gaining momentum on its downward slide as conservatives lose battle after battle, but America is still a wonderful place to live, and my life is wonderful along with it. While the war for liberty is going badly right now, we must not just shut up and crawl into our protective shells.

Politicians are endlessly creative when it comes to putting off the day of reckoning, so barring some national catastrophe, my generation will probably continue to enjoy the American dream. It is our children and grandchildren that will pay the price for our failure to deal with the future, and while it may be impossible to head off the coming economic and social disasters, we must do what we can to mitigate the monumental problems they will be left to deal with.

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Worse Than Ebola

Ebola is not the worst disease threatening America. A more deadly virus has already spread throughout the land, and is even now attacking the first amendment to our Constitution. The symptoms were innocuous at first, and sometimes even a little humorous, but the political correctness virus crept silently into our country on a wave of good intentions, and now we find our political leaders and the courts indulging even the most obnoxious and loony minority demands.

Based on recent court decisions by carefully selected judges – apparently overwhelmed by their own power and wisdom – one would think that the newly invented ‘rights’ of fairness, diversity, and tolerance, now supersede our first amendment rights to free speech and religion. Every grievance group in America uses these new rights to advance their personal agendas, even to the point where whining ‘victims’ have now become the tyrannical majority, and only white, male, Christians are left as the victimizers.

A billion tweets an hour, and instantaneous nationwide communication, have caused the disease to go viral. While the disease is noticeable in practically every corner of our lives, the most obvious symptom is a phobia known as the fear of expressing political opinion.

College presidents lose their jobs for saying men and women are different. Corporate executives are fired for supporting traditional marriage, and anyone who dares criticize our black President is guilty of racism. Say the wrong word around the wrong person and you are guilty of a hate crime, and heaven forbid you mention God in a public setting.

The chilling effect this political correctness has had on our national discourse is devastating and visible everywhere. Most working people – especially those who don’t lay some claim to victimhood – are non-confrontational and just want to be left alone. Liberals on the other hand, always have some personal view they are trying to force on everyone else, and will use any means to accomplish their goal, including the courts and personal attacks. Like schoolyard bullies, they focus in on those who are not willing to fight back, and inevitably have their way.

My hometown of Key West, was once known for its tolerance and diversity. Ernest Hemingway lived here like a common citizen, and President Harry Truman walked the streets without bodyguards or autograph seekers. Open homosexuals like Tennessee Williams were accepted here long before the rest of the nation, and political discourse was lively, combative, and spanned from ultra conservative to radical liberal.

Today, Key West stands as a proud liberal bastion of intolerance, closed thought, and extreme political correctness. Politicians puff about our ‘one human family’ island. Gays preen and threaten about an apparently indisputable ‘right’ to marry, without allowing any discussion of whether 1.6% of the population should have the right to force their view on the rest of the nation, or why they think children don’t really need both a mother and a father.

Businessmen (sorry – business people) discuss public nudity, intoxication, and obscene behavior as if they are just an image problem, and not a legitimate reason for any citizen to take offense. Self-righteous environmentalists lecture us incessantly about the ‘fragile’ marine eco-system we are destroying and man made global warming, and then give each other ‘environmental hero’ awards for being so sensitive and caring.

Each of these subjects is a big no-no for real political discussion in Key West, along with other social issues like abortion, welfare, drug legalization, and homelessness. Unless one likes being personally attacked, or ending up a social outcast, the only acceptable area for discussion is the liberal, politically correct side. Conservative Christians are strongly warned to keep their own ‘hateful’ opinions to themselves.

While I have been observing for some years that no one wants to publicly discuss the pros and cons of hot-button social issues, it only recently occurred to me that people will no longer even debate the issues privately. I first noticed that some of my friends avoid the issues at all costs, and others quickly change the subject if it heads in that direction. Scarier yet, was the realization that even family members are immediately shouting out, “Oh, come on! Let’s not get into politics”, for fear someone will have their tender sensibilities offended

After becoming increasingly aware of the limit on debate, I recently had the most unsettling experience of all. With a group of my closest friends that had been making boat trips together for over 30 years, I tried to test my observation by engaging them in political discussions.

This is a group of men for which no subject had ever been taboo. Every true opinion we had came out, and every prejudice was accepted and then forgotten the next day. Though we are the closest of friends, the discussions often got hot and heavy, but never had a differing opinion affected our friendships. Long before Las Vegas appropriated the slogan, we had an inviolable rule that ‘what is said on the boat stays on the boat’, and no one has ever betrayed that trust.

Despite our free speaking history, I was unable to get anyone into a discussion of the many social issues that affect Key West. I was able to get a short discussion going on immigration, but it ended quickly when I said I didn’t believe in cheap labor, and illegals should be sent back to their home country so all Americans could have well paying jobs.

Political correctness is a national tragedy, but it has carried the debate and won the day. Politicians are endlessly creative at putting off the day of reckoning for any given problem, so it will be years before the full disastrous effects of today’s politics are felt by the entire nation. In the meantime, we enjoy living in the best nation on earth while it is still great, and do what we can to mitigate the problems our children will be left to deal with.

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Poverty Level

According to the Miami Herald headline, 50% of Floridians live in poverty. I don’t even need to read the rest of the article to know how misleading it is. It reminded me of the preposterous add that American Express had out a couple of years ago, claiming 25 million children went to bed hungry every night in America. No one was dumb enough to believe it, but who was willing to waste their time disputing it?

Poverty is big business for liberal Democrats. The party depends on keeping people poor so they will always be dependent on big government for their support, and there are millions of votes and trillions of dollars at stake in the poverty industry.

How we could have half of Florida in poverty with the President who was going to ‘save the planet’, only the Miami Herald can answer. (could it be that rascal George Bush again?) Whether one can immediately understand the political point or not, the one thing you can depend on with the Herald is that the headline will always reflect their liberal bias, and promote the liberal agenda.

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Bicycle Bureaucracy

It is not possible to say anymore that something is the ‘dumbest thing I have ever seen’. Our government – especially the federal government – just keeps outdoing themself with stupidity, and there is barely a speck left in America that they don’t have their greedy fingers on.

North Roosevelt Boulevard provides a small sampling of this government overreach. There are now so many signs on the road that a driver trying to read them all would have no time left to watch the road. Of particular interest, are the multitude of signs letting us all know that bicyclists have two lanes of the highway for their own personal use.

With a perfectly good sidewalk available for casual cycling, our government instead tells them to ride in the middle of the highway, where people are traveling to work, taking kids to school, and generally trying to traverse our crowded town. Most all cyclists have the good sense to ignore the government directive, and ride on the far safer sidewalk.

I have however twice been behind cyclists riding down the middle of the lane at 20 MPH. Our Euro-tour riders wore helmets, rode bikes with rail thin tires, and had a seat hidden somewhere under the spandex butts. To say that it created a dangerous situation, is to understate the anger and tension of drivers trying desperately to get around them.

The riders were likely very nice people, and may have only been following the government’s directive to ride on the highway. However, my own thought was that they were enjoying their sense of entitlement, flaunting the fact that they had as much right to the highway as the cars and trucks, and possibly even enjoying the massive pileup of cars behind them.

While my thoughts about these two may be wrong, it is an opinion shared by almost everyone who has had the experience. A 20 MPH bicyclist on a 25 MPH street is acceptable for a place like Key West, however, riding down the middle of a 35MPH lane at 20 MPH is dangerous and just plain stupid.

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Political Allies

According to The Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association, commercial fishing lost one of its biggest allies when Democrat Jerry Garcia lost his re-election bid for Congress.

As a member of the FKCF, and a lifelong participant in commercial fishing, I must strongly disagree with that assessment. Very few politicians are actually allies of commercial fishing, and most certainly not any liberal Democrats. In the real world, liberals are allies of radical environmental groups like the Environmental Defense Fund, which is working nationwide to restrict and even eliminate commercial fishing altogether.

The EDF is typical of the arrogant earth savers who want fish farmed right now even though the technology is not advanced enough to do it. They are like those who would eliminate fossil fuel use immediately, believing it would force the world into alternative fuels, despite the cost in money and human suffering.

Having worked with politicians on fishery issues for over 40 years, I can say for certain that what we get is lip service. Shrewd politicians understand that commercial fishing is on the wrong end of the sympathy scale, and while we privately hear all the right things from our leaders, patronization does little to slow down the bureaucratic tsunami that is devouring us.

To my fellow commercial fishing advocates I say, don’t put your faith in politicians. You can also add lawyers, and seemingly sympathetic bureaucrats, to the list of hope dashers. All of them will smoothly pick your pocket while they have you smiling. The only one you can really depend on to defend your industry and livelihood is yourself.

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Election – 2014

The Republicans have taken over the senate and have a huge majority in the house. While I am definitely happy with the results, I still have a couple of nagging issues.

Why, for example, were all the races so close? With the condition of the country, and the disastrous presidency of Obama, one would think that most of the races would have been landslides. It surely points up the fact that half of the country wants big government no matter the personal freedoms they must give up to have it.

Then too, I wonder what the Republicans will be able to accomplish with their majority. Six years of Obama have already shown that the Republicans are no match for him. Democrats – and especially Obama – always play by the Lombardi rule that ‘winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing’, while Republicans tend to take the statesman route and lose. So, let’s see.

Governor Scott barely won re-election. Under Scott, Florida has one of the strongest economies in the nation, while Christ as governor took the state into economic decline, including huge budget deficits. Again, who are these people that still vote for an incompetent political carpetbagger like Charlie Christ?

For congress, Carlos Curbelo now gets his shot. This race was a clear vote against Obama, as Curbelo was virtually unknown. Lets see if he will be a future conservative leader, or just fall into the Washington big government mentality.

In Monroe County, George Nugent continues with his life estate on the County Commission. He is a thinking man and I like him, but I am a strong believer in term limits for all elected officials, and no one is irreplaceable.

The potheads won the vote on medical marijuana, but didn’t get the 60% needed for statewide approval. Medical marijuana is a classic political shenanigan. I am sure there are some naïve voters who still believe that the bill was really intended for relief for terminally ill patients. Certainly, no one would object to even giving heroin to terminally ill people. However, any literate person can look at California, and see that anyone with anxiety, depression, eating disorder, or several hundred other illnesses and disorders, can easily get a doctor’s prescription.

Well, the teachers union got their half cent sales tax approved to maintain and repair Monroe county’s schools. Now they can safely use all of the money generated through property taxes that should be used for that purpose, to prop up their golden pensions and healthcare benefits for the next 10 years.

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Senator Marco Rubio

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I read an article today by Senator Rubio, criticizing Attorney General Eric Holder for his continuous disregard for the rule of law. ‘Hypocrite’ comes immediately to mind to describe the Senator, but today the word is so overused as to become essentially meaningless.

When I was growing up, someone who could level an unembarrassed accusation against another person who was guilty of something that they also were guilty of, was said to have a ‘hard face’. Probably the closest word today would be chutzpah. As opposed to the word hypocrite, both ‘hard face’ and chutzpah carry with them a certain admiration for being able to do or say something outrageously conflicting, with a straight face.

Regarding Eric Holder’s future replacement, Rubio writes, “America deserves a nominee to lead the Justice Department who is fully committed to vigorous application of our nation’s Constitution and laws without political bias or personal agenda”.

So how does this bit of political fluff square with the Senator’s stance on immigration? He is proposing that all who broke the law to enter this country, be given a path to legal residency. In other words, notwithstanding the Senator’s piddling penalties which will never be enforced, eleven million lawbreakers and all of their extended families, will soon be legal residents of the United States and entitled to all the benefits of Americans.

So lets see about this ‘rule of law’ he is so concerned over: Rubio was Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, making laws the rest of us were required to obey. He is an attorney sworn to uphold the rule of law. And he is a Senator who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. So, if Senator Rubio himself has no respect for the rule of law, why is he so incensed that anyone else in government would act the same?

I once thought Marco Rubio could be the next Ronald Reagan. But political ambition can cause fevered dreams of votes, and even lead a senator to abandon the very principles he was elected to represent.

While I would not support him in the presidential primaries, I would still have to vote for him if he received the presidential nomination. The ideological difference between the political parties is so vast, that beyond the local level I don’t see a single democrat I could ever support. So I will still be voting for the senator, but disappointment once again reigns, and the blinders are off.

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The Nature Conservancy needs help noting rising sea levels

The Nature Conservancy needs help noting rising sea levels

According to the Key West Citizen; To increase the public’s awareness of a rising sea level and it’s consequences – the loss of land for long-term development and destruction of wetlands – (Allison) Higgins (program manager) and The Nature Conservancy are asking the public to help them create a photographic record of high tide events in October, when levels will be extremely high. Higgins says, “With what is happening in the Arctic and Greenland, many respected scientists now foresee a likely sea level rise of at least 1.5 feet just within the coming 50 years.”…………..Let’s see now. I wasn’t aware that the Conservancy favored more land for long-term development, but it’s right there in print, so it must be true. And then we want to document rising sea levels during Perigean tides, when levels are high anyway? I would think it more scientific to document high levels when they are not supposed to be high, but what do I know. The good news for all of us in Key West, is that our island will no longer be underwater in 50 years. Just a couple of short years ago, guru Al Gore told us the seas would rise by 20 feet in 50 years, but now we’re down to 1.5 feet. I’m going to tell my grandchildren to keep a sharp eye on the situation. At this rate we may gain ground before long, and who knows what may be available for long term development?

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Strong start to lobster season

Strong start to lobster season

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Production has slowed after the season started out with a flurry. Depending on who one talks to, the strong start was due to: 1) a low pressure system that passed through right before traps went in the water. 2) the phase of the moon. 3) the elimination of the clandestine habitat fishery. 4) trap robbers being jailed. 5) the oil spill……………on the other hand, fishery managers undoubtedly give credit for the strong start to their 15 year old trap reduction program, while ‘climate change’ alarmists, probably think its another ominous sign of global warming.

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Traps Hit the Water

Traps Hit the Water

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The lobster season starts on August 6, but fishermen are allowed to put the traps in the water on August 1. Fishermen are allowed the soak time because the typical trap will not begin attracting lobster until it has stopped bubbling and sediment and marine growth acclimate it to the bottom. Historically, fishermen were permitted a 10 day soak period because the acclimation process takes a full week. Because of the shortened soak period, full trap production does not normally start until August 10.

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Fish love songs

Fish love songs

According to a front page article in the Miami Herald, a Vero Beach scientist has been recording the love songs of fish, and says the research could help determine the impacts of the BP oil spill on marine creatures in the Gulf. Grant Gilmore, senior scientist at Estuarine Coastal and Ocean Science, maintains, “If you don’t have spawning sites, you don’t have fish.”………Wow! I sure hope fishery managers have heard about this. I mean, think of the potential harm to spawning aggregations if those romantic tunes are interrupted. I’m almost afraid to say it, but I don’t remember a thing about fish love songs in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. I hope it’s not too late to get it amended.

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More restrictions on Pompano

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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission will be further restricting the catch of Permit, Pompano, and African Pompano for both recreational and commercial fishermen. They will also be extending state rules into federal waters, which they are apparently allowed to do. According to the FWC, ‘potential spawning aggregation problems’ make it necessary to add new layers of regulations and restrictions in order to protect the three species….. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but hasn’t ‘potential’ become the favorite new word of fishery managers. The beauty is, that now we don’t need a real problem to make new rules, just a potential problem. I guess it’s another one of those mandates from the Magnuson – Stevens Act.

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NOAA: Tar balls coming

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The latest tracking reports show no sign of the oil spill anywhere near the Florida Keys. However, that could change by mid-August. According to NOAA, there is a 61% to 80% chance of the oil reaching Key West by then………….There’s a lesson here for lobster fishermen who were finally beginning to relax, and think they might actually be able to work this season without problems from the oil spill: Never stop worrying! With only a 20% to 39% chance the spill will miss the Keys, the odds are definitely against us escaping the disaster…. I’m sure glad they said 61-80, instead of 60-80. Now the pesky skeptics can’t claim that NOAA  just pulled some round numbers out of thin air.

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Drilling ban on ballot

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Governor Charlie Crist called for a special session of the legislature to ask lawmakers to let voters consider a constitutional amendment to ban offshore oil drilling………….It’s comforting to know that our politicians are maintaining their focus on today’s most important issue – getting themselves re-elected. It is certainly the perfect time to vote on an issue so critical to the future of our nation. Why shoot! With all this oil messing up the whole Gulf, and everyone in turmoil, the vote should be a no-brainer. Let’s hope our legislators don’t blow a good crisis by doing something impassive like having the vote in 2012, when people might be voting more dispassionately.

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Oil in Fish

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According to the Key West Citizen, NOAA launched a mission to test deepwater fish for oil contamination in areas that are currently closed to fishing. According to the article, the study could reopen some areas if the fish prove not to be tainted. Lisa Natanson, the mission’s chief scientist will be the only one with access to the samples. “Everything is under lock and key,” said Natanson. “The fewer the people [with access] the better.”…….. Well I’m sleeping a little better now knowing that NOAA is on the job. Why I’ll bet there are millions of people around the country who never even thought of the possibility of tainted fish entering the market. Thank you NOAA! And we’ll be waiting with – ahem – baited breath, to see which areas are the first ones reopened to fishing.

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Another Ban – Another Productivity Boost

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The South Atlantic Fisheries Council has banned fishing in 23,000 sq miles of ocean, including areas off the Florida Keys, in order to protect deep-sea coral colonies. According to the expert, experienced commercial fishermen at the environmental group Oceana “Bottom trawling consumes more fuel than most other types of fishing, and is capable of destroying these ancient coral reefs in a single pass.” The conservationists maintained that bottom damaging gear, including traps and longlines, will be banned in the largest known area of healthy deep-sea coral ecosystems in the world, thus ensuring the productivity of commercial fisheries that depend on them……. Wow! It sounds like those of us in commercial fishing will soon be looking at some serious windfall profits. Let’s see. So far this year, we’ve had a grouper ban, a red snapper ban, a ban outside of 240’, and now a fishing ban for coral. I just hope we can handle the huge increase in productivity that’s about to come.

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No more shark fin soup in Hawaii

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The State of Hawaii has banned the consumption of shark fins. According to the Miami Herald, ‘the state is attempting to help prevent the overfishing and extinction (there’s that scary word again) of sharks around the world’, and the bill passed the Hawaiian legislature with broad support……..Let’s see. Political posturing, or good fishery management? You’re allowed to harvest and eat the shark meat, but the fins must be discarded???.. I guess this fishery management business is just getting too complex for simple fishermen to understand.

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There goes another fish house

There goes another fish house

Charleston, South Carolina – Stopped in at Mount Pleasant Seafoods, a fish house started in 1946. The owner, Walter Toler, had just died the month before, but the fish house itself, had already died in the headlong rush by regulators to reduce fishing effort. Shem Creek was once a bustling fishing community that supported several fish houses, and once supplied all of Charleston with fresh seafood. Today, like many – or even most – fishing communities around the nation, it is populated with recreational boats and restaurants, leaving only a token fishing fleet. While Mt. Pleasant Seafoods still maintains a fish market out front, the unloading dock now has a new product to replace the shrimp and fish – kayaks!

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Lawsuit targets federal fishery regulators

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The City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, along with several fish houses, and individual fishermen, have filed suit against the Secretary of Commerce, and the administrator of NOAA. Among other things, the lawsuit claims that NOAA’s fishery allocation plans give preferential treatment to certain groups, and fail to adequately analyze impacts on small businesses, and fishing communities. The New England fishery had 1,400 boats in 1994, and now has 600. The latest regulation, Amendment 16, is expected to drop the number to as few as 100-200 vessels……Sure sounds familiar. We certainly wish them luck, though time and our money always favor the feds. Maybe having a city behind the suit will add some political punch to the equation. New Bedford is the nation’s largest fishing port, and if Gloucester joins in the suit, it could be the start of something big.

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Check Those Papers

Arizona has passed a law that allows police to check the immigration status of a person. If law enforcement has a reasonable suspicion that something is not quite right, they may ask the suspect to produce identification, and proof that they are in America legally. The law has sparked a firestorm of criticism among civil rights activists, and pandering politicians………..Gee! I wonder if the outraged crowd might be interested in commercial fishermen? Let’s see… We get asked for our papers every time we’re stopped, whether anything is suspicious or not. We get tracked 24 hours a day with Vessel Monitoring Systems. We have suspicious mates snatched from the boats in the middle of fishing trips. We have to have special ID cards that can be tracked with GPS. We are forced to reveal how much money we make, how much taxes we pay, and our ethnic background… Enough? Well, there’s more if anyone needs it.

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Summer Yellowtail Season

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Catch Shares Meetings

The Environmental Defense Fund  recently sponsored a meeting in the Sebastian area, and another in Stuart, to push for Individual Fishing Quotas – Catch Shares. According to Southeastern Fisheries Association,  the 200+ fishermen in attendance were unanimously opposed to Catch Share implementation…..The name Environmental Defense Fund sure seems to be coming up a lot these days. They say they only want catch shares to help the fishermen….. Well gee whiz! I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but with all the Feds are doing for us, and the Fish and Wildlife Commission working so hard on our behalf – not to mention all the environmental groups that are already supporting us, I just don’t know if we have room left for any new friends.

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Last Sardine Cannery to Close

Bumble Bee Foods has announced that they are closing the last sardine cannery in the United States, located in Prospect Harbor, Maine. According to the Miami Herald, the cannery has been in operation for over 100 years, and is shutting down because of reduced demand, and competition from canned Tuna products……Well, maybe. The company however, says they are closing because of steep cuts in the amount of herring that fishermen are allowed to catch in the Northeast…. Why is this story starting to sound so familiar? Could it be because we had over a dozen fish houses in Key West just a few short years ago, and now have only two?

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South Atlantic King Mackerel Season Opened April 1

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Blue Angels perform

Blue Angels practicing over Stock Island Lobster Company on friday.
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Blue Angels perform

Blue Angels perform

The U.S. Navy’s Precision Flying Team put on a show directly over the fish house. Thursday and friday were practice days for the real shows on saturday and sunday.
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Bill to subsidize fishermen

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According to the Key West Citizen, a bill has been introduced in congress to give commercial fishermen 80 million dollars a year for 5 years to use their boats for other activities. House bill 4914 would pay fishermen to work with scientists on research trips and use their boats for marine debris removal and coastal cleanups……Gee, just when we thought our elected leaders had no interest in saving our fishing industry, we find out that they really do care after all. It sounds like a tough choice between a scientist’s gofer, and environmental hero, but we’ll just have to see which one offers up the best deal. I know this may sound a little ungrateful, but I sure hope they hurry up with the money, because I’m already planning on how to spend my share.

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No Ban On Recreational Fishing

An article published by ESPN suggested the Obama administration was aiming to place a nationwide ban on recreational fishing. According to an administration spokesperson, the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Interagency Policy Task Force, will be implementing ‘bottom up’ policy, and ‘has not recommended a ban on recreational fishing’. Well, that’s the kind of clear denial that ought to put everyone’s mind at rest.  Knowing the strength of the recreational industry first hand, and knowing how many votes they represent, it was hard to believe the report was anything more than a rumor.…Still, what does it tell us about our federal government, and the state of fishery management today, that so many people gave the report credibility…. Hmmm.

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Lemon Sharks Protected

Lemon Sharks Protected

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The FWC has prohibited all taking of Lemon Sharks in Florida waters. We don’t know what the science says, but the FWC says they took this action because they have a high potential to be over-harvested. One can only wonder who the potential over-harvesters may be. It would hardly seem likely that very many recreational fishermen are suddenly developing a taste for lemon buttered Lemon shark, though it does have a ring to it.…..If it’s commercial fishermen they are worried about, then we have that same nagging question that pops up every time there are new restrictions – Why now? Commercial shark fishing effort is a tiny fraction of what it once was. They weren’t wiped out when shark fishing was unlimited, but now they are in danger of potential over-harvest? Go figure.

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King Quota Re-opens

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South Atlantic King Mackerel will re-open for five days starting March 4, 2010. Apparently the quota was not completely filled when the original closure was announced. Many Key West fishermen were under the impression that they were included in the re-opening but under the current rules Monroe County does not come under the South Atlantic zone until April 1, 2010.
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