New Kid on the Block

I love this newspaper. Having been a part of it since its inception you may forgive me for being somewhat biased, but with each issue, it just keeps getting better.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the December 30 issue presented a new column by Douglas V. Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs comes to this newspaper with an impressive list of qualifications, Political Activist, Public Speaker, Constitutional Instructor, Radio Host, Publisher, author of two books, and best of all, Patriotic American.

His initial piece, James Madison and Judicial Review, may be a good indicator of just how knowledgeable Mr. Gibbs is about American history and politics. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and look forward to seeing more of his work in the coming year.

I too, have a bit of knowledge about James Madison and the founding of the US Constitution, as well as the role played by such renowned personages as Gouverneur Morris, Roger Sherman, Charles Pinckney, Edmund Randolph, John Dickinson, Alexander Hamilton, Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, and of course, George Washington among the 43 who argued and hashed out this great document. Many seem to revere the Constitution as an inspired document, but I am certain that had you asked James Madison he would have said it was more perspiration than inspiration. The months of wrangling in the confines of the hall in Philadelphia through hot and cold weather produced a masterpiece of political concession and reconciliation. Toward the end, even George Washington despaired that it would never be finished.

The Federalists (actually a misnomer, since they worked for a National union and strong central government in opposition to the Articles of Confederation) eventually got most of what they were after but had to make concessions that included amending the Constitution at a later date to include a bill of rights. The fact is that the Federalists (Madison, Hamilton, Washington, etc.) did not want a bill of rights enumerated in the Constitution.

Eventually, Madison thought that by including a bill of rights it would quiet the opposition to Constitutional control by the Antifederalists. Madison became, essentially, the father of the bill of rights. His original proposed amendments were whittled down to ten and added to the Constitution.

The final, tenth, amendment of the Bill of Rights gave all powers not expressly included in the US Constitution to the individual states, “or to the people.” As we all know, the argument over states rights versus Central government became a huge issue in the mid-nineteenth century resulting in thirteen Southern states seceding from the union and a civil war being fought. Apparently, since the South lost, the tenth amendment is now interpreted to mean that states have any rights the federal government says they can have.

Gibbs’ contention that the federal judiciary has overstepped its bounds is well founded. The cases where the judiciary has legislated from the bench are far too many to present. Those of us old enough to remember the Earl Warren Supreme Court should be very familiar with judicial activist decisions that strayed far from both the intent and actual wording of the Constitution.

Here is California we are saddled with 807 new laws that went into effect January 1. Not one of those laws challenge the federal government or even attempt to pry even the slightest control from the massive organization that has become our central government.

Are you feeling like a criminal yet? Do you know what those 807 new laws are? Do you know all of the federal laws on the books? I don’t. And I am sure I have probably violated something in the code, although I have no idea what would be.

Maybe the states have too many rights. 807 new laws in one year! If you think things have gotten out of hand, it’s only because they are.

Welcome to the newspaper, Mr. Gibbs. I look forward to reading more of your work.

New Years Resolutions

Okay, now that Christmas dinner leftovers are almost gone, and you have put the memory of that New Years party well behind you, it is again time for retrospection of events and promises made last January and making resolutions for the coming new year. Well, it is a tradition, even if a futile one.

So, I dug out the old resolution list and it occurred to me that it actually resembles more of a bucket list than a list of resolutions. There are the usual resolutions: lose weight, exercise, drink less, eat healthy, swear less, spend less, save more; you know, the good intentions that seldom last the week let alone the year.

Then you have the ones driven by guilt: visit the relatives, visit that old friend you haven’t seen since high-school, call your mother (not easy for me, since mine has been dead for quite a while; maybe I should scratch that off the list), call your out of state brother or sister (and say what? After “how are you” there is always an awkward silence).

Next, you have those nebulous, well-intended goals that one can never quite tell have been kept or not: be a better person (as opposed to what?), be less pessimistic (in this political climate? Good luck with that, this is an election year), be kinder and more considerate of others (is this even possible when you drive California freeways?).

Finally, you have the impossible dreams: finish your novel, write a novel, visit a foreign country (no, not Los Angeles), see Machu Picchu, go to Peterson Automotive museum (right, I have never been there), pay off your Christmas credit card charges before they charge interest, don’t touch your savings this year.

Like I said, it amounts to more of a bucket list than a list of resolutions. I seem to just repeat the same list every year… with no progress. Maybe someday, I might actually do one of these, but usually by mid-January, they aren’t even a memory.

This year, I think I will try a more realistic approach, maybe something like:

Take long naps; eat what tastes good; drink in moderation… most of the time; avoid the freeways and idiot drivers (I thought about taping down my middle fingers, but people would think I was a foreigner); wait until two days before an election, then vote for the loudest person; just figure everything is going to that dark place in a hand basket (this one never seems to be far off the mark anyway); swear silently… unless really ticked off; pray I wake up in the morning… but not too early; put off last year’s list to next year.

Okay, I think I can live with this list. I wish every one of you a very happy and prosperous new year.

Just Another Cult

Is there a particular organized religion in this country or around the world that presents a clear and present danger? Let’s take a look at that. Catholics? No, they haven’t killed anyone for not practicing Catholicism in centuries. Protestants? Well, there are a lot of Protestant organizations, Lutheran, Methodist, Anglican, Evangelicals, Baptist, Episcopal, Adventist, Quakers, I probably missed some, but I haven’t heard of any mass killings by any of these groups. Ah, the Mormons. Nope, not for a very long time. Mennonites, or Amish, Buddhists? No. Hindus. Nothing there either. Scientology? Sorry, they’re clean too.

How about Muslims? There may be a problem with the perception of the “religion of peace” as being a threat. Seems it’s not too peaceful to lop off heads, burn people alive in cages, throw folks you don’t like off tall buildings, blow up groups of people as well as themselves, shoot masses of innocent people while they are trying to enjoy a party or concert. Yes, there are people who commit these atrocities in the name of Islam. But are they really Muslims?

There is an identity for people like this; it’s called a cult. One definition in the Oxford American dictionary for a cult is; a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister. Yep, these radical “Muslim” groups fit that description quite nicely. They have hijacked an entire religion for their own nefarious purposes. It’s what cults do.

Some of the worst cults have a messianic leader – Jim Jones on Guyana; David Koresh, Branch Davidians; Charlie Manson; Shoko Asahara; Marshall Applewhite; Luc Jouret;  and Joseph Di Mambro; the list goes on and keeps growing. In recent times, we could easily add Osama Bin Laden of Al Qaida, Mullah Omar of the Taliban, the late Abubakar Shekau of Boko Haram currently replaced by Mahamat Daoud, Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah and now Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS (or ISIL of Daesh).

This is not a complete list and it seems to grow constantly. It is also not exclusively a Muslim membership, although Islam is the most recent religion hijacked for destructive cults these days. Followers of Charlie Manson believed he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Jim Jones also used the Christian bible to entice members into his cult.

In 1984, Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Joret formed the Order of the Solar Temple based loosely on Rosicrucians and Knights Templar. They succeeded in convincing their followers that an environmental apocalypse was coming and to escape it members needed to be “transformed” by fire to ascend to a planet orbiting Sirius.

In 1997, the Prophet Marshall Applewhite of the Heavens Gate cult convinced its 39 members that the Hale-Bopp comet would bring a UFO to rescue them from the “end of times.” They all draped themselves in purple cloaks and drank poison believing they would be raptured.

Aum Shinriko was a cult formed in Japan during the ‘90s. They released deadly sarin nerve gas into a Tokyo subway tunnel in 1997. The group’s leader Shoko Asahra preached that the end of the world was near and his followers would be the only ones to survive.

The Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) cult has also convinced the followers of the caliphate that the apocalypse is imminent. They use Sharia law, which isn’t any sort of codified law, and only consists of what the Caliph and his henchmen say is the law, to intimidate, regulate, and in effect oppress their followers exactly like every other cult has throughout history.

The cult of the Daesh is not the Islamic faith nor is it consistent with the Quran any more than followers of Jim Jones or Charlie Manson were Christians following the tenets of the Bible.

It is always easy to paint groups with a wide brush, and maybe I have been guilty of this on occasion, but that doesn’t make it right. The cults that have perverted the Muslim religion do not represent or speak for that religion. They are a tragic aberration of an old and noble religion.

So, what do we do to protect our families and ourselves? Vigilance and, dare I say it, profiling. We know there are no Christians in ISIS. Don’t look for the next terrorist killings to come from people going to churches. We do know that ALL of the recent terror plots have originated from people who believed themselves Muslims.

Note, however, I did not say to judge them. Just because a person prays five times a day and goes to a mosque does not mean he or she is a terrorist. If they are stockpiling military style weapons, massive ammunition, and explosives, this could be a good indication of possible trouble. Alert the authorities. If they are spouting hateful doctrine against America or other religions, they might be worth having authorities investigate.

Again, note that I don’t advocate taking action against these people. Who knows, he or she might just be opinionated columnists.

Another Paris Tragedy

No, this tragedy wasn’t caused by Muslim terrorists. Although, our President believes the terrorists were created by climate change. Go figure…

The Global Conference on Climate Change in Paris this month is bound to produce more onerous restrictions on everyone, except the major polluters, China, Russia, and India. Beijing might actually do something about the “greenhouse gasses” if they could only read the reports through the smog. Most of the time seeing the full Golden Gate Bridge seems more likely than finding the Forbidden City in the smog.

The Kyoto Protocol – one that we have not officially signed on to – gave the United Nations sweeping authority over sovereign nations to fight “Global Warming” but conveniently left out developing nations as well as China and India while it called for draconian measures for the United States. Even though we have not officially agreed to the Kyoto Protocol, the left in this country are determined to apply the restraints to us anyway.

Obama used his pen to decimate the coal industry and in the mean time foist “green energy” on the populace. Here in California, where the Democrats run virtually everything, we are being forced to “cut back” on carbon use. The governor even wanted to force everyone to use fifty-percent less gas. Thankfully, even the Democrats realized that would be completely unworkable. But don’t relax just yet. I’m sure this will come up again in the not too distant future.

I could cite reams of evidence to rebuff the “scientific” data that surrounds the Climate Change issue (previously called Global Warming, but had to be changed when the warming didn’t materialize). Frankly, it doesn’t matter. The climate is in fact changing. It has changed for millennia, and will continue to change as long as the earth exists. The core of the issue is, do humans have the power to cause the climate to change – one way or the other?

I seriously doubt we could ever cause the climate to change in any direction. Otherwise, we would outlaw hurricanes, flooding, drought, blizzards, ice storms, and tornados and require the scientists to work their magic to relegate these plagues to history. But no government can do that because it is not within the human realm to change the weather. So, how could humans be so omnipotent to be able to cause bad weather when we can’t make good weather? Remember Mark Twain said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” That’s because we can’t!

Greenhouse gasses? Sure, they exist. Without them, the earth would resemble the Martian landscape. Are we causing them? There is no doubt human activity contributes to these gasses. But there are many other factors that spew greenhouse gasses and cause the weather patterns on earth.

There are currently about fifty active volcanoes on the planet spewing out, guess what, greenhouse gasses! Is anyone at the Paris conference suggesting plugging up these gas generators? Oh, but that would not be feasible.

So why should humanity make radical and often unfeasible lifestyle changes just to keep from adding a very small percentage of gas to the already naturally occurring mass? And is it really about climate change?

I believe the whole fiasco is not about climate change but more about change. The mantra of the left is always “change.” It doesn’t seem to matter if that change is for the better or worse, just change. It is a badge of power to cause others to do what they would not naturally do. And no one wears that badge more proudly than the left.

But the Pope is advocating the climate change cause too. Pope Francis is a well-meaning person, but he is also an avowed socialist. He is causing wholesale changes in the Vatican and in the Catholic Church. Many of those changes are good and long overdue, but he is out of his league when he pokes his Miter into the realm of science.

The number-one promoters of Climate Change theories are the scientists carefully selected by and for the United Nations. That alone should tell us this agenda is more about power than climate. The UN continually works to undermine the sovereignty of its member nations. This is but the most recent example of that power quest.

The only change I am interested in is removing enough Democrats from power to put this nation back on a path to restoring the greatness and prestige it once had. The climate will do whatever nature deems it to do. We either accept that fact and adapt or join the dinosaurs in extinction. And that is probably the one solution not being discussed in Paris.

Giving Thanks

So, what did you do on the day before Black Friday? Officially, though, it’s still called Thanksgiving, but it seems crass commercialism has trumped thankfulness these days. For me, I was thankful that I wouldn’t be in that ball of human congestion and mayhem the day after Thanksgiving. I do most of my shopping on-line.

Yes, some 400 or so years ago Pilgrims sat down with their Native American benefactors to break bread, drink beer, and give thanks for their first harvest (no they didn’t televise football games that year). This bucolic scene of people at odds finally celebrating together in Plymouth Colony was a far cry from the death and destruction meted out by the Native Americans just weeks before at Jamestown in Virginia.

What I find amazing about this picture is that any of the English colonies ever survived. These people must have been the most naïve humans on the face of the planet. They left England for a number of reasons, to practice their religion in peace, for commerce, and merely to settle in a new land. They took their clothes, some brought their families, a few tools, and other possessions; climbed aboard cramped, primitive ships; and sailed for months to reach a land they knew practically nothing about.

Most only brought enough provisions to sustain them for a short period, and apparently none of the Pilgrims had the slightest knowledge of farming. Did they expect supermarkets in this new land?

The inhabitants of Jamestown were massacred, but before that, most of them starved to death. In the celebrated Plymouth Colony, there was starvation as well. That would have been their end too if not for an alliance with local Native Americans that taught them how to grow food. That first Thanksgiving was about being truly thankful to God and their Native American benefactors.

Today in the United States, most of us still give thanks, but few thank those Native Americans that made our existence in this land possible. Yes, it‘s a fact that not all Native Americans were helpful. Many took umbrage at the alien invaders. And over time, even those that aided the new arrivals were pushed off their land. But in reality, this is nothing more than a repeat of the story of civilization. History is replete with stories of conquest and expansion. One group, tribe, or country, defeats another, takes the land and kills or displaces the vanquished.

One of the last efforts at conquest and expansion by another country, Germany, took place a mere 77 years ago and ended in disaster and defeat in 1945. Now, the boundaries on every plot of ground on the earth have been established and with luck settled. For this too we can be thankful.

So, what else do we have to be thankful for these days? That list might be a lot smaller than one with items we would not be thankful for: We have troops still fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The Russians are threatening our NATO position in Eastern Europe. Iran signed a nuclear agreement that many said was a very bad one. Muslim terrorists including ISIS and Al Qaida are still at large and slaughtering innocent people. The global economy is still shaky and ours isn’t much better. We still have homeless and jobless people in this country. Our healthcare system is in shambles. The government is growing exponentially. You have less than 30 days to max out your credit cards for Christmas…. Okay, enough negativity! It was supposed to be a day of thanks.

Well, on a personal note, I have much I gave thanks for: I have the greatest wife in the world – must be the greatest, she has stuck with me for fifty years. My kids are all healthy, employed and living in relative comfort. Two of our four grandkids have given us two lovely great-grandsons, and all are healthy. My wife and I, while not rich, are in a relatively comfortable state, and we have our health. We have good friends and neighbors. They televise football on Thanksgiving. I have all I truly need and am indeed thankful.

And one more thing to be most thankful for; Obama will be gone in a little over a year. That nightmare might be over. Now, if we could replace a few more democrats here in California, we might have something to truly be thankful for.

Why France?

Unless you have been in a cave behind a waterfall this Month, you are likely painfully aware of the massacre of innocent people in Perris. Seven or maybe eight Muslim jihadists with ISIS affiliation attacked and brutally murdered some 129 innocent people simultaneously at six different sites. But why did they choose France for this heinous act?

As Willie Sutton replied when asked, why he robbed banks, “Because that’s where the money is.” If we could ask the planner of this massacre why France, he might reply, “Because that’s where the lambs are.”

That is indeed where the lambs are! France is one huge gun-free zone. Randomly shooting innocent people in that country is like “shooting fish in a barrel.” The gun laws of France are an incredibly complicated mess of restrictions and prohibitions that virtually deny ordinary citizens the ability to own a weapon or buy ammunition for one. To use a weapon for self-defense is strictly prohibited.

True, other European nations have onerous gun laws too, but the French have other factors that, when added to the easy pickings, may have made them a prime target.

The long-time relationship with ex-French Algeria has left France with a burgeoning Muslim population that is increasingly calling for Sharia law. Muslims block the thoroughfares with huge crowds kneeling on prayer rugs at prayer times. The French population of Muslims in 2014 was 4,704,000, that is 7.5 percent of the entire population. The projection of increase at that time put the Muslim population in 2030 at 10.3 percent

France is legally prohibited from collecting statistics based on race or religion, so the actual number of Muslims may be far greater. With the “refugee” situation now, though, that number will only grow at an alarming pace.

Please note that I merely called them refugees, not Syrian refugees. Many of these, seemingly mostly young men, are from a number of Muslim countries. Are these immigrants being screened and to what depth?

In January, two men barged into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris and killed 11 people. Both were Muslim jihadists seeking revenge for a cartoon of Muhammad. Leaving the building, they killed a police officer and several related attacks followed in the Île-de-France region, where a further five were killed and 11 wounded. All participants in this massacre were members of Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen.

The Gatestone Institute, an international policy council, issued a report titled The Islamization of France in 2013. Here are some interesting quotes gleaned from the report:

“Who has the right to say that France in thirty or forty years will not be a Muslim country? Who has the right in this country to deprive us of it?" — Marwan Muhammed, spokesman for Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), Paris.

And: "The Islamic movement will become a system of life under your nose. Your wife, French women, the people of France, will live under the Islamic movement, even if you don't like it. Most of the residents of Paris are Muslims. Allah willing, most of the French system will be according to Islamic Sharia law. Most of the residents of France will be Muslims, Allah willing." – a British Islamist said this in a video posted on YouTube on January 20, 2014.

Is this merely jihadist bluster? Maybe, but look what is happening in that country. First Charlie Hebdo, now a coordinated Paris massacre with 129 dead. Also, there has been a rash of car burnings and other “protests” by French Muslims in the past few years. Some 40,000 cars were burned in 2014 alone. French President Francois Hollande has called the shootings and bombings "an act of war."

France has suffered greatly and this may be just the beginning. Germany and England are increasing their Muslim population with more “refugees”, and many other European countries have agreed to take “refugees.” President Obama recently ordered the US to take 10,000 of these “refugees” promising to perform a strict screening.

All in the free world sympathize and stand with France and the people of Paris in this moment of grief. But the free world needs to wake up and see this Islamic jihadist movement for what it is, a true act of conquest and subversion of democratic principals in favor of life under Sharia law for all. The consequences of not recognizing that are too terrible to even imagine.

A Strange Moment in DC

Things have been somewhat slow here in Riverside County, so I hopped into my new teleporter and zipped through the ether to Washington, Iowa, to see how the election is shaping up in that early primary state. To my surprise, I landed in a bar in Washington, DC. Guess I haven’t quite gotten the hang of teleporting yet.

What the heck, since I was there anyway, I decided to belly up to the bar and sip a cold one. Before I could get the first sip, I heard some guy a couple of seats down say, “I’m the real Santa Clause.”

Well, that got my attention! All the pictures I have ever seen of Santa were of an oversized plush White man with a beard. This guy was dark-skinned, clean-shaven, and had a pair of ears that stuck out like taxicab doors at the airport. I noticed he was talking to some poor fellow that looked well out of place even in this bar.

Santa – I think his real name was Barry – said to this man, “You look like you’re not from around these parts. Foreigner, are you?”

The guy says, “Uh…”

Barry keeps up, “I’ll just bet you don’t have the proper documents to be in this country. Am I right?”

“Well…”

Barry’s on a roll, “Why, this is your lucky day, friend. I’m going to see to it that you get a social security number. Then you can get an EBT card and buy whatever your little heart desires. I’m even going to get you a drivers license, and let you stay in the country as long as you like.

“Uh…”

“Got a place to stay?” Barry asked.

“I’m at the…”

“Don’t worry, I will get you housing and a few dollars for mad money. Just give me a call at this number.” Barry scribbles something on a napkin.

“I don’t have a phone.”

Barry looked surprised and told a man in a suit standing nearby, “Get this man an Obama phone.”

“Have you registered to vote yet?”

“Uh…”

“No problem. I have the forms right here. Just sign your name, and you can vote for Democrats in every election.”

About that time another very wrinkled old black man butted in. “Hi Prez, how’s it hangin’”

“Al Sharptongue! You dog you! Just talking to my new friend here. He’s an undocumented immigrant. From… say, just where are you from?”

The man looked at the floor and said in a low voice, “England.”

Sharptongue went off, “Damn Prez, what you doing with this racist cracker. He ain’t no Illegal; he’s just some White freeloader from Europe.”

Barry said, “That right?”

“Well no sir, I am from England but I have immigrated here legally, and I own a medium-sized manufacturing company.”

Barry looked disappointed and a bit angry. “Well you can forget the EBT card and free phone, plus you’re on your own for housing. Don’t even try to vote. We will be watching you.”

I slugged down the rest of my beer and hit the teleporter. The atmosphere in that bar got real foul.