Light at the End of the Tunnel?

As the Obama years thankfully winding down, can we finally say there is light at the end of the tunnel? For over 7 1/2 years, we have been following the failed leadership of a man who was elected solely because of the color of his skin.

Not so? Well, can anyone name another attribute that might qualify him for the office of President? The only “job” he ever held was a community organizer – whatever that means. He was in the US Senate only a few months before being elected President, and during most of the time in the Senate, he authored no bills and was marked absent for votes. He had zero foreign policy experience, no management experience, had lost his law license, has no open college records, no one – even those he now calls close – can remember him in college, hung out with virulent anti-Americans and racists. Yes, sounds just the kind of person we would want in the White House.

Okay, it’s almost over. Let’s look at what damage electing a person merely to be the first anything gets us. The list of failures is long, so I’m not going to go into detail. Besides, you have already suffered through them and probably know all the unsavory parts. Incidentally, I copied these from Steven Martino’s website. It makes my head hurt too much to think about these long enough to make a nice list. Besides, the tears keep ruining my keyboard:

Scandals:

IRS targets Obama’s enemies; Benghazi; Spying on the AP; The ATF “Fast and Furious” scheme; Sebelius demands payment; The Pigford Agriculture Department Scandal; The General Services Administration Las Vegas Spending Spree; Veterans Affairs in Disney World and neglecting vets; Solyndra; New Black Panthers Voter Intimidation; The hacking of Sharyl Attkisson’s computer; Obama’s LIES about the Affordable Care Act; “I have a pen. I’ll Pass My Own Laws”; NSA Spying on American People;

Foreign Policy:

Lack of solidarity with Israel; Disaster with the Arab Spring; Crimea takeover; Leaving Iraq too soon and letting ISIS take over; Handling of Syrian Red Line; Calling ISIS “JV”; Failing to Recognize ISIS as a Radical (or Devout) Muslim Movement; Returning the bust of Churchill to the Brits; Lack of Confidence by NATO nations; Signing a Disastrous Nuclear Deal with the Mullahs of Iran; Paid $5 Billion & Released 5 Taliban Prisoners For Deserter Bergdahl; Waging war by attacking Libya without Congressional approval; Allowed the building of Chinese bases in the South China Sea and off the coast of Somalia at the entrance to the gulf of Aden; Paying ransom to Iranian for hostages and using foreign currency in unmarked plane; Lying about paying ransom (which media ignored!); Pays tribute to Japanese at Hiroshima on US Memorial Day; Trashed America 18 times on Asian Tour.

Domestic Policy:

Failure to secure the Border; Illegals bringing guns, drug and diseases through the southern border; Passing on the keystone pipeline; 20 Trillion dollars more in debt; Vast expansion of government; Racial Division at all-time high; Inviting Bomb Boy Ahmed to White House; Disrespect for Cops; Failed economic stimulus plan; Constant disregard for the Constitution and tyrannical rule; China overtook America as world’s largest economy; Housing policies failed to stop foreclosures; Price of healthcare has drastically risen for those purchasing it; Education policies failed to curb college costs;Highest percentage of Americans on Food Stamps and Medicaid; Record 92,898,000 Americans over 16 years not working; Lowest Labor Force participation rate of 62.7%; Denying the notion of American Exceptionalism; Securing the Olympics for Chicago in 2016; Naming numerous Communists/Socialists/Progressives to Czar Positions; Mismanagement and cover up of Terrorist shootings in San Bernardino, California; Mismanagement of Gulf Oil Spill; Disastrous Vetting Process of “Immigrants” from Muslim Nations; Refusing to Listen to CIA/FBI that there is no way to properly vet certain immigrants from Muslim nations; Fort Hood Shooting; Colorado EPA Disaster; Veto of 911 Crime Bill- which was overturned; Worst economic recovery since the depression with anemic GDP numbers; Over 94 million Americans out of the workforce.

Whew! I’m sure Steve Martino probably missed a few, but with about three months of this king’s reign left, I’m sure the list will grow.

But again, I’ll ask, can we see light at the end of this dark and dreary tunnel? Next month will answer that question. Hillary Clinton has already praised Obama for his “accomplishments”, although I can’t imagine what those might be, and stated that she intends to carry forward his policies and use them as a template for her own agenda.

If you are expecting light at the end of this miserable tunnel, don’t expect Hillary to provide it. She is looking to extend the tunnel and maybe even make it darker and more miserable. Maybe she’ll even put a few skeletons from her closet in it.

American Sovereignty at Risk?

The United States was founded as a sovereign nation. We fought two bloody wars for that sovereignty. The United Nations designates the US as a sovereign nation. But how much of that sovereignty is real?

Our constitution allows the President to make treaties with other nations with the advice and consent of Congress. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give any of the three branches of government the authorization to abdicate any portion of our sovereignty. We have borders – no matter how porous they seem at present – and we have laws. No other country or entity can exercise power over our citizens.

Well, that is exactly what we are led to believe. Do you recall ever hearing the phrase “money talks, BS walks”? It is true. Money – and especially today, foreign money – does indeed talk. It also controls.

Nothing is quite so powerful as the money invested in political candidates, and none are as powerful as those financial giants that donate millions to our election process, even if it is from foreign sources.

Hillary Clinton would have you believe that the Clinton Foundation has nothing to do with her candidacy or fortune (estimated to be upwards of  $110 million). After all, the Clintons were dead broke when they left the Whitehouse in 2001. ("We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt."— Hillary Clinton on Monday, June 9th, 2014 in an interview on ABC)

So somehow the Clintons managed to go from “dead broke and in debt” to multi-millionaires in fifteen years. I’m sure they worked hard for that wealth. But let’s look at who is contributing to the Clinton Foundation: Saudi Arabia, Oman, Dubai, and various other foreign nations. Remember, money talks.

Now look at who the big contributors are to her campaign. Well, looky there! George Soros is at the head of that list.  That’s right, the same George Soros who spent $27 million trying to defeat George W. Bush. The George Soros who compared Donald Trump to the Nazis. The George Soros who founded and runs the Open Society Institute. You know, the one that advocates for a one-world society with no borders. Yeah, that’s the one. Also, the George Soros who makes politicians ask how high when he says jump.

This is the very same George Soros who reportedly donated $650,000 to a group of thugs calling themselves Black Lives Matter to stir up the racial divide in the country and maybe incite a few riots. Soros also supports Moveon.org and a list of other leftist organizations.

Does Soros hate America? George Soros wrote in The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror, “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.”

Here’s another interesting quote: Referencing the state of the world following the collapse of the Soviet empire, Soros said, “The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.”

Both quotes are from In His Own Words: An Examination of Some of Soros’ Socioeconomic Philosophies, The Blaze.

It’s not enough for President Obama to say that the Constitution is an old and outdated document. Now, we have a candidate that could very well follow him in office that is deeply beholden to both foreign interests as well as those who would work for the demise of American sovereignty and free market.

Could she sell our sovereignty? Well, remember the next President will appoint at least one Supreme Court Justice and may even be able to appoint another four during the term. Couple that with a Democrat Congress and folks, anything could happen. And with these people, you can bet it won’t be good.

Under Siege

On September 19, we witnessed four bombing incidents in two states – all perpetrated by the same bomber, all in the name of radical Islam. Two improvised explosive devices (IED) were set off in a New York City and two pipe bombs exploded in garbage cans along a route set for a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park, New Jersey. The bomber, Ahmad Khan Rahimi was born in Afghanistan in 1988 and first came to the United States in 1995. He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan many times.

That same day, another “Soldier of the Islamic State” stabbed 9 people in a crowded Minnesota mall. St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson said that suspect, Somali immigrant Dahir Ahmed Adan, made at least one reference to Allah and asked one person if they were Muslim.

Last June 12, Omar Mateen shot up a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida killing 49 and injuring 53 people. In a 911 call, Mateen voiced his allegiance to ISIS.

In our own backyard last December 12, another devout Muslim couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, pulled a Bonnie and Clyde and shot up the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, killing 14, and injuring 17.

I could go on – and the list is long, 78 attacks in this country alone since 1972. There have been 48 attacks since 9-11.

But Islam isn’t just at war with the United States. In August – just one month – jihadists killed 1637 people and injured 1734 in 203 attacks on 33 countries. Alone this month 43 attacks in 14 countries have killed 191 and injured 228.

Many of those murders – women, men, and children – were of the most horrific and brutal type imaginable, slow and agonizing beheadings with a hunting knife, burning victims alive in a cage or with a flame thrower, even tossing victims off tall buildings.

We are told that Islam is a religion of peace, charity, and tolerance. Our own President – raised with Muslims, whose family are Muslims, and whose closest advisers are Muslims – has expounded the contributions made by Muslims over the centuries. This same President cannot bring himself to label these atrocities the acts of Islamic extremists.

We are under attack folks, and it’s not from Quakers, rednecks or doomsday preppers. We are being attacked by a growing doomsday cult of psychotic killers who have hijacked a religion and perverted the words of the holy Quran for their own unholy purposes.

Until our government can at least recognize the cause of this abomination and pronounce the words Islamic Terrorism, they will never be able to effectively combat these attackers and provide a safe, secure environment for its citizens.

They can outlaw and confiscate guns, knives, ammunition, explosives, chemicals, pressure cookers, and pipes until they amass a mountain of items to dwarf the Rockies, but they will never be able to secure this country or any other until they understand that they are fighting an ideology. Radical Islam is a cult. It must be dealt with as one would a cult.

We can kill their leaders, bomb villages, fight armies, and jail individuals, but we cannot win this fight without attacking the root cause of this radicalization.

Our world is under siege not by armies, not by individuals with workplace violence issues, not by people radicalized by an accepted ideology. We are being attacked by a cult of psychotic killers who have subverted and perverted the teachings of Mohammad and the word of God as relayed to him by the Archangel Gabriel (Jibrail). And they attract recruits into their cult by using their perverted dogma.

These people have violated the teachings of hadith and the Quran and will be punished by God. Driving this point home to these jihadists is the only way to combat their atrocities and put an end to this cult.

None of this will happen, though, until our leaders recognize that we are fighting a dogmatic cult and can say the words Radical Islamists.

Our Ambivalentocracy

In the 2000 presidential election, an episode of the Today show on October 30, 2000, displayed a map of the United States with States colored according to the potential Electoral College delegate vote. States that were likely to vote Republican received a red color, while those expected to vote for the Democrat candidate were colored blue. Several states, where there may be a questionable outcome, got shades of pink, light blue or purple. Today this color scheme has become the accepted standard for election talking points.

If one looks at the map of the last four elections the immediate thing that stands out is that almost the entire heartland and most of the Southeast is red. The Northeast and West Coast are mostly deep blue.

Interestingly, those blue states are all centers of urban population; New York Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, California, and Washington are invariably deep blue. Rural states like Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, the Dakotas, and Montana are deep red. Most Southern states and Alaska are also red, while several less populous states, notably, New Hampshire, Vermont, Michigan, Maine, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Mexico seem to run blue. The rest are those “Toss-up” or “Battleground” states where most of the Presidential campaigning takes place.

Why is this? Should we blame the Electoral College? Should we blame the Founding Fathers? Well, maybe.

There were two highly contentious issues at the Constitutional Convention in 1887. The first was how representatives should be elected. The industrial states and agrarian states didn’t trust each other. Each was concerned about unequal representation. If the elections were based fully democratically, the more populous industrial states would receive far more representation than the rural, agricultural states. The solution at that time was to give slaves 5/9 per person count in allocating representatives.

Today, there are no slaves to tilt the scale toward equal representation in rural states, so once again the agricultural states get far less representation than the more urbanized ones. One look at the red state – blue state map and that inequality will stick out like Shaquille O’Neal in a jockey convention.

But whoa, isn’t that a map of the presidential elections? Yes, it is. And that brings us to the other big point of contention in the 1887 Constitutional Convention … the Presidency.

We had just fought for independence from the tyrannical rule of a monarch. The last thing anyone at that convention wanted was another monarch – although there were a few that pined for the rule of a king, they were well in the minority. But the Articles of Confederation were completely devoid of any executive authority, which made them totally ineffective. That was the main reason for the Constitutional Convention.

So, they relented to having a chief executive. Unfortunately, none of those learned men could define precisely what that executive could or should do. So, it was left mostly blank in the finished constitution – sort of a TBD job description. Until George Washington filled in those blanks by example, no one seemed to know just what the President was supposed to do.

When it came to deciding how this President should be selected, there was even more contention. It took four days to sort out the details and it still wasn’t definite. In the end, a cumbersome method of election by Electors was agreed upon, and those Electors could be determined by the individual states and allocated according to the number of legislators from each state.

That was probably a good idea at the time, but by now that method has become nearly a de-facto election by population representation. And again, the rural states have little or no say in the matter. But because of the large number of rural, “Red” states and the few “Blue” states, even though those “Blue” states have a greater number of Electors, the numbers force the election to be focused on several battleground states.

Folks, we are delegating the future of our country to a minority of people who can’t make up their minds! Our nation will neither be in the hands of a monarch nor will it be a true democracy, it is in the hands of the ambivalent. Yes, we are doomed to live in an “ambivalentocracy”.

The Great Divide

Do Black lives matter or is that just a slogan? Well, when over 72% of African-American births are out of wedlock (CNN Don Lemmon July 27, 2013), I might ask, do Black wives matter? Just for reference, that number is 25% for non-Hispanic Whites and 42% for Hispanics.

Kimani Gray, the 16-year-old son of single mother Carol Gray, was shot dead after pointing a handgun at Police in Brooklyn, N Y.

Trayvon  Martin was born in Florida on February 5, 1995. His parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, divorced four years later.  Martin was shot dead in 2012 at Sanford, Florida while struggling with Neighborhood Watchman.

Michael Brown, shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri while attacking a police officer following a strong-arm robbery of a convenience store. Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown, Sr. were never married to one another.

In Baltimore, Maryland, Freddie Gray, arrested for carrying a switchblade knife, fell into a coma while being transported and later died. His single mother Carol Gray, reportedly never went past middle school, couldn’t read, and had a heroin habit.

Eric Garner, died while struggling with New York police after refusing to be arrested for illegally selling cigarettes. Garner was out on bail the day he died. He was fighting charges for illegally reselling cigarettes, marijuana possession, false personation and driving without a license. He had reportedly been arrested more than 30 times in his life mostly minor for offenses. He was the son of single mother Gwendolynn Carr.

Just this year in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sylville Smith was armed with a stolen handgun when he fled a traffic stop August 13. The officer ordered Smith to drop his gun and when he didn’t, the officer fired and wounded Smith in the chest and arm. Smith later died of his injuries.

Each of these deaths was the prime cause of rioting resulting in millions of dollars in destruction. Note, that with the exception of young Kimani Gray, each of these men was killed in the act of committing a crime. Gray was stupid enough to point a weapon at police. These are not choirboys or pillars of the community they are thugs, robbers, and criminals.

Each time something like this happens race baiters like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson were sure to be in front of cameras to stir the pot. Even President Obama on several occasions defended these men, going so far as to say that, “if I had a son he would look like Travon [Martin].”

So, did the lives of these men matter enough for the fathers to be a part of it? Do Black lives matter only when an officer takes the life of one?

Do Black lives really matter to fellow Blacks? Remember, 72% of Black babies are being born out of wedlock. Now consider according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, black offenders committed 52% of homicides recorded in the data between 1980 and 2008. Yet, blacks make up only 13% of the population. Here is the telling factor a full 93% of black victims were killed by Blacks!

Does the family unit make a difference? Well, 25% of Whites are born out of wedlock, and while Whites commit 45.3% of homicides, they make up 62.06% of the population – nearly five times the number of Blacks. Maybe, just maybe, the family unit might have something to do with the problem.

Yes, there are rogue police, just as there are rogue dentists, lawyers, judges, and rogues in any other profession. These people must be sorted out and removed from a position of authority. Then too, police are human. Many have wives or husbands and family waiting for them to come home safe. Law enforcement is one of, if not the, most demanding professions, both mentally and physically. Cops, just like you and I, have good days and bad days.

So here is the bottom line: If you are dumb enough to commit a crime, you will be arrested. If you give the arresting police a hard time, things are not likely to end well for you. This is a universal fact no matter what race you are.

It’s not a matter of racial divide. It’s not a matter of profiling. It’s a matter of public safety and universal enforcement of the law regardless of race. Unfortunately, it is also a matter of perception being fuelled by the news media and despicable race baiters with their own agenda.

Delayed is Justice Denied

There can be no doubt the way California is handling the death penalty is not right. Oddly enough, there are few on either side of this issue that would disagree. And once again, there are initiatives presented to the voters to rectify the situation.

What both sides can’t seem to agree on, though, is how to fix a broken system. And yes, there are two sides to this issue.

On one side, we have those people who unfailingly show up to protest any execution. These are the Prop 62 people. Their solution is to simply do away with the death penalty and deny the victims and their loved ones the justice they deserve.

On the other side are those tired of the interminable waiting and constant legal antics and roadblocks for sentences to be carried out and justice to be done. These are the Prop 66 people.

Right up front, I have to say that I whole-heartedly support Prop 66. You can stop reading now if you don’t care to know why.

These days California death row inmates are more likely to die of old age than be executed. Of the 864 prisoners sentenced to die since the California Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1978, 119 died before being executed for their crimes, 71 by natural causes. In the US as a whole, the average length of time an inmate stays on death row has been climbing since a low of 71 months in 1985 to 198 months in 2011. Should it take 16-and-a-half years for victim’s families to see justice done? 

No executions have occurred in California since Clarence Ray Allen’s execution in 2006 – a full 10 years! Although, one case, Alfredo Rolando Prieto, was sentenced to death in 1992 for a heinous San Bernardino County murder and extradited to Fairfax County, Virginia to stand trial for two murders he committed in 1998. Prieto was executed in Virginia in 2015.

Of the 746 prisoners currently on death row, 279 have exhausted appeals and the California Supreme Court has confirmed their sentence. In other words, these killers and the victim’s families are waiting for the prison system to get off their keisters and do the job California taxpayers are paying them to do.

In California, male death row prisoners are held in San Quentin, while female prisoners are sent to the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. But all executions are currently authorized to be done at San Quentin.

Prop 62 has been tried, folks. In February 1972, the California Supreme Court found that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the California state constitution and 107 condemned inmates were re-sentenced to life with the possibility of parole and removed from California’s death row. Among those 107 were Charles Manson and his followers. Today Manson enjoys the comforts of the general prison population privileges and he and his followers regularly come up for parole hearings. Let me ask you, how safe would you feel with the Manson family on the streets, maybe even your neighbors?

In 1978, the people of California had had enough and overwhelmingly approved an initiative to restore the death penalty. Ever since then, there frequently appears on the ballot an initiative to end the death penalty. In 2012, a nearly verbatim Prop 62 initiative, Prop 34, went down in flames by a 58 to 42 percent vote.

If Prop 62 succeeds this year, there will be 746 people guilty of the most heinous capital crimes instantly thrown into the general prison population… and escaping the fair sentence of the courts. Justice will once again be thwarted.

Mary Jane’s Snake Oil

Did you know that the bark of the willow tree could be used to relieve headaches? It’s true. That is the main ingredient in aspirin. I find it odd that there aren’t dispensaries for willow bark or people clamoring to use willow bark for medicinal use. There aren’t even any backyard willow tree growers.

It’s an absurd idea, isn’t it? Imagine people munching on willow bark or even experimenting with different ways to ingest it or extract parts for a stronger product. After all, the pharmaceutical companies have done a great job of productizing the useful chemicals from the bark and creating pills in varying strengths. The FDA has even approved aspirin and lists the possible side effects of using this drug. There’s no need to chop down willow trees or strip their bark; half a dozen companies do it all for us.

Okay, let’s try to get past the emotional side of the marijuana argument and look at this in a calm, collected, logical manner.

In California, it is legal – with a qualified card – to buy, possess, and use marijuana for medical purposes. In several other states, it is even legal to use pot for recreational purposes. No card necessary.

This November we will be presented with Prop 64, an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use in California. There were petitions for no fewer than sixteen individual marijuana propositions circulating, but as of now, the only one assured to be on the ballot is Prop 64. I have two questions regarding legalization of this drug:

First, is it necessary? To get a pot card in this state, you only need a valid ID, pay the fee, and present a doctor’s “recommendation.” One might think that the doctor’s recommendation (not an actual prescription) might be the regulating part that would ensure the use of this drug for legitimate medicinal purposes. It’s not. It’s all too easy to find a quack ready to fill out a recommendation for the drug for anything from hangnails to hair loss. You only need to pay the doctor’s fee. So much for “medicinal” use.

Second, is it wise? Think about that willow bark scenario and ask yourself why pharmaceutical companies have not extracted or synthesized the useful parts of cannabis and productized it? Well, the fact is, they have.

There are some 483 chemical compounds in cannabis. The part that gets you high – and the part the potheads crave – is THC. CBN acts with THC to increase the strength of the psychoactive effect. Separate those out and you have 481 other potentially useful compounds that won’t get you high, impair driving, cause munchies, or wreck your brain.

Some pharmaceutical companies are marketing cannabis compounds for specific uses, such as glaucoma in children. Of course, the THC is thankfully removed for those medicines targeted at children. In fact, there are currently 10 known pharmaceuticals made from cannabis compounds, some with THC, and some without. To date, only three of these have met approval by the FDA. To my knowledge, none of these are approved for over the counter sale.

Why is this significant? The FDA was created in response to the rampant use and sale of ineffective and often deadly drugs (aka, snake oil). Drugs gaining FDA approval have been tested for treatment of specific ailments, the side effects are known and published, and recommended dosage is listed.

In other words, you don’t have to go nibbling on a willow tree to relieve a headache. The FDA has approved aspirin and recommended dosage while listing the nasty side effects of the drug. Just go down to the drugstore and buy a bottle of pills with the recommended dosage already on the bottle.

Why can’t the same be done with cannabis? Smoking the weed is far more hazardous – as much as ten times more dangerous – than smoking cigarettes. Stuffing the weed into brownies or any other baked goods puts all 483 compounds, some not so healthy – into that little morsel.

The worst part of taking your “medicine” raw is where and how it is sold. You can’t go down to a pharmacy, along with people buying toothpaste and foot powder, present a prescription and get little bottles of measured, tested, and labeled pot complete with recommended use and side effects listed. You go to a “dispensary” to have another pothead dole out whatever you want. Pay your money, good-bye, and good luck. Happy smoking!

As you can see, there is a huge difference between legitimate pharmaceuticals and some weed being shelled out at a hole-in-the-wall dispensary. And for clarification, licensed pharmacies dispense legitimate drugs for an intended purpose for use under a doctor’s care, while pot dispensaries sell snake-oil at any strength and amount you can afford.