Let Freedom Reign

 I, like most others in this country, celebrated the Forth-of-July this year. But why?

For many, it was justification to throw another beer-and-barbecue party. Others felt a tinge of patriotism watching the fireworks while listening to traditional music. A few may have thought about our country’s struggle to shuck the shackles and yoke of British rule.

A few of us might have reflected on this day in1776 that the people of the thirteen American colonies said enough and officially declared our independence from England. Fewer still may have known the real story of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

According to ConstitutionFacts.com, the official declaration was made on the second of July1976, not the forth. The actual signing wouldn’t take place until August 2 of that year.

So why do we celebrate on the fourth? Within a decade after the event, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams all wrote that the Declaration had been signed by Congress on July 4, 1776. Indeed the signed copy of the Declaration is dated July 4, 1776.

In actuality, it was July 1, 1776, that the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and on the following day, July 2, only twelve of the thirteen colonies voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee’s motion for independence. That remaining colony, New York, didn’t officially give their support until July 9 because their home assembly hadn’t yet authorized them to vote in favor of independence.

After that, things dragged out until August 2 when eventually all colonies finally signed the document. But wait! Even then, delegates Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, and Matthew Thornton didn’t sign until an even later date. Two other delegates, John Dickinson and Robert R. Livingston, never signed at all.

So why is this bit of trivia even important? Or in the immortal words of Hillary Clinton, “why at this point does it matter?”

I guess it really doesn’t. By now, July 4 is the accepted date of our Declaration of Independence from British rule. To be sure, England no longer has any claim on our country. We have formed a constitution and even added 37 more stars to our flag. In the ensuing 238 years, our nation has withstood all efforts at disintegration and even a few efforts to capture it.

For many other countries, we are the model to emulate. Others look to us for protection from their enemies. Our productivity and economy has been the envy of the world.

As for the nitpickers, I’m more than willing to throw another burger on the barbecue, have another beer, salute our flag, and watch fireworks on July 2, August 2, or any other day you would like to celebrate America.

The United States of America is, and will always be, “the land of the free and the home of the brave” – “one nation under God.” Happy birthday America; may “Old Glory” forever fly!

Enough Already

 All right, when are we going to say enough is enough? I’m talking about the assault on our nation by our “friends” south of the border.

Rep. Duncan Hunter’s office, (R)-CA, claims that since 2004, there have been 300 documented incursions by Mexican military and law enforcement authorities into the United States. The latest incursion involved a Mexican law enforcement helicopter shooting at our border patrol.

Search as I might, I can find no report of our country being assaulted by Canadian police or Military. We don’t hear of Canadians streaming across the border either! Why is that?

It was reported that Mexico had a greater GDP than Canada in 2012. So, why do we constantly hear of Mexicans and Central Americans illegally coming to our country for economic reasons?

Sure, there is corruption – some think Mexico invented concept – and lawlessness, but according to Wikipedia, in 2012, Mexico had the third largest police force in the world. In addition, Mexico has 276,500 active and 76,500 reserve military personnel armed with US and European weaponry, and none are deployed to any other activity in the world.

So why is this country of 120.6 million (give or take) people experiencing such lawlessness or poverty that hordes of them feel the need to abandon their homeland and illegally flee across our border? Many risk life and limb to do so.

A bigger question might be why doesn’t Mexico do something to curtail the loss of their citizens.  The answers may be complex, but none are acceptable.

One reason is economic. Most illegals in this country send money to relatives back home. In 2006, workers in this country sent some 23 BILLION dollars to Mexico. Although the amount fluctuates every year, that is a huge chunk of US dollars being taken out of circulation in this country annually.

Another reason – and this is becoming a big one – is drugs. Central American drug cartels flourish there, with literally only each other to keep them in check. The narcotics business has become an institution in Central America. Many of the towns and even states in Mexico and Central America have only the cartels to govern them. Their entire government is on the cartel payroll, and don’t dare go against the cartel wishes.

The Mexican government may be recognized world wide, but the real power in that country, as in most other Central American countries, seems to be the drug cartels. Why doesn’t the government use the military against the cartels? Good question. They seem to make token efforts at times, but there does not appear to be any concerted action on the part of government to shut the cartels down. When drug lords are captured, they usually “escape” or are set loose with a “technicality.”

Okay, why do we have a southern border problem? Simple; look at a map. The US had some 313 million people in 2013 on a landmass of 3.749 million square miles. Mexico had some 120.6 million people on a landmass of 761,600 square miles, much of which is desert.

Do the math. Mexico needs lebensraum – Hitler’s justification for annexing the East. Reconquista is real, and it’s so easy to just send unarmed people to stream into our country until they get a good foothold. Their numbers grow until our government feels overwhelmed and gives them amnesty and a path to citizenship. Our voting laws are so lax that they now vote, and when they do, it’s for people that will allow more immigrants from Mexico. It’s a snowball effect.

Our country is being invaded and will eventually be taken over, not with guns and tanks, but simply by being overrun with expatriates of Mexico and other Central American countries. It is beyond all reasoning that we not only allow this but also have a government that is complicit in this invasion.

Just when will the American people say ENOUGH!

Kids Without Borders

 “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” These words are part of Emma Lazarus' sonnet, New Colossus inscribed on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty. Will we need to change these immortal words to include “your drug mules and children?”

From last October to the end of May, the Border Patrol reports that 162,000 people from countries “other than Mexico” have illegally entered the United States across our southern border. Among them were 47,017 unaccompanied children, sent from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador or Nicaragua to join relatives in the US.

From Fox News: “… as many children as have crossed the border, their numbers are eclipsed by the ‘family units’ racing to get into the United States. They are traveling hundreds of miles with small children, knowing that under U.S. law, they will not be deported immediately. Many of them are in the advanced stages of pregnancy and will likely have a child that will become an American citizen. All are seeking a better life than they had in their home country.”

Obama told Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in a recent phone conversation that illegal immigrant children who are flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border will not be eligible for amnesty. But illegal immigrants are not buying it, especially in light of Obama's actions and words. It seems everyone in Central America is convinced that if you get across our border you can stay here.

I wonder where they got that idea. Do you think that maybe the Dream Act or the fact that we allow illegal immigrant lawyers who graduate from a US college to practice law here might have something to do with it? Or is it that we already have some 22 million illegal immigrants snugly living and working in this country – some even voting – could make them think they can stay?

But our own President said they couldn’t expect amnesty. Of course, he also said if you like your health care plan you can keep it, along with any number of not-so “little white lies.”

Representative Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, told KSAT-TV that drug cartels control Central America’s human smuggling operations. “Most of them [illegals] say, ‘It wasn’t my decision. It was the smuggling organization that got us here,’” Cuellar explained to KSAT of what immigrants at shelters told him.

Whoa Nellie! The drug cartels made then do it? Are these kids drug mules? Or are they simply being used by the cartels as a diversion. One theory is that the cartels have gone into trafficking children to divert border resources to Texas while the drugs are more easily transported through other border states.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández blames the US drug culture for all the ills Central America is forced to endure.

There can be no doubt drugs are at the core of Central America’s problems. While the Colombian Cali cartel and Medellín cartels dominated drug suppliers in the late 1980s and early 90s, today there are the Mexican Juárez Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, Los Zetas, and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, along with other faction integrated by the Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel and La Familia Cartel.

While competition is a healthy thing in legitimate business, in the narcotics business it generates warring factions – wars as horrific and bloody as any between countries. Unlike wars between countries, though, cartels have no rules. Civilians are open targets and tools for the cartel’s twisted conduct of war.

It seems we have opened another chapter on the horror story that is the assault on America’s borders. Hordes of estranged children, pregnant women, and teens are being intentionally shipped across our borders like exported goods. It’s time the these Central American countries stepped up to care for their own people and put an absolute end to drug and human trafficking. The first and most important step would be to end corruption and thoroughly wipe out the drug cartels.

Of course, America must also do our part by curtailing illegal drug use. Illegal drugs – including Marijuana – have no legitimate purpose. Relaxing the drug laws, or penalties, or even legalizing any of them can only exacerbate lawlessness in drug providing countries, increase pressure on our borders, and confound any reasonable efforts at immigration reform.

The Times They Are A Changin’

 I have friends that email me those nostalgic photos of the “good old days.” Well, some were good; some weren’t so good. These days, though, the balance seems to be in favor of the not so good.

Today, we have terrorist hordes causing mayhem and mass destruction. In the “good old days”, we heard of terrorists, but they were called anarchists, and their aim was not a religious revolution or even a political one, really. They just seemed to want to cause trouble, i.e. terrify people.

Then there was the “red horde”, the commies. The Soviet Union even had a school for “revolutionaries”, the Patrice Lamumba School in the Moscow University. This is where such notables as Carlos “the Jackal” learned his trade, followed by the Bader Meinhoff bunch. I have no direct evidence, but it is not hard to believe that groups like the Weather Underground, Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Symbionese Liberation Army, et al were influenced, if not directly spawned, by teachings of the Patrice Lamumba school.

Well, the Soviet Union is deader than last week’s road kill. The Communist revolution seems to have taken a different tact, at least in this country. Today the Commies are called socialists or progressives, and they are part of our government. They no longer preach the violent overthrow of our way of life; they simply legislate socialism.

Today we have the Muslim throngs taking up the conquest Mohamed started some 1400 years ago. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, those misguided followers of the Islamic faith have now become the Anarchists of today. Their goal is to put the world under Sharia law and seventh-century customs. They educate (a better word would be indoctrinate) their people only in their subverted version of Islamic teachings, arm them, and send them out to annihilate the “infidels.”

When I was a kid, the “Persians” were cool people zipping around on flying carpets and working magic spells. Now they are suicide bombers.

In my youth, kids had firearms. We went hunting and shooting. I even remember bringing my shotgun to school to go hunting before and after school. I kept it in my locker (also a thing of the past). No one ever thought of shooting up the school. The bullies would beat up their victims after school with the threat of “Wait until after school.” That wait caused more anxiety than the actual beating. Again, no one ever even thought of shooting the bullies or their toadies. They either faced down the bullies or recruited a bigger kid to clean a bully’s clock.

We didn’t have video games or even computers to play them on. Today anyone old enough to handle a game controller can place themselves in games more horrific than could ever be shown on television. Heads bashed, guts spilling out, severed body parts flying, and blood everywhere are what sparks the adrenaline of young people these days. They have a whole arsenal of realistic and imagined weapons at their disposal for them to act out their morbid dreams. Those that are killed can easily be resurrected or come back to life after re-booting the game.

When I was young, WWII was a big thing. We won that war, and we all played soldier. We also played cowboys and Indians, and cops and robbers. Our cap guns made a loud noise, and yes, we aimed them at the bad guys. It was great fun, but nobody got killed, no blood and guts, just a lot of energy spent chasing imaginary enemies.

Yes, Bob Dylan “the times they are a changin’”. Change isn’t always a good thing.

Emptying GITMO the Dangerous Way

I must apologize in advance if this column takes an overly angry tone. It appears our brain-dead and incompetent leader, Mr. Obama, has once again poked his finger in the eyes of the American public. Try as I might, I can find no logical justification in dealing with terrorists for the release of a soldier kidnapped during an act of desertion – especially when that trade involves releasing five high level terrorist leaders.

Yes I am angry – no, a better word would be incensed – that the man in the highest office of the land would put this country at dire risk simply to retrieve a soldier that willfully and wantonly walked away from his guard post leaving all of his weapon and gear neatly stacked behind, and his brothers-in-arms at risk

Obama’s administration has done some highly questionable, if not downright stupid, things during his term in office. This, though, comes down directly on him. Obama personally authorized the trade – without consulting Congress as required by law – and continues to defend his decision even in the face of criticism by some of his staunchest supporters.

Okay, what is wrong with this picture? One could just as easily ask, what is right with it?

Start here: Despite his own policy and the policy of every administration before, Obama directly negotiated with Taliban terrorists.

Obama broke the law by negotiating the trade of five high-level terrorist leaders in confinement at the federal facility in Guantanamo Bay without consulting or even notifying Congress until well after the act.

Despite a recidivism rate of 65-percent for released terrorist detainees, no fewer than five of the most dangerous high-level terrorist leaders were released to Qatar with no confinement or enforceable restrictions. Well, I guess that’s one way to clear out GITMO. It sure doesn’t make me sleep any better at night.

In return for these five choirboys, we got Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl; a man who his fellow soldiers claim deserted his post the night of June 30, 2009. That night, Bergdahl placed his weapon and combat gear in a neat pile and simply walked away from his combat post. Amazingly, this was not the first time for Bergdahl. Yet, his commanders overlooked the other incidents; they didn’t even bother reprimanding him! Did Bergdahl intend to return to post? If so, he didn’t make it. As could be predicted, the Taliban kidnapped Bergdahl not long after his little walkabout.

Mr. Obama claims Bergdahl was a prisoner-of-war. Not true. When did we officially declare war on the Taliban? Better yet, how could we declare war on the Taliban? War can only be declared on government and governmental entities. The Taliban is neither. Like Al Qaida, the Taliban are stateless terrorists. We can fight them, capture, and incarcerate them, but neither they nor fighters they take can be declared prisoners-of-war. That’s what GITMO is all about.

According to the White House, Bergdahl’s life was in danger. No kidding! That was the case the minute the sergeant decided to leave his post. Actually, his action put the lives of everyone at the post in danger. Don’t the Taliban have a track record of lopping off the heads of those they capture? Bergdahl was with his “captors” for nearly five years. No one is saying just what greater danger he faced in his immediate future, or why it was important to rush the release without informing Congress.

“No man left behind” is an admirable policy in combat situations. In this case, however, should it apply to negotiating with terrorists to return five of their leaders for the release of one deserter-possibly-turned-traitor?

Some say the deed is done, let’s move on. NO! First, the trade may have been done, but the damage is yet to come. Can anyone be naive enough to believe the five released GITMO detainees will not take revenge against the hated people that held then in custody? They hated Americans to begin with, now they have even more fuel for their hatred. It’s a safe bet these thugs are this moment plotting vengeful horrors for American people.

Obama has done some phenomenally dumb things while in office, lied, ignored the constitution, and even broke the law, but this time he has directly placed our country in danger. If he is not soon impeached, what other dangers will we face? If he is striving to cement the title of “Worst President Ever”, he can quit now. He has a secure lock on that distinction.

Adapt or Perish

 One dinosaur some time during the Jurassic age says to another, “Dang, it’s getting cold.”

The other says, “Yeah, I hear there was a big explosion a while back and it’s causing climate change.”

“Well, just ignore it. It’s never been cold before. It’ll warm up.”

As we all know, the hapless dinosaurs couldn’t ignore the cold and they perished. Meanwhile the small warm-blooded creatures adapted to the new conditions and they not only survived the ice age, they thrived and evolved.

Have we humans learned anything from this experience? If you ask the United Nations, the White House, some scientists, and Al Gore, you would think that placing blame for climate change would solve the problem. No matter where the dinosaurs might have place blame for their situation, they were impotent to do anything about it. Are we humans so omnipotent that we can even cause climate change, let alone solve the problem if it would exist?

The fact is we can observe, record and postulate the forces of nature, in some cases even make predictions, but our scientific process is limited by the inability to conduct experiments that can be repeated to verify cause and effect. Climatic causes at best can only be theorized.

I don’t know if earth’s climate is getting warmer, colder, or staying the same. I suppose it depends on what length of time is considered an average. Studies show the climate has cooled or not changed over the last 15 years or so. Not a long enough period, some scientists say. I say so what?

If you consider evolution, we are here only because the warm-blooded creatures were equipped to adapt to harsh environmental conditions and were able to evolve because the much larger dinosaurs were not able to adapt. The operative word here is “adapt.”

During yet another Ice age, other warm-blooded creatures, such as the wooly mammoth, failed to adapt by heading to a warmer climate, and they too perished.

History is replete with extinction of species simply because they didn’t or couldn’t adapt to changing conditions. Rather than place blame for climate conditions and try to survive the changes with futile attempts to change them, we might be better advised to use what knowledge we have to find a solution for surviving the changes.

I am afraid that telling humans we are responsible for severe weather and expecting us to focus on reversing a condition that may or may not be causing the weather changes is not only arrogant but futile given that severe weather on this planet is the historic norm rather than any man-made anomaly. The old adage adapt or perish has never been more apropos than to our threat of “global climate change.” 

The Real Walking Dead

 “We all gotta go some time.” It’s not just a cliché; it’s reality. Immortals do not walk this earth. Most people don’t usually know when or under what conditions the Grim Reaper will come calling. Clayton D. Lockett knew both when and how he would die. A jury of his peers had decided his fate in August 2000.

Eighteen year-old Stephanie Michelle Neiman had no inkling when or how she would die before June 7, 1999. Just the month previously Neiman had graduated from high school. She had her whole life ahead of her. She also had no idea the gruesome method her death would take.

Authorities in Perry, Oklahoma say the crime spree started when Clayton Lockett drove his younger cousin Alfonzo Lockett, 17, and Shawn Mathis, 26, to the Perry, Oklahoma home of Bobby Lee Bornt, 23. Bornt owed Clayton Lockett money.

Bornt was tied up and beaten, authorities said, while his 9-month-old son was in the house witnessing the beating. During the assault, Neiman and an 18-year-old friend stopped by Bornt's house, authorities said. "It was bad timing," Perry police Lt. David Farrow said.

Neiman's female friend told authorities she was pulled into the house and hit in the face with a shotgun. With a gun at her head, she was forced to call Neiman inside. Neiman also was hit with the shotgun and suffered a cut near her left eye.

But that was only the beginning of the nightmare that would end her life. The three men, Clayton Lockett, Alfonzo Lockett and Mathis took turns gang raping and sodomizing Neiman and her friend. According to Bornt, when Neiman refused to give Lockett the keys to her pickup truck or promise that she would not go to police after her assailants beat and assaulted her, Lockett took Neiman to a shallow grave that one of the co-defendants dug. Bornt said he saw a flash from a shotgun that Lockett carried, and heard Neiman scream.

Bornt testified that Lockett came back to the road where the co-defendants were holding him and another female and told them the shotgun was jammed. Lockett found a file in Bornt's truck and fixed the shotgun, and then returned to Neiman, who was groaning. Bornt said he saw a second flash of gunfire, and then heard no more groaning. Bornt and his then 9-month-old son and the other girl were released after promising they would not go to police.

Although Lockett’s cousin and Mathis were tried and received lengthy sentences, Clayton Lockett was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Nearly fourteen years later Lockett’s date with the executioner came due.

Lethal injection executions throughout the country have been jeopardized by the lack of approved drugs to “humanely” dispatch convicted killers. But Oklahoma would try a new method on Lockett and a second killer Charles F. Warner, also scheduled to die that day.

First, a strong sedative would be injected to put the subject to sleep then two more drugs would paralyze him and stop his heart. It seems that somehow, the sedative did not completely knock Lockett out, and he began to writhe when the other drugs were injected. At one point, the execution was halted. Lockett died of heart failure 43 minutes later. Warner’s execution has been put on hold pending an investigation.

Did Lockett suffer before dying? I certainly hope so. This pillar of the community gave no such consideration to Stephanie Neiman when he shot her with a shotgun, buried her alive, then shot her again when he heard her groan. Did Neiman suffer while she was sodomized and endured gang rape by these three choirboys? To my way of thinking, Lockett could not suffer enough.

And what of the other upstanding citizen scheduled for death that day? Charles Warner was convicted of raping and murdering 11-month-old Adrianna Waller in 1997 in Oklahoma County. He was convicted in 1999. Adrianna was the daughter of Warner's live-in girlfriend. During the sentencing phase, jurors heard testimony that he had previously sexually and physically abused his ex-wife and a five-year-old girl. Warner's seven-year-old son testified for the prosecution that he had witnessed his father abuse Adrianna on previous occasions. During the ultimately fatal attack, she was sexually molested. She had a six-inch skull fracture, a broken jaw, three broken ribs, bruised lungs and a lacerated liver and spleen.

God forbid Mr. Warner should suffer the same fate as Clayton Lockett.

This unfortunate event – unfortunate for society, not the convicts – has added fuel to the anti-capital punishment movement in this country and probably across the globe. There are countries where death by hanging is still practiced, others engage in stoning and beheading those convicted of crimes. Yet, we Americans yearn for a “humane” way to rid society of the worst of the worst killers.

I could elaborate on the misdeeds of the 754 killers on death row in this state, but I can assure you they are guilty of no more “humane” means that that of Lockett and Warner.

Presently, California is sitting on its thumbs waiting for the “approved” drugs for lethal injections. They ain’t coming folks. Drug manufacturers, mostly European, are intentionally withholding the only drugs on the approved list. Meanwhile, we pay each day for room and board for the most despicable form of humanity while allowing them to breath air that could undoubtedly go to better use.