Month: September 2012

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The Decline and Fall of the First Amendment

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The election of the President of the United States lumbers onward past the 40 day mark to election day with seeds of the future demise of this great concept, America, being progressively planted and nurtured.   The nurturing force? Money. Gobs and reams of it. Hundreds of millions of it. Two candidates face each other in a titanic battle of never ending spending to attempt to control the message, not the truth of American politics.  And what was once the arbiter of separating fact from truth, the so-called fourth estate, the press, has becoming a willing participant in picking sides and fashioning the message Americans will use to make their decision.  Freedom of the Press, specifically mentioned in the initial article of the Bill of Rights, secured to assure the capacity of the people to control their government and protect its excesses, has now become a vehicle for the government to squash the redressing of grievances, and the correcting of electoral mistakes.

The collusion of the press and the abandonment of their first amendment role has been made ever so clear in a two week period of scandalous government performance and purposeful neglect of that performance by the media.  The story so carefully tendered of a brilliant, competent President performing his difficult tasks with dexterity and foresight has proven to be Potemkin facade glaringly exposed in the debacle in Libya of an assassinated ambassador and the pathetic administration performance in the aftermath.  It would be a story on the level of the failed Carter rescue mission of 1979, the Bay of Pigs catastrophe and aftermath of 1961,or even the infamous George Bush ‘flyover’ of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 if a free, investigative press was still functioning – but only silence and more silence.  The main stream media has bought into this President and allowed him to buy into them.   With this incestuous relationship, the primary freedoms declared in the nation’s founding act are crumbling, an with it the relationship of its government to its people.

In the past two weeks, an American administration frankly lied for days after about what it knew regarding a  devastating failure of foreign policy.  An American ambassador to Libya and three other American citizens were murdered in a calculated, planned military style operation of the sworn enemy of the United States, Al Qaeda.  The inability to predict and secure against such a revenge operation in one of the world’s most volatile places on the anniversary of 9/11 borders on stupidity,  but the administration’s response and cover-up of events borders on criminal.  Within hours of the attack the Libyan President himself stated on American television that this was no spontaneous outburst of  anger towards an unseen video but a coordinated  attack of enemies of the state.  The government of the United States was clearly aware of the realities on the ground.  The response, a cover story – agitated Libyan citizens grew out of control protesting a video they had never seen,  and had in their anger at our insensitivity to their culture, murdered Americans.  The nonsensical story was stuck to, with the President allowing the Ambassador to the UN to go on five Sunday morning news shows and proclaim no evidence of an organized terrorist attack, but conclusively claim the bogus video incitement as the cause of the catastrophe.   The “director” of the said video is rounded up by police after the event to intimidate American expressions of free speech and apologies for the essential American right of free expression guaranteed in the First Amendment are slathered over Arab media.  The press response to such willful cover-up of failed policies? Silence.

The President, the admitted designer of the “lead from behind” foreign policy tenets that led to the complete lack of coherent response to islamic extremist takeovers of the Arab Spring  revolts, the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt, the chaos in Libya, the genocide in Syria, the flagrant rebuff of the Green Revolution in Iran – continued the charade of cover-up in action after action.  The press response? Silence.  The President during the height of the explosion in the middle East against multiple embassies manages the crisis from an Obama fundraiser in Nevada.  The President interviewed on national television describes the deaths of U.S. representatives by a resurgent Al Qaeda as mere “bumps in the road” to his overall Arab Spring policies (see above cartoon),  The president days after acknowledgement of the obvious falsehood of his attempted scenario for the Libyan massacre goes before the United Nations and declares again the role of an unseen video and American cultural ignorance in propagating Arab responses.  He purposefully states he is too busy and refuses to meet with the leader of his only ally in the Middle East, Israel at one of the most unstable, dangerous times in recent history in which the words “world war” are being evoked by both sides, and instead appears on the fawning morning television show the View to present himself as “eye candy”.  On and On and On.  The press response to such blatant casualness about the primary threat to American sovereignty over the past twenty years? Silence.

The Silence is more than a national embarrassment, more than a potential negative to be explored on the way to the President’s attempt at re-election.  Its a threat to our way of life to have elected leaders so unaccountable to explain and be responsible for their actions.  Its a threat to the principles of America, the securing of an open government, the right to dissent, the press’s independent role to investigate,  the need to vet our candidates to represent us and who we are.  40 days before the election of the next American President, we are in the midst of a calamity with the current one, and the press acts like its role is to make sure no one finds out.

The former Democrat pollster Pat Caddell believes the foundations of America are being corrupted beyond repair by the joining of a willful dictacrat in the White House and a lap dog media.  Though he is a liberal, he makes it very clear he is not an idiot and can see the trappings of the loss of American freedom written all over this unholy marriage.  Democrat or Republican, collectivist or free thinker, no American can look at whats happening and not demand a “coming to Jesus” moment of the 2012 electorate.

 

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Who Really Had The Bad Week?

The Presidential 2012 Election is under 50 days away and if we were to believe “trends” as reported by media sources, the actual vote is anti-climatic. This was apparently a “good” week for the President,  who is to the media sycophants urging him on, incapable of “bad” weeks.   The national polls “suggest” a broadening of President Obama’s lead of Mr. Romney, and the key battleground states show slippage of Romney traction across the board.  It must be over, because everyone says it is.

The notorious need to prematurely “call” elections for their candidate has left the media with a candidate graveyard of never were Presidents such as the re-elected  President Carter, President Dukakis, President Gore, and President Kerry.  In each case, there was an omnipresent need by the media to try to inform public that the outcome was assured and inevitable, hopefully dampening the hopes of those who would support the alternative candidate and thereby suppressing their vote.  The polls, with oversampling of enthusiasms more appropriate for the 2008 campaign,  say the lead for President Obama is widening, and it is a bad week for Mr. Romney.  Just accept it, lay back and take it, and you won’t feel so crushed when Obama prevails on November 6th.

Really? Just who was it that had the bad week?  In the past week we note the following:

  • 26 states reported worsening unemployment rates in August – the economic flop that was the stimulus, the President’s one trick pony understanding of the economy, continues to reveal its self in the ongoing flat tire of private economic job growth.  The usual source of recession employment recovery, small business growth, is non-existent, and given  the President’s disdain for this vital tool for economic restoration, is a vise that the unemployed can expect to be confined by.  What’s the chance that unemployed voters will see this President as their way out?
  • The calamity in Afghanistan– One week, two blows.  The President declared that President Bush had wasted his time and our nation’s resources in Iraq.  President Obama was going to fight and win the “good” war in Afghanistan defeating the Taliban.  This past week has seen the utter failure of the President’s Afghanistan surge strategy as the at the very moment the U.S. has pulled out of the final soldiers involved in the 40,000 soldier surge over the last two years on a predeclared Presidential timetable, the Taliban determined to show the U.S. just how little was accomplished, punctuated by a brazen coordinated attack on Camp Bastion, resulting in the deaths of two marines, and the greatest loss of fighter jets since Vietnam.
  • The White House got “everything wrong” in their cover-up of what happened in the murder of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens –  This week the press is coming to grips with what every American knew instantly, and what the clueless White House vehemently deneied,  was the reality of the September 11th attacks on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This was a pre-meditated coordinated Al Qaeda attack on a United States institution to mark the anniversary of 9/11, and not some over emotional response to a video that no one has seen.  The President accused challenger Romney of “shooting from the hip before the facts are in”, yet sent his UN Ambassador Rice to vehemently deny any connection to terrorism regarding the murderous assault.  He continues to apologize for the mythical video no one has seen, buying airtime in Pakistan for ongoing apologies, and intimidating the video’s creator with midnight interrogation on trumped up charges in one of the most blatant attacks on the freedom of speech clause in the U.S. Bill of Rights, in years.  The administration’s pathetic explanation and attempted cover-up of the Libyan massacre of four Americans is progressively unraveling, and may prove to be a real debacle for this President and his superficial veneer of competence.
  • The Univision Interview – President Obama while managing to avoid formal press conferences has looked to media outlets of his choosing to provide the fawning softball interviews that allow him to control the message.   Thus the lollypop questions of that incisive political investigator David Letterman, or the “what is Your Favorite Color” t-ball pitches of those intrepid reporters at the New Mexico radio station.  There was no reason for Obama to expect any different from what he assumes is a captured constituent, the Hispanic community.  Taking a seat on stage on Univision the Spanish language television station, his desire to educate Hispanics on his favorite mole sauce was ruined when the interviewer determined to call him on his immigration policy, or lack thereof.  The usual Obama banter of Bush, I didn’t have time, Bush, my heart cries out to the poor illegal immigrants I deport, Bush, Republican congress obstruction, Bush, I’ll get it done later did not sit well with the audience that was looking for at least a considered thought from the President.   How this will sit with the Hispanic voter who already has qualms about this President will be interesting but a continuing reliance on “You like me better, remember?” will inevitably lose traction with a population that is every bit about economic opportunity and family.
  • Moody’s issues “fiscal cliff” warning – The investor service Moody’s acknowledged that with the recent passing of U.S. debt beyond 16 trillion dollars, and the fourth deficit in a row over a trillion dollars, that the United States faces a significant credit reduction from AAA to Aa1. The Federal Reserve, seeing the ineptness of the federal government to fashion an economic recovery determined to initiate “Quantitative Easing III”, the pouring of billions of dollars of month into the economy for the third time, but this time “open-ended”, thereby sitting the stage for greatest tax ever to hit the lower and middle classes, inflation, and its profound effect on nest egg savings.  The President’s  response to such dire indications of the nation’s economic future, pronounced to David Letterman and his American  television audience, “We don’t have to worry about the debt short term” and pretended to not know exactly how big the debt was when he took office.  Well after all, his Noble Prize is for Peace, not Economics.  The ones who lend money to keep President Obama’s debt train running do know, however, and the current low lending rates that allow the present administration to spend at the rate of 42 borrowed cents on every dollar spent, will not be as unaware when interest rates inevitably rise and the estimated 11.3 trillion d0llar debt currently held by the public will begin to spiral out of control and with it, the capacity to pay.  The President has participated in increasing the accrued debt of the United States in one presidential  term by 34.2% in less than 2% of the time since the nation’s formation.  At that rate, another four years of these kind of economics, and even David Letterman will be able to figure out what’s catastrophically wrong about this President’s understanding of the country he leads.

The presidential race defies the normal considerations of an informed voter.  The country appears detached from the impending national crisis, consumed with celebrity over performance, and unwilling to grade objectively  the current White House occupant’s job performance.  A few more weeks like the last one, however, and the recognition of the worst presidential job performance since James Buchanan will be hard to hide from even a disinterested voter who gets his or her news from TMZ.

A bad polling week for Mitt Romney is an inch deep, but the growing chasm in the President’s performance and the progressive realization of it is a mile wide. Its not even remotely – game over.

 

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“Obviously Our Hearts Are Broken”

The President of the United States managed to briefly interrupt his fundraiser in Las Vegas to inform the crowd of his regret regarding the death by murder of the representative of the United States in Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens.  “Obviously our hearts are broken,” he exclaimed. Well as Mark Steyn would say, not so obvious.  The middle East is exploding in a masturbatory orgasm of Islamic radical spasm toward the great satan America, and the President, who once exclaimed that his mere personhood would reduce the invective felt by all Muslims towards America due to the unique blundering heavy-handedness of the clueless Bush, could not manage separate himself from the needs of the fundraiser to serve the needs of his nation, other than that brief, offhand remark.  Honestly…. stunning.

Chris Stevens was a man who had given his entire avocation to understanding the Islamic crescent of North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard.  He had earned a college degree from Berkeley, a masters from the National War College, and a Law degree from the University of California.  He had served in the Peace Corps in Morocco,  learned French and Arabic in addition to his native English, and ably served his country diplomatically in Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, and Riyadh.  He was one of the pivotal figures in helping to direct the United States communication with the Arab Spring rebels, fundamental in achieving the  overthrow of the  Libyan dictator Qaddafi, and in May 2012, was named American Ambassador to Libya and its fledgling government.  Chris Stevens was one of those special people who made their life work trying to find a way out of the chaos for those whose lives were perpetually crushed by the chaos.

Chris Stevens’ life of service was paid back by the Libyans he helped by brutal assassination and the obligatory infantile dragging of Stevens’ lifeless body through  the streets of Benghazi by the thugs who murdered him and their sycophants.  The Secretary of State Hillary Clinton managed to view this as “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital.” Again….absolutely stunning.  Are these clueless people truly the ones implementing our national policies and protecting our sovereignty?

We live in times dominated by the theater of the absurd.  The President and Secretary of State of the most powerful nation on earth enunciate their vision for American diplomacy as “leading from behind”.   The Ambassador representing them in one of the most hostile and unstable places on earth is left on September the 11th, the anniversary of Islamic Radicalism’s greatest triumph, essentially unprotected at an”interim facility” in Benghazi on the terrorists’ most sacred date, the perfect sacred cow for sacrifice to the Islamic radicals greatest deity, the god of death. To bring the Absurdity to culmination, the UK Independent reports that the vulnerability of the American Mission was known for 48 hours and the American administration did nothing (except guest appearances on television shows and fundraising events).  Most absurdly, this American administration’s interpretation of this organized assassination squad was that it was after all the fault of America, because an obscure video on YouTube had obviously driven the initially peaceful protesters to distraction, and propagated their uncontrollable outrage to engage in ambassadorial murder… with apparently the RPGs, mortars, and other heavy weapons they just so happened to be carrying on their heretofore peaceful demonstration.  Absolutely, absurdly stunning.

We are currently being led into a snake-pit of financial collapse and paralytic foreign policy by a President whose most important constituency is himself.  He sees this country as his personal petri dish, where he can concoct absurdest  policies and visions of socialist utopias, and the lemmings will support him blindly.  Tremendous individuals  like Chris Stevens are being burned up in circular policies with no beginning and no end except the re-election of the prevaricator in chief.  Before we all pitch ourselves off the cliff following this absurd pied piper, let us find our sanity, and do the right thing on November 6th, 2012.

 

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Pictures After An Exhibition

The country has now survived  the two packaged events once known as political conventions, and the early indications are that not much has changed in the snapshot of the November contest.  The President holds a several point lead over Mitt Romney that continues to be paced on something obliquely referred to as a “likeability ” factor and a general sense that the President speaks for the everyguy.  Its the “everyguy” that is the facinating feature to me, and how that has changed so dramatically in the course of my lifetime – specifically, what apparently the “everyguy” cares about.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post has a spot on commentary as to what the Democratic Party image has become as reflected at the convention and is a must read.  The party has morphed into a series of two dimensional pictures at an exhibition, each a specific image of grievances bound together only by the intensity of their sense of grievance.  The African American political activist at one time energized by the fight for civil rights and the concept of individual liberty, now consumed with the fight for monolithic governmental benevolence.  The 30 year old female law student, having achieved equal access to the law, now wanting the law to assure her free birth control as the signature achievement of her educational journey.  The public union leader, who has turned the concept of public service into the responsibility of the public to serve the public official.  All together, strident pictures of an America not founded on elevated ideas of personal liberty and freedom to succeed, but an America that is owed something, and the something that is owed, is owed  by one American to another.

And the framer of all these disparate pictures, the artist in chief, President Obama.  The lofty goal setter of 2008, with a vision of a healed planet and oceans whose rise is slowed, was no where in sight at the president’s acceptance speech.  That Obama was replaced with the plea bargainer, asking for more time to achieve the transformation of America from the united vision of the founders to the land of “at least I got mine”.  There was no mention anywhere of the approaching calamity of trying to support those entitled, on the backs of those who would provide the means for the entitlement.  Rubin states it perfectly:

So then it wasn’t merely that Obama let lose the rent-seekers (and birth control-seekers and free-education-seekers). No, he needed them to fill up the space and the airwaves, to promise that no matter what (fiscal crisis, recession) he will still be there to cater to the whims and demands of the constituent groups. Sure the economy is bad, but whose going to give you free college tuition?

It’s ludicrous, of course. If the economy doesn’t improve and we don’t avoid the fiscal cliff, we’ll be taking away, not handing out stuff. This is the “austerity” against which the liberals inveigh. In fact, they are driving us ever closer to the point where we will will have to quickly and severely cut out the handouts.

It is, as conservatives have said for so long, the Western European syndrome. As we spend and cater to the demanding crowd, we push ourselves closer and closer to the point where both the excessive demands and actual needs will go unmet.

Indeed. Yet the pictures as idealized as they are painted by the President can not hide the crumbling edifice beneath.  The promises of an economy put forth by this President that would equalize risk and reward, and therefore elevate all – the socialist ideal – is sliding into a malaise that may prove beyond any of our control.  The policy of picking winners has led to more and more Americans simply giving up on their efforts to find their way.  August 2012 employment figures show the unemployment rate dropped due to an ever increasing number of Americans who have simply stopped looking for work.  These are the pictures the artist in chief could not reveal – the student graduate in their twenties who can’t get started and the laid off workers in their fifties who have recognized there won’t be one more chance out there to finally get things right.  This country is increasingly looking like just another failed state, with no idea how to move forward and no will to adjust priorities.

The American everyguy used to be someone who regardless of personal circumstances could sense the larger picture, feel when the country was dangerously surging off kilter, and recognize the need to right the ship of state.

The election in November looms large.  We need the “everyguy” to step up and do what is necessary. We need to change the artist, if we have any hope of changing the picture of our future.