# Never Trump!

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I have been a Republican since I worked for Richard Nixon in 1960. As a kid I had a poster of Nixon on my bedroom door from 1960 through 1962. In 1963 I read Barry Goldwater's book  "Conscience of a Conservative" and became a Conservative Republican with emphasis on the Conservative. I used my allowance to send away for Goldwater bumper stickers and worked in the Draft Goldwater movement. I joined Bill Buckley's Young Americans for Freedom  and helped form a chapter in my home town of Coos Bay/North Bend, Oregon ("The Thomas Jefferson Chapter" to be exact). I joined the YAF chapter at the University of Oregon in 1967 and became its President in 1968. I campaigned for Reagan in 1968, 1976,1980 and 1984. I voted in the General Election for Nixon in 1968 but refused to vote for him in 1972 because of his imposition of wage and price controls, his trip to Red China and his refusal to level with us on Watergate. I have voted for every Republican nominee since, even when I had to hold my nose. From the time I was an college undergrad through today I have always had a poster or picture of William F. Buckley hanging in my dorm, apartment or each of the homes I have owned. I am and will always be a Conservative.

 I pledge on everything I hold dear including my honor that I will NEVER vote for Donald Trump!!! The man has the emotional level of a 4 year old and the personality of a tyrant! The man is crude, a show off, a con artist and the worst of all a cruel bully.

He is not interested in policy issues and has no philosophy or core values other than self aggrandizement.

But, what about Hillary! No one is more angry about the last 7 years of Obama. Just read deep into this blog to see my opposition and despair to Obama and Hillary on so many issues. She needs to be indicted and sent to prison for her criminal negligence for the secret documents on her  private email server. She and Bill through their foundation are a classic examples of crony capitalism. Her actions or should I say inactions at Benghazi have made her disqualified to be President!  The cover-up afterword's is even worse. Too bad there aren't people of conscience in the Democrat party who will speak out on these issues that should cut against the grain of liberalism.

Ben Shapiro a young attorney and Conservative writer and activist makes a compelling argument for my decision:

The counterargument to the #NeverTrump movement comes down to two words: Hillary Clinton. Trump will supposedly close the borders (a lie); Hillary will not. Trump will appoint conservative Supreme Court justices (unlikely); Hillary will not. No matter how bad Trump is, the argument goes, conservatives have a duty to back the anti-Hillary.
I think Trump will get blown out in a general election. But let’s assume that these critics of #NeverTrump are right. Let’s assume that but for we #NeverTrump voters sitting out the election, Trump would become president, and Hillary would go down in flaming defeat. And let’s assume that Hillary Clinton will appoint terrible justices, destroy the military, and usher in the apocalypse. Why in the world would conservatives live with President Hillary Clinton on their consciences?
Because first, it’s not on our consciences. It’s on the consciences of the people who went along with this nomination. We did not select Trump. We will not vote for him.
And if we are going to save the country, it will not rest on one or two justices on the Supreme Court. It will rest on the will of the people to resist tyranny. That will start at the state and local level. It will start with the people.
It will start with conservatives willing to say “no.”
Because if we never say “no,” we will never have the opportunity to say “yes.”
We must have a conservative party. The Republican Party is not that party, and has not been for a very long time. The Obama administration has brought about a unique moment – a transformational choice for the Party. Will they abandon all conservative principle in pursuit of victory, or will they turn back to the conservatism they supposedly espouse? This entire election cycle, the answer has been the former. In fact, for virtually my entire life, the answer has been the former. Establishment Republicans abandoned Reaganism for Bushism, and then abandoned Bushism for McCainism, and then abandoned McCainism for Romneyism. Until the last five minutes, they were ready to embrace Trump himself rather getting behind Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Now they call for conservatives to swallow hard and unify behind a man who opposes all conservative principles – to save conservatism!
In every election cycle, the establishment insists that we unify behind a candidate who does not reflect conservatism because elections are always a choice between the two worst options. They blackmail conservatives into supporting candidates who undermine the message and morality of our mission. Now Trump does the same. The establishment created the Donald Trump phenomenon with their “best of two bad options” logic, and now Trump is using that logic to destroy conservatism openly. The establishment doesn’t object to Trumpism. They only object to Trump. Strip the drunken boor antics from Trump, and you’ve got John McCain who will lie transparently to pander to the populist wing.
We don’t have to be complicit. As Ben Domenech is fond of citing, Alexander Hamilton once wrote, “If we must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible.” Let us not be our own enemies.
Now is the time to say no.

I only disagree with Shapiro  on Ted Cruz who would be my second choice, my first being Marco Rubio, who I believe is just as Conservative and more electable.

In the end, long after this election, I want to be remembered for the stand I took against the forces of authoritarianism, fascism and bigotry who were on the march in my own Republican Party. I must do this to keep faith with Lincoln, Goldwater, Reagan, Jack Kemp and Bill Buckley.

#NEVERTRUMP

Republican Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse on why he can't support Donald Trump! A true Patriot!

AN OPEN LETTER TO TRUMP SUPPORTERS
To my friends supporting Donald Trump:
The Trump coalition is broad and complicated, but I believe many Trump fans are well-meaning. I have spoken at length with many of you, both inside and outside Nebraska. You are rightly worried about our national direction. You ache about a crony-capitalist leadership class that is not urgent about tackling our crises. You are right to be angry.
I’m as frustrated and saddened as you are about what’s happening to our country. But I cannot support Donald Trump.
Please understand: I’m not an establishment Republican, and I will never support Hillary Clinton. I’m a movement conservative who was elected over the objections of the GOP establishment. My current answer for who I would support in a hypothetical matchup between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is: Neither of them. I sincerely hope we select one of the other GOP candidates, but if Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option.
Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. Much like President Obama, he displays essentially no understanding of the fact that, in the American system, we have a constitutional system of checks and balances, with three separate but co-equal branches of government. And the task of public officials is to be public “servants.” The law is king, and the people are boss. But have you noticed how Mr. Trump uses the word “Reign” – like he thinks he’s running for King? It’s creepy, actually. Nebraskans are not looking for a king. We yearn instead for the recovery of a Constitutional Republic.
At this point in Nebraska discussions, many of you have immediately gotten practical: “Okay, fine, you think there are better choices than Trump. But you would certainly still vote for Trump over Clinton in a general election, right?”
Before I explain why my answer is “Neither of them,” let me correct some nonsense you might have heard on the internet of late.
WHY I RAN FOR SENATE
***No, I’m not a career politician. (I had never run for anything until being elected to the U.S. Senate fifteen months ago, and I ran precisely because I actually want to make America great again.)
***No, I’m not a lawyer who has never created a job. (I was a business guy before becoming a college president in my hometown.)
***No, I’m not part of the Establishment. (Sheesh, I had attack ads by the lobbyist class run against me while I was on a bus tour doing 16 months of townhalls across Nebraska. Why? Precisely because I was not the preferred candidate of Washington.)
***No, I’m not concerned about political job security. (The very first thing I did upon being sworn in in January 2015 was to introduce a constitutional amendment for term limits – this didn’t exactly endear me to my new colleagues.)
***No, I’m not for open borders. (The very first official trip I took in the Senate was to observe and condemn how laughably porous the Texas/Mexican border is. See 70 tweets from @bensasse in February 2015.)
***No, I’m not a “squishy,” feel-good, grow-government moderate. (I have the 4th most-conservative voting record in the Senate: https://www.conservativereview.com/members/benjamin-sasse/ http://www.heritageactionscorecard.com/members/member/S001197 )
In my very first speech to the Senate, I told my colleagues that “The people despise us all.” This institution needs to get to work, not on the lobbyists’ priorities, but on the people’s: https://youtu.be/zQMoB4aUn04?t=3m8s
Now, to the question at hand: Will I pledge to vote for just any “Republican” nominee over Hillary Clinton?
Let’s begin by rejecting naïve purists: Politics has no angels. Politics is not about creating heaven on earth. Politics is simply about preserving a framework for ordered liberty – so that free people can find meaning and happiness not in politics but in their families, their neighborhoods, their work.
POLITICAL PARTIES
Now, let’s talk about political parties: parties are just tools to enact the things that we believe. Political parties are not families; they are not religions; they are not nations – they are often not even on the level of sports loyalties. They are just tools. I was not born Republican. I chose this party, for as long as it is useful.
If our Party is no longer working for the things we believe in – like defending the sanctity of life, stopping ObamaCare, protecting the Second Amendment, etc. – then people of good conscience should stop supporting that party until it is reformed.
VOTING
Now, let’s talk about voting: Voting is usually just about choosing the lesser evil of the most viable candidates.
“Usually…” But not always. Certain moments are larger. They cause us to explicitly ask: Who are we as a people? What does the way we vote here say about our shared identity? What is actually the president’s job?
THE PRESIDENT’S CORE CALLING
The president’s job is not about just mindlessly shouting the word “strong” – as if Vladimir Putin, who has been strongly bombing civilian populations in Syria the last month, is somehow a model for the American presidency. No, the president’s core calling is to “Preserve, Protect, and Defend the Constitution.”
Before we ever get into any technical policy fights – about pipelines, or marginal tax rates, or term limits, or Medicare reimbursement codes – America is first and fundamentally about a shared Constitutional creed. America is exceptional, because she is at her heart a big, bold truth claim about human dignity, natural rights, and self-control – and therefore necessarily about limited rather than limitless government.
THE MEANING OF AMERICA
America is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world because our Constitution is the best political document that’s ever been written. It said something different than almost any other government had said before: Most governments before said that might makes right, that government decides what our rights are and that the people are just dependent subjects. Our Founders said that God gives us rights by nature, and that government is not the author or source of our rights. Government is just our shared project to secure those rights.
Government exists only because the world is fallen, and some people want to take your property, your liberty, and your life. Government is tasked with securing a framework for ordered liberty where “we the people” can in our communities voluntarily build something great together for our kids and grandkids. That’s America. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of speech – the First Amendment is the heartbeat of the American Constitution, of the American idea itself.
WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO MR. TRUMP?
So let me ask you: Do you believe the beating heart of Mr. Trump’s candidacy has been a defense of the Constitution? Do you believe it’s been an impassioned defense of the First Amendment – or an attack on it?
Which of the following quotes give you great comfort that he’s in love with the First Amendment, that he is committed to defending the Constitution, that he believes in executive restraint, that he understands servant leadership?
Statements from Trump:
***“We’re going to open up libel laws and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.”
***“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak…”
***Putin, who has killed journalists and is pillaging Ukraine, is a great leader.
***The editor of National Review “should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him.”
***On whether he will use executive orders to end-run Congress, as President Obama has illegally done: "I won't refuse it. I'm going to do a lot of things." “I mean, he’s led the way, to be honest with you.”
***“Sixty-eight percent would not leave under any circumstance. I think that means murder. It think it means anything.”
***On the internet: “I would certainly be open to closing areas” of it.
***His lawyers to people selling anti-Trump t-shirts: “Mr. Trump considers this to be a very serious matter and has authorized our legal team to take all necessary and appropriate actions to bring an immediate halt...”
***Similar threatening legal letters to competing campaigns running ads about his record.
And on it goes…
IF MR. TRUMP BECOMES THE NOMINEE...
Given what we know about him today, here’s where I’m at: If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, my expectation is that I will look for some third candidate – a conservative option, a Constitutionalist.
I do not claim to speak for a movement, but I suspect I am far from alone. After listening to Nebraskans in recent weeks, and talking to a great many people who take oaths seriously, I think many are in the same place. I believe a sizable share of Christians – who regard threats against religious liberty as arguably the greatest crisis of our time – are unwilling to support any candidate who does not make a full-throated defense of the First Amendment a first commitment of their candidacy.
Conservatives understand that all men are created equal and made in the image of God, but also that government must be limited so that fallen men do not wield too much power. A presidential candidate who boasts about what he'll do during his "reign" and refuses to condemn the KKK cannot lead a conservative movement in America.
TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT
Thank you for listening. While I recognize that we disagree about how to make America great again, we agree that this should be our goal. We need more people engaged in the civic life of our country—not fewer. I genuinely appreciate how much many of you care about this country, and that you are demanding something different from Washington. I’m going to keep doing the same thing.
But I can’t support Donald Trump.

 

Humbly,
Ben Sasse
Nebraska

I will NEVER vote for Donald Trump!

Resistance to Trump is a test of character & integrity. Where you stood will be remembered long after this election.

 

National Review: "Against Trump"

I have been a conservative and reader of National Review since the draft Goldwater days of 1963. Never been more proud of the "Flag Ship" of the Conservative movement! Trump is a dangerous man.

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". Edmund Burke

Against Trump      

By The Editors — January 21, 2016

Donald Trump leads the polls nationally and in most states in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are understandable reasons for his eminence, and he has shown impressive gut-level skill as a campaigner. But he is not deserving of conservative support in the caucuses and primaries. Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.
Trump’s political opinions have wobbled all over the lot. The real-estate mogul and reality-TV star has supported abortion, gun control, single-payer health care à la Canada, and punitive taxes on the wealthy. (He and Bernie Sanders have shared more than funky outer-borough accents.) Since declaring his candidacy he has taken a more conservative line, yet there are great gaping holes in it.
His signature issue is concern over immigration — from Latin America but also, after Paris and San Bernardino, from the Middle East. He has exploited the yawning gap between elite opinion in both parties and the public on the issue, and feasted on the discontent over a government that can’t be bothered to enforce its own laws no matter how many times it says it will (President Obama has dispensed even with the pretense). But even on immigration, Trump often makes no sense and can’t be relied upon. A few short years ago, he was criticizing Mitt Romney for having the temerity to propose “self-deportation,” or the entirely reasonable policy of reducing the illegal population through attrition while enforcing the nation’s laws. Now, Trump is a hawk’s hawk.
He pledges to build a wall along the southern border and to make Mexico pay for it. We need more fencing at the border, but the promise to make Mexico pay for it is silly bluster. Trump says he will put a big door in his beautiful wall, an implicit endorsement of the dismayingly conventional view that current levels of legal immigration are fine. Trump seems unaware that a major contribution of his own written immigration plan is to question the economic impact of legal immigration and to call for reform of the H-1B–visa program. Indeed, in one Republican debate he clearly had no idea what’s in that plan and advocated increased legal immigration, which is completely at odds with it. These are not the meanderings of someone with well-informed, deeply held views on the topic.
As for illegal immigration, Trump pledges to deport the 11 million illegals here in the United States, a herculean administrative and logistical task beyond the capacity of the federal government. Trump piles on the absurdity by saying he would re-import many of the illegal immigrants once they had been deported, which makes his policy a poorly disguised amnesty (and a version of a similarly idiotic idea that appeared in one of Washington’s periodic “comprehensive” immigration reforms). This plan wouldn’t survive its first contact with reality.

On foreign policy, Trump is a nationalist at sea. Sometimes he wants to let Russia fight ISIS, and at others he wants to “bomb the sh**” out of it. He is fixated on stealing Iraq’s oil and casually suggested a few weeks ago a war crime — killing terrorists’ families — as a tactic in the war on terror. For someone who wants to project strength, he has an astonishing weakness for flattery, falling for Vladimir Putin after a few coquettish bats of the eyelashes from the Russian thug. All in all, Trump knows approximately as much about national security as he does about the nuclear triad — which is to say, almost nothing.
Indeed, Trump’s politics are those of an averagely well-informed businessman: Washington is full of problems; I am a problem-solver; let me at them. But if you have no familiarity with the relevant details and the levers of power, and no clear principles to guide you, you will, like most tenderfeet, get rolled. Especially if you are, at least by all outward indications, the most poll-obsessed politician in all of American history. Trump has shown no interest in limiting government, in reforming entitlements, or in the Constitution. He floats the idea of massive new taxes on imported goods and threatens to retaliate against companies that do too much manufacturing overseas for his taste. His obsession is with “winning,” regardless of the means — a spirit that is anathema to the ordered liberty that conservatives hold dear and that depends for its preservation on limits on government power. The Tea Party represented a revival of an understanding of American greatness in these terms, an understanding to which Trump is tone-deaf at best and implicitly hostile at worst. He appears to believe that the administrative state merely needs a new master, rather than a new dispensation that cuts it down to size and curtails its power.
It is unpopular to say in the year of the “outsider,” but it is not a recommendation that Trump has never held public office. Since 1984, when Jesse Jackson ran for president with no credential other than a great flow of words, both parties have been infested by candidates who have treated the presidency as an entry-level position. They are the excrescences of instant-hit media culture. The burdens and intricacies of leadership are special; experience in other fields is not transferable. That is why all American presidents have been politicians, or generals.
Any candidate can promise the moon. But politicians have records of success, failure, or plain backsliding by which their promises may be judged. Trump can try to make his blankness a virtue by calling it a kind of innocence. But he is like a man with no credit history applying for a mortgage — or, in this case, applying to manage a $3.8 trillion budget and the most fearsome military on earth.

Trump’s record as a businessman is hardly a recommendation for the highest office in the land. For all his success, Trump inherited a real-estate fortune from his father. Few of us will ever have the experience, as Trump did, of having Daddy-O bail out our struggling enterprise with an illegal loan in the form of casino chips. Trump’s primary work long ago became less about building anything than about branding himself and tending to his celebrity through a variety of entertainment ventures, from WWE to his reality-TV show, The Apprentice. His business record reflects the often dubious norms of the milieu: using eminent domain to condemn the property of others; buying the good graces of politicians — including many Democrats — with donations.
Trump has gotten far in the GOP race on a brash manner, buffed over decades in New York tabloid culture. His refusal to back down from any gaffe, no matter how grotesque, suggests a healthy impertinence in the face of postmodern PC (although the insults he hurls at anyone who crosses him also speak to a pettiness and lack of basic civility). His promise to make America great again recalls the populism of Andrew Jackson. But Jackson was an actual warrior; and President Jackson made many mistakes. Without Jackson’s scars, what is Trump’s rhetoric but show and strut?
If Trump were to become the president, the Republican nominee, or even a failed candidate with strong conservative support, what would that say about conservatives? The movement that ground down the Soviet Union and took the shine, at least temporarily, off socialism would have fallen in behind a huckster. The movement concerned with such “permanent things” as constitutional government, marriage, and the right to life would have become a claque for a Twitter feed.
Trump nevertheless offers a valuable warning for the Republican party. If responsible men irresponsibly ignore an issue as important as immigration, it will be taken up by the reckless. If they cannot explain their Beltway maneuvers — worse, if their maneuvering is indefensible — they will be rejected by their own voters. If they cannot advance a compelling working-class agenda, the legitimate anxieties and discontents of blue-collar voters will be exploited by demagogues. We sympathize with many of the complaints of Trump supporters about the GOP, but that doesn’t make the mogul any less flawed a vessel for them.
Some conservatives have made it their business to make excuses for Trump and duly get pats on the head from him. Count us out. Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/430126/donald-trump-conservatives-

Movie Review: "13 Hours"

Ever since I was a kid I have been drawn to movie  about men who stand and fight against overwhelming odds hoping for reinforcements that never come. These man are always given a way out with all sorts of intellectual reasons why they should not make a stand but chose to stand and fight with their buddies for the cause of freedom!

In 1955 it was Fess Parker at the Alamo in Disney's "Davy Crockett"!

In 1960 it was "The Alamo" again, only this time with John Wayne.

In 2001 it was "Black Hawk Down" about Americans fighting war lords in Mogadishu Sudan.

In 2016 we now have "13 Hours."

All the movies were based upon real events! The two Alamos as well as one done in 2004, with Billy Bob Thornton as Crockett, are about men who are left without help because Sam Houston had none to send but they "buy time" for Houston to build a Texan army. "Black Hawk Down" and "13 Hours" are about Americans who are deserted because U.S. civilian leadership find intellectual reasons why it would be unwise to commit additional forces. After "Black Hawk Down" Bill Clinton at  least had the decency to replace his Secretary of Defense. After the events of "13 Hours"Barak Obama, his Secretary of State and his current National Security Advisor all  chose to lie to the American public for political expediency. In fact, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton lied to the families of the 4 Americans killed at Bengasi over their caskets when they arrived back in the U.S. at a short ceremony.   The lie is that they died because of a video rather than a lack of security in a terrorist attack.

"13 Hours" is told from the point of view of retired military special forces personal who have been hired as civilians to provide security at a secret CIA base in Bengasi, Libya. The move is very well done and is a running battle of 13 hours telescoped into a 2hr 24min movie. The move is based upon a book by one of the surviving security personal. The movie is powerful showing the attack and the difficulty the "soldiers" had in dealing with the CIA bureaucrats. The movie draws you in emotionally with both tears and anger. You are glued to the screen! I left the theater angry. The acting and production values are high quality... very much like "Black Hawk Down".  I will get it on Blu-
ray as soon as it is released.

The morning after the battle our President flew to Las Vegas for a fund raising event and even before the battle was over our Secretary of State went to bed!!!!! YES, I am angry!!!!

On a positive note, it is affirming that America is still able to produce men who are willing to run to the sound of gunfire when duty calls!

 

Thomas Sowell: Misinformed Electorate, Not Trump, Is Real Danger

BY THOMAS SOWELLInvestor's Business Daily

 

Tue, Sep 15 2015 00:00:00 EA13_

 

 

Tomas Sowell

In a country with more than 300 million people, it is remarkable how obsessed the media have become with just one — Donald Trump.
What is even more remarkable is that, after six years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally, under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor.
No doubt much of the stampede of Republican voters toward Trump is based on their disgust with the Republican establishment. The fact that the next two biggest vote getters in the polls are also complete outsiders — Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina — reinforces the idea this is a protest.
It is easy to understand why there would be pent-up resentments among Republican voters. But are elections held for the purpose of venting emotions?
No national leader ever aroused more fervent emotions than Adolf Hitler did in the 1930s. Watch some old newsreels of German crowds delirious with joy at the sight of him. The only things at all comparable in more recent times were the ecstatic crowds that greeted Barack Obama when he burst upon the political scene in 2008.
Elections, however, have far more lasting, and far more serious — or even grim — consequences than emotional venting. The actual track record of crowd pleasers, whether Juan Peron in Argentina, Obama in America or Hitler in Germany, is very sobering, if not painfully depressing.
The media seem to think that participation in elections is a big deal. But turnout often approaches 100% in countries so torn by bitter polarization that everyone is scared to death of what will happen if the other side wins. But times and places with low voter turnout are often times and places when there are no such fears aroused by having an opposing party win.
Despite many people who urge us all to vote, as a civic duty, the purpose of elections is not participation. The purpose is to select individuals for offices, including president of the United States. Whoever has that office has our lives, the lives of our loved ones and the fate of the entire nation in his or her hands.
An election is not a popularity contest, or an award for showmanship. If you want to fulfill your duty as a citizen, then you need to become an informed voter. And if you are not informed, then the most patriotic thing you can do on Election Day is stay home. Otherwise your vote, based on whims or emotions, is playing Russian roulette with the fate of this nation.

All the hoopla over Donald Trump is distracting attention from a large field of other candidates, some of whom have outstanding track records as governors, where they demonstrated courage, character and intelligence. Others have rhetorical skills like Trump or a serious mastery of issues, unlike Trump.
Even if Trump himself does not end up as the Republican nominee for the presidency, he will have done a major disservice to both his party and the country if his grandstanding has cost us a chance to explore in depth others who may include someone far better prepared for the complex challenges of this juncture in history.
After the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, we are entering an era when people alive at this moment may live to see a day when American cities are left in radioactive ruins. We need all the wisdom, courage and dedication in the next president — and his or her successors — to save us and our children from such a catastrophe.
Rhetoric and showmanship will certainly not save us.
Donald Trump is not the only obstacle to finding leaders of such character. The ultimate danger lies in the voting public themselves. All too many signs point to an electorate including many people who are grossly uninformed or, worse yet, misinformed.
The very fact that the voting age was lowered to 18 shows the triumph of the vision of elections as participatory rituals, rather than times for fateful choices. If anything, the age might have been raised to 30, since today millions of people in their 20s have never even had the responsibility of being self-supporting, to give them some sense of reality.
We can only hope that the months still remaining before the first primary next year will let voters get over their emotional responses and concentrate on the life and death implications of choosing the next president of the United States.

Jonah Goldberg takes on Donald Trump to save the integraty of the Conservative Movment

Jonah Goldberg the Conservative commentator at National Review has taken on Donald Trump much as William F. Buckley Jr. did against  the John Birch Society in 1962. Today Jonah wrote the following: Dear Reader (and those of you with better things to do), There have been times in the past when I’ve gotten crosswise with certain segments of the conservative base and/or with the readership of National Review. And, because, like the Elephant Man, I am a not an animal but a human being, I have always had at least some self-doubt. That’s as it should be. People who share principles should not only hear each other out when they disagree; they should be able to see each other’s points and hold open the possibility that one’s opponents have the better argument. This is not one of those times, at least not for me. I truly, honestly, and with all my heart and mind think Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters are making a yuuuuuuge mistake. I think they are being conned and played. I feel like a guy whose brother is being taken advantage of by a grifter. I’m watching helplessly as the con artist congratulates him for taking out a third mortgage. Anger Is Not an Argument Now, before I go on, let me clarify a few things. I get it. The base of the party is angry. They’re angry about Obama’s lawless chicanery on immigration. They’re angry about the GOP’s patented inability to cross the street without stepping on its own d*ck and then having to apologize for it. They’re angry that the Left’s culture warriors are behaving like an invading army that shoots the survivors even after they’ve surrendered. They’re angry that Republicans have to bend over backward so as not to offend anyone, while Democrats have free rein (and at times free reign) to do and to say as they please. Enter Trump, stage left. He makes no apologies. He’s brash. I can understand why some see him as a breath of fresh air. If you want to give him credit for starting a worthwhile debate about sanctuary cities and illegal immigration, fine. I think that argument is way overdone, but certainly reasonable enough. Maybe you just like him. On that, we can respectfully disagree, as there is no accounting for taste. Perhaps you just like his musk and the way it assaults your nostrils, which is fitting, given his line of cologne. Fine. I, on the other hand, find him tedious, tacky, and trite. He’s a bore who overcompensates for his insecurities by talking about how awesome he is, often in the third person. Jonah can’t stand that. You see the next Teddy Roosevelt and all I see is someone who talks big and carries a small schtick. ‘Sup Britches? In words George Will shall never write, this is a good moment to talk about my pants. Earlier this week, Donald Trump attacked Charles Krauthammer and me. By the way, I don’t blame Trump one bit for his hostility. I’d hate me too, if I were him. Still I do marvel at how this supposed Master of the Universe can be unnerved by such criticism. If it takes so little effort for me to set up shop in his head, by all means, let’s give him thermonuclear weapons. Anyway, when asked about me, he said: I’m worth a fortune….I went out, I made a fortune, a big fortune, a tremendous fortune… bigger than people even understand….Then I get called [a failure] by a guy that can’t buy a pair of pants, I get called names? As the intern said to Bill Clinton, this puts me in a weird position. I don’t like to brag, but I’m actually quite adept at buying pants. I don’t enjoy it. But I can do it. It never occurred to me to put it in my bio or anything — “Jonah Goldberg is a senior editor of National Review, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a successful pants-buyer” — but maybe I should. Now, I will say that I sometimes choose not to wear pants, and not just because I’m so fond of my spaghetti-strainer codpiece (which affords me the satisfaction of telling really attractive women, “Hey, my eyes are up here. Thank you very much.”) But these are my choices. If I want to identify as a pantless American, who are you to say otherwise? More to the point, what I find so gaudy about Trump is his constant reference to the fact that he made a lot of money, and his expectation that it somehow makes him immune to criticism or means that he’s a better person than his GOP competitors, never mind yours truly. The Trump-Pets Blare. Moreover, I find it horribly disappointing that his fans like this about him. If you met someone in real life who talked this way, you would think he’s a jerk. But somehow he’s awesome when he does it on TV? His biggest fans disappoint in other ways as well. I marvel at how they can simultaneously despise Obama’s arrogance but revel in Trump’s. (I chuckle at all of the people who tell me he’s a heroic truth-teller for “telling it like it is” and “calling it as he sees it” but who at the same time fume at me when I tell it like it is about Trump and call it as I see it.) But most grating of all are the people who sincerely think he should be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. On this, I’m afraid we’re going to have to disrespectfully disagree. First of all, he’ll never be President of the United States. I won’t go into all of the reasons I think this, but a few off the top of my head: his enormous negatives, even among Republicans; the Midas’s hoard of oppo-research material that surely lurks beneath the surface; and his comments about women, which alone would turn the gender gap into a chasm. To borrow a line from Mark Steyn, a President Trump would have more ex-wives than the previous 44 presidents combined But my objection isn’t to the political analysis of Trump supporters. It’s their judgment of the man that stews the bowels. The Purest RINO Which gets me back to the grifter thing. I’ve written many times about how I hate the term RINO because conservatives should consider themselves Republicans in Name Only. The Republican Party is a vessel, a tool for achieving conservative ends. It’s nothing more than a team. Conservatism is different. It’s a body of ideas, beliefs, and temperaments. The amazing thing is that Trump is both a RINO and a CINO. I’m sure he has some authentic and sincere conservative views down in there somewhere. But the idea that he’s more plausibly conservative — or more loyally Republican — than Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, or any of the others is just flatly absurd. It is vastly more plausible that he is a stalking horse for his dear friend Hillary Clinton than he is a sincere conservative. Trump supporters need an intervention. I want to sit them down at the kitchen table, reach into a manila envelope, and pull out the proof that he’s a fraud. The conversation would go something like this: Immigration: You seem to think he’s an immigration hardliner, and he’s certainly pretending to be. But why can’t you see through it? He condemned Mitt Romney as an immigration hardliner in 2012 and favored comprehensive immigration reform. He told Bill O’Reilly he was in favor of a “path to citizenship” for 30 million illegal immigrants: Trump: You have to give them a path. You have 20 million, 30 million, nobody knows what it is. It used to be 11 million. Now, today I hear it’s 11, but I don’t think it’s 11. I actually heard you probably have 30 million. You have to give them a path, and you have to make it possible for them to succeed. You have to do that. Question: Just how many rapists and drug dealers did Donald Trump want to give green cards to? Abortion: In 1999 he said, “I’m totally pro-choice. I hate it and I hate saying it. And I’m almost ashamed to say that I’m pro-choice but I am pro-choice because I think we have no choice.” Man, it’s like he’s channeling Thomas Aquinas there. Now he says he’s pro-life. But I’ll spare the mocking on this because at least he’s flip-flopping in the right direction, and I don’t like to second guess peoples’ professed religious convictions. Obamacare: The man wrote in his own book and said elsewhere that he was in favor of Canadian-style socialized medicine — which would put him to the left of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and on pretty much the same page as Bernie Sanders. Hillary: Speaking of her, Trump praised Hillary Clinton and her healthcare reform plan — in 2007! She attended his (most recent) wedding. He donated to her campaigns and to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, he couldn’t get his head around the fact that Obama didn’t pick her for VP. “I’m a big fan of Hillary. She’s a terrific woman. She’s a friend of mine.” Economics: People tout the guy’s business record. But he represents almost exactly what his supporters think he opposes. He’s a crony capitalist par excellence. He gives to whatever politician can grease the skids for his next deal — and he makes no apologies for it. He’s an eminent domain voluptuary. He abuses bankruptcy laws like a stack of homemade get-out-of-jail-free cards. Parlez vous Conservative? The most troubling defense is this claptrap that he “tells it like it is.” Well, first of all, no he doesn’t. He tells it the way you want to hear it, which is an entirely different thing. He is like William Jennings Bryan, only his cross of gold has an all-you-can-eat buffet under it, and looks remarkably like a capital “T.” 'The people of Nebraska are for free silver, and I am for free silver,' Bryan announced. 'I will look up the arguments later.' That is Trump’s approach. He’s saying what understandably angry people want to hear him say. He reminds me a lot of Mitt Romney, at least in one respect. I always said that Romney “spoke conservatism as a second language” (a line some people ripped off, btw). That’s why Romney called himself a “severe conservative,” talked about how he “likes to fire people,” and anathematized the “47 percent.” Trump is even less truly conservative, but he’s trying to speak in an even grubbier dialect of conservatism. And, having grown up in the tabloid politics of New York, he’s better at faking it. Eventually, I suspect, this will be the cause of his undoing. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about conservatism, and at some point he will say something that even his biggest fans will recognize as a damning revelation about the real man beneath the schtick. The only question is whether he implodes before or after he does permanent damage to the GOP’s chances in 2016. The Conservative Heart Look, these are rough times for conservatives, for reasons too lengthy, and all too familiar, to go into here. But none of our problems — demographic, political, cultural — can be solved unless conservatives take the cause of persuasion to heart. All of our problems can be fixed by convincing people to join our cause. That is what politics is about — persuading people that their interests and concerns are better addressed by coming to our side. And, given the degraded nature of our culture, I won’t deny that having a celebrity on our side has its utility. But it’s only helpful if that celebrity convinces people to switch sides. As a purely mathematical proposition, it is insane to believe that Donald Trump will convert more voters than he will repel. For those who are interested in persuasion, I heartily recommend Arthur Brooks’s new book, The Conservative Heart (full disclosure: He’s my boss at AEI and a friend). I’ll be writing more about it in the future because I think it’s an important book. But I will say for now that it is almost a mirror image of Trump’s approach. It’s thoughtful, humble, fact- and data-driven, and informed by a deep moral case for conservatism. It won’t satisfy your desire to scream at the opposition, but it will equip you to explain to the opposition why they are wrong.

Historic Speech to the United States Congress

 Today Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a historic speech to both houses of the United States Congress and showed the world a man of true courage and resolve in a time of crisis. Some excerpts from that speech:

Because America and Israel, we share a common destiny, the destiny of promised lands that cherish freedom and offer hope. Israel is grateful for the support of American -- of America's people and of America's presidents, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama..........

My friends, I've come here today because, as prime minister of Israel, I feel a profound obligation to speak to you about an issue that could well threaten the survival of my country and the future of my people: Iran's quest for nuclear weapons.......

In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa. And if Iran's aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow.

So, at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.


We must all stand together to stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation and terror......

This deal won't be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control. And the Middle East would soon be crisscrossed by nuclear tripwires. A region where small skirmishes can trigger big wars would turn into a nuclear tinderbox. 

If anyone thinks -- if anyone thinks this deal kicks the can down the road, think again. When we get down that road, we'll face a much more dangerous Iran, a Middle East littered with nuclear bombs and a countdown to a potential nuclear nightmare.

Ladies and gentlemen, I've come here today to tell you we don't have to bet the security of the world on the hope that Iran will change for the better. We don't have to gamble with our future and with our children's future.

We can insist that restrictions on Iran's nuclear program not be lifted for as long as Iran continues its aggression in the region and in the world......


... no country has a greater stake -- no country has a greater stake than Israel in a good deal that peacefully removes this threat.

Ladies and gentlemen, history has placed us at a fateful crossroads. We must now choose between two paths. One path leads to a bad deal that will at best curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions for a while, but it will inexorably lead to a nuclear-armed Iran whose unbridled aggression will inevitably lead to war. 
The second path, however difficult, could lead to a much better deal, that would prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclearized Middle East and the horrific consequences of both to all of humanity

You don't have to read Robert Frost to know. You have to live life to know that the difficult path is usually the one less traveled, but it will make all the difference for the future of my country, the security of the Middle East and the peace of the world, the peace, we all desire. 

 

My friend, standing up to Iran is not easy. Standing up to dark and murderous regimes never is. With us today is Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel. 


Elie, your life and work inspires to give meaning to the words, "never again."


And I wish I could promise you, Elie, that the lessons of history have been learned. I can only urge the leaders of the world not to repeat the mistakes of the past.


Not to sacrifice the future for the present; not to ignore aggression in the hopes of gaining an illusory peace. 

But I can guarantee you this, the days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over.

We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves.


This is why -- this is why, as a prime minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.


But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel.


I know that you stand with Israel.


You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history's horrors.


Facing me right up there in the gallery, overlooking all of us in this (inaudible) chamber is the image of Moses. Moses led our people from slavery to the gates of the Promised Land.

And before the people of Israel entered the land of Israel, Moses gave us a message that has steeled our resolve for thousands of years. I leave you with his message today, (SPEAKING IN HEBREW), "Be strong and resolute, neither fear nor dread them."

My friends, may Israel and America always stand together, strong and resolute. May we neither fear nor dread the challenges ahead. May we face the future with confidence, strength and hope.

May God bless the state of Israel and may God bless the United States of America.


Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all. 

You're wonderful. 

Thank you, America. Thank you.

Thank you.


 Full test of speech here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/03/full-text-netanyahus-address-to-congress/

Looking for our Churchill

Peggy Noonan in todays Wall Street Journal:

Republicans this year are not looking for Reagan. They’re looking for Churchill. They’re looking for the guy who knows the war is already here, not the guy who knows the war can be averted if we defeat the guys who would wage it. What is “the war”? Everything from scarily sluggish economic growth to long-term liabilities and deficits; from the melting away of the post-World-War-II order to the Mideast to domestic terrorism. Every four years there is frustration and argument; this year there is urgency........

 a passionate desire to lead America out of the morass, a fiery—or Churchillian—

http://www.wsj.com/articles/sorry-jeb-the-race-is-wide-open-1424994157

Rudy Giuliani is in a way, the child who yelled, "the king has no clothes"

In November of 2008 upon his election as President of the United States I wrote on this blog the following:

The victory speech of President-Elect Obama was also very well done and gracious and time will tell whether he will truly try to lead as a moderate and reach out to all Americans. As anyone who has read this blog for any time will know I have been a vigorous critic of Barack Obama.

Martin Luther King had a dream that one day all Americans would not be
"judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

That is how I judged Barack Obama by his character that I found wanting!

For the sake of the country I love, I hope I have been wrong about him and I intend to give him the benefit of the doubt unless events prove otherwise.

Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama

Well, after 6 years of the Obama Presidency I have reluctantly reached the same conclusion as Rudy Giuliani, President Obama does not love America and has acted in  ways to hurt the nation I love. This is not easy to write or say!
It is possible to disagree with people politically and still view them as wishing  the best for the United States. I give Giuliani credit for being the first major public figure to voice what many of us have felt for some time.  It takes courage to face the wrath of the liberal elites in the media and academia in this country who have been propping up this fraud!

 Ferguson, Missouri  was just one example where Obama poured gasoline on race relations in this country.  He could have been a calming influence but instead he played to the mob and made a bad situation worse.  Time and time again he has divided black from white for short term political purposes. A man who loves America would not have done this.

Time and time again he has apologized to the world for the alleged faults of his own country. He has brought up slavery and "Jim Crow" more than once but neglects to point out that thousands of Americans died at places like Gettysburg and Antietam to end this blemish on our honor.

On foreign soil he has called America "arrogant" when it was the United States who has been the bulwark of the free world since the end of World War II and has given its treasure and the blood of its sons in the defense of liberty around the world.

He has encouraged and abetted thousands of foreigners to cross our borders illegally. Debating and passing new emigration laws are one thing but to disregard the law to allow illegal immigration is another.

He has at the least been passive at best when the IRS has illegally intimidated and harassed honest American citizens exercising  their constitutional rights.


Jonah Goldberg of National Review discuses the issue in the following excerpt:

More from Jonah Goldberg:

More than any other president, Obama was raised with a detachedly critical view of America. He grew up abroad and in Hawaii, which is as close as you can get to growing-up abroad and still be in the United States. (Sorry, I love Hawaii, but it’s true.) At school he hung out mostly with the foreign-exchange students from Pakistan. “For years when Barack was around them, he seemed to share their attitudes as sophisticated outsiders who looked at politics from an international perspective,” David Maraniss writes in his biography of Obama. “He was one of them, in that sense.”

Byron York writes in his piece on the Maraniss book:

But Obama was ambitious. Appalled by the “dirty deeds” of “Reagan and his minions” (as he wrote in “Dreams from My Father”), Obama became increasingly interested in, as Maraniss writes, “gaining power in order to change things.” He couldn't do that as an international guy hanging around with his Pakistani friends; he needed to become an American.

So he did. One of those Pakistani friends, Beenu Mahmood, saw a major change in Obama. Mahmood calls Obama “the most deliberate person I ever met in terms of constructing his own identity,” according to Maraniss. The time after college, Mahmood says, “was an important period for him, first the shift from not international but American, number one, and then not white, but black.”

Mahmood, Maraniss writes, “could see Obama slowly but carefully distancing himself as a necessary step in establishing his political identity as an American.”

His early political years involved similar strategic positioning, from joining Jeremiah Wright’s Church to (according to David Axelrod) lying about his opposition to gay marriage. And it paid off. And when he finally burst on the national scene, he could use his detachment to his advantage. Indeed, his whole approach to politics has been, “People of Earth, stop your bickering. I’m Barack Obama and I’m here to help.” The slogan “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” implies the building-up of a seething desire to make this country different than it is and throw off the dead weight of the past. Whenever he talks unapologetically about patriotism, it is invariably in the context of trying to get the country to rally around some new government endeavor (and, more importantly, himself).



I disliked and disagreed with  JFK, LBJ, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton but never questioned their love of the USA, but I do for Barak Obama!

Coos Bay/ North Bend History & a Reunion

Now that football season is over I thought I would start posting more on my blog that has been dormant since last September. 

The link below is to a history of the Coos Bay- North Bend, Oregon area from 1940 to 2012. Having grown up in the "Bay Area" from about 1956 till I left for college in 1967 I found it very interesting. The article is written by a Coos Bay attorney who is not a professional historian but more of a reminiscence of the Bay Area over the years

.  
http://www.oregonbayproperties.com/mydata/The%20Coos%20Bay%20Area%20From%201940%20to%202012.PDF

On a related note, later this year I will be returning to North Bend/Coos Bay for my 50th high school reunion from North Bend High. The reunion of the Class of 1965 will be at The Mill Casino which when I was in high school was a real mill owned by Weyerhaeuser. At that time the mill was running three shifts a day during the Vietnam War. Little did we think that we would return 50 years later for our reunion at Weyerhaeuser. The Marshfield class of 1965 is also holding their reunion at The Mill Casino the same weekend and after our separate dinners they will fold back the wall separating the two banquet rooms so we can have a joint dance. Since my parents died I have had little reason to return to Coos Bay so it will be a nostalgic trip for me back in time. Go North Bend Bulldogs!

It's "too late" for Obama to fix the damage he has caused the United States!

 

 

Article by Jonah Goldberg on the damage Barak Obama has done to the United States internationally:

This gets us to the heart of the damage Barack Obama has done. A superpower can cruise on perception for a very long time. Perception is relatively inexpensive. Sure, you gotta float some ships around. Yeah, you might have to run some military exercises. But as long as people think you're sustaining a Pax Americana you are, in fact, sustaining a Pax Americana. But once you let that perception waver, you're suddenly faced with a terrible set of choices. You can't tell the world you're still in charge, you have to show them. If you just talk about red lines and then do nothing to enforce them, further talk becomes worse than useless, it becomes provocative. If you opt to demonstrate your power, you risk failing and confirming weakness. You also risk a horrible escalation as the bad actors respond not with surrender but with even more testing. Does anyone think Putin would be the first to blink at this point if Obama sent troops to Ukraine?

Obama could do everything right starting today (Stop laughing!) and in a sense it would still be too late. It's always more expensive to put down a riot than to prevent it. And it's not entirely clear to me that the American people are willing to pay that price right now. It's much clearer that this president has no interest in asking them to.

 

Everyone mocked George W. Bush for his "I'm the decider" shtick. I never particularly liked the locution myself. But it did get to the truth of the matter. The president has to make decisions. These days, even Dianne Feinstein is willing to admit that this president has problems making decisions. That's all fine and good. But one thing bothers me. A lot of people don't seem to realize that not making a decision is, itself, a kind of decision. President Obama's passive aggression (for want of a better term) has never gotten the attention it deserves. This is, after all, the guy who voted present whenever he could in the Illinois state legislature — not exactly the most high-stakes arena in the world. He's been voting present on a global scale ever since. As John Fund wrote almost exactly a year ago:

Since then, further evidence has piled up that Obama is a dithering, indecisive leader willing to deflect making a decision because of what many see as political calculation. It's one thing when this happens domestically, like when his administration delayed meaningful action by BP and the state of Louisiana to clear up the Gulf of Mexico oilspill in 2010. It's another when it happens in foreign policy — especially in the Middle East. Obama stood aloof during the Iranian street protests of 2009. In Libya, he delayed a decision for weeks until choosing "to lead from behind," in the famous words of one adviser. In Egypt, the administration was caught flat-footed not once, but twice, by uprisings.

 I tried to make this point on Fox News yesterday. Everyone's talking about what the president should say. The assumption is that saying something will reflect a policy of doing something. But that isn't how Obama sees the situation. He wants to say something that will take the pressure off of him to do something. This has always been his M.O. When the IRS scandal looks really bad, he says it's a big problem and an outrage. That takes the pressure off the White House and frees him up from having to do or say any more about it. Now he dismisses the whole thing as a "phony scandal." Obama didn't lay out those "red lines" for Syria because he really meant it. He warned of red lines because doing so liberated him from having to act. When Assad called Obama's bluff he folded. Obama didn't order the surge in Afghanistan to win, he ordered the surge in Afghanistan to free himself from the hassle of having to talk — or think — about Afghanistan.

 

And what is amazing to me is how so many people mistake dithering, buck-passing, and political cowardice for sagacity and strategic genius. Just last week I mocked the ridiculous notion that Obama is a "chess master" always thinking ahead of his opponents. Just this week, Jonathan Alter proves this incandescent idiocy will not die. He writes: "Obama is what was once called a "long head" -- a leader who patiently tries to think a few moves past everyone else. This is a good thing. Thinking hard before reacting is usually the wiser course."

Will someone please provide some examples of where Obama has outthought America's adversaries? The man cowers behind his desk and his fans hang a sign reading "Genius at Work."

 

 

A Sorry Excuse for a President!

This a repost of a post I made almost one year ago and the years events  have only reinforced my opinion of the man as  expressed at that time. I could add the words ISIS, Iraq, Crimea, Ukraine, beheadings, Libya as additional  evidence  he is a man in over his head but it was all there to see a year ago as it is now!

The British have a vote of "No Confidence" when the members of English Parliament  have lost faith in the Prime Minister and his government and want to force a new election.  The United States Constitution has no similar procedure,  but I believe members of Congress should vote NO on President Obama's request for military action against Syria.   Regardless of the merits of an attack on the evil regime in Syria and their use of chemical weapons on their own people, the U.S. Congress should vote NO because it has no confidence in President Obama's leadership in any such  attack.

He has shown himself to lack courage, decisiveness and judgment. Short of a direct attack on the United States no American soldiers, sailors or marines should be placed in harms way under his leadership. Why place American Armed Forces at risk when he will not back them up?

It could be argued that a failure to act on Syria will embolden the Iranian's in their development of nuclear weapons. However, they and we have already determined he will do nothing and  Israel is on it's own.  President Obama will be our President for three years and four months so American's better be hunkered down because, with or without, an attack on Syria, it will be a dangerous time because the bulwark of democracy has a weak, indecisive, self centered leader who lacks courage. I believe in our Constitution and he was constitutionally elected and America will have to live with it's democratic decision and hopefully learn from it's mistake.

He is a sorry excuse for a President  of the United States of America!

A Duck Fan "Comming Home" sung by Mat Kearney

Guaranteed to bring a tear to your eyes if you are an Oregon Ducks!!!

I stand with Israel

History Repeating Itself In Iraq?

Last night on Fox News a retired general who had served in Iraq suggested that with all of Iraq including Bagdad  in danger of falling to an Islamic terrorist group named  Isis that the United States should put retired General David Petraeus  on an airplane for Bagdad to see if he could turn the situation around as he did before during the Iraq war without having to commit "boots on the ground" from the United States.

This sounds very like the situation in the Sudan in 1884. A radical Muslim group under a leader called the Mahdi were terrorizing the Sudan and threating it's capital of Khartoum. An Egyptian army under the command of  British officers had been wiped out by the Mahdi  and the British people in Victorian England were outraged and demanded that the British government send an English Army up the Nile river to save Khartoum. England's Prime Minister, William Gladstone, didn't want to commit British troops to such a relief effort up the Nile from Egypt so he sent General Charles "Chinese" Gordon,  who's exploits in the British colonial empire were well know, to evacuate the Europeans trapped in Khartoum.

General Gordon being the character he was got to Khartoum and mounted a defense of the city that was successful for a number of months. Gladstone hearing of Gordon's defense was then forced to send a British Army up the Nile to "save" Gordon but it was too late. In the end, Gordon  and 10,000 people in Khartoum were killed by the Mahdi and Gordon's head was brought to the Mahdi and his body mutilated.

There have been numerous reports that the Isis in Iraq have been beheading their captured foes.

Some things never change in the Middle East!

35th Anniversary of John Waynes Death

John Wayne died 35years ago today. I still remember what I was doing when I heard the news.

Has it really been 35 years?  "Hard to believe, isn't it? Hard to believe."
Spoken by Wayne to his wife at her grave in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon."

He lives on in my DVD/Blu-Ray Library.

Obama's Worst Nightmare !

New Links for my Law Office

I keep my work as an attorney separate from this blog; but, if you want to check out the  Facebook page for my law practice you can find it here:

https://www.facebook.com/jameswickreattorney

And the link to my Law Office Blog:

http://jamesawickreattorney.blogspot.com/

Jerry Norton's Funeral at Arlington National Cemetary, April 11, 2014

From The Barron:

On a clear, cool and bright spring morning, when Washington’s cherry blossoms were at their peak, dozens of family and friends gathered to memorialise former Reuters colleague Jerry Norton on Friday at Arlington National Cemetery, one of America’s most revered places, writes Greg McCune.
The 30-minute ceremony in Section 60 of the famous cemetery, which is located on what was once the estate of Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee, was led by a military chaplain who spoke of Norton’s valour in serving his country, and read scripture passages.

“You cannot buy your way into this hallowed ground,” he said to the mourners, led by Norton’s wife Kim and son Michael. “You have to earn it.”

Surrounded by a sea of white tombstones, a seven-member rifle squad fired the traditional 21-gun salute, and a lone bugler intoned “Taps”. Then a Marine honour guard holding an American flag carefully folded it into a triangle and presented it to Kim.

Army Specialist Norton earned the right to be interred at Arlington because of his service in the Vietnam War, for which he was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded during a mortar attack at Song Be. Kim said he dived out of a window during the rocket attack to save his life. He was hit with shrapnel in his shoulder, wrist and back, and a piece was lodged in his arm for the rest of his life.

Typical of self-effacing Norton, he never mentioned to some of his friends that he had been wounded in battle and won the Purple Heart, as well as other commendations. Kim said he kept the medals in a drawer and when she asked about them, he mumbled something and put them away.

Several family and friends remarked about this humility and reticence during a reception at the National Press Club that followed the solemn graveside ceremony. Friends and family remembered Norton as a father, brother, uncle, friend and journalist – including comments from former Reuters colleagues Peter Bohan, Greg McCune and Brian Bain.

Norton died at age 67 in December after an inoperable brain tumour was discovered within months of his retirement from Reuters in 2011. Several people who spoke at the reception remarked how he had been taken from them too soon.

He served in the US Army from 1968 to 1970 including a one year tour in Vietnam and was first assigned to an artillery unit, where he sustained the injuries. His great Army friend Terry Turner was not able to be at the memorial, but wrote that he believed both their lives were saved because they could type, which qualified them to be assigned to public information units. Norton became editor of the division magazine, a coveted post because it involved a 30-day trip to Tokyo to assemble and print the magazine.

Such was Norton’s devotion to fairness and balance in journalism that many of his colleagues at Reuters never knew of his avowedly libertarian political views, or that he had once run for the Virginia legislature as a Republican. He won the primary but lost the general election in a heavily Democratic district. He also worked for the conservative group Young Americans for Freedom both after leaving the Army and again after he retired from Reuters.

Journalism took him back to Asia where he would work for Unicom, the South China Morning Post and then Reuters. In Asia, he also met and married Kim, who was born and raised in Vietnam.

He joined Reuters in 1986 as a filing editor at then regional headquarters in Hong Kong, and over a 25 year career was news editor in Japan, bureau chief in Singapore and Indonesia, deputy desk editor and deputy political and general news editor for Asia. He returned to Washington in 2010, where he worked for the startup Reuters America service aiming to compete with AP. He retired at the end of 2011.

Peter Bohan, the Singapore bureau chief before Norton, and his last supervisor before Norton retired, spoke of the important part he played in launching a new service in the United States in 2010 and how he quietly mentored journalists and stringers.

Brian Bain noted how Norton distinguished himself covering and directing the coverage of some of the biggest stories in Asia over the last 20 years including the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Bali bombing.

Bain read out comments from colleagues who had worked with Norton in Asia including Kim Coghill, Tony Winning, Rodney Pinder and Eric Hall.

“The frequent and controlled, curved smile could have meant a few things, but the crow’s feet at the corner of the glistening eyes always told you that Jerry Norton was on your side, if you wanted him to be,” Bain read from a note written by Hall, a longtime colleague of Norton. “Perhaps Jerry would not mind if we said he was a great American, with all the values and disciplines that phrase imparts in the best sense,” Hall wrote.