The Ultimate Enablers

It's a rainy, cool Sunday afternoon and I'm taking a break from the political madness unfolding daily. I'm going to address the on going social madness instead.

Yes, the role models for bad behavior are back in the news today. Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton. It's unusual for them to appear at the same time but then I'm sure they don't follow each other's social faux pas on Twitter. Twitter. You've got to love it. And the drug addled brainiacs who use it. Like Hilton and Lohan. You'd think they'd get that lying to the police won't work when they've twittered their minions about indiscretions just moments before being caught!

What now? Hilton for having cocaine drop from her purse in front of police while pulling out a lip balm then denying the purse was hers after twittering a few days before how much she loved it, with a picture yet! She's on probation. Again.

Lohan for failing her latest drug test. Again.

You know, in a way I feel sorry for these young ladies. Lohan, 24 and Hilton, 29. They've been indulged all their lives in some of the most egregious examples of "parenting" you can find. For a long time I've blamed the parents for being the enablers. Those who turn a blind eye to their children's self-destructive behavior. Mostly because they are more than likely indulging in it themselves.

Even though the young ladies are of legal age and certainly old enough to assume some responsibility for themselves, they are conducting themselves in the only way they've ever known. Indulged by parents through youth to become self-indulgent adults.

It goes deeper, however. The real enablers, the ones most at fault, are the lawyers and judges who time after time give these young women a pass. They have yet to serve an entire sentence. Overcrowding is always the excuse. Court mandated rehab is often cut short or ignored.

These ladies are going to end up like Anna Nicole Smith if they're not careful. They don't need jail time. They need serious rehab behind locked doors so they can't walk away. No ifs, ands or buts. It will never happen.

Lohan thinks she's a good actress. I don't think the critics agree but at the rate she's going she'll never prove them wrong. I have no idea if Ms. Hilton is capable of anything other than posing before a camera. That cannot sustain her forever. What neither seems to understand is that their addictions are robbing them. Of their money, their reputations, their talent such as it is, and most of all their youth and beauty, such as that may be.

It's really no longer newsworthy. It's probably not even worth this post. It is sad.

Independents, We Have A Problem!

I've been trying to digest the results of the final round of primaries in good spirit, but I cannot do so. I'm going to step out on a limb and suggest there will be a small turnout for the fall elections even as important as they are. After all, the entire direction of the country depends on who has the power.

Why a small turn out? I don't think the moderates/independents will bother because there is no one for whom to vote. Certainly not in Delaware or Nevada. I was going to hit the theme once again about a party and a movement without leadership, but that pales when it comes to threat before those of us who look to reason and intelligent compromise.

I listened to Tea Partiers in Delaware tell how they care little that Ms. O'Donnell, their choice for Senate, is 41 years old and has absolutely no experience on which to run. None. Zip. Zero. "She's just like us", one woman actually said. It's the Sarah Palin effect. Have a bubbling, pleasing personality and nothing else matters as long as she says what you want to hear. Whew.

Should the most outlandish of the Tea Party candidates actually get elected, I see a couple of real problems. The Republican establishment will not know how to handle them. Will they caucus by themselves? Yes. They already have. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) provided the list already in the House. How many will be booted because they are incumbants is yet to be known but I have a feeling the Tea Partiers will defend them. The next question is, if their ranks increase, what will happen to the Republican caucus? Will it be inretrieveably broken?

Some where in the not too distant future the Republicans will find a leader to move into the presidential race. The Tea Partiers will not unless they are one and the same. If that's the case I forecast a loss. The independents will not support a far right conservative any more than they support the far left agenda of the current President.

Where is The Modern whig Party when we need it? Not yet ready for prime time but rather methodically laying out their ground work and recruiting.

On the other hand we have the wild and wooly Tea Partiers running rampant with no collective leadership except for the voice of Sarah Palin. The Republicans have yet to rise to the challenge. The Democrats are gloating.

What will Congress be like under this scenario? The left continuing to fight with the far left? The establishment Republicans fighting with the conservative right?

Who knows. Maybe all the in fighting will provide a do nothing Congress long enough for us to get our leadership issues figured out.

I'm one Independent who would vote for that!

Banned For Life? Give Me A Break!

We've just survived a week of tensions over the issue of free speech. Freedom of expression, if you will. Burning the Koran. Building a mosque too close to Ground Zero. Everyone be calm - and tolerant we were told over and over. Everyone from the President to General Petreaus pleaded with a man never before heard of to please not burn the Korans - which was his right to do and would have gone mostly unnoticed if everyone hadn't over reacted. Muslims around the world were having a great time burning American flags.

Is it becoming a way of life with us? Look at the TSA and their invasive searches. Heaven forbid you don't want the body scan. The pat down is even more invasive. It's over reaction.

Yep. A way of life. What else can you say when a 17 year old British teen who had a snoot full wrote Obama a letter in which he called him a p***k, is banned from the United States for life. The asterisks appeared in the news stories, they are not mine. I'm assuming the word is prick.

The FBI was enraged and told the local police to inform the young man the insult was unacceptable. There will be no criminal action taken by the local police. Why should there? If everyone in this country was banned for calling the President by some profanity or another there would be a whole lot fewer of us. Not that I condone the lack of respect, but it's a 17 year old college kid who readily admitted to it, not understanding the big deal.

Remember during the campaign when Jesse Jackson wanted to remove part of his anatomy? There was no outcry over that!

The article does say the letter was full of abusive and threatening language. What's missing here? Were the threats serious enough to ban him and if so why is the incident being made of a anatomical reference? Or did the FBI plain over react?

Banned for life. According to Homeland Security, wouldn't you know, there are about 60 reasons a person can be barred. I shudder to think what the other 59 might be.

An American Muslim Who Has It Right!

Yesterday was certainly quite a day. If you listened to the news reports you heard Imam Rauf literally threaten the United States with violence if his mosque were to be moved. I suspect many of you, as did I, consider his words as words of instruction to the Muslim world. I was seething.

Today it remains questionable whether or not Korans will be burned. If not by Reverend Jones, someone else. Such is the way of fanaticism. If this should happen the results will be unsettling to say the least. However, it is their right and the government cannot intervene with everyone who may have similar ideas in support of Reverend Jones.

I've been asking for months for American Muslims to step forward in condemnation of extremism. Today, in The Wall Street Journal, one did. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a doctor and former Navy officer, is founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

I'd say he is a very courageous man because he asks Muslims in general, and Rauf in particular, to answer some very tough questions. Best of all, he says of himself that he is American first and Muslim second. I only wish his column would get worldwide distribution. Too few read the Journal , but it's a start.

I admire his courage and wish him well. It will not sit well with Islamism. If this controversy is one of interest to you, please follow the link and read what he has to say.

Combat Isn't Over When Our Soldiers Are Still Being Killed

We've left the job in Iraq undone ~ all to meet a deadline. Just today two U.S. soldiers were shot by an Iraqi. An Iraqi soldier no less. The very people those left behind are to be training. He paid with his own life. The U.S. casualties were not the first since the withdrawal.

We have fifty thousand still deployed. They go on patrols with the Iraqis, they carry weapons and they are just as much at risk. How can it be said that combat is over? The Iraqi army is obviously not yet able to assume responsibility for their own security. That's why we're still there.

Somehow I think combat will not be over for our soldiers until every last one of them is out of the country. To claim that it is seems a disservice to them.

I wonder how those looking ahead to deployment as "instructors" feel. I wonder how their families feel, knowing that their loved ones are not going merely to train the Iraqis but to continue to protect them. They will be at even more risk as violence escalates as it seems to be doing. It was not unexpected.

The big difference between now and before the troop withdrawal is that our soldiers have no one to watch their backs.
No, combat is not over.

The President may think it's time to turn the page and focus on domestic issues but it's it's a long time until the end of 2011 when everyone is due out. How many more deaths will those troops suffer? I can't imagine anyone accepting the claim that combat is over.