Patriotism Isn't Dead Yet

It's Friday.  Time for something uplifting to take through the weekend.  A friend sent me this and my eyes were blurry with tears by the time it finished. It is both poignant and uplifting.

It gives me hope to know that at least some parents are instilling their kids with what it is to be an American.  This young boy gets it.  It's worth a few minutes viewing.

Obama The Contrarian

I can't help but wonder if Obama is enjoying his loneliness at the top.  He surely doesn't seem like a happy man.  His negativity is depressing.

I have never heard a President mock his opposition party with such regularity or disdain.  It is certainly no way to encourage cooperation but then I don't think he wants cooperation.

If he did he would have signed the Keystone Pipeline bill.  Anyone who has been following the story knows it has been studied to death so his argument that review has yet to be completed is just plain false.  He doesn't want it because the Republicans do. It doesn't matter that some Democrats do also.

So what happens now?  Oil will still move.  By rail.  And with it more accidents like the recent ones in Canada and West Virginia will happen putting lives, homes and his beloved environment in far more danger than would the pipeline.

According to The Wall Street Journal,  Oregon, one of the greenest of states, has approved 6.9 billion in subsidies to expand rail capacity to move oil from the Bakken to barges on the Columbia.  Kansas City Southern is building a rail terminal in Texas to accommodate two 120 car trains, a mile long each, a day.  Ten oil trains a day travel through Philadelphia every day.  And so it goes.  The oil will still move, putting everything in it's path at greater risk than need be.

Polls show people want the Pipeline, the Unions want the pipeline, we know the Canadians want the pipeline yet the President opts to please the Sierra Club. Or the people who make up such organizations hoping they will support his post Presidential quest whatever it may be.

An 8 billion dollar project which would strengthen our energy security, create jobs and increase prosperity is for now in the can. Because the President doesn't want it.  The rest of us be damned.

It is said the President doesn't much like people. Well, more and more people aren't liking him either. No man may be an island but this President has isolated himself from the world and it's all of his own making. I hope he's happy with himself because surely very few others are.  

To The President - Quit Condescending And Listen

According to The Wall Street Journal the summit our President should have sponsored was held in Mecca, Islam's most holy city.  Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, a grand Imam from Cairo, gathered some 700 moderate Muslim clerics from several countries to appeal for combating the escalation of extremist violence.

He recognizes, as have other Egyptians including their President Al Sisi, that this interpretation is what is causing strained ties with the rest of the world.  To put it mildly.

It is an internal struggle for the heart and soul of Islam and if it is recognized and so stated by men such as these who our we to disagree?  The problem they must resolve is changing the mind set of their more radical members who look at their own people who don't believe as they do need to be destroyed.

Al-Tayeb even went so far as to say those who burned the Jordanian pilot alive are the ones who deserve the Quranic punishment of death or crucifixion for being enemies of God and the prophet. He even suggested there is a need for a joint Arab military force to combat the extremism.  He has an uphill battle considering the fear that grips the Muslim world.

To say that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam and that by calling them Islamic Extremists insults moderate Muslims is just not true. It does go to show that timidity creates vacuums that are filled by those seeking weakness for an opportunity to further their own agendas.

As as example as stated in another Journal article,  the latest issue of Daibiq, the Islamic State's online English magazine, has an article that explains Islam is not a religion of peace but rather a religion of the sword.  It boiled down to interpretation much as Christians of the world take different interpretations of the Bible yet still consider themselves Christian.

Yes, it is complex.  It is also Islam.   It is time to call it what it is and do what is necessary to help the moderate Islams with the task they face.  That is to arm those who are willing to fight and pick up the slack where it is needed to annihilate the barbarians who at this point are winning the psychological war with physical brutality.

This President is so sure of his superior knowledge of all things mortal I know he will not admit that those who are Islam just may know more about themselves than he does.  I also know he will do nothing to help, he will only appease those who will make matters worse.  The Iranians.  They who are more aligned with the thinking of ISIS than of the West.

 I can only take heart that some clerics and Arab leaders are beginning to find their voice.  I grieve, however, for all those who are yet to die in the most inhumane of manners. This President and those he would call allies, though many of them take issue with that, have no claim to moral clarity.  It is most un-American. 

To The Administration - Grow Up!

Benjamin Netanyahu is an angry man.  He is also frustrated because we who were once his most staunch ally have turned our back on him.  No, not him.  His country.

We're showing it in the most infantile of ways.  Forget "protocol" about who should have informed whom of his coming to Congress to speak.  That's a debatable point considering the actions of our President.

The reason he is coming is to plead his case against the deal the administration is crafting that in essence will allow Iran to produce a nuclear bomb with the intent of using it against Israel, among others.

This is politics at its worst.  All so Obama and Kerry can claim a "deal" that everyone else in the world is against. Netanyahu is coming to tell his reasons that not only he is against it but that we too should be.

What is it he is going to say that has the Democrats, like the lemmings they are, going to boycott the speech, the President refuse to see him and the Vice President conveniently out of town? Perhaps he is going to speak the truth that the administration desperately wants to keep from the public in case a bulb actually lights in our collective intellect and we join in the protest against the deal.

We should listen because the results of Iran being left to their own devices will lead to nuclear proliferation in the region.  The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been telling the administration that they too are nervous at the idea of a nuclear Iran.  Actually they've said more.  They've said they will have their own programs for their own protection.  From the statements you can be sure they are already in negotiations with countries such as Pakistan that can provide them what they need and will happily oblige.

We know from experience that we are now an aside in the world.  Nations are beginning to take the matter of ISIS into their own hands as well they should but we're not even at the table.  We broke it with Bush's ill advised incursion into Iraq and Obama perpetuated by unkept promises and premature withdrawals allowing for the present vacuum to be filled by ISIS and their allies.

Even so, couldn't our President at least act like an adult and listen to what Netanyahu has to say?  Is it because this struggle has nothing to do with him - not us - him? I think it's a likely possibility.

It's troubling to imagine what our next President is going to have to face when it comes to the affairs of the world.  It will be a double edged sword of trying to regain at least some of our lost stature while putting a stop to the brutal chaos.

That phone call at 3 A.M.?  Obama didn't answer it in Benghazi. Neither did Hillary.  We'd do well to make sure the next President will.

Is Hillary The Inevitable

I've been watching the polls on potential presidential candidates.  I chuckle over the Republicans because in this climate I don't think money is going to run off a lot of them just yet, a lot have yet to emerge, what people want is far different from the last go round and it's far too early for them to be meaningful anyway.

What I'd really like to see is a poll from the Democrats supposing that neither Elizabeth Warren nor Hillary Clinton would be in the mix.  Who would they most like to see run against the Republicans?  Any Republican.

I haven't heard word one.  I really think they need to look at their circumstance.  Warren insists she won't run.  Hillary keeps acquiring baggage that is going to be more and more difficult to shed.  Plus, does she really need two hundred and some odd staffers to tell her what she should think?

I do think she will run.  I don't think her ego will allow her to say no.  But she brings little to the table other than being Hillary and there's a whole lot of us that don't think that's anywhere nearly enough.

So who should challenge her?  The only two names that have surfaced other than Warren are Bernie Sanders and Jim Webb.  Of the two I would seriously look at Jim Webb .

While I would prefer to see a Republican win I'm not naive enough to think the Republicans can't blow this opportunity.  As an alternative I would like to see a Democrat I can live with.  Jim Webb could be the man.

What's the biggest thing he has going for him?  He's been both a Republican and a Democrat.  He has political experience.  He is a highly decorated war hero and best of all he's just ~ well, different. How refreshing would that be?