A turning of the tide?

Leftists are in full meltdown over the announcement Justice Anthony Kennedy will step down from the Supreme Court July 31. This action provides President Trump an opportunity to nominate yet another Constitutionalist like Neil Gorsuch to the court. Should Trump serve two full terms, it is likely he will nominate the replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg as well.

The enemies of our Constitutional system are in abject terror over the possibility, now increased, the Court will undo decades of judicial activism. Unable to enact their agenda through the ballot box, the Left sought to impose it instead by abusive judicial fiat. But just as unconstitutional executive orders by Obama could be undone by corrective orders from Trump, the shredding of the Constitution can be reversed by a Supreme Court made up of Justices who respect it.  The impact of these nominations on the next 20 to 30 years cannot be overstated.  It’s vital to elect America First Constitutionalists (sadly, only a subset of the GOP) this fall, and ensure Trump’s reelection in 2020.  Things are going well for patriots lately, but as Glenn Reynolds frequently channels Han Solo, “don’t get cocky, kid.”

On other fronts:

-The Supreme Court, even with Justice Kennedy still on it, has issued a couple of key rulings, freeing pro-life crisis pregnancy centers from being forced to provide information on how to obtain an abortion, and denying unions the ability to force payments from non-members (which usually ends up in liberal political campaigns).

– The reputation of the FBI is hardly helped when Peter Strzok answers a Congressional subpoena to testify in a classified forum, but reportedly refuses to answer the most germane questions by claiming “it’s classified” or declining to answer “on advice of counsel.”  What are the FBI’s lawyers encouraging him to continue hiding?

– A former Hillary 2016 Campaign officer has been indicted for soliciting sexual access to children as young as two years old.  And from the “you can’t make this up” files, he was also chairman of the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict charity.  As they say, fishermen go where the fish are.

– Without Obama propping them up with pallets of cash, the Iranian regime is suddenly experiencing a popular backlash again.  The previous administration’s failure to support Iranian dissidents was inexcusable.  Worth noting: “Q” indicated a week ago Iran was about to get interesting again… another tick of credibility for those keeping score.

– The GOP seems to have a few more members with spines lately, as the latest attempt to pass an amnesty for illegal immigrants has been soundly defeated.  Eternal vigilance is required on this issue, however.

Keep praying hard!  If God can resurrect His Son or an army of dry bones, He can certainly revive our nation!  Let’s seek daily to have our nation bless Him, that He may show favor to us even at this late hour.

Iran

The clerical regime in Tehran is facing perhaps its biggest challenge since the immediate aftermath of the 1979 revolution that put it into power.

This is a very big deal.

For years, Iran has been the world’s biggest state sponsor of international terrorism (in particular the Hezbollah organization).  That’s why it was criminally irresponsible for the Obama administration to weaken sanctions on Tehran, and airlift $1.7 billion in paper currency to them!  This, after essentially ignoring previous unrest in 2009.  In his quixotic quest for a meaningless “nuclear deal” with Iran, Obama spared no opportunity to help the mullahs.  In doing so, he was enabling a regime that exported considerable trouble, including cooperation with other rogue regimes like the one in North Korea.

Many Obama alumni are calling on the current administration to also be silent, saying to speak out risks having Iran’s leaders brand the dissidents as “foreign agents.”  This overlooks the power of moral support.  Trump’s initial statement on the matter — a remarkably statesmanlike missive — was translated into Farsi and quickly passed around among the dissidents before the regime blocked access to social media.  Obama’s team might well be wondering what else will come to light about them, should the mullahs lose power.

America remains the original modern Constitutional republic, however battered that system may be.  The most powerful foreign policy tool available to us is modeling what a free society should look like.  For more than two centuries people in other countries seeking a better way have looked to us for inspiration and example.  We have not always lived up to such scrutiny, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.  Inspiration is far to be preferred over invasion as a means to advance freedom.

“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she (America) goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.”  – John Quincy Adams, 1821

Let us all offer “prayers and benedictions” that the Iranian people will finally free themselves of the original Islamist gangster regime.  The world could be a much better place if they do.

Saturday Sounds

Since this song is said to have been inspired by Iran’s 1979 ban of rock music, it seems appropriate to play today as Iranians protest their government in large numbers.  May they rock the Casbah until the mullahs fall.  Obama didn’t do these dissidents any favors in 2009.

But he’s not president anymore…

#Iranprotests

Why is this not considered an act of war?

The Islamist regime of Recip Erdogan in Turkey is clearly using 4th generation warfare against its neighbors in Europe:

An explosive report has revealed that close associates of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and officials of his AKP Party are funding and arming criminal gangs in Germany. This information reportedly was leaked by German intelligence to several media outlets, which subsequently published the allegations…

In response to this week’s media reports, State Office for the Protection of the Constitution chairperson Burkhard Freier described the biker gang as a “paramilitary organization.” Said Freier to ZDF: “For us, the Osmanen Germania working as security guards, carrying guns, engaging in violent crimes and clashing with other groups show that they are a paramilitary group. Their political agenda also strengthens this impression.”

Founded in 2015, “Osmanen Germania” advocates an ideological mix of Islamism and Turkish nationalism.

In May 2016, German police intercepted a weapons shipment of automatic weapons to the group…

Erdogan has also demanded that Germany approve more visas for Turkish citizens to relocate there, threatening to send more waves of refugees if German Chancellor Angela Merkel didn’t comply.

Read the entire story at the link above.  Kemal Ataturk established a secular Turkish government at the beginning, and the country has long sought acceptance into Europe.  Integrating Turkey into Europe has been problematic, though, due to history, culture and not least of all, significant religious differences.  In recent years the secular nature of Turkey has been undermined, and under Erdogan the country’s actions are coming to resemble those of Iran — a revolutionary, totalitarian regime determined to export its particular brand of Islam.

Europe can ill afford to bring in any more “refugees” who can then serve as shock troops for subversive activities or engage in general mayhem.  The best way to shut down that threat is to close the border and expel of all the “refugees” admitted in recent years.  A fitting policy would be to void the residency of any who arrived after September 11, 2001.  Given his own public statements (essentially threats), Erdogan has no grounds to complain about such a policy.

Quote of the Day

While listening to Trump’s address last night my overall impression was favorable, with a couple of concerning objections (more on that in a later post).  But since there’s a lot of talk in the air about increasing defense spending, and expanding the war on ISIS and related groups, this quote in Foreign Policy magazine is well worth pondering:

As a soldier, I welcome additional funds for training, personnel, and equipment.

But as a citizen I have concerns. Money will not fix what ails our military. ((emphasis added))  We don’t have a supply problem, we have a demand problem created by poor strategy. We have a military doing missions often beyond its purview, acting as the lead government agency in areas it is not qualified to do so, bearing impossible expectations in the process. As military professionals, we fail if we don’t achieve national goals (end states); the corollary to this is simple, we must demand clear and achievable goals. Our lack of both skews defense decisions.

The entire piece is deserving of your time and attention.

How soon we forget

There is no other way to explain how, a mere 14 years after 9/11, our nation would allow its leadership to negotiate a “deal” that releases billions of dollars in assets to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, while failing to secure any meaningful restrictions on its drive to join the ranks of nuclear powers.

Even the New York Times chose today to run with the headline of Democrats (and Obama) “winning” over the deal, with no mention on the front page whatsoever about 9/11’s anniversary.  Such historical amnesia is a serious, often fatal condition.  And on this, the fourteenth anniversary of a day I will never forget, that is all I have to say about that.

Six decades later…

Between Iran, Afghanistan, the legacy of habitual deficit spending and the dominance of the U.S. military-industrial complex today, I’m really starting to wonder if the U.S. ‘victory’ in the Cold War was the epitome of a Pyrrhic one.  Many of our actions during that ‘long, twilight struggle,’ however realpolitik they seemed at the time, came with consequences for future generations.

[On this day in 1953,] the Iranian military, with the support and financial assistance of the United States government, overthrows the government of Premier Mohammed Mosaddeq and reinstates the Shah of Iran. Iran remained a solid Cold War ally of the United States until a revolution ended the Shah’s rule in 1979.

…and now that nation is highly hostile to us. 

On a nearby front, factions are ripping apart the allegedly pro-U.S. Iraq we spent nine years trying to cobble together:

Faced with security crises across the Mideast, North Africa and Asia, the White House largely has turned its attention away from Iraq since U.S. forces left in 2011. But the country has been hit with deadly bombings at a rate reminiscent of Iraq’s darkest days, stoking new fears of a civil war. More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in terror-related attacks in July, the deadliest month since 2008.
The violence has spurred Baghdad to seek new U.S. aid to curb the threat, said Iraqi Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. He said a U.S. assistance package could include a limited number of advisers, intelligence analysis and surveillance assets — including lethal drones.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/16/3111560/other-crises-overshadow-growing.html#storylink=cpy

Here we go again… At what point will America decide it’s not as globally omniscient and omnipotent as it thinks it is?

Prayer for the persecuted

Whereas American Christians may occasionally face minor mockery or social discomfort around others hostile to their faith, we can–and should–be grateful we do not (yet) live in conditions like these, which our Lord told us to expect to be the norm:

CAIRO (AP) — After torching a Franciscan school, Islamists paraded three nuns on the streets like “prisoners of war” before a Muslim woman offered them refuge. Two other women working at the school were sexually harassed and abused as they fought their way through a mob.

In the four days since security forces cleared two sit-in camps by supporters of Egypt’s ousted president, Islamists have attacked dozens of Coptic churches along with homes and businesses owned by the Christian minority. 

It is so often overlooked today that the Middle East was not always dominated by Islam.  The early Christian church spread rapidly across the eastern part of what was once the Roman and Byzantine Empires.  Celebrated Christian thinkers like Augustine lived along the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and in the Levant.

The violent, explosive rise of Islam was successful in stifling Christ’s influence in this land… but still has not extinguished it, after more than a millennium. Those of us in the Body whose faith is not being tested in this manner need to pray continuously for the strength and encouragement of those who are.  We also need to be on our guard against those who seek power by stirring us up to violence, remembering that

…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Eph 6:12)

Beware the cornered animal

I continue to be seriously concerned that America will step up to open involvement in yet another foreign conflict before Election Day.  Consider:

– Forces continue to flow into position in the Middle East
– Sanctions on Iran have begun to bear fruit, including hyperinflation that’s causing public unrest and a government response.
– Turkey fired shells into Syria today, in response to Syrian shelling of Turkish territory.  Left under-reported is the fact that several western nations are backing Syrian rebels who are operating from locations conveniently just over the Turkish border.  Not to defend the Assad regime, but is it really difficult to understand what we would do if foreign powers were abetting insurgents attacking the U.S. from Mexico or Canada?  (Sorry… I briefly forgot the rule that it’s always right when “we” do it…)

– The president, despite the advantages of incumbency, is statistically tied with Romney.
– America has a tendency to ‘rally ’round the flag’ in times of crisis… a possible last-ditch trump card
– And finally, there continues to be a strong imperial lobby in this nation

Too cynical, you say?  Too conspiratorial, you say?

I say the track record of the powers that be justify my cynicism.  In fact, it’s only a lifetime of habit that keeps me from the conclusion our government has lost all legitimacy.

Gather all the information you can… not just what you’re fed from corporate media.
Think for yourself.
Don’t follow the herd.
Look locally, not globally.  Don’t let charlatans distract you with other peoples’ problems while they create some at home for you!

Planning the sequels

Nothing distracts a people from the failures of their ‘leaders’ than the patriotic beating of war drums.  The long-running reality series “Afghanistan” continues to lose ratings on its prolonged slide to cancellation.  Neither half of the bifactional ruling party wants the public’s attention on domestic deterioration this close to an election.  So the powers that be are busily at work preparing new weapons of mass distraction: a sequel to the short-lived “Libya,” and the long-anticipated “Nuke hunt: Iran.”

The US’s top military officer has warned Syria it could face armed intervention as international outrage grows over the massacre of women and children by tanks and artillery in Houla.
General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said that following the UN security council’s condemnation of the slaughter – in which more than 100 people were killed, many of them children – there needed to be increased diplomatic pressure on Damascus. But he added that the US would be prepared to act militarily if it was “asked to do so”.
“There is always a military option,” he told Fox News. “You’ll always find military leaders to be somewhat cautious about the use of force, because we’re never entirely sure what comes out on the other side. But that said, it may come to a point with Syria because of the atrocities.”

Meanwhile:

If Iran’s uninterrupted progress toward nuclear weaponization were not enough, if Iran’s repeated violations of United Nations resolutions were not enough and if its gross and mass violations of human rights were not enough, you’d think a years-long campaign to assassinate Americans would be sufficient to enlighten the administration as to the danger and motives of a revolutionary jihadist state. But no.
With a competent and responsible administration, we’d be very publicly drawing up a military option, putting ships in the region and consulting with Congress about our options. We might even discuss with Israel its “red lines” — and let that discussion become public. We would be justified in taking all steps needed to unleash a military option and/or to support Israel in the event of hostilities. But we don’t.

Thus do the drums beat ever louder for the next stanza of war without end…