Lift the Siege

    The continued success of our democracy depends on four essential elements: a strong defense, a robust economy, a vibrant culture, and the rule of law. Alarmingly, all four are under siege.

    We live in an age of conflict. While the world faces growing Russian aggression and Chinese expansionism, Islamic terrorism threatens not only Middle Eastern and European security, but our own as well. We have weakened our military, downgraded our intelligence capabilities, and abdicated our position of leadership in the world. Our allies don't trust us, our foes don't fear us, and no one respects us. In response to a declaration of war by ISIS, our delusional president has said that the greatest threat facing us is climate change.

    The United States is the greatest economic success story in history because the freedom it enjoys permits the flourishing of free enterprise in a land blessed with enormous material and intellectual wealth. Yet, we have an administration bent on squandering our resources with a destructive energy policy, business-killing regulations, and a divisive, socialist ideology that replaces our traditional work ethic with an enslaving dependence on welfare benefits.

    Our culture, once a beacon of Western civilization, is sliding into a secular materialism that scorns religion, devalues life and the family, and harms our children with images of violence, drug abuse, and sexual libertinism. Instead of setting an example, our federal government enrages the populace with its profligacy and legislative impotence.

    Finally, we have liberal icons of higher education caving in to radical students who champion victimization and deny First Amendment rights to others. And then we have a president who violates the constitution with impunity and abets a Justice department that declines to prosecute corruption, and refuses to enforce immigration law.

    It's high time we lifted the siege.

Not Listening

    I despise Barack Obama for the damage he has done to this country. But it is not enough to call him an incompetent leader, a coward, or worse, a traitor. We have to try to assess the thinking process that has resulted in his failed foreign policy.

    First, we have to consider his belief that America is responsible for much of what is wrong in this world. This would explain why he cannot take a leadership role in engaging the enemy in the Middle East. His strategy is to degrade and contain, but not to defeat him.

    Second, we have to understand that his sympathies toward Islam prevent him from recognizing the real threat that ISIS and al Qaeda pose to western civilization. He has no problem letting Iran achieve hegemony in the Middle East nor in allowing potential terrorists to infiltrate the masses of Syrian migrants coming to our shores. He cannot conceive or admit the possibility of Islam not being uniformly a religion of peace. His love of Islam prevents him from even uttering the words “Radical Islamic Terrorists.”

    Third, we have to factor in the president's extreme narcissism, a character flaw that causes him take advice only from the man in the mirror and to truculently reject any criticism from the media or his political opponents. He would rather accuse Republicans of fearing widows and orphans than admit that they have a point in wanting to boost screening requirements of potential jihadists.

    An overwhelming majority of us Americans are telling the president that we don't feel safe and that we want him to hold to his oath of office to protect us. But he is not listening. President Obama needs to recognize that radical Islam, not climate change, is the greatest threat to western civilization.  

A Damned Fool

    It's time for some plain speaking. The slaughter that took place in Paris yesterday has finally brought home to the whole world that Islam, as practiced by Muslim fanatics, is not a religion of peace. There are moderate Muslims both here and abroad who do not support a theocratic Islam bent on the destruction of Western civilization. But these moderates have proven powerless to reform their religion, to persuade extremists that the Koran's 7^th century imprecations to kill the infidel must not be allowed to corrupt an otherwise peaceful religion in the 21^st century.

    Similarly, there are Western leaders who do not understand the danger that theocratic Islam poses for our civilization. Europe is now being flooded by Muslim refugees fleeing the war in Syria. But these migrants, mostly young single men, are infiltrated by killers who want to convert Europe to Islam. Sweden, Germany, Denmark and other European countries are only now coming to realize the folly of their open-border policies. France long ago allowed hundreds of thousands of Muslims from North Africa to form Muslim enclaves in their cities. France is now paying the price for its embrace of people sworn to its destruction.

    What the Western world needs now more than ever is resolute leadership. But on the very day of the Paris massacre we have the President of the United States aver that ISIS continues to shrink. This Islamophile who cannot even speak the words “Islamic terrorists,” this leader whose failed foreign policy is largely responsible for the rise if ISIS, this narcissist who takes advice only from the person he sees in the mirror, is not the savior we seek. This emperor has no clothes. Once and for all he has proven to be nothing short of a damned fool.

Transgenders Coming In

    I have often railed against federal government regulations. They now number over 170,000 pages governing, it seems, every aspect of our lives. These regulations are so intrusive and suffocating that some, like Charles Murray (By the People: Rebuilding Liberty without Permission), have gone so far as to suggest that it is time for systematic civil disobedience of stupid and pointless regulations. Here's a prime example.

    The Obama Department of Education recently ordered a school district in Illinois to allow a transgender boy full access to the girls' locker room. Now the school had already agreed to let the boy use the girls' facilities, provided he is shielded from view while undressing. But that wasn't good enough for federal regulators. According to the Department of Education's Civil Rights Division, any boy who wants to be a girl has the right to undress in full view of girls in their locker room. If the school refuses to comply with the department's directive within 30 days, it will lose federal funding.

    Is this not the ultimate in regulatory nonsense? If there ever was a time for civil disobedience, this is it. I think every school district in the nation should announce that it will not comply with this ridiculous order.

    Before Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education in 1979, the federal government played no role whatsoever in K-12 education. Now it has over 5,000 employees and an annual budget of over $70 billion.

    The federal government should have absolutely nothing to do with K-12 education. Control at that level belongs with people who know what's best for our kids: parents, teachers, and school administrators. Federal regulators should keep their noses out of our schools (and girls' locker rooms), and the Department of Education should be abolished.

We Will Remember

    Barack Obama was in control when he took office, backed by Democrats in Congress who rode his coattails to a majority in both houses. But what has happened since then?

    Since 2008 Democrats have lost 12 governorships, 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, and more than 900 state legislative seats. Republicans now control more than two thirds of state legislatures and 31 governorships. That last number will rise to 32 when Matt Bevin is sworn in as the new governor of Kentucky. Why?

    Under President Obama we have added $9 trillion to our national debt, reduced workforce participation to its lowest level in 38 years, opened the floodgates to illegal immigration, weakened our military, and exacerbated deteriorating race relations. The President has repeatedly violated our Constitution with unlawful executive orders, forced an unworkable ObamaCare down our throats, and signed (without Congressional approval) an agreement that guarantees the Middle East hegemony of a nuclear-powered Iran. But there's more that will ensure a Democratic debacle in 2016.

    One issue that is rising to the top of the list of voter concerns in this election cycle is the alarming increase of drug abuse among our children. Too many of our kids are getting hooked and even overdosing on illegal and prescription drugs.

    Well, I've got news for you, Mr. President. Come next November we voters will remember that you released from jail thousands of criminal illegal aliens, many of them drug dealers; we will remember how you would not support Kate's law and refused to enforce federal laws in sanctuary cities; and we will remember how you are now is emptying our prisons of drug pushers because you deem them “non-violent” offenders.

    Instead of listening to your sycophantic advisers, Mr. President, you should listen to the American people.