Al Sharpton and Cuba

So where is the arrest warrant for Al Sharpton? Two police officers are dead in NYC because of his inciting hatred for the police, as demonstrated earlier by his rallies calling for dead police officers,and now the actual killing of them itself. Where is the arrest warrant? If I was still a preacher and I got up and preached against gay marriage and someone went out of the congregation and killed a gay couple because of it, I could be arrested as inciting a hate crime. What makes this any different?If I can be held accountable then why shouldn't he and others like him? So again I ask ; Where is the warrant for his arrest or any other of the mob inciters? Where is the media that should be calling him out on the carpet for this? So far I hear nothing.

So is there we are at America? Are we finally at the point where we are looking at a full blown race war because no one in either community has the courage to speak up and speak the truth? Micheal Brown was a thug who attacked a police officer and got shot and killed for it I have no sympathy for him or any of his supporters.

I do have sympathy for the family of Eric Garner. No one should die over loose smokes. Was it illegal for him to be selling them loose? Apparently it was. Was excessive force used, it seemed like it to me, but I wasn't there. A better option might have been to have him hand over the smokes and be on his way but we will never know.

In both cases race had nothing to do with it. The first one attacked the cop. If he'd been white or green the result would have still been the same. The second was the result of NY charging 15 bucks a pack and an aggressive policy of trying to stop a black market for “loosies” that they created but putting so much tax on them. Still if the man had been white and all the other conditions had been the same he also would be dead. None of this has anything to do with race. It has everything to do with a group of people wishing for nothing but chaos and anarchy and will use any excuse to see it happen. The media loves it because it sells. People like Sharpton love it because it keeps them in business. Mobs love it because it gives them an excuse to loot and burn.

Relationship with Cuba.

President Obama announced last week that we are going to normalize relations with Cuba after 50 plus years of an embargo on that country. He stated that he thought that it was foolish to continue because of events that took place before many of us were even born.

I have two issues with this.

First and foremost ,many Cubans lost their lives or were imprisoned by Castro. Thousands fled to the United States after loosing everything to the communist dictator. This I know on a personal level because my fathers family were among those that lost everything. The way I understand it was that the owned the biggest sugar cane plantations and were quite wealthy and in a moment it was all gone forever.

I was stationed in Cuba ,at Guantanamo, long before it became the familiar name that it is today and we would witness the Cuban army executing anyone who tried to resist them, especially if they tried to get across no mans land to us, and laughed about it as they were doing it.

Yes I'd love to have a nice Cuban cigar but in doing so you are rewarding thugs, which brings me to my second point.

Mr. President, you commented,essentially that we should let it go because it happened long before many of us were born. Well lets take the next logical steps as well. Lets forget about all those Nazi's who killed 13 million people, including 6 million Jews and embrace them back into society,after all it happened long before most of us were even born. Perhaps we should call for the return of the Soviet Union and embrace communist China while were at it because those mass killings and purging happened even before that!

That was probably the silliest reason I have ever heard for ending an embargo, but then you have spent most of your time in office either playing golf or hob nobbling with our enemies so I guess I really can't expect much.

Just my simple minded opinion.

Wilson, Brown And The Use of Deadly Force

In light of all that has happened ,and is continuing to happen, in Ferguson, MO, I have a wonderful idea. It's absolutely brilliant. Why don't we just get rid of all police forces across the country? Lets end local police departments as well as state police,sheriffs and US marshals and leave it to the government to protect us all via FBI,DHS,CIA and other lettered organizations? Hell lets just have the national guard patrol our streets and set up check points on street corners and just blanket everything with security cameras so we can all feel totally safe everywhere we go.

Next, just so we can keep things safe, in all black areas or minority areas we should have nothing but minority forces in place, after all I am certain that a black or Hispanic officer faced with serious bodily harm or death would show the utmost in restraint even as he or she was being pummeled to death buy a drug enhanced ,violent ,gentle giant, who just moments before had tried to hurt them and take their gun and I am sure that the same young man would respect the officer because he is of the same race or ethnic minority and would peaceably surrender to them.

As absurd, and I am sure, offensive, as my suggestion may be, it's no more absurd then the violence and mayhem that have taken place since the verdict was read. The grand jury, which had been in place, as required by the Constitution, long before this incident took place, spent months looking at the evidence and, based on that evidence, concluded that Officer Wilson acted accordingly to protect his own life. Some of you may not like it , but would you have stood by while a man, much larger than you of any color or race, who had just beat on you and attempted to take your gun, just stood by while he finished the job? I am going to guess not.

The real tragedy here isn't that Officer Wilson killed him,though that is a tragedy that it ended that way, it has instead been the media and race baiters that have caused all the problems. If this had been a story of a black officer killing a white suspect or a black on black crime it wouldn't have so much as caused a ripple but because it was a white on black incident people like Al Sharpton, with the help of all of the mainstream media, has taken what was 90 seconds of confusion and chaos and turned it into a media circus culminating in last nights riots.

I have listened for years as talking heads point out how disproportionate the ratio of blacks to whites being incarcerate and arrested is,or they suggest that blacks are more specifically targeted then whites by the police. This is such nonsense. If you are black and you commit a crime, or are suspected, you are going to be arrested. If you are white and commit a crime, or are suspected, you are going to be arrested. The only “disproportion” is that more blacks live in high crime areas than most whites but to suggest it's a simple matter of skin color is ignorant. But for the sake of argument lets say that it is true, that more blacks are targeted than whites, where is that they are targeted? In black neighborhoods where black on black crime is statistically high. Sorry, I don't buy into it being just about skin color.

I grew up as poor white trash in an area filled with French, Scott and Irish. I was arrested several times, just like Mr. Brown, because I committed or was accused of committing crimes while I was a teenager. Most of my friends had been arrested from time to time as well, and a few of them spent time in Juvenile detention as well as state and federal prisons as adults. I had to make some tough choices once I turned 18, I could either continue down that path of drugs and crime, or do something different. I chose the Marines and altered my life completely. The point is none of us were spared because of the color of our skin and all of us had to make choices, some chose to continue and wound up doing hard time,I on the other hand made the tough call a got myself out of it and I have been glad of it.

Mr. Brown had a choice as well, he could have gotten on the sidewalk when he was ordered to or he could have quietly surrendered when Wilson realized that he, Brown, fit the description of a suspect in a robbery, and attempted to arrest him. He chose instead to fight with, and eventually charge at, Wilson and it cost him his life.

Someone said that he shouldn't have been “executed” over a box of cigars. He wasn't. He was killed because he attacked a police officer. That officer used deadly force.

Here is how the use of “deadly force” is defined by the police.

"Use of deadly force" is often granted to police officers when the person or persons in question are believed to be an immediate danger to people around them. For example, an armed man flaunting a firearm in a shopping mall without regard to the safety of those around him, and refusing or being unwilling to negotiate, would warrant usage of deadly force, as a means to protect others. The use of deadly force is also authorized when a person poses a significant threat to a law enforcement officer, usually when the officer is at risk of serious bodily injury or death. In the United States this is governed by Tennessee VS Garner , (U.S. Supreme Court 1985) which said that "deadly force...may not be used unless necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others."

Mr. Brown had already assaulted him and tried to take his gun. He was ordered to stop and instead of surrendering he called Wilson a “pussy” and charged at him. Considering all the mentioned facts provided by the grand jury and it had been me standing in the officers place, I would have shot him too.

Have their been incidents where the police have abused their power and have committed crimes themselves? Yes. We see it in videos and occasionally in the news but for the most part police officers are dedicated hard working people who have a job that very few understand or can appreciate.

A message for ISIS

A personal message to ISIS though it could easily apply to any terrorist group out there.

I heard three comments that were made over the weekend by some of your pathetic and cowardly leaders. Yes I called you cowards because only pissant wimps hide behind women and children to show how brave they are and somehow believe that they are doing the will of God.

First your vomitus puss filled mouths suggested that you have an appointment in New York, second that are going to fly your flag at the White house and third you don't want us to attack you with drones and bombs you would rather fight us man to man.

Lets address the last thing first. If you want to go mano y mano you have to be a man. You are nothing but pathetic little wimps and truly aren't worth the bullets. Secondly you wouldn't stand a chance against our professional battle tested troops. If we sent the Marines , along with army special forces against you, with the full authorization to eliminate you from existence, you would be soon discover what the real wrath of God felt like as we would rain hell down upon you in a manner unlike anything you have ever witnessed. Seriously you want to go toe to toe with us? We are a people who make games out of killing each other in video and paint ball, among other things, what makes you even begin to think , in the pea brained mind of yours that you could go up against an army that is professionally trained and battle hardened? If you really thought you could ,you had plenty of opportunity, but instead you hid behind women and children and waited for us to leave before you came out of your cave. Personally I think you are worth nothing but a double tap to the head, I wouldn't waste my time with a knife, I would just end your miserable life quickly and humanely unlike what you have been doing to Christians and other minority religions.

Next lets talk about New York. You seem to be under the illusion that New Yorkers are a bunch of wusses and would take this lying down. You are sadly mistaken. Folks in New York will tolerate a lot and you might even get away with an attack once but after that you can rest assured that New Yorkers will hunt you down like the low life dogs that you are and toss you right out into the harbor. Sorry for the insult dogs.

Fly your flag from the White House? Just what makes you think that any of us will let you get that close? I will grant you that many of us here in the United States are very angry with our government and many of us don't particularly care for the policies but that OUR house and not yours. Do you really believe that with our military, various law enforcement agencies, militias and millions of war veterans armed with somewhere around 300 million guns, a people who invent cannons that fire frozen chickens and pumpkins are going to just sit idly by while you just waltz right in? You are out of your puny little minds.

You may, for a bit, get away with some acts of terrorism, but if you start, here in the US, make damn sure you understand that “we the people” will put an end to your miserable carcasses and gladly allow you to find out if there is indeed 70 virgins waiting on you. The people didn't start this fight with you, but we will finish it.

Solution for all border problems.

With all the talk of folks from central America crossing into the US illegally, and all the headaches that have come from that, I am surprised that no one has been brave enough to state the perfect solution to all this; open borders.

Yes, let's just do away with the pesky border down there in the south and let everyone in who wishes to come here. We can just tax all hard working Americans a bit further to provide all the necessary funding to feed and house all the millions that will come, why take care of our own poor and needy, not to mention Vets, when we have so many coming to the border and crossing it illegally. But I'd like to take it even further. I want to remove all borders. That’s Mexico's borders all the way down to the very tip of south America, if we can do it surely the dictators..err... I mean leaders of our fine southern neighbors would be willing to do the very same thing that we are..right? We should be allowed to enter into their countries and demand services and free health care, and because they are so compassionate, they would quickly rush to meet our needs wouldn't they?

Next we have to get rid of those bothersome state lines, and because we would all be a part of one very massive state, we could just eliminate all the state bureaucracies, thus saving tax payers billions of dollars which we could then funnel into programs for all those that are crossing our non existent border! But, then again , if we are going to remove our border, then we really don't need a federal government any more because it's supposed to defend our borders and if it's not, and we remove the border, we will just become a member of a massive border less country ,with everyone from Alaska and Canada down to the tip of south America. We won't need the federal government any more and thus we could do away with the taxes that are paying for all the people coming here...hmmm... that might be a problem for the original agenda. Oh I know, we can set up a quasi government in say, Honduras, that would represent all the needs of every member country,and consequently all those coming over the invisible border, we can let them tax all of us, and I am sure that they would be fair and generous in their taxation of us just like our federal government has been.

Next we have to remove county and town lines and then remove the corresponding local governments as well because, if we don't actually live in towns or a state or a country, then there is really no need for any kind of local government and we can all just fend for ourselves.

The next step would be to remove all doors from our homes because we wouldn't want to actually keep any one out. (This being a reflection of our current border policy) This would cause some discomfort in the north during the winter but we could make an exception allowing for blankets to be hung in doorways so folks still have easy access to what ever is in your house, but then again if we are trying to remove all borders perhaps we should just get rid of all our homes as well and just live in the open or perhaps a lean to. Then there is the problem of clothes as a kind of border.....

Is this silly and stupid? Yup. But so is our current lack of border policy and thousands if not millions will suffer from it.

Just my Simple Minded Opinion.

Iraq Is Lost

Iraq is lost. As an Iraq war vet I can tell you that this has been one of the hardest things to watch as the forces of ISIS tear the country apart and take cities and towns that we once fought over and paid for dearly.

There are few times that I agree with this president about anything but this is one of them. We can't spend ten more years in a country that doesn't comprehend democracy. We can't afford any more American lives wasted in an area of the world where Sunni and Shia have been butchering each other for centuries. Perhaps we shouldn't have pulled out in 2011 with out leaving any kind of contingency force there, but if they can't straighten out their religious differences in a peaceable manner, then no amount of our money, blood or troops would ever be able to fix it. Make no mistake this is a very dangerous religious war that, contrary to political beliefs, is not going to be solved by politics and troops on the ground. The people of Iraq are going to have to do it.

The argument can be made that we should have never been in there in the first place. Saddam Hussein was a dictator but he was no threat to us and if he had really ever attempted to use his chemical weapons against his own again, or any one else, we could have hit him with enough fire power to turn the whole place into one very large parking lot. He knew that, and while he may have tried to bluff a few times after the first Gulf War, he wasn't likely to commit suicide by pushing things too far especially with all our military might surrounding him.

Having said all that, and agreeing that we should have never gone there in the first place, this is going to come back and bite us, and possibly Israel, in the back side.

The first thing that no one in DC seems to get about these folks(Sunnis and Shia) is that they don't share any of our moral or political values. They aren't interested in fairness or equality, they don't care about political correctness or democracy, for them their lives are all about Islam. They live it, and breathe it. It fills all aspects of their lives and controls all, as it has for 1400 years. They are a patriarchal religious society where the men rule with an iron hand and women are treated with contempt and abuse, almost worse than animals, where any one who does not follow the Koran and Sharia is an infidel worthy of death. Even worse here is that this war is over little more than who has the right to be religious leaders in their religion and for that they are willing to massacre each other.

The second thing that no one in DC seems to understand is that they, the Jihadi's, ISIS, the kissing cousins of the Taliban and Al-Quada, want us, as in all Americans, that’s moms, dads, grandma, grandpa, right on down to our newborns, dead because we are the infidels and we don't follow Allah. They want to wipe us and Israel right off the map and they will use whatever means necessary to do so. This is not hear say, as some have tried very hard to suggest, this comes straight from the mouths of their various leaders in the middle east. Our media doesn't report what they say because it doesn't fit with the presidents agenda and his strange PC view of the world, but you can find it in the news and on web sights all over the middle east, including Israel.

So how is this going to bite us?

First; they have control of all the equipment that we left behind, weapons,tanks, missiles, ammunition, plus all the weaponry we have supplying the so called rebels in Syria, the ones that have joined this ISIS movement, as well as the weapons that the Iraqi troops have been dropping. You now have an army of radical Islamic jihadists who are well armed. We won't bomb them with conventional weapons or drones so it comes down to whether or not the Iraqi army can stop them. I don't think they have the will. Unless Iran or someone else intervenes, which could open up another can of worms, Iraq, as we have known it, will fall.

Iraq is also something like the third of fourth largest exporter of oil to us and the world. Consider, if you will, all that oil in the hands of terrorists who now have the firepower to hold on to it or destroy it. Oil prices will skyrocket, gas prices will double and triple almost overnight, everything in our economy that relies on transportation, which is literally everything, will skyrocket in price and the economic structure that we know will collapse and make 2008 look like a pleasant Sunday stroll.

Second they have the will and the determination to attack us here and bring the fight to our streets. They smell our weakness and our lack of will to fight, that’s like blood in the water to sharks. With our wide open borders, with little effort to stop the influx of so called “refugees” coming from many different countries we have the perfect setup for the Jihadists to enter into the country. Add to that the many training facilities and camps that are here in this country, that are known about by the FBI, CIA, DHS among others, that are being allowed to operate by radicals because they haven't officially done anything illegal as of yet, our military being cut and our enemies looking at us with scorn, think China and Russia, and you have just about the perfect storm that is likely going to come crashing down on us soon.

One of the leaders of ISIS told one of his captors, just before he was released from Guantanamo, “I'll see you again in New York” I'm guessing it's not going to be for pizza.

So while I agree that we shouldn't have gone in the first place and I agree that no amount of troops on the ground is going to fix what is an essentially a religious war, I do believe that we should target them with drones and missiles and blow them apart before it becomes too late and restrengthen our military, because for them they are willing to die for Allah and if that means bringing the fight to us here on our streets they will gladly do so.

We have shown them weakness; Make no mistake they will be coming.

VA is Single Payer

Some time ago I, along with others, warned about how bad an idea it was to have the federal government running the the health care system in this country. The example that I used was the VA system which is totally run and funded by the federal government. I argued at the time that based on my own experiences at the VA that this was going to be an unmitigated disaster shoved onto the backs of Americans from a government that can't keep the post office running and has a multitude of inefficient bureaucratic heavy agencies that have all but bankrupted this country.

Now, in the last few weeks, the American public has finally gotten to see, and hear, just part of the nightmare that the VA has become to those of us whose only option is to use one of those facilities.

At last count, and this number seems to grow daily, there are 26 VA hospitals being investigated for everything, including the secret “death lists.”

I personally have not seen these death lists but I can tell you, again, from my own experience, that it certainly seems like they have lists for a whole lot of things.

Here's just one small example. Eleven years ago, right after I returned from my tour in Iraq, and before being discharged I had to have a physical done. In the course of that physical it was determined that I had pieces of bone floating in my foot as well as a cracked knee cap from a rather unfortunate incident with an explosion. There were other injuries as well but for the sake of brevity, I will keep it to the two afore mentioned injuries, and the fall that came with it. As of today nothing has been done about it, even though it was acknowledged in further exams by the VA, in fact it is buried so deep in my records that I have essentially given up on it. While it hurts it's not life threatening.

So, here is my question for you; If the government can't handle the needs of disabled veterans that make up about one half of one percent of the total American population and they go out of their way to hide, and doctor , records, how in the name of Pete do you think they are going to be able to handle 330 million people?They can't, and what you are seeing, courtesy of the VA, is just a small taste of whats to come to everyone.

This my friends is what single payer looks like in the US. I can't speak to other countries medical systems but I do know that our government is too corrupt and incompetent to take on such a massive plan.

Here is another question; if we are spending 158 billion dollars a year on the VA ,which has proven itself to be a bureaucratic heavy entity and has been caught in fraud and massive spending bonuses to failing bureaucracy, this while poorly covering the ½ percent of Americans who have served, what do you think it's going to cost when you add the other 99.5 of the American population to the equation?

This is a government that can't balance a check book and we are willingly giving them 17 percent of the economy to control? These are the people who you want, the people making their revised death lists and waiting lists, to control your health care? Do you really want to wait months or years for medical treatment only to discover it's too late?

This is what the American health system is going to turn into and this is what single payer is going to become. I will agree that we have to do something to fix some of the inequity that has existed in our health care system but handing the control of it over to the government is a recipe not just for fiscal disaster but also physical disaster for all of us who value our health. The VA will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg.  

I am a bigoted,racist homophobe...

I am coming out of the closet today. Or should I say I am being forced out. It would seem that by today's standards, or lack there of, I am a bigoted, racist, homophobe. There I said it, don't we all feel more empowered now?. I wonder if there's an AA type meeting for me somewhere? Probably not, for me nothing short of shutting up, being audited by the IRS or losing the job that I don't have is going to be the only cure.

For those of you who are a bit confused please let me try to explain before you start picketing on my front lawn because I'm not really fond of pitchforks...

Back in the old days say like 6 or 7 years ago I wasn't any of the afore mentioned things. I had a multicultural bunch of friends, my brother had come out of the closet and married his partner almost 20 years ago and I was good with it. My cousin I had known was a lesbian since I was something like thirteen ,which was an incredibly long time ago, but still I didn't take issue with it because it wasn't my problem. Life was good, I didn't hate anyone, though there are certainly people I wouldn't trust with my back to them, but over all I was at peace with the world and it with me.

Something happened though. The definitions of what it is to be a racist or a homophobe seems to have changed.

Back in the dark ages, when I was much younger, and had more hair, there were people that were massively racist. These were people who had no use for anyone that was not white Anglo Saxon protestant. It had nothing to do with what they said or how they dressed or even what they believed. They hated anyone who was not white. Period. End of argument. These were people who were truly racist. If you were black you were nothing but a lazy nigger. If you were Hispanic, you were nothing but a spic or a wetback. These were the kind of people that invented the Jim Crow laws and the KKK. They were true racist.

But in today's PC world if you are critical of anything a black leader ( please note my racism is confirmed by the fact I won't call black Americans “African” as they are Americans and not African) does or says, or you disagree with their political ideology, think President Obama, Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson, then you are called out on the carpet as being some sort of racist. If you point out the hypocrisy of the news media in reporting only white on black crimes or ignoring Islamic extremism then that makes you a racist and a bigot. So because I have done all of the above over the last few years and have angered some on the left for having the nerve to be critical, I am, by today's definition, a

racist.

That's only part one. Apparently I am homophobic as well.

I didn't used to think that I was, but I discovered that I must be because I have had the nerve to defend the rights of Christians, and others, to believe as they do, and to speak freely about it, based on the first amendment to that pesky constitution of ours. I have defended the rights of the KKK and the Black Panthers to spew out their hateful garbage and for others who disagree with them to shout out louder but apparently that’s not good enough. Apparently if you express any view that might be not PC or that does express your religious point of view concerning gay marriage you are going to be hammered and quite possibly lose your job or position because of it. Or, as in the case of the NFL, you may be forced to go into classes, if you wish to continue to play, to reeducate your mind to PC thinking. Soviet Union anyone?

So I guess that makes me homophobic. I disagree with the notion of forcing people to violate their consciences or causing them to lose their employment simply because they are following their religious beliefs instead of conforming to what they see as being wrong.

Now, for the 4 or 5 of you who might still be reading, I want you to notice something. In all that I wrote I never said that I hated any one nor was I condemning any ones way of life, yet in the PC world what I have written is just enough to label me as a bigoted, racist, homophobe. There are no actual facts to defend such a position but this is what we have come to in this nation.

If you are not for PC or you are critical of something that is PC you are against us and you will pay dearly. That’s what it all boils down to. This is just mt Simple Minded opinion.