Severe Pain

“Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you. First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

                                                                  --- President Barack Obama, July, 2009

If only that were true. I don't think President Obama meant to lie. He just never bothered to read the bill he signed into law.

I am deeply saddened by the emerging details and near tragic consequences of The Affordable Care Act. Millions of Americans are now losing their insurance precisely because of The ACA.

You've likely noticed that all Liberals, Democrats and Progressives and the Main Steam Media now refer to the law as The Affordable Care Act or The ACA.  Only weeks ago all Democrats used to proudly call it "ObamaCare" as did President Obama himself during the election.  Now that it's all falling apart they can't run away from that name fast enough.  

I've seen the disaster coming in part because, unlike Members of Congress and unlike President Obama, I actually studied the bill.  I read it and studied it and I listened carefully to others who had great knowledge of the details and the likely consequences of what is now, unarguably, the single worst piece of legislation to ever emerge from Congress.

I've written again and again and again and again about the pain and suffering this law would cause, the almost unimaginable expense to both the government and to individuals, the dismantling destruction of our health care system and the impact on both doctors and patients.  I knew many, if not most, people would not be able to keep either their doctors or their insurance.

One of my friends commented last night that at least now I can say, "I told you so."

I would have preferred to be wrong.  I take to comfort in being right.  I take even less comfort in the fact that our intractable Congress is not currently up to the job of fixing the problems..... or even addressing the problems.

Millions of people will now lose their health care and their insurance because of President Obama's ego and stupidity (there is simply no other word to describe his failure to ever read the bill he claimed as his own). They will not be able to get substitute insurance under the unworkable system of insurance the law mandates.

Those who somehow can magically cobble together insurance to replace their cancelled policies and can somehow afford the staggering cost of premiums and deductibles will be very angry.  When they discover they can no longer see the doctor of their choice or use the hospital of their choice they will be very angry.

Many Democrats now see the handwriting on the wall.  Sadly, it's just too late.  Dems are quietly lobbying for a delay in implementation, but that might actually make matters worse.  People are receiving notices of cancelled policies today.  Their insurance ends on December 31st.  God forbid they need surgery on January 1st. Delaying the ACA won't help.

Here's my prediction: November of next year will be a bloodbath for Democrats. Republicans who shut down the government trying to stop ObamaCare will turn from goats into legendary folk heroes.

There is no excuse. This was all foreseeable.

A Lesson We Liberals MUST Learn

The ObamaCare roll out somehow managed to be more flawed than the horrific law itself. As impossible as it seems, the initial introduction of President Obama's prize accomplishment from his first term is, so far, one of the biggest embarrassments in the entire history of our government.

And each and every day it gets worse.

The President's biggest allies for the first two weeks were the hapless Republicans who stole the spotlight from the ObamaCare introduction with their ill advised government shutdown.  President Obama ought to write Senator Ted Cruz a "Thank You" note". 

The biggest error the President made was letting the shutdown be settled.  Two weeks was not long enough to fix the flawed website design. And once the shutdown ended, the press and blogosphere turned its full attention to ObamaCare.

Speaking of mistakes, President Obama's second largest mistake was not to accept the Republican DEMAND that ObamaCare's mandates be delayed a full year.  He needs that time (which could have easily buried the issue past the 2014 election) to fix this mess.

Actually biggest problem is the ObamaCare Law itself, but that is for another blog entry in a few weeks.  Today we, as Liberals, need to learn one critically important lesson: The Government Should NEVER Do Anything EVER!

If we love people, if we want fairness, if we demand the folks get full value with no waste, programs like Universal Health Care need to be turned over to the private sector. We can legislate universality, fairness and value and we can hire inspectors to make certain the law is accomplished, but GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT RUN THE PROGRAM.

We, the taxpayers, spent $680,000,000.00 on bad code, poor design, insane logic, zero testing and no results.  By contrast Facebook's website was started at less than $80 million. Twitter at less than $300 million. And there are countless other examples.  And they all work.

The problem lies in government management, the bidding process and the sheer bureaucracy that permits no innovation and allows no decision to ever be made. 

Megan Neal pointed out over on the Motherboard Website (not a political site, but an IT site) that the bureaucratic morass of bidding on government contracts guarantees no qualified company will ever win a contract or even bid on one.  

     The "procurement" process of government contracts is so labyrinthine, the administration has to hire firms that are adept at the process, even if that means they're not sufficiently adept at the actual task. As a result, despite a government budget of $80 billion a year for information-technology services, federal web services wind up clunky and glitchy like they're stuck in the dial-up age.

Today many are calling for HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to be fired for incompetence. Indeed she is totally incompetent and ought to be fired. In any private company she would have been long gone, years ago. But politics, not competency rule Washington.  And that is exactly why programs should always be delegated to the private sector.  Yes, private companies will make a profit but, like Amazon, they will get the job done for less taxpayer dollars with better results.

As Liberals we hate giving profit for needed services to the private sector.  Yet we waste many times the money for vastly inferior services.  We must learn to Legislate and Regulate, instead of trying to Implement the program in the systemically incompetent government sector.

A Very Sad Day for America

Walter Pruden writing in The Washington Times:

[The Barack Obama Administration] has closed Washington down as tight as [they] dare, emphasizing the trivial and the petty in making life as inconvenient as he can for the greatest number. It’s all in a noble cause, of course. Access to most of the memorials is limited, and often in curious ways. The Lincoln Memorial is easy to reach, with the streets around it remaining open. But the Martin Luther King Memorial is made difficult to reach, relegating it, you might say, to the back of the bus. Not very nice. 

The Park Service appears to be closing streets on mere whim and caprice. The rangers even closed the parking lot at Mount Vernon, where the plantation home of George Washington is a favorite tourist destination. That was after they barred the new World War II Memorial on the Mall to veterans of World War II. But the government does not own Mount Vernon; it is privately owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. The ladies bought it years ago to preserve it as a national memorial. The feds closed access to the parking lots this week, even though the lots are jointly owned with the Mount Vernon ladies. 

It is important to note that NONE of this was ever done during any of earlier government shutdowns.  No previous President ever wasted the hundreds of thousands of dollars it has taken to inflict this personal pain on the American citizens.

Mike Flynn, writing for FOX NEWS:

Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was "closed" due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown.

The Park Service will also have rangers on duty to police the ban. Of access to an ocean. The government will probably use more personnel and spend more resources to attempt to close the ocean, than it would in its normal course of business.

This is governing by temper-tantrum. It is on par with the government's ham-fisted attempts to close the DC WWII Memorial, an open-air public monument that is normally accessible 24 hours a day. By accessible I mean, you walk up to it. When you have finished reflecting, you then walk away from it.

At least that Memorial is an actual structure, with some kind of perimeter that can be fenced off. Florida Bay is the ocean. How, pray tell, do you "close" 1,100 square miles of ocean? Why would one even need to do so? 

This is not, most assuredly, the America I grew up in. America has become a divided country filled with hate, vindictiveness and envy. People no longer help one another. They look for the advantage, the opportunity to profit from other's loss, to win at any cost. 

I'm not talking about big corporations here, although they can be greedy, too.  I'm talking about people, citizens, individuals.  People putting politics above morality.  People no longer loyal to each other, to their communities and their country, but loyal only to their political party, their so called leader.

It is the kind of personal animosity, hatred of those who might believe differently from you, that has driven the middle east into constant, centuries old conflict. Northern Ireland suffers from the same mindless hatred. Serbia, the list goes on.

How much of this petty vindictiveness comes right from the personal instructions of Barack Obama and how much comes from "the folks" who think they are doing what he would want I can't say.  But I do know Barack Obama could stop it instantly if he wanted.  Clearly he wants divide, class envy, pettiness and hatred. 

If the Republicans are the cause of the shutdown (and that can be argued), President Obama is certainly responsible for this temper tantrum of implementation, as he is for similar acts during the sequestration. This is a sad day indeed.  I pray our next President will actually work to bring this country back together.

It's Well Past Time for Real Leadership in Washington

We need to increase the debt limit.  It is not optional.  We must meet our obligations. But it should be done, as it was last time, with dramatic reductions in spending.  Most importantly, the Hypocrite in Chief Obama should quit his name calling and get off his high horse and negotiate for reasonable spending reductions.  It would be easy as the Republicans are desperate and will settle for any crumbs.

Based on his many outrageous statements just this past week it is impossible to respect Barack Obama, the man.  Between Barack Obama and Senator Ted Cruz I feel like we're watching children on the playground in kindergarten.  "Nazis and Racists and Terrorists, Oh My!"

Dear President Obama, 

          Your poll numbers are so low because you prefer name calling to leadership.  You have no real effective opposition, the Republicans are divided and drowning.  President Reagan, President Johnson, President Clinton and even President Bush would have taken this opportunity to solve the problem and emerge as a leader.

          The opportunity is now your's. Please be the leader we elected you to be.

Sincerely,
The American People

Insurance Regulation versus Medical Care Reform

Today, for a few short hours, is an exciting moment for those who somehow hoped to end The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare as it is known to both its friends and foes. Senator Ted Cruz is holding his mini-filibuster and it is the stuff of great television.  It is also, I'm told by politicians who know the inside scoop, doomed to failure.

In my opinion his filibuster is much worse.  It is a tragic waste of time, energy, enthusiasm and public opinion that needed to be aimed at amending and correcting the many, tragic, often horrific, errors of ObamaCare.  It isn't even possible to "defund" ObamaCare as Senator Cruz proposes and it is a mistake for him and the Republican controlled House to even try.

Repealing ObamaCare would be wonderful, but that's not possible either, so repair is the best option.

What I want to add to the discussion tonight is a simple and rather brilliant observation made on television this morning by my new favorite Congressman, Doctor Brad Wenstrup of Ohio. Yes, he is an M.D. and he served in Iraq prior to becoming a Congressperson.

Like me, Congressman Wenstrup sees the desperate need to provide medical services to the poor and to the uninsured.  He sees the need to provide full and complete care for the people who face major illnesses.  He has proposed fully thought out and intelligent programs for the government to provide such services.

The problem with ObamaCare, he wisely observed this morning, is that it will not accomplish any of these goals.  Not one! Why? Because ObamaCare isn't Health Care Reform, it's Insurance Regulation and over-regulation at that! 

Under ObamaCare the uninsured will still be uninsured and will still flood Emergency Rooms for services like diabetes care, or simple cases of flu, or child wellness vaccinations, all of which that Emergency Rooms are not equipped to handle.  It will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, needlessly.

Meanwhile, by providing totally unneeded and tragically misplaced Insurance regulation, the currently insured will lose their coverage and have it replaced by managed coverage that will almost uniformly change their doctors, hospitals and coverage costs.  

You can count on this for sure - Next year you will not be able to keep your insurance, your doctor or your hospital.  And you can count on  this,too - it's going to cost you personally, a lot more, more in premiums and more in deductibles.  And you may well be denied needed medical care as a bonus.

The answer was always deregulation not increased regulation of insurance.  Here's a much needed example, just one of many. Once we deregulated the Telephone companies we got better service, the long promised (but never delivered) picture phones (now called Facetime), and virtually free long distance.  And phone bills are a tiny fraction of the cost they were for your mom and dad (or grandma and grandpa).

Instead of over-regulating Insurance we need to completely deregulate it!  Get rid of every state board.  Allow full competition across state lines.  Costs will drop and coverage will improve.

Meanwhile the government should fund clinics for the uninsured and the poor instead of forcing them to misuse emergency rooms.  Finally states should administer "catastrophic care" programs for those facing major illness. This could be done for a tiny fraction of the cost of ObamaCare.  

That's the prescription from Dr. Wenstrup.  Let's stop filibustering and start fixing the problem.

The Tragedy of War, The Victims of Hate, Remembering Peter, Sue Kim and Christine Hanson

President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." The horrific, unannounced and unanticipated attack on the Naval Base in Honolulu, Hawaii left 2,467 dead, Americans and Japanese combined and left America in a state of shock.

September 11, 2001 was, in many ways even more horrific.  Believe it or not, more people were actually killed, 2,996 lost their lives.  And the attack wasn't perpetrated by another nation, but by a large, loosely knit group of religious fanatics determined to bring death, destruction and humiliation on private citizens living in a country that did not agree with their strict religious beliefs.

In the minds of the terrorists, Americans had perpetrated a million wrongs and their humiliation, death and destruction was demanded by God, by Allah himself.

For the first few hours America didn't even realize we were under attack.  Our President was reading schools books to children in an elementary school in Florida. Early reports were so unclear that President Bush continued to read even after being informed of the first airplane crash.  It took hours for the events to unfold.

We saw it all on television.  Reporters and politicians were confused, bewildered and horrified.  We watched the Twin Towers collapse and the shear magnitude of the damage done slowly became clear.  Hatred turned out to be the real weapon of mass destruction.

We focused that day, as we do on most days, on the big issues.  Numbers, statistics, nations, religions. Two Thousand Nine Hundred Ninety Six dead.

But I believe we can only learn to replace hate with love if we focus on the people, their lives, their loves, hopes, fears and dreams.  That's why today, as I have every September 11th since 2006, I'm taking a time to remember Peter Hanson, the handsome, young software engineer, Sue Kim Hanson, his Korean-American bride, and their two their old daughter, Christine.

The Hanson's were killed when United Flight 175 was hijacked by the terrorists and purposely crashed into the World Trade Center.

Sue Kim was a Doctoral Candidate at Boston University.  She, Peter and Christine decided to take a vacation to Disneyland and to visit Sue Kim's father in California before she had to defend her Doctoral Thesis.

Blind hatred killed the Hanson's.  The terrorists never knew them, because to know them might have lead to understanding, to doubt in their mission, to have concerns about the justness of their cause.  The leader of the terrorists, Osama bin Laden didn't want to know people, he wanted to see numbers.  Peter, Sue Kim and Christine weren't people to the terrorists, they were just the number 3. Just 3 out of 2,996.

Please take a few minutes today to remember Peter, Sue Kim and Christine.  Say a prayer for them and their families.  Say a prayer for us all.  Remember people today, not numbers.

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In 2006 a blogger project was begun on the fifth anniversary of 9-11.  Called the "2,996 Project" volunteers were asked to write a short remembrance for each of the victims of the September 11, 2001.attack.  I was randomly assigned Sue Kim Hanson.  Each year since I have repeated my effort to honor Sue Kim and her family.  You can read each of my essays following the links below:

September 11, 2006 - Susan Kim Hanson

September 11, 2007 - Remembering Sue Kim Hanson

September 11, 2008 - Remembering Sue Kim Hanson

September 11, 2009 - Remembering the Reality: 9-11-2001: Sue Kim Hanson

September 11, 2010 - Reflections on the Life of Sue Kim Hanson

September 11, 2011 - Tears in Tragedy - Remembering Sue Kim Hanson

September 11, 2012 - Honoring the Memory of Peter, Sue and Christine Hanson

The Slow, Inexorable March into Hell

I realize I should be writing about the Affordable Care Act nearly every day.  So should every blogger and analyst. The issue genuinely is that important.

But there are other important issues, too.  And important events capture our attention, like the current debate over military action in Syria.  Nearly every blogger, liberal and conservative alike, are debating this chain of events, presidential powers, war powers, red lines and more.  This is an important discussion and President Obama's actions could have major ramifications for the region or even the world.

On a brighter note, the Syrian debate has temporarily distracted Republicans from their insanely stupid, "Defund Obamacare" debate in the House and Senate.  First it is technically impossible to "Defund" the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and second, the move actually hurts the effort to fix or even repeal this monstrosity of a law.

Democrats know full well the law must be massively altered to become remotely functional.  But they don't dare allow any bill to come to the floor fearing (quite correctly) such a bill would bring about nearly complete repeal of the President's most important legislative victory.  And, so far, protecting the President is more important than serving the best interests of the American public.

So we continue the slow slog down the hill to a medical insurance disaster.  Virtually everyone loses.  Two important news articles this week illustrate the misguided nature of the ACA, it's ill conceived provisions and the unintended consiquences of passing a 1,900 page bill without even bothering to read it.

Late last week, the 22,000-member United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers withdrew its support for the Affordable Care Act and went one step further and demanded its full repeal.  Several other unions have also withdrawn support or demanded exemptions from the law.

The Roofer's Union issue hit the very core of the problem with the ACA.  The insanely mercurial ACA forces everyone in America into a one size fits absolutely no one policy and penalizes severely anyone who dares to have better health insurance.  This is the dumbing down of American Healthcare.  The bottom line is that the Roofers are deemed to have a "Cadillac" plan and must pay a penalty premium in taxes for their hard earned union benefits.

While President Obama said "If you love your plan, you can keep it," that was simply untrue.  What he should have said is "Many Americans will be forced to accept inferior insurance at much higher rates than they've had in the past."  And he might have added, "My bill will favor non-union workers and give then tax subsidies while taxing Unions for their negotiating skills."  That's exactly what ObamaCare (the ACA) does.

On the flip side of the coin the ACA is even a worse disaster for America's creative culture, hitting artists, musicians, photographers and "gasp" even writers hard by taking away their insurance entirely.

Here I have to quote Nancy Pelosi, the real architect of the ACA (it should be called PelosiCare) who said, "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance."  The sad joke here is that before Pelosi dumped this rotten fish onto the canvas of unsuspecting artists, they had achieved that goal. PelosiCare took it all away.

Once again the enemy is the ACA's dogged determination to create a one size fits absolutely no one insurance template.  But for loosely knit groups likes artists or photographers, Congress made it much worse.  Ignoring the pleas of Democrat Senator Ron Wyden, Congress outlawed insurance plans from operating across state lines and demanded each individual purchase only through his or her State Insurance Exchange in each individual state.  Hence group policies that served creative artists across state lines were made illegal!!!  Virtually every policy serving loose knit groups will end this December, forcing artists and musicians and other independent professionals to purchase significantly more expensive policies from their state exchanges.

In reality Nancy Pelosi should have said, "Under my Affordable Care Act, artists and creative people will be forced into the workplace to accept mundane labor jobs and will no longer be allowed to pursue their dreams. Creativity, whether in Insurance or in the arts will no longer be allowed to exist."

I'll leave you today with this terribly funny ObamaCare parody video produced by the extremely evil Karl Rove Crossroads group.   Laugh while you still can because, like it or not, the ACA takes over on January 1st.

Dan Quayle Was Right, Dammit!

In the age of Joe Biden it's hard to believe that Dan Quayle was easily the most mocked and ridiculed Vice President of all time.  Quayle's gaffs, misstatements and foibles make Joe Biden look like a Rhodes Scholar (although based on some recent Rhodes Scholars, that's no high praise).

Dan Quayle was the ill chosen Vice Presidential nominee of George H.W. Bush (the elder).  Improperly vetted and hastily chosen for all the wrong reasons, Quayle spend four torturous years bouncing from one gaffe to another.  And if Quayle didn't misspeak, the press dutifully made up stories and situations to keep Quayle looking bad.

No moment is Dan Quayle's failed Vice Presidency is more famous than his attack on the fictional television character "Murphy Brown" on May 19, 1992.  It really was not so much an attack on the Brown character as on the "Hollywood" values that put unmarried mother's on a pedestal to be praised, revered and even emulated.  His reference to the Brown Character was brief, and not even by name, but Hollywood turned on Quayle and attacked him with a ferocity never seen before or since.

The "Liberal Media" certainly joined in and, in fact, the most respected journalists actually appeared on the fictional television series AS THEMSELVES to point with pride and passion to the fictional Brown as a role model for all modern women. Among the icons who lent their strong voices and integrity to the ideal of the unmarried mother were Katie Couric, Joan Lunden, Paula Zahn, Mary Alice Williams and Faith Daniels, a veritable who's who of women in journalism.  All appeared on the series!

Feminist leaders loved the character of Murphy Brown as an example of how "a woman can have it all," a career, children and a wonderful fulfilling life without needing to be married.

And Dan Quayle the buffoon was, well, Dan Quayle the buffoon.

Fast forward twenty years and the Murphy Brown legacy (among  many other factors affecting our social fabric) can be seen in our society where many if not most children are born to single women.  In the black community the birth rate to single mothers is today nearly 80%.  As a society we made men unnecessary except for the actual act of procreation.

A friend of mine just told me just yesterday,  "Men only want one thing....  and in today's society they only have to do that one thing."

If you go back and read Dan Quayle's speech to the Commonwealth Club in 1992 he actually never mentioned Murphy Brown by name and spoke only of the need to have a father figure in a child's life to help rear, guide and financially support the child.

Dan Quayle was right.  And today we reap as a society the seeds we sewed in the sexual and feminist revolution.  Without the financial and personal time investment by the father, single mother's are stretched to the absolute limit in their effort to raise a child.  Many are simply unable to do it.


Today many children are actually left to raise themselves.  I'm guessing no one in a position of power or responsibility in our society today ever read or learned the lesson of the book "Lord of the Flies." You know that book was required reading back when I was in high school, but I digress.

Real life examples abound this week.  Most horrific was the bludgeoning murder of the 88 year old World War II hero Delbert Belton by two 16 year old children.  And the murder of the Australian baseball player Christopher Lane in Duncan, Oklahoma by three teens who were "bored" has captured International attention with Australia actually threatening a tourism boycott.

In both cases (and hundreds more each month), the murderers were children with virtually no parental supervision.  Fathers are not in the picture for any of these kids.

I'm not looking for a return to the 1950's era of "Leave it to Beaver." Feminists were right, we DON'T NEED to condemn unmarried mothers, but we do need to educate the next generation to avoid the pitfalls of the single mother fairy tale.  We now need to increase the self image and self worth of young women and the responsibility of young men.

Children need parents. Two or more parents.  Men or women.  The child can grow only with guidance, supervision and love.  Dan Quayle was right.

Hillary Clinton? "Baffling" says Camille Paglia

For forty years there has been no Liberal I appreciate more than Camille Paglia.  Readers of this blog have seen me quote or cite her more than once. In fact, she epitomizes everything this blog stands for, she's a free and independent thinker who is never swayed by political party or cults of personality.  She calls it like she sees it.

Certainly we often disagree.  In fact I disagree with her more often than not, but my respect for her is boundless.

She has recently been interviewed by Salon Magazine and that interview is causing a great deal of controversy because of her views of Hillary Clinton.  And on this topic she and I agree completely.  In fact her words concerning Hillary Clinton are so accurate, so profound, so spot on correct, I cannot improve on them by one sentence.

Reprinted below is just a small portion of her interview.  Be sure to read the entire article here: Camille Paglia: “It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton is our party’s best chance”

As a registered Democrat, I am praying for a credible presidential candidate to emerge from the younger tier of politicians in their late 40s. A governor with executive experience would be ideal. It’s time to put my baby-boom generation out to pasture! We’ve had our day and managed to muck up a hell of a lot. It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts.

I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi. In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was.

Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders. It’s even a key motif in “King Lear.” As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood. The escalating instability not just in Egypt but throughout the Mideast is very ominous. There is a clash of cultures brewing in the world that may take a century or more to resolve — and there is no guarantee that the secular West will win.

The Streets Run Red With Blood

"The streets run red with blood...."

We could be talking about the tragedy and violence in Cairo this weekend, but we're not.  The above quote comes from right here in the United States, right here in Chicago, where gun violence, shootings and murder continue in epidemic proportions year round.  The six murders and twenty-eight other shootings are this weekend's toll on Chicago's South Side, our own mid-east microcosm of murder.

President Obama and the State Department issued warnings to Americans not to travel to Egypt and to leave the country as quickly as possible.  Similar warnings should be issued to Chicago's South Side, where the police are both incapable and unwilling to stop the rampant violence.

In spite of the fact that Chicago has one of the strictest gun control laws anywhere in the United States, the law is basically unenforced and, many say, unenforceable.  This is in part because courts strictly limit or outright forbid "Stop and Frisk" practices by the police as racist or otherwise unlawful.

In a broad, sweeping and scathing ruling this past week, Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin severely restricted New York City's practice of "Stop, Question and Frisk."  The long and thoroughly documented ruling will eliminate most of the stops and appoints a Federal Monitor to oversee NYC Police tactics.  

NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly defended the practice and claimed it had saved over 7,000 lives and removed thousands of illegal guns from the streets.

The fact the courts chose to ignore is that while only 60% of the people stopped by police where black or Hispanic, 97% of the murder victims are black and Hispanic.  

The real racism is in the murders.  Courts routinely and purposely overlook this fact.  

Meanwhile Kelly predicted New York would become another Detroit or Chicago if the judge's ruling is not overturned.

"Stop and Frisk" is rarely used in Chicago.  But blacks are murdered in genocidal numbers.  Someone needs to file a racism suit against the Chicago Mayor, government and Police for their failure to protect blacks.  After all there are relatively few white murders in Chicago.  The police MUST be discriminating by protected whites disproportionately while allowing blacks to die.

Justice for Sterling Sims

This eighteen year old in a hoodie is not Trayvon Martin, although I'm willing to bet if you showed his picture to any random hundred people at least half would tell you it's Trayvon and probably launch into a rant about injustice in America.  

However, this eighteen year old is Antonio Lewis and he was arrested yesterday for the cold blooded murder of five year old Sterling Sims and his mother, 31 year old Chavonne Brown.  You might remember I wrote demanding JUSTICE for Sterling Sims last July 16th.

Sadly Antonio Lewis is just one more tragic example of the dysfunctional world that is the south side of Chicago.  In Chicago and across America murder rates of young blacks has reached genocidal proportions.  

I keep saying that guns don't kill.  But police that fail to lock up a young man arrested not once, but twice, for illegal use of a firearm in the months leading up to the killing of a 5 year old and his mom deserve a lot of blame for the murders they might have prevented.  What the hell is going on in Chicago?

The police might never even have arrested Antonio Lewis if not for the fact Antonio was shot himself in another act of Chicago street violence less than 24 hours after he shot and killed little Sterling!  

Lewis was shot in the back, neck and groin in a separate incident.  Reports I've gathered so far give no indication of his shooter has been identified or arrested.

However, as of last night, Antonio Lewis has been charged with two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.  If he recovers from his very severe wounds, he faces a lifetime in prison.

So Sterling Sims will receive some sort justice, if that actually matters after a five year old's life has been cut short. Somehow I'm even more sad than ever.

For reference here is the ABC News report on the Antonio Lewis arrest from Chicago
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Sterling Sims older sister Sabrina made this tribute video for her little brother Sterling and her mother Chavonne.  Please join me in watching this and working to bring an end to our American Genocide.

Waiting for the Benghazi Shoe to Drop

While my fellow Liberals are either in full denial or full cover-up mode, the truth about the disaster in Benghazi continues to leak out, exactly as I said it would last November, before the election.  It's a painful, slow dripping process that now, obviously, involves a huge CIA cover-up.

Thankfully Jake Tapper, now a headline star at CNN is leading the charge and doing the heavy investigative lifting.  Formerly with ABC News, Tapper is a journalist without a blemish on his record. And he has been both honest and objective about Benghazi since the very beginning.

Until this point the leadership in uncovering this scandal has fallen on Fox News and they've also done a superb job.  But my fellow Liberals always doubt the veracity of Fox and don't trust the network.  Having CNN at the lead adds much needed credibility for the left.

Whatever happened on the ground in Libya the night of September 11, 2012, it was either extremely illegal or would embarrass the USA in the middle east or world community.  The CIA is attempting to cover this up using extreme measures.  Eventually this will emerge as a scandal of monumental proportions.

President Obama could have avoided this entire mess if he had been both candid and honest in the first few days after the murder of our Ambassador and three other Americans.  Certainly he did not have to release any confidential or restricted information. But instead he told a number stupid, bold faced lies and tried to misdirect the public and the press.  He nearly destroyed Susan Rice's career in the process and Hillary Clinton is damaged, too.  In fact, in my opinion, Clinton deserves even more blame the Obama for her part in the bizarre "video" lie and cover-up.

Readers of this blog know I have been a many year Hillary Clinton supporter, but I assure you I will never support or vote for her again.  Her betrayal is unforgivable.

We can only guess at the truth right now and I'm not going to speculate.  But the truth is coming.  And Liberals and Progressives who have all claimed Benghazi is a "phony scandal" deserve the egg that is now all over their faces.