The Dream Unfulfilled?

The “I have a Dream” March-on-Washington on 28 August, while not attracting a huge crowd by Mall standards, featured a number of high-profile speakers insisting that the “dream” has not been realized after 50 years. Unfortunately, a large segment of the black population has turned that “dream,” insofar as government is involved, into a nightmare of gigantic proportions, perhaps mistaking it for some sort of reparations instead of an inroad to complete equality and opportunity.

The tribute to King—one of last century’s most important men—was in order, though somewhat trivialized by black activist and radio personality Tavis Smiley, who questioned in a column in the H-L of 28 August President Obama’s or anyone else’s “moral authority to speak where King spoke” (Lincoln Memorial). Abe’s ghost must have grinned. Smiley wrote that despite all the progress made, class and race undeniably hold back too many citizens, but black Americans disproportionately. Compared to whom, one wonders.

Smiley implied that King had made the Lincoln Memorial a “sacred place,” leaving one to wonder if Lincoln might have grinned again, or if the ceremony should have been somewhere else on the Mall, maybe at the foot of King’s statue, towering three stories high above the crowd and all other monuments on the Mall with sculpted people. Many people besides the president spoke on the Monument at the Commemoration. Did they defile it?

I didn’t take in all the speeches at the Memorial, though I heard quite a number, as well as those of Senators Reid and McConnell at the capitol the day before. I heard the president’s speech, perhaps one of his better ones. It turned into a campaign-style declamation after a while but that’s to be expected. He looked down at his manuscript once and I feared that the rain might have affected the teleprompters. He did not end with the usual “God bless America” or something like that, so political correctness was in place.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the New York based Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, was a speaker and honored the late Bayard Rustin, founder of SCLC and CORE and perhaps the highest-profile black homosexual of last century and recipient posthumously from Obama of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

There was the usual manmade-global-warming alarmist—can’t remember her name—to tie that subject in with the celebration of civil rights, as well as retired basketball player Bill Russell. The head of the National Organization of Negro Women was a speaker as well as Randi Weingarten, a bit of a screamer who is the head of the American Federation of Teachers, an organization that has contributed mightily to the degradation of education in this country, especially in its cities.

Since he had been so prominent in the ceremony on 24 August, one might have hoped that CNN race-monger Al Sharpton would not mar the King-Speech celebration, but there he was at the Memorial, spouting his usual venom. The gist of it was that the fighters of Jim Crow in King’s day have morphed today into the fighters of “James Crow, Jr., esq.,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

At least Sharpton didn’t launch into a deification of Trayvon Martin, which seemed to be what many celebrants wanted. Perhaps he thought twice (if that’s possible) about the black teenagers now in various courts for beating a white 88-year-old wounded WWII veteran to death; the black teenager being tried for shooting a white baby to death in his stroller after shooting his white mother twice or the three black teenagers who tried to beat another boy to death on a school-bus while the driver looked on, not daring to stop them for fear of…who knows.

Ironically, the mood set by the speakers was that blacks are victims, notwithstanding that most if not all of those speakers either are, as well-documented, or appeared to be quite well-off, thank you, under the system as it has evolved in the last 50 years. The one cat that was nowhere to be seen was a republican—none invited—amazingly ironic since the commemoration was held at the location of, as Obama put it, the “great emancipator,” progenitor of the Republican Party.

King’s argument in 1963 was with the states south of the Ohio River latitude and a few west of the Mississippi, meaning the southern democrats, not with the nation as a whole. Remember Bobby Byrd or Strom Thurmond (long filibusters against civil rights legislation) or George Wallace or Orville Faubus. Republicans in the Congress turned the tide in the 1960s but they were not invited on “dream day.”

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Chickens Home to Roost?

As the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God Damn America) Wright would have it, the chickens have come home to roost again with respect to what the newsies all seem to agree, that Obama is all set to drop some cruise missiles on “selected” sites in Syria. If so, he’ll be taking a page from Bill Clinton, famous for dropping those missiles on nothing in Afghanistan and a purported medicine factory in Sudan—to waste the evil Osama bin Laden, who went on, unscathed, to bring about 9/11 and the loss of some 3,000 American men, women and children, most of them civilians.

This is from McClatchy of 27 August: “… Britain, France and Turkey … indicated they would support military action by the United States even without a United Nations mandate.” Notice that these folks didn’t say they would support an action carried out by themselves. This is because they have better sense than to become the villain in the matter. They dangle the bait before Obama, who wants no part of anything military vis-à-vis Syria and is still up to his neck in an absolutely hopeless killing-field in Afghanistan that he could end tomorrow if he had the guts to do so by pulling out the troops.

The numbers of troops available to Britain, France and Turkey are 174,030; 238,591; and 510,600, respectively. Syria’s troops number 295,000, or at least what’s left of that number. That makes it a combined 923,221 troops against Syria’s 295,000 from nations thousands of miles closer to Syria than this country. Turkey shares a long border from which they could invade tomorrow.

Yet, the U.S. is expected to carry the water for the whole outfit—simply unthinkable, especially since this country has already done so against the Islamic threat for decades. If not for Bush 41 in 1991, for example (Kuwait), Saddam or his equally sadistic successors would own the entire Arab Peninsula today…all that oil. Or, Bush 43 in 2003 continued the no-fly zones and militarily ended the possibility of chemical warfare against the Kurds and Shiites in Saddam’s own country—Arabs butchering Arabs.

The irony would be laughable if not so serious. Though he wasn’t in the Senate to make a vote, Obama anchored his presidential campaign in 2008 in being against the Iraq action in 2003. Now, he’s set up some red lines indicating that he will act to stop chemical murder in Syria. Go figure. At last reporting (Jay Carney on the twenty-sixth), the magnitude of the chemical use was decisive, i.e., small attacks bad but okay, with massive attacks a decided no-no. Read the transcript.

No one actually knows if the red lines have been crossed, though it seems doubtful that chemicals would have been used anywhere near Damascus, where Assad lives. Yet, that’s where the inspectors at least allegedly took a look, either there or on the outskirts.

Then, there’s State Secretary Kerry, famous for his vote to take on Iraq in 2003 and then changing it, insisting on no funds to make the fight. Now, he’s hot to trot to stop Assad from doing what he didn’t seem to mind Saddam doing—attacking his own people with chemical weapons. Saddam killed by the thousands. Go figure.

The further irony lies in the fact that the reason for attacking Assad is not to effect regime-change, which Obama has said constantly is his aim, even telling Assad in 2011 to take a hike and turn the country over to who knows. He didn’t know, certainly. Now, regime-change is not the objective; rather, the action will accrue to Assad’s alleged (nobody actually knows) use of chemical weapons, as explained in no uncertain terms by British Prime Minister Cameron. Obama hasn’t said much, just sends Carney out for some mumbo-jumbo.

One can only wonder at the number and type of weapons probably to be delivered to Assad by nations such as Russia and Iran in the event that Obama takes the bait dangled by the Arab League, for instance. The fat princes in Saudi Arabia want Assad gone, probably as much as for any other reason the fact that’s he’s Sunni Alewite while they’re Sunni Wahabis. The Irani head honcho is Shiite but he can connect with Assad anyway. It’s sort of like the Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians choosing up sides and fighting to the death over whether same-sex marriage is biblical.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Civil War, Anyone?

I was watching a TV news program concerning the events in Syria on the twenty-third when a most amazing clip of President Obama was shown in which he indicated that this nation’s hands are tied absent any permission from the United Nations to do anything, at least anything significant. One supposes on the basis of the U.S. Constitution’s listing of presidential powers that Obama can do things only with the permission of the Congress. Or, if the nation is threatened he can act unilaterally, that action also permitted under the War Powers Act.

From a logical standpoint, never mind the subterfuge connected to that silly statement, he can’t do anything anyway. He set up a “red line” vis-à-vis the use of chemical weapons months ago. It was crossed, at least reportedly (who knows?), but he did nothing. It has just been crossed again (reportedly, who knows?) and he has said the UN has our hands tied. That isn’t the truth but the decision is proper. Apparently, he knows by now that meddling in Syria would be dangerous and foolhardy with respect to accomplishing any good.

Obama has indicated over and over his dislike (hatred?) of the U.S. Constitution and has done what he pleases via executive orders. He totally bypassed the feckless Congress when he decided that he and NATO would lay waste Libya, even though Libya posed no threat to any nation on earth, having virtually no military establishment. Instead, he directed State Secretary Clinton to get authorization from the UN Security Council. Russia and China abstained from voting, allowing Obama to have his little war, and so the deed was done. Nobody liked Qaddafi anyway.

The degree of Obama’s disdain of the Constitution (nation of laws) was exceeded only by the degree of his stupidity vis-à-vis how to conduct a war. His method was described by Defense Secretary Gates as “on the fly,” meaning with no planning whatsoever for either the bloodshed itself or the aftermath. Obama said the dustup would be over in days, not weeks. It lasted seven months with Libya (population just 6 million) as a “killing field” and exposed Obama’s complete ignorance of both world affairs and military matters.

The end result of his little war was absolute chaos that continues to this day. The slaughter of Americans at Benghazi last September just scratched the surface of the mayhem Obama introduced under the guise of protecting Libyans from Qaddafi—in other words, Obama choosing who lived and died rather than leaving that up to Qaddafi and the Libyans. In the bargain, al Qaeda seems to be the apparent winner in Libya, the very outfit that Qaddafi had already identified as his enemy in the country and which he was already fighting.

So…the newsies are on Obama’s case because Syrians are dying and he’s backtracked all the way to the nearest golf course. Fox’s Shepard Smith seemed about to go into contractions and deliver a bowling ball the other day, throwing one of his entertaining temper tantrums. He may not have the ability to see what’s happening in Syria in light of what happened in his state of Mississippi in 1861. It rebelled against the government and fought for four years, with the loss of life just in the military about 625,000 souls, about 5% of the white male population.

Assad is doing in Syria essentially what Abe Lincoln did in 1861-65 by seeing the bitter uprising of the Confederacy (insurrectionists) to the bitter end with the greatest bloodshed in American history, about 428 dead per day for four years. Lincoln responded to a civil war whereas Assad is responding to a civil/sectarian war—different flavors of Muslims killing each other. Nobody knows the body-count in Syria but accepting the 90,000 figure, which seems way too high, that works out to just over 100 per day of the total Syrian population (not just the men) since March 2011 as compared to the average 428 per day (nearly all, men) during the American civil war, about 1,460 days. During the 4.5 years of combat in WWI and WWII, the average number of GI deaths per day was about 320.

The current generation can’t comprehend the figures noted above or see the parallel of Assad with Lincoln and is appalled at the contemporary carnage anywhere, perhaps not least because the average death-rate of American GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 is 1.5 per day. This is not to say that any killing, not to mention the thousands more wounded, is acceptable—it isn’t—but just to provide a perspective that one may not have had.

In any case, Obama’s hands are tied but not by the UN…just plain common sense. Libya was his hard-learned lesson, and many weep there account his little war.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

U.S. in Twilight-Zone

Just as a day has segments—dawn, morning, forenoon, noon, afternoon, twilight, night—so does a culture, institution, government or population. So…during which part of a day’s totality does the U.S. fit currently?

Twilight is the answer in this corner. That may seem unduly somber since twilight could be viewed as rather hazy, vague, threatening, unpredictable, the embodiment of an in-between-ness that screams “watch out.” During twilight, it’s possible to still see the physical environment fairly well in stages portending sunset but not nearly as well as at noontime or even forenoon.

Consider the dawn to be the inculcation of a Constitutional government in which the people are represented by elected officials (not career politicians), the recognition of the Judeo-Christian God as the standard-maker of the national morality, and the invention and placement of mechanisms, abstract and tangible, to maintain reasonable freedom, civility, the economy and national defense. Think 1789-1820.

During the nation’s forenoon, capitalism was established as the mechanism empowering people to invent and both make jobs and have jobs, realizing profits and wages, respectively. This doesn’t mean that all was peaches and cream, only that individual opportunity was available but largely in the South only on the backs of slaves. Think 1820-1865.

Noon came as the slaves were freed, railroads crisscrossed the nation and industry came into initiation auguring toward a wild fruition in following years. This represented a moral accomplishment—the freeing of the slaves—but also allowed for the ruthlessness endemic to competition, which nevertheless, created greater opportunities for individual accomplishment and, without unduly affecting life and liberty, made possible a greater pursuit of happiness. Concomitantly occurred the immigration masses. Think 1865-1920.

The nation reached its zenith during the afternoon, becoming the most prosperous nation in the world and moving toward becoming the mightiest military power. Individual inventiveness knew no bounds though the “big boys” did not wholly get their way as the labor union movement expanded and somewhat evened the playing field. Government, big business and the unions all managed a modicum of corruption, generally conceived of as the price of doing business.

Morally, the nation subscribed by Constitutional Amendment to prohibition of alcoholic beverages for 14 years, 1920-34—almost unbelievable now, when folks get uptight over cigarettes and consider booze as perfectly acceptable. Morally and ’way too long coming, women were given the vote…now, they’re taking over the nation in many ways.

The U.S. saved Europe from Germany in WWI and the world – even the defeated Axis – in WWII. Its military might was approached by the Soviet Union but not matched, with the Cold War the only war imaginable since the threat of mutually assured destruction was equally recognized by all. Post-WWII, the U.S., on the backs of the “greatest generation” and with a still functioning moral compass, became the envy of the world. God was still of utmost importance. Now, homosexuality is approved in the military and women consigned to combat—absolutely nuts during twilight-time.

Twilight began to set in about the time of the sixties not so much because of the loss of tangible excellence but because the “pursuit of happiness” third of “God-given rights” became a chase down the broad road to hell rather than continuing the rugged climb to the heights. The hippies came of age then as the children of the “greatest” rebelled. By the late eighties until now, they have run the show.

Manufacturing has been almost completely outsourced, thus the loss of good jobs. The cockamamie notion of “diversity” applies to everything though it connotes the opposite of togetherness (multiculturalism), which is what it’s supposed to remark. Morality is out the door—no right or wrong, just shades of gray—epitomized most recently by a president (grandchild of the “greatest”) who “evolved” in his sophistication to the point that marriage between two men is considered normal by him, never mind the perversion so approved—behavior so filthy as to make one vomit.

A nation living on borrowed money with never a hope of discharging debt indicates a president and Congress so feckless as to be considered worthless. A SCOTUS so impervious to the actual meaning of marriage—or at least the difference between it and same-sex-union—is part of the decline. The notion of the nuclear family as the fabric giving the society cohesion is out-the-door as old-fashioned and trivial.

At rock-bottom, as exemplified in the dismissal of marriage/family as not worth warm spit and therefore preserving, is the national turning-away from God, in whose embodiment is the recipe for sustaining the society. The mantra: “If it feels good, do it, the devil take the hindmost.”

It’s often mentioned that the nation is on the path traveled by the Greeks and Romans, who had it all and through their own debauchery lost it all. One can read Plato and Plutarch to get an understanding of the Greek depravity in which they lived and promulgated. It also applied to the Romans. One can look at Olde Europe to see the dissolution of the “progressive” nations, now followed by the U.S.

The decline at this point seems irreversible. The U.S. has been a grand experiment, now in its twilight. Night is coming. Its only salvation would be a spiritual awakening like the one threaded through the nineteenth century, i.e., a return to actual worship of the Judeo-Christian God and an ethic built on both biblical and logical terms.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Columnist Reveres Hillary

Columnist Kathleen Parker attempted to make the case in a recent offering for Hillary Clinton’s coronation in 2017 on the basis of her near-mystic hold on not the citizens of the U.S. but the citizens of the world—a global candidate, something to which Obama has aspired, a sort of beneficent world ruler/arbiter. Obama’s influence in the Middle East indicates how farfetched this notion is.

Was Parker doing a tongue-in-cheek thing (women columnists suffer no constraints when discussing other women)? But no…Parker said, “Hillary is one of the most recognized and revered individuals in the world.” (ital. mine) Parker also said that Hillary has matured in her public role but didn’t say how and didn’t bother to note the level of maturity (or lack thereof) from which she had – as Obama might have it – evolved.

Even though hubby Bill signed the Defense of Marriage Act ages ago, Hillary said in March that she is gung-ho (“evolved”) for two old studs tying the knot, but didn’t mention which or how-determined concerning the dependent “spouse” raking in the government-goodies. Perhaps to Parker recognizing perversion as paradigm for ultra-sophistication represents maturity.

Parker said it was provable that women, if fully equal to men (she didn’t say how), will bring peace to the planet, offering as first proof that men, besides not bringing peace to the planet “for thousands of years,” have produced “millions and millions of corpses,” as if everyone who has ever lived or living now has not or probably won’t accomplish corpse-hood. Secondly, she noted that countries (she didn’t say which) in which women are most mistreated are also the least stable, but didn’t say compared to what.

Her third reason was that women as they become more affluent (equal?) cause countries to become more stable. She said that women with money can buy food and healthcare, educate their children and start businesses, all things, presumably, that men can’t do whilst creating “millions and millions of corpses.”

Parker said Hillary’s deification took place in China in 1995 when she stated that “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights,” thus displaying superior intellect not to be ignored globally. One wonders about men’s rights but realistically and (gasp) morally who cares about instigators of “millions and millions of corpses?” Parker said that Hillary’s revelation was a “trumpet’s blast from heaven’s gate that caused the earth to tremble,” an intellectual/philosophical/theological tsunami/earthquake.

Well, the walls of Jericho fell flat at the trumpet’s blast in the Old Testament, so why not a trembling earth? One wonders, though, what St. Pete might think in his spot at heaven’s gate unless…that’s it…St. Pete himself blasted a few bars of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Hillary’s Squad.

Parker accused Americans of obsessing about Hillary’s hair and married life but that to millions she’s a role model. On her watch as State Secretary, said Parker, Obama made permanent the Office of Global Women’s Issues, whatever that is, and even appointed a Hillary crony to represent it. Probably 99.99% of taxpayers have never heard of this powerful thingamajig.

Also on revered Hillary’s watch was her sanctified mission a la Libya. She and fellow Amazons, UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Obama advisor Samantha Power, trucked on up to the UN Security Council to get “permission” to make war in 2011 on hapless Libya, population two million less than New York City and with virtually no military establishment. Violating both the Constitution and the War Powers Act, Obama undertook this adventure without consulting Congress for the obvious reason, to wit, his war would never have happened.

So…as a result of Obama’s seven-month war (would last days, not weeks, he said), how many Libyans did he and Hillary introduce to corpse-hood? No official has ever said, though the current White House gang declaims daily about the corpses in Syria and Egypt and the meanies (men, of course) who cause them. It was Hillary’s finest hour. Ask any of the Benghazi ghosts.

In 1917-18 and 1941-45—4.5 years of combat—American men at the average rate of 320 or so per day accepted corpse-hood so Parker can write about revered Hillary. But in those years, sadistic Americans were guilty of “millions and millions” of enemy corpses. Would that bring a trumpet blast from hell’s gate…Satan blasting forth the Marine Corps Hymn?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

A Time to "Keep Silence"

Why have some media folks—or probably mostly talking heads—been so hard on President Obama for sending out State Secretary Kerry to properly chastise the Egyptians while he was busy playing golf with one of his “money-men” the other day? The Egyptians are welcome to another civil war if they consider one necessary with or without the approval of Obama.

The president didn’t need to say a word on the subject. Neither did Kerry, who came off more as a third-grader snarling, “Now stop that.” At least he didn’t stomp his foot and probably didn’t start MSNBC’s Chris Matthews’ leg tingling, either.

Senators McCain and Graham (who else) have already been to Egypt to assess if not referee the current dustup and announced that the U.S. should suspend all aid (about $1.5 billion per year, as per usual, notwithstanding the sequester), actually agreeing with Senator Paul of Tea Party fame. The cash from the U.S. goes to the Egyptian military in the form of fighting machinery, so that puts Obama on the side opposing the “democratically elected” government of Morsi.

But a great big WHOA is in order. The president and then-secretary Clinton had no problem messing in Egypt’s affairs during the glorious “Arab Spring” of 2011, telling then-president Mubarak to get his sizeable carcass out of his presidency and let the folks turn the country into a glorious democracy a la the U.S.

These two partners in international crime (translated, meddling in other countries’ civil wars) also told the head honchos of Libya, Yemen and Syria to take a hike and let their folks institute democracies. After all, isn’t nation-building in other countries a requirement of the U.S Constitution?

Well…no! All of those countries are now in the throes of chaotic bloodshed, meaning that Obama and his State Department were as ignorant of world affairs, especially relating to Muslim-controlled governments, as the average high-school freshman. George Bush, after saying U.S. policy was not nation-building, proceeded to try it anyway and Obama continued along that path. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan today and see the folly.

The media commentators yammer about Egypt being this country’s only Arab ally, thus obligating an Obama or Kerry to do or say something about everything that happens there—like the current widespread burning of Christian churches. Egypt-as-ally is actually Egypt-as-bought-off, the reason for the foreign aid. But the media-yammering has some significance, namely, that Obama has shot off his mouth all along and so has to continue that, not that it means anything.

What happened in Egypt was a military coup, though not officially recognized as such by the U.S. The law mandates the stopping of aid in that instance. Obama, however, has shown in an abundance of ways that neither the Constitution nor laws enacted by Congress mean much to him. He governs by executive order, so if he says a coup is not a coup and issues an executive order to that effect, he merely emulates his actions vis-à-vis the Defense of Marriage Act and his inexcusable and bloody attack on Libya in 2011—his hands-on approach to the glorious Arab Spring.

While he was at his Martha’s Vineyard gig in 2011 golfing and celebrating the dog-days of Arab Spring, the Libyan rebels he mistakenly thought were the good guys hounded Qadaffi out of Tripoli but couldn’t put him away until October—seven months after Obama said his little war would last days, not weeks. The death-count of that fiasco, described at the time by then-defense-secretary Gates as being done “on the fly,” has never been released.

Both Obama and Kerry would do well to just shut-up. Obama’s word (and Clinton’s at the time) hasn’t been worth warm spit in the Muslim world for years. Muslims settle their affairs in Muslim ways, and that usually does not mean democratically, at least not for very long at a time. Though it sounds sanguinary to say, it is nevertheless true that while Muslims are killing each other they are not killing Americans.

The governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates have given/pledged $8 billion to the new government backed by the military in Egypt, so the U.S. aid pales by comparison. Ousted president Morsi was turning the country over to the repressive Muslim Brotherhood, which would attempt to obliterate Israel and by extension all other non-Muslim/non-Sharia countries.

As Ecclesiastes 3:7 would have it, there is a time to “keep silence.”

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Presidential Potpourri

The most amazing thing happened on the way to vacation-time in New England for the president and the First Lady. They went on the same plane (at least once) instead of the usual his-and-hers routine. At least that’s the last sighting of either of them going to bask in the sun or play golf.

One supposes that the rumor is not true that Obama has a teleprompter crew with him at all times, including on the golf course, so that if he feels a speech coming on he will be ready. If for no other reason, that exercise, as it does in most speeches, will put his fellow-players to sleep, thus increasing his chances at a good round without having to score his card the way his Treasury-Secretary would, i.e., CHEAT.

In his press conference (euphemism for speech allowing for unlimited digressions and fully rehearsed misstatements) before he left Washington, he informed the world that Russia’s Vladimir Putin was the bad-boy-type always found at the rear of a schoolroom and owned a swagger that rivaled that of Bush 43.

The president hastened to add that Putin was a jovial sort, so perhaps the flexibility Obama promised to be in place after the election last year might be exercised…something perhaps like ceding hometown Chicago to Russia and getting rid of all those murder statistics. Trifles like that shouldn’t bother the former KGB colonel, though one suspects he would much rather have San Francisco, where his swagger might attract strange people thus making for a perfect vacation spot.

Recently, those strange people were roundly criticized by a Russian honcho in connection with the Olympics but at last sighting he still seemed to be alive. For his part, Obama said recently – maybe in that press conference amidst the dozing – that U.S. success absolutely depended on the homosexuals leading the way…the best the U.S. has to offer. Statements like this, besides making MSNBC’s Chris Matthews’ leg tingle (he hasn’t said which one), drain money into DNC coffers like the flooding Mississippi, and who knows how many pockets.

In his most recent speeches (people bused in for a day off and a nap?), the president inadvertently explained why nothing has been done about straightening out the IRS corruption, prosecuting or even discovering the facts vis-à-vis the Benghazi Slaughter, explaining why the main implementation of Obamacare has been delayed until 2015, or even a simple matter like how the millions spent on his game with Tiger fitted the sequester act.

All of these matters, according to Obama, are phony; therefore, no one can expect the administration to be bothered with them when important matters are to be addressed, speaking of which, the president had a serious televised discussion the other evening with comedian Jay Leno about important world events. Discussing them with Leno instead of the appropriate bureaucrats was designed to show just how most everything is phony these days. It’s sort of like former State Secretary Clinton asked in that hearing concerning the Benghazi deaths: “What difference does it make now?” – or something as insensitive as that. Well…of course!

Obama also found time in his busy schedule to meet with Clinton but little about that meeting has been forthcoming. Did they discuss that $12 million Obama promised to help her raise to pay off her campaign debts of 2008? Has she ever discovered exactly where Benghazi is? Did she receive a three a.m. call that morning on 11 September 2012…wherever she was? Did the president discuss with her where he was? He has never said, so one is left to wonder if he took “Client 9’s” place that evening in Washington.

If only for settling that question, he should at least make up something halfway believable, like having an all-niter hoops session with the guys. Who cares now where he was anyway? He obviously was nowhere near the “situation room” (remember that nail-biting photo a la bin Laden’s takedown?), or he would have had pictures made to be spread all over the media. According to him, the Benghazi matter is a phony scandal so it wouldn’t have mattered if he was in Nairobi visiting relatives (or Boston, for that matter).

So…the country is safe for a few days, what with the prez in new England, Senator McCain just back from his routine Middle East shuttle. At his recent visitation in Lebanon (remember that picture?), he discovered to whom the U.S. should give Sherman tanks and dodge when doing no-fly zones. Obama demurred, so he gets some credit. McCain will find another likely civil war in which to meddle, so POTUS needs to be on the lookout. His NSA director, Susan Rice of the famous “talking points memo,” will perhaps not be as sanguinary as when she was at the UN and wangled a Libyan massacre from there.

The prez went to Brazil to announce that little seven-month massacre of Libyans in 2011 and to Leno’s clambake to do serious talk currently. After all, Jimmy Carter talked out matters with daughter Amy. Maybe Obama will do that number with one of his daughters.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Trayvon Martin Commemoration

The president set the tone for the fiftieth commemoration of the “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington in August 1963. When he said the jury (6 women, one black, one Hispanic) erred recently in acquitting George Zimmerman of any crime connected with the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, last year, and noted that he could have been Martin 35 years ago, he kept alive race-baiting as an art form, thus encouraging blacks to make Martin into a martyr of some sort and connecting his death with King’s.

The Martin-Zimmerman affair featured two men standing near each other on the same sidewalk. Martin decided that Zimmerman should not be there so he knocked Zimmerman down, broke his nose and attempted to completely bash his skull on the sidewalk, whereupon Zimmerman fatally shot Martin, who apparently was totally unmarked save for the bullet-wound. From the beginning, this was an open-and-shut case, in which the president actually said the jury and prosecution acted stupidly, just as he did in 2009 about a white policeman in Cambridge, Mass. He knew nothing of the details in either circumstance, just let out the clutch on his mouth before putting his brain in gear.

With the president’s leadership—especially in his declaration about “honoring” Martin somehow (for beating-up a white guy?)—the black community is in a turmoil against white people, notwithstanding that Zimmerman, half-white, classified himself as Hispanic, sort of like Obama classifying himself, half-white, as black. Actually, who cares? So, the commemoration this year is not about King and civil rights but just a “hate whitey” rally on the mall, which it mostly always has been anyway.

A local organizer of a trip to Washington to be part of the observance was quoted in the Lexington Herald-Leader: “This is not a commemoration … it is a continuation. It is to continue Dr. King’s dream.” Because of huge entitlements/quotas enacted in Congress to aid blacks in the 1960s, there has been some improvement in the black community but the “dream” has never materialized; therefore, it can’t be continued. In many ways, blacks – especially black men – have turned a potential windfall into a nightmare, not a dream.

A tip-off on the nature of the “commemoration” is seen in the fact that the Rev. Al Sharpton’s organization, something called National Action Network, is in a leadership role. It was Sharpton who went to Sanford after Martin was killed to start the “hate whitey” demonstrations. He was helped in this by agents sent by Attorney General Holder from the Department of Justice. Holder, undoubtedly at Obama’s behest, is still trying to figure a way to hang Zimmerman, using federal machinery.

In Lexington in July, there was a “Justice for Trayvon” rally. According to the paper, it was then that the wheels were set in motion for the trip to Washington, the obvious conclusion being that this is all about Trayvon and not King, a terrible miscarriage of theme that insults King, who would have deplored a crusade against the upholding of the law. The trip-organizer said she contacted Sharpton’s outfit when she became angry with the Zimmerman acquittal and was told to turn her anger into action. Obviously, her anger had nothing to do with King and the commemoration.

Despite the fact that a black man has been voted into the presidency not once but twice even though blacks comprise only about 13% of the population, the “hate whitey” crusades continue. Obama is in the White House because whites voted him in, and key positions in governments on all levels are filled with blacks. Until the Supreme Court finally said “enough,” they’ve enjoyed preferential treatment, such as in college applications, for many decades. This is not to mention Section 8 housing and all the rest.

On the Mall in D.C., the participants in the trip will gather in the shadow of the Buddha-like, made-in-China statue of King – three-stories tall, taller than the statue of Lincoln if he were standing instead of sitting – to honor Trayvon Martin, who had only to ignore Zimmerman instead of attempting to beat him to death. By further contrast, the statue of FDR in a wheelchair is merely life-size.

For this, the folks on the two-night trip will pay at least $350, counting food (conservatively at $73). It would have seemed unseemly to have a “Trayvon Martin Commemoration,” so Sharpton and others simply high-jacked the fiftieth anniversary of the King speech and march of 1963, thus keeping racism alive and well.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark