Homophobia or Speech-Freedom?

The “Duck Dynasty” brouhaha has snapped the nation's attention again to an issue presented by the homosexual community and/or its rabid supporters, to wit, that criticism of “gays” is not allowed...meaning that homosexuals are intolerant of tolerance, that gays can say what they think about “straights” (mean, homophobic, haters, etc.) but that the vast majority of folks (about 99%) may not speak about perversion. Apparently, the LGBT gang thinks the U.S. Constitution requires freedom of speech for only them.

This is not a Constitutional/legal matter, of course. If Phil Robertson had screamed a “false-alarm” fire-warning in a building, he might have to be dealt with since that could have caused physical harm to folks. Words do not hurt people unless they're amenable to being hurt—thin-skinned. It's doubtful that Robertson's skin is very thin, as proven by his apparent ability not to be bothered by the names he's been called.

It's amazing how cultural approvals/disapprovals change, especially in exceedingly brief time-frames. In only four years (an election cycle), for instance, Obama “evolved” from categorically affirming marriage to be a “one-man-one-woman” thing to being gung-ho for same-sex marriage, notwithstanding its legal ramifications. Biologically, such marriages are impossible unless, of course, sex plays no part in the discussion, in which case same-sex civil unions are already recognized in many areas, with the same government/institutional perks that accrue to actual husbands and wives.

Sixty years ago (April 1953), President Eisenhower indicated that homosexuals and lesbians were “potential threats” to national security and issued executive order number 10450 mandating that no one in either group was to be hired in federal government. Today, they are welcomed into government by a president with scant governing background and absolutely no military experience.

The case of Air Force enlisted man Bradley Manning is cause to make one wonder if Obama is ill-advised. Manning provided damaging national secrets (far worse than Edward Snowden's exposure of NSA operations) to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who made them available to news media worldwide. He has just been sentenced to 35 years but prefers to serve it as Chelsea Manning, demanding that government provide him a sex-change program. Eisenhower was right...perverted biology bespeaks perverted (even criminal) mentality.

In October 1964, President Lyndon Johnson was running for reelection when his top aide, Walter Jenkins, was apprehended by D.C. police performing oral sex on an immigrant man in the toilet of a YMCA facility near the White House, not the first apprehension for Jenkins. Johnson believably insisted he had no idea that Jenkins, the father of six children, was a homosexual; otherwise, so soon after Eisenhower's order Jenkins would not have been around.

Johnson had reason to worry because Jenkins possessed information about campaign funds that could have proved disastrous if in the wrong hands. Johnson aides Abe Fortas, later a Supreme Court justice, and Clark Clifford took care of removing all the damaging documents. Jenkins was gone immediately and Johnson was reelected. Could Jenkins, fathering six children, actually claim he was “born that way,” or did he choose that sordid lifestyle, ignoring the possibility that he could carry some dread disease home? Oral- and anal-sex, not to mention other alleged homosexual practices, involve inordinate filth.

Recently retired New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson's homosexual “partner” is referred to by the Center for American Progress as Robinson's “husband.” Robinson's appointment to the Bishopric in 2003 caused deep splits in the church, although the prevailing position of the church seems to be that homosexuality is good. Indeed, but for the bishops mostly in Africa, the official position of the church internationally would grant approval of homosexuals being ordained, as well as married to each other.

Robinson has two grown daughters and grandchildren, so was he “born that way” or did he decide that normal biological sex just wasn't good enough? Did he find that “loving” a man was more fulfilling and scriptural than faithfulness to his wife? Making that case stretches the imagination a brain-wave too far. Physical perversion bespoke an insensitive, selfish kiss-off to his church, causing much harm.

Obama's imprimatur on homosexual behavior and his consequent approval of practicing homosexuals in the military—not Obamacare—will be his primary legacy because this stance damns both the society and the national defense mechanism. He will be known as the “sexual deviancy” president, a Clintonesque stain on the office.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

DNC Memorandum #16

From the office of the chairWOMAN 27 December 2013

***­Listen up! There have been rumblings throughout the party that former FLOTUS/State Secretary/Senator/cuckolded wife (little joke there) Hillary Clinton might be a weak candidate for the top job in 2016 but rest assured she will be unbeatable. Fox News ogre, Charles Krauthammer, said on some crazy program that she would almost certainly be the candidate but that she would be weak, which means she will be STRONG. BTW, the rumor that she intends to recant concerning her statement in the Rose Garden in 2012 anent the misnamed “Benghazi Massacre” is untrue and she has stated that she will not mention it again.

***Though making no apologies for it, health insurance for all staffers has been canceled account it did not meet the new ACA standards. [Note: The term Obamacare is no longer in use. Never use it in any meetings except those involving people who can be expected to come up with big dollars. When in union meetings, avoid the subject altogether.] There have been grumblings around the bottled-water dispenser and sugar-less candy machine that the daily changes made by POTUS concerning ACA make some constitutional idiots argue in town-hall meetings that his actions are not only un-presidential but clearly illegal. Do not—repeat—DO NOT argue about this since...well, get the picture. Be forewarned that you WILL pay the fine if you do not enroll in an insurance plan. Your current salary may help with premiums but account the monstrous deductibles do not—repeat—DO NOT get sick or break a limb. Let skiing wait until later.

***POTUS will be in full campaign mode after his trip to Hawaii...okay...in fuller campaign mode than usual, if possible (little joke there—don't tell). He's requesting that the DNC find the best possible teleprompter-writers for the effort. He's planning on at least an average of 25 speeches per week and the new White House guru, John Podesta, will furnish the information as to when, where and to which groups so that the speech will be tailored for the crowd to be addressed—actually the television audience, as well, so this job means walking a fine line between telling the truth and what the truth ought to be in a specific area. Be thinking of usable quotes from Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. Do not quote anything John Kerry has ever said about anything, even the medals he threw over the fence in 1970, denied it and then said in 2004 he would never do that again. All staffers with at least a “C” in English 101 are eligible and those staffers chosen will take a six-weeks course in the Executive Office Building explaining how to use the truth in various ways as well as when not to use it at all. Podesta is ideal for this job, having recently called the GOP "a cult worthy of Jonestown." So...snakey, sneaky, sniveling and snarky are in now. The rumor that he will continue to be paid by George Soros to plan GOP rally-disruptions is untrue and Podesta has promised not to mention it again.

***There have been questions as to why POTUS has enrolled in the healthcare plan for a policy he never plans to use since he already has better insurance that hasn't been canceled...at least not yet. His reasoning is that he will become the prime role model or hero or mentor or whatever else people are for doing good things, thus encouraging especially the young to get enrolled lest ACA implode for lack of funds. Unfortunately, a gaggle of Harvard- and Yale-professors took this to mean that everyone is required to have two healthcare policies and their applications have befuddled the computers in the appropriate settings to the point of crashing. Professors at MIT and other tech schools and colleges have gone on Facebook to express either laughter or consternation or outright derision at what they consider an act so unbelievably silly as to actually not have happened. When addressing this matter, do not mention that POTUS's premium cost is less than 1.2% percent of his annual salary. People in all classes would love such a deal, especially in light of what they're facing in their plans. The poor guy making an average of about $50,000 per year would pay only $600, or $50 a month for such a policy. Stay far away from this subject, especially where people understand how to understand percentages...roughly above fifth-grade level.

***A main theme in the POTUS campaign in 2014 for Congressional office-seekers will be same-sex marriage. The idea is to push this as a superior form of family, introducing new ways of showing affection, a sort of departure from the traditional sex-ways in the interest of making cohabitation of any kind—even heterosexual marriage or shack-ups—exciting and educational, considering the times now, when anything goes. Warning: Be very careful in this area and do not—repeat—Do Not—let any reference to triangular- or quadruple-marriages or (perish the thought) bestiality enter any discussion, especially in town-halls held in bars. Also, plead ignorance of anything connected to “Duck Dynasty,” especially in states between California and New England, where most of the highly unsophisticated population lives.

***The 2014 elections are terribly important. If the House can be re-captured, your overseer is willing to take on CongressWOMAN Pelosi for the job of Speaker. In that position, she can commit patronage on a scale to give great rewards to staffers who work hard. If, however, the repubs survive, all bets are off and she will be revenge-minded...so staffers, be warned. In the meantime—HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Presidential Arrogance/Ignorance

It’s perfectly obvious now as it was to many then that the antics of President Obama over the last few years with regard to foreign affairs, especially in the Middle East, have been not just ineffective but worthless and witless. In announcing in a well designed flourish of arrogance that leaders of various nations should quit and turn their countries over to whatever outfits could grab and manage them, he placed himself in their predicaments since the same thing could happen to him if the Tea partiers, for instance, ginned up a lot of support and rose against him.

Imagine massacres like those in Damascus in outlying McLean, Virginia, and mortar shells landing on Pennsylvania Avenue, especially if the prime ministers of England, Germany and France called for him to get out of Dodge and let the cowhands with the six-shooters have it. They might even decide to whom to give those pistols, like Obama crazily did concerning Libya.

Think Egypt’s Mubarak, Yemen’s Saleh, Libya’s Qaddafi and Syria’s Assad. Each of these nations is in much worse shape now than before the president applied the “Obama Doctrine.” In the case of Libya, Obama saw to Qadaffi’s murder personally, and that benighted nation is now a society in hopeless shambles wallowing in bloodshed, with cutthroats from its well established al Qaeda vipers’ nest spreading Islamic jihad throughout sub-Saharan Africa, murdering especially Christians at will.

None of these nations posed a threat to the U.S., but their insurgents – fully expecting to be armed by the U.S. on the basis of Obama’s disastrous pronouncements – had no idea that Obama was all wind and no fury. Even more disappointing was Senator McCain’s visits to places like Libya and Lebanon to “discover” the grand revolutionists to whom weapons could be safely awarded. Obama made the tragic error of giving millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Morsi government in Egypt, a snake-pit inhabited by the murderous Muslim Brotherhood and justifiably overthrown by the “people,” who recognized Obama as the friend of their enemy and therefore their enemy.

Obama’s disdain of the U.S. Constitution has been well demonstrated, as in the case of his unprovoked personal war against Libya, a sovereign nation, without even a consultation with Congress. Now, he acts illegally in changing Obamacare on practically a daily basis, nullifying provisions set in law. His apparent lack of historical perception, however, is simply astonishing.

He seems not to understand, for instance, that Syria’s Assad is doing what Lincoln did in 1861—attempting to preserve a nation and its government. The result was an unbelievable amount of American bloodshed…some 625,000 Union and Confederate military dead, not to mention tens of thousands of soldiers maimed for life and civilians turned into refugees in their own country.

Obama was actually considering entering the Syrian conflict and might even have made that horrendous mistake but for Russia’s Putin backing Assad in the interest of preserving the government (and Russian interests) but destroying (at least allegedly) Syria’s WMD. Much of that weaponry is surely well-hidden, and Putin probably knows where. Result: Syria still has a government, albeit with bloodshed, but is not under the sword of Islam jihad-freaks and vicious tribal chiefs, as is the case in Libya.

The Middle East has far less stability now than when the “Obama Doctrine” was brought forth. How much better would it have been if Obama had either kept his overworked and under-educated teleprompters shut down…or, perish the thought, actually helped Qaddafi fight al Qaeda, which is what the Libyan president claimed he was doing? How much carnage would have been spared if he had not tried to unseat Assad, giving weapons and carte blanche to grossly unpredictable tribal chiefs to be as murderous as the Syrian army?

Historians will make judgments down the line but it’s perfectly obvious in real time that this president has destroyed this nation’s credibility regarding the perception held by people in other nations. Once the envy of the world in education, innovation, manufacturing, wealth, democratic philosophy, religious orientation, defense and stability, the U.S. teeters on the brink of bankruptcy in domestic/world affairs, lacking the necessary morality and consequent integrity necessary to “doing the right thing.”

It’s sad to watch any nation futilely fight decline. It’s much sadder to watch one’s own not even fight, with leadership so vapid as to be essentially nonexistent.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

P.S. MERRY CHRISTMAS
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Perversionism Joins Feminism

The nation has been plowing its way through the “Age of Feminism” for a few decades now, with the ladies gradually taking over (or at least attempting to so do) just about everything from construction jobs to the legal profession (especially the courts) to the medical system to the military. Men, fearing the charge of chauvinism or insensitive brutishness or gender-racism, have watched slack-jawed, instinctively refusing to fight what they see in some ways as ruinous.

Nearly every activity in national life has had its “first woman” featured prominently in the media, just as the case with the “first black man” or the “first black woman,” as if these people previously had been dumb non-entities. Though demeaning, the ladies and the others apparently see it as making them special, deserving every accolade and anything else connected to their “firsts,” often collected through lawsuits against…yep…evil men, 99% white.

The beat goes on with the women, but there’s now a new “age”—the “age of perversionism [admittedly sic…and sick].” For instance, the first “gay guy” to be mayor of Lexington, Ky., was big news four years ago, when he spent a million of his own dollars to buy the post and is preparing to spend at least that much again. It’s the “age of the homosexual,” a special breed of humanoid and discoverer of unbelievably exotic ways to use body orifices an eighth-grader understands to be…strange.

Just as the ladies and blacks have become protected species, homosexuals have achieved that exalted status, at least as evaluated by the “mainstream media,” the Hollywood elites and their favorite manipulative bureaucrat—Barack Hussein Obama, who has indelibly stamped his imprimatur on the superiority of these beings in their proving that anal- and oral-sex are extraordinary, notwithstanding the filthiness involved.

Anachronistic and s-o-o-o provincial? Yeah, the homage paid to perverts makes the previous recognition of their “quaintness” as being foul and in violation of both decency and biology so unsophisticated. The powers-that-be had to close the toilets in a public park in my town once because these neo-sophisticates had appropriated them to do their thing, thus providing a public service in educating the children who might wander in.

The prez, who said five years ago that marriage was possible between only a man and woman, has, according to his term, “evolved,” into understanding that marriage is for two guys who “love” each other. Yeah…love is the big deal in these hookups among a class of individuals known primarily as unashamedly promiscuous. Men loving each other intimately or romantically sounds as silly as prostitutes loving their johns.

A guy who “loves” a same-sex friend would never place his grimy “exhaust apparatus” where the sun never shines or where teeth, tongue and tonsils could be “messed with.” That goes for heterosexuals, too, body orifices being designed specifically for certain activities only. Former president Clinton remarked that point, his contribution to society forever tainted by the infamous “stain on the dress.” Unsurprisingly, he’s expressed regret that he signed the Defense of Marriage Act…s-o-o-o un-cool.

Proving his commitment to perversionism [sic], POTUS announced that neither he nor wifey dear nor VPOTUS and his wife will attend the Olympics in Russia because Putin—that insensitive ogre—has made it plain that homosexuals are not welcome anywhere. Soundly defeated by Putin currently in the conduct of world affairs, Obama is sending two lesbians to officially represent the USA. So there, Vladimir! This should make all U.S athletes proud…coming from a nation whose president wallows in the amoral depths and acts like a spoiled child.

Like the doctor who remarked to his radio host in my town that he was aghast in a local restaurant in discovering that he had just treated his waiter for anal gonorrhea, one cringes at the ramifications of this virtual worship of the homosexual, protecting him/her/it (those trans-genders and Qs) even more stringently than the polar bears. They’re even welcome – after hundreds of years – in the military, where commanders dread to see them officially “outed.”

Once considered a genetically caused malady among a miniscule number, homosexuality is now even more normal than normal—part of Obama’s legacy that also reinforces his status as an international joke. Move over, ladies, the new protected “ism” has arrived—perversionism.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

A Redtape Letter

The Screwtape Letters by the noted British author C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite books. The long letters were written by a man, Screwtape, for the purpose of instructing his nephew, Wormwood, in how to evangelize an ordinary man against God and into following Satan. I’ve been working on a book probably titled The Redtape Letters, including letters from a man, Redtape, instructing his nephew, Gullible, vis-à-vis politics/society and how to guide the nation into socialism. Here is a letter dealing with the so-called Affordable Care Act:

My dear Nephew,

I think I’ve already mentioned the Affordable Care Act and perhaps some things concerning its contents but you may have questions about why it has become a colossal fiasco, seemingly overseen by nincompoops. I’m still wondering why the party that pays very vocal heed to the enemy has been strangely almost quiescent in that it has raised little by way of either ridicule or objections, though, of course, it may have thoughts of simply letting the president twist in the wind over what everyone says is his prime legacy. The short answer is that it either is as incompetent as the president is encouraging the citizenry to believe about himself or it secretly likes the plan itself. “Something for nothing” is as attractive to republicans as it is to any other entity. By the time the ACA becomes the elephant in the living-room, most current lawmakers will be drawing the lush pensions they have devised for themselves, so who cares…eh?

The mayhem occurring with the healthcare web-site, the catastrophic roll-out and the entire mess, with doctors having no idea who and where their patients will be, not to mention the millions whose policies have been canceled—never mind that the prez said this would never happen—does not constitute an accident, poor planning or anything not intended. This disarray has been well-planned from the start. The public—sometimes referred to by my people as a collection of dolts—has been fooled into believing that the ACA would guarantee not healthcare exactly but the insurance to pay for whatever healthcare is available when the dust settles. There’s a tremendous difference. Suffice it to say that the objective all along has been to convert the entire public into single-payers. The notion that insurance has ever been important is just that – a notion.

The rubber will hit the road when citizens discover the cost and the unbelievable deductibles connected to the insurance. The doctors will rebel when they discover that the ACA regulators (a whole army of them as well as another army at IRS to ride herd on the citizens who don’t comply) will set their fees and regulate the regimens they construct for treatment (or non-treatment…little joke there). In other words, the system is designed to fail…simply implode as taxes are relentlessly raised to make the ACA affordable, which it never will be. When the implosion takes place, single-payer will be all that’s left. Actually, multitudes of doctors and other health-providers will already have left healthcare by that time. This will exacerbate the failure even more and, obviously, at about this point the nation will be accepting the Force, mostly with gnashing of the teeth, except for people like me and, hopefully, you, the enlightened…and the president, of course, though he will have left office but will be in line to once again take over as the Constitution is rewritten. The members of his party, who never read the ACA legislation and wouldn’t have understood it anyway, actually are quite dumb and have not thought through the chain of events now firmly begun. Those who pay attention to the enemy know what’s happening but are in the minority and, in any event, are weak, weak, weak.

The next shoe to drop has been put off by the prez, who actually pays little attention to the law and has little understanding of it, except that it promises civil unrest, which is necessary to establishing the Force. Though he had no legal right to do it, the prez has put off the “employer mandate” section of the law from January 2014 to January 2015 or later. When this mandate is obeyed, tens of millions of policies will be lost and people might take to the streets. Ordinarily that would not be so bad for moving toward the Force but it would be too early for that now. The ignorant populace still believes in democracy and the military is and will be for some time under civilian control. The president, when he ran the first time, called for a domestic police force equal to the military in resources. If the voters continue his ilk in office…well, you can see.

I hope you’re getting the picture. ACA is vitally important because bringing people’s very health and well-being under control eventuates in bringing them entirely under control. The single-payer concept—inevitable now—means that sick people will not just go to the doctor. Instead, they will go to the government, which will then send them to the doctor it chooses for them unless a regulator decides that the would-be patient is not sick enough to take up a doctor’s time. In discussing this with your friends and (hopefully) fellow organizers, however, do not mention the so-called “death panels,” a particularly sore subject because of some very bad publicity. Old codgers will still get artificial knee-replacements for a long time yet, and a hemlock cocktail is not on the horizon…yet.

I hope you’ve lodged a logical, well-written complaint against that meteorology professor who claimed that Al Gore and the IPCC are well-heeled opportunists who wouldn’t know a rainstorm from a drought. People like him are dangerous because they make people think, an absolute no-no to devotees of the Force. People like me and (hopefully) you DO think but not about what to do FOR people; rather, what to do TO people. That’s the menu to click for POWER.

Your affectionate uncle,
Redtape

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The Professor & Unions

In an op-ed of 10 December In the Lexington [Ky.] Herald-Leader, University of Kentucky professor Ron Formisano, currently on leave, stated that “inequality in the nation has reached record heights not seen since the 1920s,” and that “a prime cause has been the decline of labor unions.” He claimed the result to be “its middle class getting smaller.” The inequality he noted had mostly to do with wages, though wages are often affected by inequality in such things as IQ, risk-taking, education, personal incentive and, often, plain luck.

Formisano did not define the middle class. According to PBS in a September 2012 report, both Romney and Obama (both millionaires) agreed that it consisted of folks making below $250,000. Most others, Formisano included, probably would not agree. The government has never defined the middle class, so it actually is what anyone says it is.

According to the federal HHS Department, the poverty level for a family of four stands at $23,550. According to an American Community Survey report in September, the median household income in 2012 was $51,371. The census is split into five classes, each involving 20% of the population. The middle 20% of households ranged in the $38,500 – $62,400 category. This group is probably not the middle class, with 40% of 310 million in population both above and below it financially.

This is from TIME magazine in February 2009 (Claire Sudath): “Today, most middle-class Americans are homeowners. They have mortgages, at least some college education and a professional or managerial job that earns them somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000 a year … and 70% of them have cable and two or more cars. Two-thirds have high-speed Internet, and 40% own a flat-screen TV.” Blue-collar, unionized workers also fit her description.

There’s been some change account the continuing recession (despite the government’s insistence that it’s over) but the above seems accurate for working-class families now. The major decline during the last three years is the huge loss of jobs and an unemployment rate that’s actually close to 20%. This loss – and consequent middle-class shrinkage? – has nothing to do with labor unions, notwithstanding the hundreds of billions of “stimulus” dollars wasted on non-existent “shovel-ready” jobs presumably designed for union members, Obama’s locked-in support group.

Thirty-five percent of the work-force was unionized in the 1950s, mostly in private companies. Today, that figure is at 6.6%, with unionized government workers at 4.7%—total, 11.3%. It would be much lower if Obama had not bankrupted General Motors and Chrysler in 2009, slamming shareholders but protecting union jobs. The government has just made the final sale of taxpayer shares, with $11.8 billion in losses to the taxpayers.

The union-decline began when huge numbers of women entered the work-force during and following WWII, but between 1967 and 2011 the number of female workers increased rapidly by 343% while the male work force merely doubled (103%), according to the Census Bureau and Dept. of Labor statistics. Two-earner households meant men alone no longer had to bring home the bacon, consequently did not pursue perks and raises that unions stood for. In addition, women now outnumber men in higher education and are entering professions, not manual labor.

Formisano cited the most unionized and least unionized states concerning middle-class households (whatever they are) as realizing 47.4% and 46.8%, respectively, of total state income—virtually no difference, actually destroying his own argument. The loss of manufacturing jobs has all but killed the economy, not the weakening of unions.

Blame for losing these jobs is equally shared by unions and management, each inordinately greedy and corrupt to the point of pricing U.S.-made goods out of the market, domestic and global. I belonged to blue-collar transportation unions for decades, mostly as a locomotive engineer, and certainly appreciated union achievements, but I examined the rail (132 lbs to the linear yard) on which I operated trains one summer day some 30 or so years ago and discovered it was made in Japan, where there were/are no iron-ore mines and from where it had to be shipped 6,000 miles at great expense, but still undercutting U.S. steel-makers.

I also lived in Ashland, Ky., in the 1960s and watched industry-giant Armco Steel begin sinking into demise—greed. Technology has played a part, too. In my tenure, I witnessed labor-intensive train crews reduced from five to two men, no matter the length or tonnage of the train.

The prime cause for inequality has little to do with unions.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Paper Popularizes PERVERSION

One of the sickest articles ever to tarnish the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader appeared on 05 December, accompanied by a picture of two naked homosexual men made up as women and apparently hunched into a sort of vertical anal-sex ecstasy. The same two appeared on an inside page dressed as naked women in an embrace and described as “water nymphs.”

The article was about a film entitled The Last Gospel of the Pagan Babies, based on one of the homosexual’s “story of growing up in a flamboyant and openly gay community [1982-2007] in a southern city where few thought that sort of thing could happen.” Indeed, the claim was made that this exotic community has “roots” going all the way back to the Civil War, as if that’s any different from similar communities in cities everywhere.

The point of the film was that perversion has finally been recognized as a sort of “special” blessing. The film’s producer said she had an “epiphany” about an extraordinary time with these extraordinary (special) people while on a visit to Lexington, Ky., where she had once resided.

The producer spoke of “a time when homosexuality was taboo and fairness ordinances and same-sex marriages were unimaginable,” and claimed this as part of the reason for her documentary. Homosexuality is still taboo and same-sex marriages are still unimaginable, with no laws that make homosexuals a protected species changing anything except allowing a raid on the treasuries of all governments, as well as forcing the vast majority of “straights” to relinquish their rights concerning hiring or servicing people against their will.

In 2012, a small cloth-printing company, Hands On Originals, refused account religious convictions to print a homosexual message on T-shirts advertising a “gay pride parade” sponsored by a local LGBTQ outfit. The Herald-Leader led an attempt to encourage boycotts of HOO that would bankrupt it, even advertising/encouraging a “protest” against the business. The LGBTQ organization predictably brought charges before the Lexington Human Rights Commission, which predictably convicted HOO of discrimination.

In March of 2013, the Kentucky Legislature was fed up with this stuff and to its credit passed HB 279 that protected sincerely held religious beliefs from infringement unless there is a compelling governmental interest. Predictably, Obama-sycophant Governor Beshear vetoed the act, whereupon his veto was overridden 79-15 and 32-6 by the House and Senate, respectively, better than 6 to 1. This vindicated HOO and made the LGBTQ action moot.

Whereas the homosexual “climate” in Lexington (featuring artistic and super-sophisticated icons of intellect, as the film would have it) is replicated everywhere, perhaps few places have had as much newspaper exposure/backing as in Lexington. A decade ago, unrelenting reams of front-page and inside columns and pictures were devoted to the (gasp) uniqueness of two homosexuals in hiring a woman to use their sperm (at least allegedly) on two occasions—just $9,000 a pop—to bear their own alleged offspring.

Quads resulted from the first “pop” (with one fetus medically killed in the womb), but only one child from the second. The consequent history, including a protective order of one of the men against the other, has been lurid. The surrogate “mother,” probably realizing she could be stuck with the five children to add to her three others, petitioned the court to give up all parental rights to her own children but was turned down by the judge, who claimed that all children should have both father and mother.

Later, in court documents it was revealed that the men had broken up two months before the birth of the quads but stayed together in the same house. One of the men revealed that the other began “dating” another homosexual and brought him into the home, so then there were three dads. Get the picture? This is the H-L’s definition of family.

In 2006, the Herald-Leader noticed that a student had been expelled from the University of the Cumberlands, Williamsburg, Ky., account his homosexuality, as the paper would have it. This was not true. The student had flaunted it on Facebook and pictured young men kissing each other. Homosexual BEHAVIOR was disallowed and this was made clear in the school’s book of rules.

On seven days of a nine-day period, the paper made the subject front-page-above-the-fold stuff. In addition to the huge front-page segments, pictures, and headlines, the paper dedicated pages and feet (not inches) of columns and pictures to the subject on its interior pages, all in the front (A) “news, editorial, op-ed” section and advertised a grand protest in Williamsburg that drew maybe 35 people from all over the state—a complete fizzle. This was a profound hatchet job meant to ruin the school, which had 1,700 students then but more than 3,700 now.

The paper’s obsession with perversion as normal (an impossibility) may be due to its slavic bow to political correctness or maybe just because of the policies of its owner, McClatchy. It’s passing strange.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

MONARCHY...or Not?

On 03 December televised on C-Span was one of the most scintillating hearings I’ve ever witnessed, held before the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Congressman Goodlatte. The subject: “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.” The panelists were Jonathan Turley and Nicholas Rosenkranz of Georgetown University (Law), Simon Lazarus of the Constitutional Accountability Center and Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute.

The discussion centered on the “Take care” provision of Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution: “…he [president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed… .” Three of the four panelists went to some pain to excoriate President Obama, with, if memory serves, at least two of those indicating they voted for Obama. Lazarus tried to make the case that Obama has acted Constitutionally with respect, especially, to the so-called Affordable Care Act.

Subjects such as immigration were discussed but the main consideration concerned the healthcare act that has undergone tremendous criticism, particularly account the fact that the “rollout” on the Internet was and remains a fiasco. The most damning statement, probably made inadvertently, was made by Lazarus, the president’s defender, when he asserted that the legislators did not know what was in the act when they passed it.

It’s common knowledge that this was true of ACA, passed in 2010, and also the wretched cap-and-trade act passed by the democrat house before 2011 but not taken up by the Senate to this day. No republican voted for either act. Then-Speaker Pelosi is still ridiculed for her claim that people would know what was in the ACA only AFTER it was passed. She was right, making Obama/ democrats into a laughingstock.

Lazarus tried to use the “take care” mandate as the president’s prerogative to apply the laws in the fashion he deemed timely if at all, as in the case of Obama’s public refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act long before it was fated by the Supreme Court in a decision that should terrify citizens if Obama gets to appoint more justices.

Rosenkranz remarked the strange position of Obama in threatening to veto a House resolution to delay the ACA employer mandate for a year, then in a Friday blog (not even a directive) pronounced that delay himself, thus nullifying by executive fiat his Constitutional mandate to execute, not delay, the law passed by the Congress, the ruling body. He was merely “taking care” of his party in the November elections, knowing that the employer mandate will affect the citizenry much worse than the current cancellation of millions of policies he promised for years would not happen.

Note was taken of the fact that Obama already has—although he can’t actually do it Constitutionally—exempted over a thousand entities from having to observe the ACA. It’s a cinch that in his next late-on-a-Friday-evening-blog he will exempt the unions, another illegal act. He knows that but assumes impunity.

The damning but appropriate term used by the panel in the hearing was “monarchy,” the antithesis of what the founders constructed, having just gained freedom from the English monarchy and establishing a representative government of, by and for the people. Picking and choosing for enforcement (immigration laws, for instance) or actually changing laws passed by Congress (ACA) is the most easily recognized modus operandi of Obama, acting as a monarch.

There was much discussion of what the Congress or an individual could do with respect to the courts to rein in a monarchical president. Not much, apparently. Finally, Rosenkranz more than once uttered the word one of the congressmen refused to use—impeach.

The fact that Obama has been the most prolific liar in recent presidential history (Fast-and-Furious, Benghazi Massacre, insurance policy non-cancellations, IRS-scandal, Syria) is not the issue. His blatant attempt to usurp the powers of Congress is, as was proven in his war on Libya, the most flagrant violation of his oath.

Without consulting Congress, Obama un-Constitutionally and in violation of the War Powers Act, sent U.S. forces in March 2011 against a sovereign nation that posed no threat to this country militarily or in any other way and waged that war for seven months, leaving Libya in total disarray.

One congressman asked about war-making. If Obama could attack Libya, causing horrendous bloodshed and anarchy, what might he decide to do about anything? MONARCHY—or not?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Passenger-Trains Not an Option

Via both op-ed and the “letters” forum, much has been said lately about the need for extensive rail passenger-service throughout the nation, i.e., that Amtrak should make a huge effort to establish ground transportation by rail, thus relieving the traffic on both highways and airways. Actually, this only points up the reason for traveling, whether as a delightful journey just for the sake of it or a trip that’s necessary, with time in transit the prime consideration.

The rail corridor between Boston and Washington has already been put to good use with high-speed trains that deliver passengers directly to specific urban destinations rather than to airports miles away, necessitating further transportation (taxis) or car-rentals. The trains run 150 mph at times but do not travel constantly at near that speed. The average speed between New York and Washington is about 77 mph and between New York and Boston about 64.

Checking a current timetable reveals that an Acela (fast shuttle train) leaves New York’s Penn Station at 6:00 a.m. and arrives in Washington at 8:55, nearly three hours including about 8 stops that eat up time. A train leaving Boston at 5:10 a.m. arrives in New York at 8:45, three hours and 35 minutes and about 6 stops. A flight to Washington from Laguardia takes an hour and 20 minutes and to Boston about an hour and 15 minutes. The trains have no steps, so they stop at only special platforms such as those in subways.

Trains make sense in the Northeast Corridor situation and attract a huge rider-ship; however, they serve none of the many small cities and towns along the way. They do not travel over dedicated tracks but must use those over which freight trains are operated, with the freights handled so that the Acela trains are not delayed, at least hopefully. They also traverse crossings at grade, always a dangerous circumstance because drivers cannot accurately gauge their speed (especially at 150) and sometimes ignore warning-lights and gates.

Interstate rail travel is an altogether different matter, if only on the basis of huge distances. Also, Acela speeds don’t apply between New York and San Jose. A passenger leaving Ashland, Ky., headed for San Jose, California, for instance, will spend some 70 hours on the train, nearly three days, some of which time is spent changing trains and at stops. A Delta flight takes about 6.5 hours with one stop. A coach fare is $466, with first class (sleeper) at $1261. There are few of these trains, as is the case throughout the country, east/west and north/south, with very few stops for passengers.

After WWII, owing to affordable cars and massive highway construction, rail-passenger traffic died rather quickly. The last north-south passenger-train through Lexington made its last run in 1970. In the 1940s, there were at least 12 trains a day through Danville (14 during the winter months), where the trains from Louisville intersected the north-south line.

There were “locals” that stopped in virtually every town on the line. All the “through” trains included a mail-car as well as baggage cars and sleepers. They were relatively fast, considering both the time and the terrain between Cincinnati and Chattanooga. No. 3 made it in 8.5 hours, with a few stops…335 miles.

Covering about 2,500 miles, the train-trip from Ashland to San Jose averages about 36 mph, though I have a locomotive friend who operated trains at about 90 mph over a division from central Illinois west. The railroads are not enamored with passenger trains because they cause delays to freight trains, which furnish virtually all the revenue (profit). At one time (and probably still), the division of the Norfolk Southern between Danville, Ky., and Harriman, Tenn., handled/s the greatest volume of freight trains of any railroad east of the Mississippi River.

Bus transportation companies have suffered the same loss of business as the railroads. A plethora of buses used to come through Lexington (busy downtown terminal) and service the many towns through which they passed. That time has long since passed due to the automobile, even though government money furnishes the roads, unlike with the railroads that have to build and maintain their tracks at great expense.

People think in terms of the fast rail systems in Europe and Japan, with speeds in Japan set at 199 mph for passenger comfort (curves, turbulence, etc.). Maximum speed in Germany is 186 mph. In Norway, regular gasoline costs $11.54 a gallon and in England $9.85. Gas is much higher in Europe and Japan than in the U.S. so there’s great incentive to ride the rails.

Heavy freight trains make rail maintenance costly and constant. As a former locomotive engineer, I handled coal trains requiring six engines at some 200 tons apiece (21,600 horsepower) and 100 cars of coal at 135 tons each—total weight 14,700 tons. Imagine the forces at work when that train went around a sharp curve at just 40 mph. The ride was not smooth, though one might expect it to be like gliding.

This means that tracks for freights do not lend themselves to smoothness even for light passenger trains, especially at high speeds. The RRs don’t want passenger business. Even if a train could make 150 mph constantly (impossible in curves and on steep grades) and never stop, it would still need much more than a day to make it from New York City to Los Angeles.

Except for the north-south coastal “corridors,” interstate passenger service will not happen as a significant interstate entity.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark