Dr. Ben Carson's Scary View on 2016

Dr. Ben Carson's Scary View on 2016

Fifteen minutes after famed pediatric brain surgeon Benjamin Solomon “Ben” Carson Sr. delivered President Barack Hussein Obama an unexpected wake-up call with regard to the dangers of political correctness, deficit spending, and  Obamacare at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, he received a call from the White House demanding he immediately apologize to the president who had been uncomfortably seated two chairs away on the dais.

True to himself, Carson, author of “America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made America Great,” refused to render any apology, saying he “had talked to the president afterwards. He didn’t seem upset and there’s no reason he should be unless what I said applied to him,” which it clearly did. 

Although he is widely known for his breakthrough medical accomplishments and outspoken conservative views, Dr. Carson has never been  considered an inflammatory extremist so when he recently predicted that a 2016 presidential election may not ever happen it might be time to sit up and take notice of that ominous possibility.

The popular candidate for the 2016 Republican nomination said just that to a shocked Chris Wallace during his appearance on Fox News Sunday. 

Wallace asked, “You said recently that there might not be elections in 2016 because of widespread anarchy.  Do you really believe that?” and Dr. Carson responded that, “I hope that that is not going to be the case. But certainly there is the potential.”

He then provided the rationale for his impressions. . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=39176.) 

The Roots of Barack Obama's Selective Crises

The Roots of Barack Obama's Selective Crises

From the outset, when Barack Hussein Obama first announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in 2007 and through Election Day, Americans of every political stripe have had serious, if often belated, misgivings regarding a candidate with minimal qualifications and experience with all of two years as a U.S. senator presumptuously vying for the highest office in the land and the position as leader of the Free World. 

Unfortunately and wrongly, those concerns were frequently dismissed as baseless reflections of racial prejudice against an African-American.

A few days before that election, liberal Charlie Rose made no reference to that canard but astoundingly admitted to liberal Tom Brokaw on national television that, “I don’t know what Barack Obama’s worldview is.”  Brokaw responded, “No, I don’t either” and added that, “We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy” or the people advising him. 

In essence, two of Obama ‘s staunchest supporters were conceding that their chosen presidential candidate was a total enigma.  

In short order, although to my knowledge neither Rose nor Brokaw have ever reiterated their qualms, they and the American people have learned a great deal about Obama’s thinking on many issues and about his advisers and we are learning more and more every day about his thinking on both foreign and domestic affairs. 

Many of his ideologically-driven thoughts and actions have reinforced the view that Obama was woefully and dangerously unprepared for his office.  

For example, just recently, America’s commander in chief decided that the deadly Ebola virus currently confined mostly to west Africa represents a far greater threat to America and the world than any other problems including ISIS terrorists who have vowed to visit their murderous movement on our country and the rest of Western civilization.

There exists no reasonable doubt that Ebola represents a significant danger to Americans’ health and safety but the virus  hardly poses an imminent threat anywhere near comparable to ISIS.

In the unlikely event Obama is right in his comparative threat assessment of Ebola, which the UN Security Council has also called a danger to world peace–without singling out the virus as the most pressing world problem–he felt it merited dispatching at least 3,000 combat troops to Liberia to set up treatment centers in lieu of sending them to Iraq despite the fact they are trained for combat and not for construction missions.

Likewise, Obama has determined that in order to crush ISIS in the Mid East, “boots on the ground” are unnecessary and that America’s potent air power, in conjunction with assistance from our coalition allies, is sufficient to wipe out 32,000 ISIS terrorists.

The problems with his “strategy” are manifold, . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=39120.)

The Goodells, Roger and Charlie

The Goodells, Roger and Charlie

 

National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell has proven the truth of the adage that a nut doesn’t fall far from the family tree.

After ten days of hiding from the press and from NFL fans, Roger emerged from his cocoon and conducted a news conference on Friday in which he emphatically declared, referring to his mishandling of the Ray Rice and other NFL domestic violence scandals, ”The same mistakes can never be repeated” and that he “didn’t get it right” in disciplining Rice and Rice’s fellow accused abusers.

Roger also repeated the blatant lie that no one at the NFL ever saw the TMZ video showing Rice punching his then-fiancée Lanay Palmer in an Atlantic City hotel then dragging and kicking her unconscious body out of an elevator despite the fact that a law enforcement official has said he sent the video of the brutal attack to a league executive some five months ago.

Call it selective memory or CYA, covering your ass, Roger also refused to offer his resignation from his cushy job for which NFL team owners unaccountably compensated him with $44.2 million last year in salary and bonuses. 

Not a bad haul for a guy oblivious of major violations of league rules!

On the other hand, Roger was just following his father’s example who was noted for his failure to live up to expectations.

Charles “Charlie” Goodell, a little-known, moderate Republican  congressman from upstate New York, was  picked  in 1968 by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to fill the U.S, Senate vacancy following the assassination of Robert Kennedy and quickly switched allegiance from his conservative roots and became a liberal in Rockefeller’s mold. 

He gained the favor of the leftist, anti-Viet Nam War crowd when he evolved virtually overnight into a typical spendthrift Democrat liberal as well as an outspoken pacifist.

He came to be known as the “Christine Jorgensen of the Republican party” and was soundly defeated by conservative James L. Buckley two years later.

During his brief, 22-month  tenure in the Senate, Charlie didn’t undergo a sex change like the famous Jorgenson but he did manage to antagonize many Republicans in the GOP by transforming himself from a generally conservative former congressman into a Rockefeller–Jacob Javits liberal to conform with his patron’s political philosophy by choosing the path of least resistance in the liberal New York Republican Party.

Confirming his radical change, Goodell even won the cross endorsement of New York’s Liberal Party when he ran for election in 1962, finishing third in a 3-man race with a grand total of 24.3% of the vote.

Charlie Goodell’s only son, Roger, likewise failed to fulfill his responsibilities as NFL Commissioner. . . .(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=39101.)

The Stat-Spangled Banner and the Dearth of American Patriotism

The Star-Spangled Banner and the Dearth of American Patriotism

 

The title of this essay refers to the “dearth” not the “death” of American patriotism; patriotism is far from dead in our country even if it is under deadly, unrelenting assault.

For example, in a failed effort to appear objective, Brown University historian Ted Widmer doesn’t precisely say he detests America’s  National Anthem but instead cites everything wrong about “The Star-Spangled Banner,” strictly for the purposes of historical accuracy , of course.  
 
After all, what would it look like for a renowned American historian to overly and overtly criticize his own country’s  most sacred patriotic song?
\
In “Is It Time to Ditch the Star-Spangled Banner,” Widmer correctly points out some valid issues with “The Star-Spangled Banner” like its high notes that few can render satisfactorily but devotes most of his attention to the seedy background of the music.
As most people know, the lyrics of the four stanzas of America’s future National Anthem were originally written as a 4-stanza poem by Francis Scott Key describing his anxiety over watching the massive shelling of Fort McHenry by British forces on the night of Sept. 13-14, 1814 during the War of 1812.
When Key saw the American flag was still proudly flying on the 14th despite the bombardment, he wrote and published the “Defence of Fort  M’Henry,” which was eventually re-titled “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

However, historian Widmer doesn’t focus as much on Key’s lyrics as he does on the fact the music is derived from London’s “back alleys” and “drunken” ditties and he felt compelled to point out that the third stanza “considerably weakens the song’s claim to celebrate ‘the land of the free’” since Key fails to mention “the presence of [unspecified] significant numbers of African-Americans, fighting with the British in hopes of finding a personal freedom they had no chance of securing in  the United States.”
 
The relevance of that omission to Widmer’s call for ditching our National Anthem somehow eludes me since it, along with the American flag, doesn’t bear at all on the necessity of retaining “The Star-Spangled Banner.” 

However, his emphasis on that single, two-line excerpt in a thirty-two line poem as a supposed blemish combined with his overall negative tone toward our future anthem shows a clear antipathy, if not antagonism, toward the patriotic fervor of Key’s words.

Patriotism has gotten bunches of bad press over the course of the last few decades . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=39066.)

Black Professor Attributes Blac Failures to Black Families

Black Professor Attributes Black Failures to Black Families

 

In a frank and brutally honest essay on the lives and failures of blacks in America today titled, “Blacks Must Confront Reality,” distinguished African-American Professor Walter E. Williams outlines the grave issues confronting that 13% of our population.  He suggests the root cause of most troubles afflicting blacks is not discrimination or white bigotry but the disintegration of black families .  Doctor Williams describes the article as a preview of his documentary "Suffer No Fools" scheduled to be aired on PBS this fall.

(See his incisive analysis at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=39049.)

Texas, the Eyes of America Are upon You!

Texas, the Eyes of America Are upon You!

 

Mexico is upset with America’s Lone Star State and has been upset ever since 1836 when Texas won its independence from Mexico and further humiliated and infuriated Mexicans in 1845 when it was admitted to the Union.  That anger intensified this year when Texas Governor Rick Perry was forced by the American government to dispatch National Guard troops to our, and its, southern border.   How Mexico will react to Texas’ possible secession and independence from the United States is unclear, although it’s unlikely Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will be very pleased if and when that movement succeeds but his reaction is contingent on various factors.

Some background:

After Texans, then known as Texians, launched and won the hard-fought, bloody Texas Revolution in 1835 and Texas was annexed and granted American statehood a decade later, Mexicans were incensed mainly because they felt the huge territory had been stolen from them, a claim that contradicted the historical reality that Mexico had been soundly defeated and had freely signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.
 
When Texas Governor Perry sent 2,200 National Guardsmen and Women to the border last month, Mexican President Pena Nieto became upset anew and angrily protested the deployment which was taken due to President Barack Hussein Obama’s refusal to enforce immigration laws and protect our nation’s borders.  Perry acted in Teaxas’ interests by bolstering the Border Patrol, many of whom have been functioning as food service workers and virtual nannies to tend to the needs of the flood of tens of thousands of undocumented, i.e. illegal, aliens.

Those lawbreakers, including untold numbers of mostly unaccompanied Central American children, are being dispersed to undisclosed American destinations, their numbers “untold” because the Obama administration has failed to accurately count them and their destinations”undisclosed”  in spite of Obama’s reiterated pledge of unprecedented government transparency.

President Nieto Pena contended that Texas’ deployment of the National Guard was not only “unpleasant” and “reprehensible” but that the border should not be militarized and any issues should be jointly resolved in particular because Perry’s actions could adversely affect bilateral relations. 

In his defense, Gov. Perry has cited the dismal border security which has allowed entry into America of again untold numbers of suspected terrorists, drug traffickers, gang members, and infectious disease carriers, allegations Mexico dismissed without a shred of evidence as “absurd.” 

Something is certainly absurd in this situation.  However, it is not anything Perry has said or done but . . .  (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=39022.)

Islam's Culture of Rape and Violence

Islam's Culture of Rape and Violence

 

Fourteen centuries ago, Islam’s founder, the “holy” Prophet Muhammad, set the standard for his religion’s treatment of young girls and women when he married young Aisha when he was in his fifties.

One of his many wives, Aisha was all of six or seven years old at the time although she supposedly remained with her parents until she attained the unripe age of nine or ten when her marriage to Muhammad was consummated in the holy city of Medina. 

Aisha ultimately evolved into the ”Mother of the Believers,” according to Islam’s holy Quran. Today, she might be classified in some quarters as a “baby momma.”

Although marriages of young girls to elderly men in ancient times weren’t extremely unusual, nowadays such practices are regarded and punishable as child abuse and pedophilia in most cultures, except in Muslim-dominated societies where they are considered normal and legal under sharia law.

However, some contemporary followers of Muhammad, in accord with the Quran’s teachings that females are second class  creatures who deserve fewer rights and respect than animals and are generally seen as lower life forms as evidenced by Muslim men who frequently treat women and girls with outright contempt.

And, what could be more contemptuous than subjecting them to rape and even gang rape as a matter of either public policy or societal acceptance?

Quarnic teachings with respect to women can be ambivalent and confusing, a fact that plays a major role in Muslim treatment of the fair sex and even raping them.

On the one hand, the sex-obsessed Quran preaches gender equality, although males are described as” a degree above females,” which seems anything but equal.

That one degree is noteworthy since the Quran is filled with reminders that men are superior to women in the home and under the law: Husbands are free to dictate their wives’ bedroom behavior, marry as often as they want, and divorce their wives in part because women (and their children) are the guileful enemies men and their wives are “unclean,” especially during and after menstruating when they should be shunned like the plague.

Legally, women are considered worth half the value of men, are required to produce four male witnesses if they claim they were raped, are permitted to have only one husband at a time, are entitled to just half their rightful inheritances, must obey their husbands and, if they refuse sex or disobey, must be beaten into submission.

Despite Islam’s pretensions of moral rectitude, the religion of peace is neither moral nor peaceful as demonstrated by the applications of Quranic principles to the people Muslims defeat in war and by the interminable, bloody wars in which the followers of Muhammad engaged both under the leasership of their warrior prophet and after his death and the Crusades. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=38971.)