Pentagon Angst

Military wonks at the Pentagon and right wing political hawks on Capitol Hill are starting to pull their hair out over the scary prospect of having to deal with some serious and long overdue defense spending cuts which would clearly benefit the country. It’s like telling a morbidly obese food addict that he has to go on a diet.

They’re whining to the high holy heavens that if the recently appointed Congressional super committee doesn’t agree to more than $1trillion in domestic spending cuts by December; $650 billion over the next 10 years will be automatically sliced from the Pentagon pork pie.

The number of Army battalions would supposedly go from 100 to about 60; Navy ships from 288 to 238; the Air Force might give up 400 fighter jets and about 34 strategic bombers.

Defense spending could once again be at its lowest level, as a portion of the overall federal budget, since before World War II. But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned of dire consequences when asked by Senator Lindsey Graham: “If we pulled that trigger, would we be shooting ourselves in the foot?”

“We'd be shooting ourselves in the head,” said Panetta.

Buck McKeon, the House Armed Services Committee Chairman, admonishes us that if the cuts go too deep the Pentagon might have to reintroduce the draft, (reinstate slavery) and other committee Republicans talk about how our nation's overall unemployment rate would rise if these severe defense cuts are triggered.

Incredibly, that’s what the crying and hand wringing is all about. They actually view U.S. military aggression and nation building abroad as a vehicle for boosting the economy and jobs here at home. So they’re carping about some 200,000 soldiers losing their employment along with 25% of the military civilian workforce; another 200,000 or so jobs.

They feign concern about how these vets will find jobs in the present economy with 9% unemployment; 22% for Iraq and Afghanistan vets; and 41 percent for wounded vets. Maybe they’ve forgotten that the U.S. economy boomed for several decades after World War II. Returning soldiers had no trouble finding plenty of jobs in the private sector then. The rest of the American people were benefiting too.

In truth, these Chicken Little military hawks are really worried about the feathering of their own nests. They want the cuts applied to Granny’s meager social security check instead – not the bloated gargantuan military industrial complex monster.

They want Grandma and Grandpa in Buffalo to eat dog food and turn down their thermostat this winter while they drop multiple $1.5 million dollar Tomahawk missiles on Pakistan, and blow hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars on the unending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

U.S. aid to Pakistan alone has been estimated at about $5 billion a year for the last several years. All that money is being flushed straight down the toilet. All the money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has been flushed straight down the toilet. Most military spending today is a complete waste because the average American citizen gets nothing in return. We actually enjoy even less freedom now because of it.

Let me try to put this military spending thing into perspective: As a percentage of annual GDP, U.S. military spending in the year 2009 accounted for about 40% of all global military spending. The United States military budget right now is over six times larger than that of China, a nation with billions more people to defend. We and our close allies are responsible for two-thirds to three-quarters of the entire world's military spending.

Last year, the Defense budget accounted for about 19% of U.S. federal budgeted expenditures and 28% of estimated tax revenues. When non Department of Defense spending is included, total military spending was approximately 28–38% of budgeted expenditures and 42–57% of estimated tax revenues.

Defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000–2009, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total Spending on just Iraq and Afghanistan so far: $1.030–$1.415 trillion, plus the classified portion of the budget we will never know about. Total Spending in 2010 alone: $685.1 billion.

Here’s the budget breakdown for military spending next year: Department of Defense spending: $707.5 billion base budget, plus "Overseas Contingency Operations"; FBI counter-terrorism: $2.7 billion (at least one-third of the FBI’s total budget); International Affairs: $5.6–$63.0 billion. (At minimum, foreign arms sales -- at most, entire State budget); Energy Department, defense-related: $21.8 billion; Veterans Affairs: $70.0 billion; Homeland Security $46.9 billion; NASA, satellites: $3.5–$8.7 billion (Between 20% and 50% of NASA's total budget); Veterans pensions $54.6 billion. Other defense-related mandatory spending: $8.2 billion.   

If military spending were cut in half, right now, today, the United States would still have by far and away the most powerful defense force on the planet. We would be perfectly safe from any conceivable foreign military threat.

No question about it: there is no reason whatsoever for Pentagon angst.

More War: Iraq & Afghanistan Not Enough

Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime military hawk from South Carolina, together with several more rabid and trigger happy U.S. politicians in Congress, all furiously gnashing their teeth while foaming profusely at the mouth, are now seriously calling for a military attack on Pakistan.

The US has accused the Pakistani government, supposedly our faithful ally in the War on Terror, of funding the Haqqani network, an independent insurgent group originating in Afghanistan that is closely allied with the Taliban, as well as ordering them to attack the US embassy in Kabul.

This is the same Haqqani network which the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped in the past to form, and train its associates, for our own nefarious purposes. This is the same nation that the U.S. has been feeding billions of taxpayer dollars in foreign aid every year.

Pakistan has denied the allegations.

“All options are on the table” against Pakistan, Graham and his itchy fingered cohorts are insisting. Apparently they just aren’t satisfied with the colossal waste of lives and cash already spent to support the decade long conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Libya; they want more war. It never ends.

Their reckless threats have prompted the Pakistani government, and Prime Minister Gilani, to recall his Foreign Minister from a visit to the United States and ordering an emergency conference within his government to discuss the prospect of a US invasion.

Is it any wonder anymore why the United States is so universally hated and despised around the world, especially in the Middle East?

We should be looking for a sturdy cage with which to confine Graham and the rest of these raging war mongering maniacs. We should be taking our money off the table, waving goodbye to Pakistan and the rest of the Middle East. We should have done that long ago.

We simply can’t afford more war.

What Dr. Keith Ablow Doesn’t Understand About Psychiatry

It’s as plain as day to me what Dr. Keith Ablow, the celebrated Fox News Medical A-Team psychiatrist, doesn’t understand about liberty. First, he vilified the entire life and medical career of his fellow professional, the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, for his courageous stand on physician assisted suicide. (See Part 1) Next, he sanctimoniously declared that men ought to have the legal right to force women they impregnate to bear their children. (See Part 2)

Now, once again, in the words of the most high and pious Dr. Ablow, it is apparent not only what he doesn’t understand about liberty, but what he doesn’t understand as well about his own profession, when he asks us: “Was Jesus the First Psychiatrist?”

“Recently, many people who have e-mailed me asking whether there are parallels between God’s teachings and the field of psychiatry and psychology. In the end, I believe the two things are very nearly one…,” says Dr. Ablow, which tells us that, in his narrow mind, the practice of psychiatry is not so much a branch of medical science, but a matter of good old time religion.

Surely Dr. Ablow knows better as, up front, he does admit the obvious: “… [the]  heart and soul of psychiatry and psychology, … has always been just this: People suffer to the extent that they are removed from the truth. People are healed to the extent that they embrace it, no matter the cost.”

“The key truths that people must seek out are those elements of self that define them as individuals—who they really, truly, finally and irrevocably are, deep inside,” he continues. “And in order to do that, they must rid themselves (with the psychiatrist or psychologist’s help) of illusions about all manner of forces that have distracted them and made them afraid, including traumatic experiences from childhood that made them worry about how punishing the world can be, as well as relationships with others who convinced them to abandon their deeply held beliefs or interests.”

All well and good so far; I couldn’t agree more.

As I wrote in my own book, Authority!:

“Psychological disorders are the result of individual consciousness accepting abstract falsehoods as reality. Insanity is a major disconnect with reality in which an individual’s consciousness is deceived and permeated with conflicting Authority! Abstract monsters, demons, and gods are accepted as “reality.”

The insane mind is crippled by abstractions and lost in an Alice in Wonderland fantasy. Consciousness can lead you to jump off a roof thinking you can fly. It can drive you crazy. But you will never ever encounter a neurotic, hysterical, delusional, schizophrenic, paranoid, superstitious, or psychotic animal.

No unconscious organism has ever suffered a psychological or psychiatric problem. That is because no unconscious organism has ever used consciousness or been deceived by Authority! It is the relentless cultural promotion of deception, falsehoods, lies, and conflicts between abstractions and reality in your consciousness that makes you crazy.” 

But then Ablow veers off into a complete nonsensical psycho-babble contradiction of reality by bringing “God” and “Jesus Christ” into the picture: “They [patient’s] must, essentially, reawaken some of what they were born with—the God-given, inexplicable, ultimately undefeatable capacity to move in the direction of their own, unique interests, abilities, beliefs and dreams,” he declares.

“This is why the image of Christ on the cross is such a powerful one—in my mind—for psychiatrists and psychologists to keep in mind… The fact that Christ is resurrected is a powerful fact for anyone seeking to restore themselves to well-being—to life… You have to be willing to die to live,”  Ablow concludes.

The object, of course, of Dr. Ablow’s fallacious conclusion and ultimately deluded psychiatric advice, is to have us all be just like Jesus on the cross in the face of life’s adversities. That, in my mind, represents the thinking of a self deceived deranged pseudo scientist pointing to an abstract imaginary religious character as the ideal for human psychological thinking and behavior, and insisting that we must be: “willing to die to live.” What utter unfathomable nonsense!

“Christ doesn’t give up his core self for anything… He doesn’t surrender it even when he is in terrible pain on the cross, wondering if he is totally alone… He doesn’t pretend that those who have hated him for his beliefs are his friends… He doesn’t fool himself into thinking that they love him,” observes Dr. Ablow.

Well, not exactly, I say. The biblical version of the Crucifixion recounts that: “From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’” (Matt: 27) That would indicate that, at the hour of his death, the biblical Jesus, by now in a delirium, actually questioned his own faith.  

“He doesn’t down three scotches because of the gathering storm that will take his life. He doesn’t eat himself into oblivion… He doesn’t change his appearance at the plastic surgeon’s office in order to avoid his persecutors or reality… He doesn’t inject himself with heroin to kill the pain in his hands… He doesn’t Tweet nonsense about his daily routine to people who say they’ll follow him when they really won’t and never intended to, anyhow,” Dr. Ablow adds.

Well, of course not, I say. The man was supposedly nailed by his hands and feet to a wooden cross, so how on earth could he do any of those things? The analogy is ridiculous.  

“He doesn’t even let hatred for his oppressors, in the final moments of his life on earth, cloud his vision of who he is and why he has come here… This is precisely what is required of people who really want to find themselves,” Ablow continues.

“This giving up of self is what causes all the suffering. It causes us to be depressed. It causes us to be anxious and panic. It causes us to seek all manner of self-defeating distraction. It even causes us to hear voices and see visions generated by our own thoughts boomeranging back to us as hallucinations because we have denied them an audience in our conscience [sic] minds. They’re too threatening, so we disown them, and then they own us,” concludes the Dr.

Yes, I say, and I agree completely. That’s exactly what religion – the ultimate hoax -- can do within the delicate consciousness of an otherwise sane and happy human being, having been born like all other living organisms, without religion. Dr. Ablow apparently forgets, or at best ignores, that the giving up of self – self sacrifice -- is precisely what Christianity demands the most from its followers.

If that won’t make a person crazy, nothing will.

Royal Style Recessionary Perks at the D.O.J.

Politicians, government agents, bureaucrats and employees, during both good times and bad, enjoy royalty style immunity from the ordinary economic hardships of their subjects, the common people.

They think nothing about taking advantage of extravagant perks, recklessly spending taxpayer money on seemingly unlimited budgets, while the rest us are forced to tighten our belts and change our spending habits in order to make ends meet.

The latest reported outrage involves longstanding freeloading activities within the United States Department of Justice, including out of control spending on expensive food and beverages at routine meetings and conferences for employees, including a $76-per-person lunch at one workshop..

In the years 2008 and 2009 alone, for instance, the department hosted or participated in 1,832 conferences for employees costing a whopping $121 million in taxpayer dollars according to a recent report from the Justice Department’s own inspector general.

Food and beverages at just 10 of those conferences cost the D.O.J. $490,000 – nearly half a million dollars -- about 10% out of the $4.4 million total cost of the events. At one Washington, D.C., legal conference, a total of $4,200 was spent on just 250 muffins. That amounts to more than $16 per muffin.

At another conference, the 65 lucky participants enjoyed lunches costing $65 per person, together with a snack break later consisting of Cracker Jack, popcorn and candy bars costing $32 per person. Coffee alone was billed at more than $1 per ounce – that’s a dollar for a shot glass sized full of coffee.  

All of this comes on top of a previous D.O.J. audit report which found similar over the top spending at conferences held between October 2004 and September 2006, including such extravaganza’s as $53-per-person lunches, and a $60,000 reception that served Swedish meatballs costing $5 each.

That report documented the fact that the D.O.J. maintained “few internal controls to limit the expense of conference planning and food and beverage costs at D.O.J. conferences.”

“Our assessment of food and beverage charges revealed that some D.O.J. components did not minimize conference costs as required by federal and D.O.J. guidelines,” the report concludes. There are people responsible for this outrage that should be going to jail as far as I’m concerned.

This is hardly unusual but typical of government spending at every level in America; federal, state, and local. It’s remarkably easy for politicians and bureaucrats of all stripes to spend other people’s money.

It’s the governor of South Carolina and her political cronies blowing $127,000 in taxpayer dollars on a posh 5-star hotel European jobs hunting excursion.

It’s the $60 billion lost to waste and fraud over the past decade in Iraq due to lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and outright corruption.

It’s feeding all the parasites at 524 separate executive branch departments, agencies, and offices, not including the many hundreds of additional sub-entities and favored political beneficiaries, all feeding voraciously from the government trough.

It’s the Tomahawk cruise missiles costing $1 million to $1.5 million each, and the $550 million wasted so far on the War in Libya.

It’s the $2.5 million dollars spent on a humanoid Robonaut for the International Space Station, and thousands upon thousands of other little things, together with all the big stuff, that bleeds the taxpayers drop by drop until all of a sudden it’s $14.5 Trillion in the red.

In a serious economic recession like the one occurring today, government and its minions are always the last ones to suffer. 

Drug Wars Spawn Worst Sort of Terrorism

The worst sort of terrorism occurs daily right in our own backyard and authorities are seemingly powerless to do anything about it.

Two mangled bodies hanging like cuts of meat from a pedestrian bridge were found earlier this month in the border city of Nuevo Laredo Mexico, their ears and fingers mutilated from torture. There were no witnesses and it is highly unlikely that the perpetrators will ever be identified.

A young unidentified woman in her early 20’s was left topless, dangling by her hands and feet, hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. A young man was dangling next to her, cut open, bloodied, and hanging by his hands. So far, no one has come forward to claim the victims.

The murdering terrorist savages left messages near the bodies as a stark warning to anyone else who might use social media sites on the Internet to denounce their drug cartel activities. "This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet," one sign said. "You better fucking pay attention. I'm about to get you."   

They were signed "Z," a possible reference for the Zetas cartel, which operates in the area. Two blogs were mentioned by name in the messages: Al Rojo Vivo and Blog del Narco. Blog del Narco is a website that deals exclusively with news related to drug violence in Mexico. Its creator remains anonymous, and I can understand why.

Victims of Mexico's brutal drug cartels are frequently found hanging dead from bridges and highway overpasses. More than 34,600 victims have lost their lives in drug-related violence since Mexican President Felipe Calderon issued a crackdown on cartels in December 2006.

Mere threats from the drug lords are enough to silence both the mainstream media and the legal authorities. Newspaper reporters, police officials, prosecutors; even judges have been brutally murdered for opposing the activities of these drug gangs.

That’s the sort of bloody terrorism that makes the late Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network look like a bunch of peach fuzz faced Sunday school kids on a church picnic. 

Sadly, the common thread between these two forms of terrorism is government meddling.

Had the United States government simply stayed neutral in the affairs of Middle East nations, and not located military bases in places like Saudi Arabia, Muslim terrorist events like the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, and the 9/11 World Trade Center disaster would never have happened.

Had the United States and Mexico not declared a relentless ongoing Drug War over these last 50 years, there would be no Narco-terrorism.

Governments spawn terrorism.

GWB² + 1stA - EC = RP

George W. Bush is the only President of the United States in my living memory, perhaps the only one ever, to loudly and proudly wear religion on his sleeve during his eight year administration, and there is abundant evidence that he relied upon it early and often in making crucial presidential decisions to the detriment of our nation. Those decisions earn him the dubious distinction of worst U.S. president in history in my opinion.

He’s the one who bestowed upon us by fiat his executive Office of Faith Based Partnerships for the purpose of mixing religion with politics, i.e. combining church and state with taxpayer dollars.

He’s the one who gave us Barack Obama on a silver platter and, so far, a multi-year recession, $14.5 trillion in debt, two unnecessary wars, and 6,000 dead U.S. soldiers who sacrificed their lives for nothing.

When asked by someone once to name his favorite philosopher, G.W.B. answered: “Jesus Christ.” Never mind that the biblical Jesus was not considered a philosopher (unless one considers the Christian God a philosopher); Bush simply couldn’t think of anyone else having any substantial influence over his thinking.

Now take the factor of George W. Bush squared; add the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, subtract the Establishment Clause, and that equals Rick Perry, another rabid religionist governor from the state of Texas who yearns to make Christianity the official state religion in America – an American Christian theocracy.

You can mark my words: should Rick Perry be nominated by the Republican Party for president, Barack Obama will enjoy four more years as President of the United States. I said it before: Religion ruins Republicans.

Most of us, including myself, don’t mind a politician having religion for the sake of his own personal salvation, but when they start seriously talking about relying on God to guide their decisions for the country it scares the daylights out of me. We had eight years of that with Bush and it was a disaster. With Perry, even though he may have good intentions, it would likely be far worse, and here is the evidence:

On August 6, 2011, Perry declared a“day of prayer and fasting for our nation’s challenges … America is in crisis," he explained just before announcing his candidacy for president; "We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters … As a nation, we must come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles, and thank Him for the blessings of freedom we so richly enjoy, … [pray for] unity and righteousness for our states, nation and mankind.”

“Some problems are beyond our power to solve, and according to the Book of Joel, Chapter 2, this historic hour demands a[n] historic response,” Perry proclaimed. “Therefore, on August 6, thousands will gather to pray for a[n] historic breakthrough for our country and a renewed sense of moral purpose.”

"With the economy in trouble, communities in crisis, and people adrift in a sea of moral relativism, we need God's help. That's why I'm calling on Americans to pray and fast like Jesus did," said Perry in a video posted on the prayer event’s website, "The Response."

In April, he also declared days of prayer for rain to combat the state's oppressive drought, and he told a reporter recently that he now feels "called" to run for president.

"I am a man of faith," Perry exudes. "I think we are going through those difficult economic times for a purpose to bring us back to those Biblical principles," he told a televangelist last May. Biblical principles? Does he not care that ours is a secular nation based upon constitutional principles? I think not!

"Father, our heart breaks for America," Perry prayed at his prayer event, asking Christians to turn to God for answers to the nation's troubles. "We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government and, as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us."

The event was all Perry's idea, financed by the American Family Association, a Christian evangelical group that opposes abortion, gay rights, and believes that the First Amendment freedom of religion clause applies only to Christians.

Last week, Perry expounded in detail about his religious inclinations at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., the largest evangelical university in the country, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. Evangelicals are a large part of Perry’s core constituency. He explained how he turned to God after leaving the Air Force: “I had nowhere else to turn … I was 27. I was lost spiritually and emotionally and I didn’t know how to fix it.”

“As spiritual beings, we are meant to live in relationship with our Creator and with one another,” Perry stated. “The happiest moments I’ve ever experienced are when I am in communion with God and in community with others, … Do not fret if you don’t know your place in the world or what you want to be someday. Trust that God wouldn’t have put you here unless He had a unique plan for your life.”

"Christian values" should be given supremacy over other religions in guiding the U.S. government, Perry ominously declared. "America is going to be guided by some set of values. The question is gonna be, whose values? ... It's those Christian values that this country was based upon."

This is a man who affirms forthrightly, unapologetically, and in flagrant violation of the First Amendment Establishment Clause, that he will rely upon his version of evangelical Christianity to guide his official government decisions affecting all the nation’s diverse people. He therefore will not be relying upon reason. That admission alone disqualifies Rick Perry for the high office of President of the United States. 

But that isn’t all. Even his ultra conservative fellow Republicans are appalled by the fact that Perry is a man who – again, perhaps with good intentions -- tried to mandate an HPV vaccine for every 11 and 12 year old schoolgirl in Texas, while his former chief of staff was a lobbyist for the drug maker, Merck, which would have manufactured the vaccine.

Even Bill O’Reilly, a religious conservative if there ever was one, blanched at this over the top abuse of government power. HPV is not, like measles or smallpox, a communicable disease, but a sexually transmitted one. Perry just got it into his religiously guided head – from God maybe -- that he should substitute his judgment for that of children’s parents on a purely private personal medical decision.

Finally, Gov. Perry readily admits and makes light of the fact that he was a poor student, graduating 10^th in his 1968 high school class of 13, and boasting of a college transcript filled with C's and D's. Clearly, George W. Bush standing next to Rick Perry looks like a Rhodes Scholar.

Rick Perry might be a nice man, and I think he is, but, like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum, he’s just not fit for prime time. His calling is perhaps more appropriate as a preacher, not a president. The Democrats would make mincemeat out of him in a general election. They would rightly call it like it is:

Rick Perry, in a nutshell, is just a poor substitute for George W. Bush.

When Eggs Are People Too

"The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization."

If the majority of anti-abortion zelot’s in the state of Mississippi have their way with an upcoming November ballot initiative, and they surely will, their state’s constitution will be amended to include the above provision which mandates that fertilized eggs are people too.  

The Mississippi Supreme Court has refused to block the initiative, holding that any challenges to the constitutionality of the so-called ‘Personhood Amendment’ will be allowed only after it is enacted or approved by voters.

That’s perfectly fine with Mississippi’s 80% majority of anti-abortion statists who hope the law will ultimately be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, anyway, providing another opportunity for the current majority of Catholic justices there to overturn the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, legalizing a woman’s right to an abortion. They want to eventually make abortion illegal everywhere in America.

History should remind the folks from Mississippi it wasn’t all that long ago in the United States of America that women were considered the legal property of men. Emancipated male slaves in America, including Mississippi, after the Civil War, acquired a complete set of constitutional rights and full equality as persons long before our nation’s women acquired the same liberty and constitutional status as equal persons with men.

Perhaps the good people of Mississippi, both men and women, don’t realize the potential consequences of elevating eggs to people. Never in the entire history of human civilization has a fertilized egg enjoyed the same legal status of a ‘person’ – not in the far off distant era of antiquity; not in biblical times; not during the superstitious dark and middle ages; not in modern times anywhere – ever!

That’s because this radical delusional concept of equal rights for eggs defies all logic, reason and common sense. It’s one thing to make a law prohibiting abortions, which, while draconian and anti-liberty in my opinion, at least has some rational basis; but quite another thing to define an egg as a person equal in law to other persons.

Try to imagine fertilized eggs as ‘persons.’ Think of the legal complications, pitfalls, and hopelessly conflicting constitutional rights associated with one person living inside the body of another for nine months.

The state would have a lawful interest in protecting the ‘person’ inside the body of another person from the very moment of conception, yet I’m not aware of any scientific method available today to determine that precise moment, apart perhaps from monitoring the movements of every egg and sperm with a powerful endoscope following intercourse.

Moment of conception is not quite so easy to determine as moment of birth. One must wonder then how to determine all the necessary information with which to complete the “conception certificate,” since birth certificates would be superfluous and obsolete.

Moreover, if eggs turn into persons at the moment of conception giving the state a lawful interest in protecting them, then the state would also have a legitimate corresponding legal interest in the sex lives and reproductive status of every woman of child bearing age and every man who copulates with her.

Such a woman might be required by law then to report to the state pregnancy authorities every month on the status of her menstrual cycle. If she misses a period, that would indicate the possibility of a new person inside her in need of the state’s protection, and the state could then act accordingly to protect that person by means of force.

Once a woman’s pregnancy was determined, the state office of child protective services would necessarily become involved to preserve and protect the best interests of the new persons and the new person’s constitutional rights. This would require state monitoring of every pregnancy from the moment of conception until birth and beyond.

In practice, and as a practical matter, the mother’s constitutional rights would be subordinate to those of the new person. She would essentially become a slave to the new person inside her sucking the nutrients from her body whether she liked it or not. The state pregnancy authorities could dictate virtually every aspect and activity of her life during the entire pregnancy.

Every miscarriage would require a formal coroner’s inquest and judicial investigation into the cause of the ‘person’s’ death to determine whether it was a homicide, an accident, or by natural means. The hapless woman would be potentially liable both criminally and civilly for any possible harm or untoward result to the little person occupying her body, and be legally required to bring the pregnancy to term regardless of how her own health and welfare might be affected from the ordeal.

Of course, the little egg would acquire the right to a lawyer and the right sue from the moment of conception. After all, it has constitutional rights.

A poor innocent woman, or perhaps even a helpless nine year old child, might be forcibly raped and impregnated by a criminally insane and genetically impaired stranger. Never mind that, saith the law; the new person inside her, conceived by the heinously criminal act, would have its constitutional rights from the moment of conception.

The innocent victim of the crime would be duly required by law to bring it fully to term as an unwilling human vessel, and at the expense of her own body, well being, and psychological state of mind – not to mention the irreconcilable conflict with her own personal constitutional rights.

Victims of incest would likewise be forced by the law to bear their iniquity. A fetus with demonstrable genetic or developmental defects rendering it the equivalent of a vegetable would enjoy it’s constitutional rights the same as anyone else from the exact moment of conception. One simply cannot abort a ‘person’ possessing constitutional rights.

Infertile couples who might want to utilize commonly practiced invitro fertilization methods to achieve a pregnancy would be denied permission by the state. Test tube embryo’s would be banned. The freezing of fertilized eggs would be banned. All of that would conflict with the constitutional rights of eggs.

Forget about methods of birth control such as the morning after pill or IUD’s which might restrict a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus, thus aborting it early. That egg has constitutional rights which must be respected and protected by the law of Mississippi. The list of averse consequences goes on and on.

Yes, the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, for real people in the United States of America, and the state of Mississippi, will suffer greatly at the hands of the state when it should ever come to pass that eggs are people too.

Inside the Politician’s Mind

Most politicians have grossly inflated opinions of themselves and the importance of their offices, coupled with a condescending contempt for the little people below them – their subjects -- who have the nerve to disclose or challenge their flagrant self-centered and politically motivated machinations.

"And all I will tell you is: God bless that little girl at The Post and Courier. I mean her job is to try and create conflict. My job is to create jobs. In the end I'm going to have jobs to show for it," South Carolina’s first female Republican governor, Nikki Haley, gushed on a syndicated radio talk show interview, when asked what she thought of an article by a 25-year-old female reporter disclosing the facts about her lavish junket to Paris France.

This award-winning reporter had the unmitigated temerity to reveal in print the details of the governor and her entourage of two dozen or so toady political sycophant’s one week first class European ‘economic development’ excursion, including posh accommodations at 5 star hotels, drinks at the Ritz, and an upgraded "chalet" at the Paris Air Show, which cost at least $127,000 of South Carolina’s taxpayer dollars.

For those honest and pertinent revelations, a dedicated young professional reporter is labeled "little girl" by a self aggrandizing, condescending, opportunistic politician caught red handed pilfering shamelessly from her state’s taxpayer cookie jar. 

Haley tried to justify her pleasure junket by saying that she needed to court aerospace companies at the Paris event and manufacturers in Munich, Germany. To that I say: she could have made some strategic telephone calls, sent a few formal letters or perhaps issued a batch of free emails and thereby saved her state the staggering cost of a one week’s vacation with political hobnobbing cronies in tow.

"The story painted a grossly inaccurate picture and was unprofessionally done, but my `little girl' comment was inappropriate and I regret that," Haley explained without apologizing after she was called on it later. "Everyone can have a bad day. I'll forgive her bad story, if she'll forgive my poor choice of words."

How’s that for a backhanded double down slap in the face? The great avaricious governor of South Carolina will ‘forgive’ the ‘little girl’ reporter for a ‘bad’ but true story, if she’ll forgive the now magnanimous governor for not scolding her properly. That’s another revealing peek into the mind of a grasping politician if there ever was one.

In the minds of politicians, it is the job of lowly truth telling newspaper reporters to “create conflict,” while it is the noble high-minded politician’s job to “create jobs.”

In the minds of politician’s, their idea of “creating jobs” is to spend $127,000 plus of their state’s taxpayer money on lavish excursions to Europe along with their political friends, courting and conniving with businessmen, offering political deals and promises to try and lure them into their districts so that they can take the credit for what the risk taking businessman does.

In the minds of politicians, their real job is to live off the fat of the land.  

Jobs Acting Nonsense

“I am sending this Congress a plan that you should pass right away.  It’s called the American Jobs Act; and everything in this bill will be paid for; everything,” President Obama proclaimed with great excitement to a joint session of Congress and thunderous applause. It was great theatre.

“Pass this jobs bill -- pass this jobs bill, and starting tomorrow, small businesses will get a tax cut if they hire new workers or if they raise workers’ wages; all small business owners will also see their payroll taxes cut in half next year; and all businesses will be able to continue writing off the investments they make in 2012.” 

“The American Jobs Act will repair and modernize at least 35,000 schools; rehabilitate homes and businesses in communities hit hardest by foreclosures;  jumpstart thousands of transportation projects all across the country; and thousands of teachers in every state will go back to work.”

“Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get extra tax credits if they hire America’s veterans; and companies will get a $4,000 tax credit if they hire anyone who has spent more than six months looking for a job. The plan also extends unemployment insurance for another year, and the typical working family will get a $1,500 tax cut next year.” 

“The American Jobs Act will not add to the deficit.  It will be paid for.  And here’s how: The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years. It also charges this Congress to come up with an additional $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas.  Tonight, I am asking you to increase that amount so that it covers the full cost of the American Jobs Act. “

In short, the President is asking Congress for another $447 billion in middle class tax cuts and new government spending now, on top of the $1trillion in stimulus spending already flushed down the toilet, to buy jobs in the fervent hope of turning the stagnant American economy around before his first term in office expires. The $1trillion stimulus boondoggle didn’t work, so the brilliant new idea is to throw away another $447 billion.

The ink has hardly dried on the agreement between Congress and the President that spawned the new debt control law mandating a paltry by comparison $2.5 trillion in deficit reductions over 10 years into the future, yet Barack Obama wants to add nearly a half $trillion more to the deficit and debt right now. For him to say that this new spending won’t add to the deficit and will be paid for by cutting somewhere else is disingenuous to say the least.

And guess who would be among the greatest beneficiaries of all this new spending? Who will get this money? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the biggest pigs at the government money trough will be none other than Barack Obama’s own political constituency – those people whose votes he desperately needs and hopes to receive in the next presidential election.

Buying jobs with taxpayer money is easy. If the government decides to shell out billions of dollars to renovate thousands of schools and private homes, of course there will be contractors and workers chosen by politicians to do the job, but much of the work will be done by people who already have jobs. It will just be a bonanza for them.

Since when should public school teachers in local communities be paid for by the federal government? Since when should the federal government pay for the renovation of local school buildings and private homes?

Moreover, hardworking taxpayers who have already paid for their own community schools and homes out of local taxes will now be paying with their federal dollars to renovate the schools and homes of politically chosen people in other far off districts, people who in all fairness, should be paying for their own community enhancements from local resources. It’s simply another government giveaway program for them.  

Why should military veterans step to the front of the employment line ahead of ordinary unemployed citizens? After all, they had a good job in the military with good wages and good benefits; let them sign on for another voluntary tour of duty and keep the jobs they already have.

Why provide unfair incentives for the least ambitious workers who have dawdled for more than six months on unemployment benefits at the expense of the more ambitious employees who are willing to work now instead of collecting unemployment money until they have no other choice but to look for work? Unemployment benefits don’t create jobs; they discourage them.

Yes, paying people who don’t work and buying jobs which benefit some people at the expense of others is easy and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars. That is what got this nation into the mess it is in today. The government has spent huge sums of money belonging to others, at no risk to the politicians, and the nation as a whole has received far too little to show for it. There is little value and no profit to be gained by throwing good money into the wind.  

Creating genuine values which necessitate jobs is somewhat more difficult, because it requires risk taking, but that is exactly what businessmen in the private sector do best – they risk their own capital for the opportunity to make a profit, and it is this investment of capital and the incentive for profit which results in meaningful jobs which in turn benefits the economy and therefore everyone.

Private sector risk investment creates a win/win situation for all. That is what made the United States of America the richest nation in the world. But the economic environment in America today discourages private business from taking capital risks because federal, state, and local governments gobble up too much of the profits with high taxes, unnecessary red tape, costly rules and regulations.

No amount of government jobs acting nonsense will restore our nation to its former glory and the greedy grasping politicians of all people should know that by now.

American Flip Flopping in Libya

Just two years ago in August of 2009, Libyan thug, Muammar Gaddafi – the same  unrepentant Muammar Gaddafi who sponsored the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in 1988, killing more than 250 people, mostly Americans – U.S. Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins, among other high profile American politicians, were the best of buddies, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released recently by WikiLeaks. Now they’re all screaming for the Libyan leader’s hide.  

McCain was actually characterizing Libya's relationship with the U.S. then as "excellent," and promising to help Gaddafi obtain $billions in U.S. military hardware to ensure the security of Tripoli as our partner in the war on terror, while Lieberman was praising the dictator as an important ally, insisting that it was in the interest of both countries to make the relationship stronger.

What could we dopey Americans expect to get from this cozy arrangement? As usual in stupid deals like this, not much. Gaddafi simply promised to let us foot the bill to ship his supplies of highly enriched uranium to Russia where it might be disposed – that’s it. He didn’t even promise to be a good boy in the future.

McCain later called it an "interesting meeting with an interesting man." Now, of course, the political winds have changed causing McCain and the other American political dupes to do a complete hypocritical flip flop on the relative merits of Muammar Gaddafi as our vital ally in the War on Terror. Now they’re all lined up with the Libyan rebels seeking justice for the vicious slaughtering his own people.

Our man Trump, of The Donald fame, that is, almost got the deal unwittingly scrapped when he humiliated Gaddafi by reneging on a contract to let him set up an elaborate Bedouin tent on Trump real estate in New York City as part of a United Nations Summit. “I screwed Muammar Gaddafi,” Trump bragged triumphantly to Fox News, after taking the dictator’s money then booting him off the land.  

That minor fiasco caused an enraged Gaddafi to back out of his deal with the senators which, in turn, resulted in a rickety container of potent enriched uranium left untended next to an airport runway for several weeks, which might easily have caused a nuclear radiation disaster.

But then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came riding to the rescue, finally talking the recalcitrant Gaddafi into letting us ship the stuff to Russia to the tune of $800,000 in transport costs. In short, we stupid Americans paid big time in both military hardware and cold hard cash for the privilege of taking out Gadaffi’s garbage.

Of course, today the dictator, in his last dying struggle, is using the military hardware we helped him get against his own people, and now that the tide has turned, Sen. McCain wants to arm Gaddafi’s enemies, the Libyan rebels. "I think we could do the same thing that we did in the Afghan struggle against the Russians. There are ways to get weapons in without direct U.S. supplying," he opines.

These politicians are dangerous. There really ought to be a law, perhaps a constitutional amendment, forbidding congressmen and senators from leaving the country while in office in order to prevent them from flip flopping around the globe, meeting with heads of state, making stupid and costly deals, sticking their long noses into, and meddling unabashedly with the political affairs of other nations.

I thought we had a President, a State Department and corps of diplomats to do the flip flopping.