Its Secret

A federal judge last month has ruled that President Obama’s administration need not disclose its legal justification for the drone attacks and other lethal methods it has used to murder American citizens overseas.

The judge said she had no choice: “I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules — a veritable Catch-22,” she wrote. “I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.”

So it’s a secret and it will remain a secret because the United States Constitution has been over-ridden – contradicted-- by “a thicket of laws and precedents” that allow the executive branch of the American government to ignore it with impunity.

The Constitution is supposed to be the supreme law of the land but in the interests of expediency the judicial branch of our government has allowed the foundation of our nation to erode to the point of virtual nullity. That foundation is crumbling. The entire structure is in danger of collapse.

There is nothing in the Constitution allowing the government to make laws bypassing the mandates of the Constitution. There is no Constitutional authority for secret justification of the killing of Americans without due process. National security is not a justification for ignoring the Bill of Rights.

Admittedly, there are a number of good reasons why the government might desire to keep sensitive information a secret and there are numerous classified government secrets which the Constitution permits. But the government should not be keeping secrets which result in a denial of an individual’s Constitutional rights.

The Nazi’s, for example, routinely kept their murderous activities a secret. They didn’t have to contend with a pain in the ass Bill of Rights allowing German citizens due process. If our government is allowed to keep these kinds of secrets, then there is really nothing to prevent it in the future from keeping domestic murder programs of American citizens secret. All they have to argue is that it’s a matter of national security and that’s it; end of story.

Anwar al-Awalaki’s Constitutional rights as an American citizen were violated when he was summarily assassinated by a CIA drone without affording him any due process rights. He had not been charged with any crime. He was not a fugitive. He was merely suspected of some involvement in terrorism. His 16-yer-old son was not even a suspect yet he was also murdered without any due process.

Two New York Times reporters and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a 2011 Freedom of Information Act request seeking any documents in which Department of Justice lawyers had discussed legal justification for the killings.

The requests were denied on the grounds that releasing any details about the program, or even acknowledging that documents on the subject existed, could harm national security.

But even if that were true, and we have to take the government’s word for it, there is still no exception in the Constitution allowing secret assassination programs against American citizens.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon found that she had no authority to order the documents disclosed. On top of that, part of her opinion was filed under seal, unable to be seen even by lawyers for the newspaper and the ACLU.

It may be read only by people with security clearance.

So we aren’t even entitled to know why the documents may not be disclosed much less the contents of the documents. The United States Constitution has been facially violated; individual Constitutional rights have been violated; and not even the judicial branch of the government will tell us why.

It’s a secret.

Religion Gone Mad

Since the tender age of seven years I knew for certain that all religion was entirely imaginary; and not much later it became apparent to me that gods and religion is the worst, most deceptive and destructive cultural phenomenon that has ever visited upon the conscious human mind.

Religion results in delusion at a minimum and madness at the extreme. Madness is the predictable result when religion becomes state sponsored and imposed by the government Authority upon the people by force.

What a tragic waste upon humanity it is when the people are captive of a government god.

Thankfully, the First Amendment Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution has so far protected a minority of Americans from that in spite of the fact that there are plenty of Christian zealots that given half a chance would quickly impose Jesus and biblical law upon the rest of us.

That nightmare, sadly, is the norm in many parts of the Islamic controlled Middle East where Pakistani authorities last week accused their own ambassador to the United States of blasphemy, a crime that carries the death penalty.

Under Pakistani blasphemy laws, anyone found to have uttered words derogatory toward the official religion may be put to death, and accused offenders are often lynched by mobs even before they reach court.

Ambassador Sherry Rehman has already faced death threats from militants after calling for reforms to her country’s anti-blasphemy law. In short, it’s blasphemous to advocate the repeal of blasphemy laws in Pakistan. Two other politicians who suggested reforming the law were assassinated.

Rehman was charged by a private citizen who complained to the authorities that comments she made about the law on a Pakistani talk show in 2010 were blasphemous. “I’ve been trying to get this case registered for the last three years, ever since I saw that TV show,” said her accuser. “I’ve even gone to the highest court. I’m glad that action will finally be taken now.”

He went to the Supreme Court with his complaint after police refused to register it. The court ordered police in the central Pakistani city of Multan to investigate.

Such accusations are hard to defend against because blasphemy isn’t even defined and courts often hesitate to hear evidence, fearful that reproducing it will also be blasphemy.

Recent cases have included a man who threw away a business card belonging to a man name Mohammed.

That, I submit, is the definition of religious madness.

Last September Egyptian authorities demanded that the U.S prosecute on our own soil the filmmakers of an anti-Islam YouTube clip for the crime of blasphemy, or insulting religious figures.

Imagine the nerve of these religious madmen! And our government is still showering them with $billions of taxpayer dollars in foreign aid.

The Egyptian’s are about to amend their constitution to ban insulting God, “prophets of God, Prophet Mohamed's wives, the righteous caliphs and the prophet's companions."

Freedom of expression should not include the freedom to insult religious figures, explained one official. “There is a huge difference between the freedom to express your feelings, your point of view, and the direct and obvious insult to the prophets.… It doesn’t restrict freedom of speech at all. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean to insult God or the prophets.”

Insulting the prophets would include objecting to the new constitution.

“Certainly, such attacks against sanctities do not fall under the freedom of opinion or thought,” said a statement released by the Muslim Brotherhood. “They are crimes and assaults against Muslim sanctities, and must not be tolerated by the countries where they are produced or launched, since they are also detrimental to the interests of those countries in dealings with the peoples of the Muslim world.”

In Timbuktu, Mali, human beings may be put to death at the hands of crazed Islamic extremists who consider their unauthorized romance "haram" — forbidden. There, militant Islamic madmen have terrorized the population, whipping women and girls in northern Mali almost every day for not adhering to their interpretation of the strict moral code known as Shariah.

They circulated a pamphlet outlining how a woman should wear the veil, and whom she could and could not be seen with. They arrested an illiterate man and woman, both dirt-poor herders living together for years with their animals and two children out of wedlock. The pair was taken to a city center. A hole was dug the size of a man and the couple were forced to kneel inside where they were summarily stoned to death.

By this time, the crazed Islamists were beating everyone from pregnant mothers and grandmothers to 9-year-olds for not covering themselves fully. A woman was no longer supposed to talk even to her own brother in public.

Another innocent woman was sentenced to 95 lashes. Her crime: an innocent relationship with a man. The police made her kneel in a traffic circle. Then they told her to remove her dress, leaving only the thin fabric of gauze to protect her skin from the whip while the public, including little kids, jostled for a better view. An unmerciful flogging followed during which her high-pitched her screams were heard by all along with the sounds of the whip.

These people are savages.

Government authorities in Tehran, Iran, are confiscating Buddha statues from shops to stop the promotion of Buddhism in the country.  An official for the protection of Iran's cultural heritage was quoted as saying that authorities will not permit that specific belief to be promoted through such statues. He called the Buddha statues symbols of "cultural invasion."

I for one will never set foot nor do business in any country, like the ones mentioned above; whose governments officially enforce such religious barbarism upon their own people. It’s a shame that the American government supports and allies with these deranged criminals who cloak themselves in the name of God.

They demonstrate what can happen when religion goes mad.

Tit Felonies in North Carolina

Once again Republican lawmakers in America are conclusively demonstrating their ultra-right-wing, statist, hysterical and anal retentive political loser tendencies for the entire world to see.

Some of them are so diabolically fixated on sex and sexual body parts that they can hardly think of anything else important enough with which to occupy their legislative attentions. It’s no wonder that the average American is afraid of these sanctimonious pathological losers and wouldn’t vote for one of them under any conceivable circumstance.

The Republicans in the North Carolina House are the latest case in point. They’re now focusing on the matter of tits, or more particularly female tits. They don’t seem to care about the male variety.

A Republican backed bill offered in the North Carolina legislature which would send women to prison for going topless appears headed for approval. The statist prudes want to amend the state's indecent exposure law to expand the legal definition of "private parts" to explicitly include "the nipple, or any portion of the areola, or the female breast."

Imagine that! They actually want to lock women up in a cage for going topless, something that men do any time they please.

Depending on whether such exposure is judged to be "for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire," a woman first-time offender could be charged with a felony, punishable by up to six months in prison. More mundane exposure would be a misdemeanor meriting up to 30 days in jail.

Co-sponsor Rep. Rayne Brown, R-Davidson, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that her bill was triggered by topless rallies promoting women's equity that were held during the last two years in Asheville, NC. She says that her constituents are concerned whether the topless protests are legal.

Brown said a blanket solution is needed to give law enforcement officers statewide the clear authority to make arrests when nipples are exposed. A separate state law specifically outlaws "sexually explicit nudity," including nipples, exposed in the presence of minors.

“Look, mommy, there’s (gasp!), a nipple!”

And here I’ve always thought that most minors were used to the sight of nipples having been exposed to them frequently enough since the day they were born. Furthermore, I seriously doubt that the topless women at political rallies promoting women’s equality are topless “for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire."

That’s the last reason they’re doing it. They just want to be equal with men. They only want equality. Topless gets them attention.

Men have tits too, don’t they? Men have nipples, areolas, and breasts that would surely meet the definition of “private parts,” under this law and some of them are even grotesquely large, as large and equal in appearance, in fact, as female breasts.  

Shouldn’t men have to go to prison too for going topless? If not, then it seems to me that this proposed law will violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights guaranteeing equal protection of the law.

I can visualize a crowd of angry women going topless at political rallies all over the state to protest this stupid law.

They don’t want to be found guilty of tit felonies in North Carolina.

Jim Crow Lives

I thought Jim Crow was dead, buried, and moldering in his grave nearly 60 years ago when the United States Supreme Court struck down state sponsored public school segregation. Ten years later the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted to drive a stake into the heart of Jim Crow. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed and segregation between the races has been erased ever since.

But old attitudes tend to die hard, and it appears that Jim Crow’s ghost has been haunting the hallways of Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan. Tonya Battle, a veteran nurse employee of 25 years there, was shocked recently to discover that her employer had agreed to a man's request that no African-Americans care for his baby.

Yes, more than a decade into the 21^st century, and 60 years after the death of Jim Crow, a hospital in a northern state, which happens to be located within a community consisting primarily of blacks, actually honored the irrational and outrageous request of a white racial bigot based solely upon the dark color of her skin.

The bigot approached her while she was caring for his child in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, asking to speak to her supervisor. She pointed the charge nurse in his direction.

Then the bigot showed the charge nurse a tattoo of "a swastika of some kind" and told her that he didn't want African-Americans involved in his baby's care. His request made its way through the hospital’s management ranks, and was granted. Nurse Battle's manager called her at home to tell her she would be reassigned -- and why.

A note was posted in a prominent spot on the baby's medical chart: "Please, no African-American nurses to care for ... baby per dad's request." For more than a month no African American nurses were assigned to care for the child. After that, the hospital's lawyer objected to the decision, and the note was removed. The staff then told the father that they could no long honor his request.

So nurse Battle is now suing the hospital, claiming it engaged in unlawful employer discrimination based upon race. She was “shocked and in disbelief,” her attorney told reporters. "She was very upset. She was very offended."

Of course she was, and there is no doubt in my mind that nurse Battle has a richly deserved payday coming for what happened to her. It’s hard for me to believe that a hospital’s management could be so utterly stupid and insensitive in a case like this.

That bigot should have been told straight off that his prejudiced request could in no possible way be honored, and that if he didn’t like it, he would have to find medical treatment for his baby elsewhere.

But instead, for more than a month, the frightening ghost of Jim Crow was allowed to haunt the premises of Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan

Should Children Have Reproduction Rights?

Reproduction rights under the United States Constitution boil down in my opinion to the rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, together with the United States Constitution Fifth Amendment due process protections of life and liberty against government violations without probable cause and judicial process.

That is the justification for a woman’s reproductive rights, her rights to choose whether or not to reproduce, which are constitutionally protected. She is at liberty to allow her pregnancy to develop to full term or terminate it at her sole discretion; the decision is entirely up to her.

But what about children; do minor female children enjoy the same reproductive rights?

That difficult question has presented itself recently in the matter of a pregnant Texas teenager who is suing her parents to stop them from forcing her to abort her unborn child. The 16-year-old, who is identified only by the initials R.E.K. because she is a minor, claims in the lawsuit her parents are coercing her to abort her 9-week-old fetus through both verbal and physical threats and harassment.

The lawsuit claims that the girl’s father threatened to take her to have an abortion; that the decision is his; end of story. It further alleges that her parents kept her home from school, took her phone and car, and that she, the father of her child and the child's paternal grandmother have been harassed by her father, while her mother threatened to slip her an abortion pill.

"...She is legally protected. They cannot drag her to get an abortion, force an abortion on our client," the girl’s attorney Stephen Casey, of the Texas Center for Defense of Life, told reporters.

Initially, I’m sorely tempted to come down on the side of the teenager in this case because it involves her body and I have always steadfastly supported women’s reproductive rights and their rights to choose.

But on second thought, this Plaintiff is not a woman quite yet; she’s a minor child by definition of the law. That’s the reason why she could not be identified to the public – she’s a minor – she has yet to attain the age of majority.

She and her attorney are not objecting to that but they want it both ways. They say she’s a child for the purpose of privacy rights but a woman for the purpose of reproductive rights.

She can’t have it both ways.

Suppose she were nine years old instead of sixteen; should a nine year old child be allowed of overrule her parents decision regarding the protection of her best interests? After all, she is still under their parental protection and authority, and would still be under that parental protection when she delivered her baby.

Her parents would still be responsible for her well being and she shouldn’t be allowed to force upon them a baby under circumstances in which they do not believe a baby would be in her best interests.

If this minor child can force her parents to allow her to reproduce at such a young age, then surely she could force them to allow her to respect all sorts of additional rights which are enjoyed by adults but normally denied to minors.

Suppose she decides that she doesn’t want that flu shot at the doctor’s office; suppose she decides that she doesn’t want to visit the doctor at all; that she wants to smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey – after all it’s her own body, isn’t it?

And while she’s at it she might decide to start staying out on school nights until the wee hours of the morning and inviting the father of her baby to stay with her in her room. It’s her life. It’s her body. Why shouldn’t those decisions be her constitutional rights just like they would be if she were of age?

I empathize with this minor girl’s parents in this case. If she were my daughter or granddaughter I’d be laying down the same law, end of story. She’s not old enough or experienced enough to fully partake in all of her constitutional rights. Her parents as responsible adults are conserving those rights on her behalf for the benefit of her own best interests.

In other words, yes, she has the rights but she is not old enough or experienced enough to exercise them in her own best interests. If her identity may not be revealed by the press; if she can’t smoke cigars and drink whiskey, then she most certainly should not be allowed to have a baby.

I say no – children should not have independent reproduction rights as against their parent’s best judgment.

Cop Killer Jackpot

The city of Los Angeles has offered a $1 million dollar reward -- "the largest ever offered to our knowledge," according to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck -- for information leading to the capture and conviction of Christopher Dorner, an ex-cop accused of killing three people in a vendetta against his old department.

He’s the target of a massive manhunt for killing a police officer, wounding two others, and murdering the daughter of his police union representative and her fiancé in a spree of vindictive violence that would make Rambo proud.

"We will not tolerate anyone undermining the security, the tranquility of our neighborhoods and our communities," declared Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "We will not tolerate this reign of terror that has robbed us of the peace of mind that residents of Southern California deserve. We will not tolerate this murderer remaining at large."

So the city won’t tolerate this cop-killer and is willing to rob the taxpayers of a sizable fortune to get him, but when ordinary John Q. Citizen or citizens are murdered it offers no reward at all to catch the killer.

Some lucky California low-life is going to collect a $million dollar jackpot for helping to catch just one criminal while thousands of others are running at large terrorizing people and committing crimes equally as bad.

Why?

Certainly I don’t condone what he’s done, but can readily understand the frustrated motives behind it. My guess is that it surely has something to do with the fact that the Los Angeles Police Department is riddled with corruption; has been for decades; and Dorner, a former employee, was one of its many victims.

The 6-foot tall 270-pound former Navy officer was fired in 2009 for allegedly filing a false complaint of excessive force against his training officer. Dorner accused his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest in 2007.

Does that sound familiar?

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time L.A. cops have kicked, beaten, bludgeoned and stomped a helpless suspect in Rodney King style. But the Department ruled the allegations unfounded and kicked Dorner off the force for filing a false complaint. He challenged his firing in court and lost.

It all sounds rather suspicious to me. What would Dorner have to gain by filing that kind of false complaint? On the other hand, what would the Los Angeles Police Department have to gain by squelching it? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

In a manifesto released last week, he blamed racism and corruption in the department for his removal and vowed to wage "unconventional and asymmetrical warfare" against LAPD officers and their families. He called it a "last resort" to clear his name and strike back at a department he says mistreated him.

Predictably, Police Chief Beck describes the situation differently: "This is an act -- and make no mistake about it -- of domestic terrorism," he opined. "This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered."

That makes me even more suspicious.

This is clearly not domestic terrorism but rather specific acts of targeted revenge against those he believes have done him wrong. There is no question in my mind that police officers in the City of Angles are not there entrusted to protect the public. They are there to protect the interests of the parasitic political politicians and bureaucrats -- their bosses.

Beck magnanimously announced that the LAPD would re-examine its proceedings against Dorner -- "not to appease a murderer," but "to reassure the public that their police department is transparent and fair in all things we do… I am aware of the ghosts of the LAPD's past, and one of my biggest concerns is that they will be resurrected by Dorner's allegations of racism within the department," he announced.

Humm … the suspicion just keeps piling up in this case.

Yes, the ghosts of the LAPD’s past probably have something to do with this, and chief Beck is probably going to orchestrate a proper whitewash of the whole affair just like the Department did with Dorner’s excessive force complaint.

Dorner is most likely about to be screwed again.

Apparently the LAPD is now guarding the families of more than 50 police officers. Officers guarding one house early Thursday shot and wounded two women who were driving a pickup similar to Dorner's, something chief Beck called a "tragic, horrific incident."

He said that the shootings of Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, occurred a day after the manhunt for Dorner began and that the officers were under enormous pressure.

Yeah, right. A middle aged and elderly pair of innocent women is mistaken for the 270 pound 6-foot tall male cop-killer. Sure sounds to me as though it was just another shoot first and ask questions later scenario, the kind of thing that cops are famous for in America.

No doubt that is what’s going to happen to Dorner the moment they catch up with him.

Oh, well; someone is about to hit the cop-killer jackpot in California, and I don’t reckon that Mr. Dorner will live to tell his side of it.

Jesus Goes to Public School in Ohio

Jesus Christ Almighty has been attending a rural Ohio public middle school for roughly the last 65 years and the school officials there just don’t want to let him go without a fight. His larger than life portrait has been hanging prominently all that time in an entrance way at Jackson County Middle School in a district several miles south of Columbus.

So the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, on behalf of local parents and a student, have filed a federal lawsuit demanding that Jesus be removed because his portrait in a public school amounts to a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution First Amendment Establishment Clause.

Well of course that is obviously true. I can hardly think of a more egregious violation of the Bill of Rights in a public school – a patently unconstitutional promotion of religion and in particular Christianity -- unless all the teachers and administrators were leading the captive children in classroom Christian prayers every day.

Perhaps that will be next if they are allowed to keep Jesus.

School Superintendent Phil Howard said he was surprised the lawsuit was filed before the district completed its investigation of the issue. The board will discuss "an appropriate course of action" at its Feb. 12 meeting, he claimed

Investigation?  Discussion? Is that really necessary? Either the portrait is there or it is not there, and if it is there, then it constitutes a clear and present violation of the Establishment Clause for which the only " appropriate course of action" would be to remove it and hang it in a church or some other appropriate private place not associated with the school or the Jackson County government authorities.

This same Mr. Howard apparently said at a school board meeting last month: "We're not violating the law and the picture is legal because it has historical significance. It hasn't hurt anyone."

Historical significance? Since when does that specious value judgment justify the promotion of Jesus and Christianity at a public school in the United States of America?

School officials and The Liberty Institute in Plano, Texas, representing the school district, say the portrait was donated by a student group and has been in the school since about 1947, apparently without anyone complaining about it.; that’s the extent of the historical significance.  

Jesus has been there for a long time; no one complained, so he should be allowed to stay. If constitutional rights are violated for a long time the violators should be allowed to continue the violations is their reasoning.

 "It's obviously a delicate balance," said Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Institute. The lawsuit is premature, he insisted. He said Liberty Institute planned to present its findings and recommendations to the school board at next week's meeting. He declined to discuss the findings, but said the goal was to make sure the legal rights of all involved were considered.

A delicate balance? That’s a stretch if I’ve ever heard one.

It’s a delicate balance because the school district wants Jesus to stay despite the fact that he’s violating the Establishment Clause – certainly not because there is any legal precedent what-so-ever for a portrait of Jesus Christ to be hanging prominently in a public middle school for 65 years.

Jackson County Ohio is wasting their time and money on this one.

Jesus Christ should be graduating soon from the public middle school in Ohio and going back to the church where he belongs.

Mickelson Shrugged

Hugely successful pro golfer Phil Mickelson told reporters last month that recent tax hikes on the rich might force him to make "drastic changes," suggesting he'd be leaving either golf or his home in California.

"There are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that income zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state and, you know, it doesn't work for me right now," he explained.

Thus, Mickelson shrugged.

And why shouldn’t he?

The federal and state tax burden, together with every other kind of thieving government tax imaginable on people like him, have ballooned to gargantuan proportions within the last few years. It’s no wonder then that successful people in America are starting to feel like slaves.

"If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and the state, my tax rate's 62, 63 percent," Mickelson said. "So I've got to make some decisions on what I'm going to do."

Mickelson now pays 13.3 percent in California state income tax and 39.6 percent in federal income tax. That's 52.9 percent combined. Add in Medicare and Medicaid, taxes on investment income, Obama’s new health-care tax, self-employment taxes, and local taxes in other jurisdictions where he plays tournaments, real estate taxes and other local taxes – the burden is enormous.

Think of it! Nearly two thirds of this successful individual’s annual income is being looted by federal state and local governments. He’s not even allowed to keep half his earned income from the grasp of the greedy parasites who contribute nothing to society all the while enforcing their thievery against innocent contributors at the point of a gun.

It’s like an ugly slimy tapeworm living unseen inside his digestive system sucking 63% of the life giving nourishment he takes in.  Why would any intelligent person tolerate that?

Hell, if I were Phil, I’d retire from my profession and move out of the United States.

As a matter of fact that’s exactly what I did five years ago because I’ll be damned if I’m going to continue being a tax slave under the boot of gangs of parasitical thieves who suck the life out of successful people in America.

I did it and I’m not by any means rich. You see, even the middle class of successful individuals in America are now becoming taxed half to death.

And the thieves show absolutely no gratitude for their spoils. To the contrary, the reaction to Mickelson’s statement was as though he insulted the takers. He was mocked as a selfish whiner by the outraged parasites. Many of them think he should be paying more and that he’s lucky to be allowed to keep what they leave him.

Democrats in the California legislature were inclined to say that multimillionaires like Phil Mickelson can afford to pay more. Republicans said they expect more high-earners to follow Phil’s comments and eventually leave the state. ''You know, it's sad,'' said Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway, R-Tulare. ''And I think it'll be the first of many.''

So Phil has apologized to the ungrateful bastards. After all, he doesn’t want to jeopardize his career by speaking the truth about his predicament.  Now he’s saying he should have kept his opinions to himself on taxes.

"Finances and taxes are a personal matter and I should not have made my opinions on them public," said the chastised slave. "I apologize to those I have upset or insulted and assure you I intend to not let it happen again."

Tiger Woods, another hugely successful pro golfer, admitted that he moved out of California immediately after turning pro because of the excessive tax rates there. "Well, I moved out of here back in '96 for that reason," he said. "And I enjoy Florida, but I also understand what I think [Mickelson] was trying to say.”

A majority of PGA Tour players live in Florida and others in Texas, two states that have no state income tax.

Mickelson was part of the group that bought the San Diego Padres baseball team, saying that it would be a ''significant investment'' for him but that he saw it as a great opportunity to get involved in his hometown.

Asked if the tax changes were why he withdrew from the deal Mickelson said, ''Absolutely.''

Mickelson shrugged.

Rick Perry: Archetypal Republican Loser

Texas Governor Rick Perry has demonstrated once again a major reason why today’s ultra-right-wing conservative Republicans are losers and will continue to be losers until they catch up with what’s happening in the 21^st Century.

He’s the personification of the archetypal Republican Party loser: an angry old white man with his head buried in the Bible.

Perry declared emphatically last week that the Boy Scouts of America should remain a steadfastly anti-gay organization; not soften its strict no-gays membership policy; and never bend to the whims of "popular culture;… to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate," he added

He simply will not accept the fact that politics is a popularity contest in which politicians are chosen by the whims of the popular culture. That’s the explanation for why Barack Obama got elected twice as President of the United States.

Fifty years ago Governor Rick Perry would have been standing in front of the school house doors right alongside his fellow traveler, Alabama Governor George Wallace, chanting: “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

An Eagle Scout himself, in 2008 Perry authored the book "On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For," explaining why it should continue to embrace traditional, conservative values -- including excluding openly gay members and Scout leaders.

You see, this man actually believes in his heart that it is honorable and worth fighting for to discriminate against ten percent of the planet’s population simply because they were born, like black people, with a slightly different organization of genes and body chemistry than his own.

In his bigoted mind, God hates gays, therefore so does he.

That is precisely the kind of thinking that buried the Republican Party in the 2012 presidential election. A majority of the American people, to their credit, just as they did fifty years ago with racial discrimination, have soundly rejected those kinds of traditional conservative values.

Americans no longer believe that being anti-gay is a core American value.

Perry insists that the Scouts was a key reason he joined the U.S. Air Force and later sought public office; that society's failure to adhere to the organization's core values is a cause for high rates of teen pregnancy and wayward youth who grow up to be "men joining their fathers in prison."

Huh?

How in the world can society's failure to adhere to the BSA’s core value -- discrimination against homosexuals of all people -- be responsible for high rates of teen pregnancy? Doesn’t he know that it’s the heterosexuals like him who make girls pregnant?

"Hopefully the [BSA] board will follow their historic position of keeping the Scouts strongly supportive of the values that make Scouting this very important and impactful organization," says Perry. "I think most people see absolutely no reason to change the position and neither do I."

But the Boy Scouts of America, once an American icon illustrated in Norman Rockwell paintings, has become a dying organization just within the last decade because of their strident discrimination against gays and non-religious boys. That’s the reason why the Scouts are at least considering a change in their bigoted membership policies.

Perry said his views on the subject haven't changed since writing his book, in which he noted that profits would be donated to the Boy Scouts of America Legal Defense since "they continue to be under attack from the forces of secularism."

That’s the nub of the issue in the discriminatory thinking of Rick Perry. It’s “the forces of secularism." The Scouts have been sued repeatedly over their insistence on the right to government sponsorship and support while at the same time maintaining a religiously discriminatory membership policy.

The organization has been booted out of virtually all American public schools because to that – it’s why BSA is dying -- and Perry thinks it’s a shame. He’s one of those politicians who believe that government should sponsor Christianity.

"Governor Perry and the Boy Scouts are both completely out of touch with where America is going on this issue," explains Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. "It's a shame that Governor Perry has chosen to be on the wrong side of history… There should be one national, non-discrimination policy. We can't quite wrap our heads around why that is so difficult to do in 2013."

Rick Perry can’t wrap his head around it.

That’s why Rick Perry is the archetypal Republican loser.

Elementary American Gulags

Elementary schools in America today are different from the old Soviet style gulags only in that the hapless children can go home to their parents at the end of the school day and thus escape temporarily their grim confinement regimen at the hands of the government education statist overlords.

In my day elementary school was no piece of cake but at least my classmates and I had rights which for the most part were respected and our education seemed more like a plan than a prison. Elementary school children didn’t get suspended or otherwise harshly punished back then for the slightest of imaginary infractions.

Not anymore.

Today’s kids enjoy no rights at all and are constantly at the mercy of their teachers and school administrators. Critical thinking, for example, is strongly discouraged and political correctness is the rule.

A 5-year-old Mount Carmel Pennsylvania girl was been suspended for 10 days from kindergarten recently. Her crime: telling one of her little friends as they waited for the school bus that she was going to shoot her with a bubble gun.

That’s right folks; we’re talking about a pink plastic toy gun that blows out soapy bubbles from the barrel; actually an imaginary bubble gun since the tot didn’t even have it with her.

School District officials got the bright idea that the little girl’s speech amounted to a "terrorist threat." I never thought there was such a thing as a five-year-old terrorist but today, in the United States of America, everyone is a potential terrorist, even an innocent little elementary school kindergartner.

School officials questioned the baby terrorist girl for 30 minutes and then required her to be evaluated by a psychologist. Later her punishment was reduced to two days instead of the full ten.

Now I realize that school administrators have to be careful these days in light of the recent incidents of school shootings but this kind of hysterical overreaction to an imaginary threat is preposterous and defies any logical understanding.   

Not to be outdone, Philadelphia PA elementary school officials scolded and searched another child student in front of her entire class for having a “gun” consisting of a folded sheet of paper. One of her fifth grade classmates apparently saw the paper “gun” and notified administrators as the child terrorist was in the process of throwing it away.

"He yelled at me and said I shouldn't have brought the gun to school and I kept telling him it was a paper gun but he wouldn't listen," said the terrorist. Then the criminal was searched by school officials while other students watched. Now she’s suffering nightmares over the incident.

A School District spokesman said the school acted swiftly and appropriately.

Right; a piece of paper in the shape of a gun is now considered a sufficient terrorist threat; enough to justify a scolding and searching of the suspected terrorist in front of the class. They obviously must have reasonably thought that a search might turn up (gasp!), another piece of paper.

Meanwhile, a 5-year-old Cape Cod, Massachusetts boy is subject to suspension at Hyannis West Elementary School, after constructing a toy gun built out of Lego’s during an after-school program.

"We need a safe environment for our students. While someone might think that making a Lego gun is just an action of a 5-year-old, to other 5-year-old's, that might be a scary experience," explained the principal with a straight face.

What 5-year-old kid would think that a Lego toy is scary? What 5-year-old kid wouldn’t want to play with one?

This was just another ridiculous overreaction to an imaginary threat.

Sadly the gulag style atmosphere becomes even worse when the potential child terrorists graduate on to secondary school.

Police officers will be administering breathalyzer tests on all students at Belmont High School  in Massachusetts as they enter school dances from now on because a few of them showed up drunk.

Other Massachusetts cities and towns already use breathalyzers at school functions.

As always, the thinking with these statist administrators is that, if some of the kids violate the rules then it’s perfectly proper to punish all the kids by trampling upon their constitutional rights against unlawful searches without probable cause.

A Missouri school district is planning to collect hair samples from high school students to conduct random, mandatory drug tests “for the students' own good,” say administrators. Staff at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City plan to take samples from 60 random students during the 2013-14 school years and test them for several types of drugs, including marijuana and cocaine. Participation in the program is mandatory.

“Our point is, if we do encounter a student who has made some bad decisions with drugs or alcohol, we will be able to intervene, get the parents involved, get him help if necessary, and then help him get back on a path of better decision making, healthier choices for his life,” Rockhurst Principal Greg Harkness explained.

Constitutional rights? What constitutional rights? This is a Jesuit school where there ain’t no such thing as constitutional rights.

But that’s not about to stop Tennessee Republican lawmaker Sen. Stacey Campfield of Knoxville from proposing legislation that would require public schools to inform a student's parents if the child is engaging in homosexual activity.

Under this law, a school counselor, nurse or principal can inform parents if their children's "circumstances present immediate and urgent safety issues involving human sexuality."

Campfield told reporters that he considers the "act of homosexuality" to be dangerous to a child's health and safety.

So if a counselor spots two little girls holding hands in the elementary school hallway in Redneck County, Tennessee, you can bet that their parents will be notified lickity-split so that the authorities may take appropriate action to stop this dangerous act affecting the children’s health and safety.

A Missouri School District official suggested recently that an innocent 13-year-old girl get breast reduction surgery in order to stop bullying.  The sixth-grade student at Central Middle School is being sexually harassed because of her breast size. When her mother called the school district to complain she said a woman suggested to me, "to have my daughter get a breast reduction," she said.

Blame it on the victim is the reasoning in this case.

Does that sound familiar?

It’s just part of life nowadays in our American elementary gulags.