Rand Paulpander

A recent Pew Research poll confirms that 72% of Americans (up 5% from 2010) acknowledge that religion is losing its influence in the nation.

Of course, a lot of religious folks think that’s a bad thing; they want their government to sponsor their religion; they want their government God.  But the fact remains that people are discovering in ever greater numbers that religion and politics just don’t mix well in America. Accordingly, most of us would rather keep politics and religion separate.

A majority of Americans today are suspicious of politicians who overtly seek to impose their brand of religion on the people. That’s a big reason why the Republican Party has had such a tough time electing a president lately. The last time they managed to get one elected it was GWB and we all know how that turned out.

One would think that the Republicans have learned their lesson from that debacle, but no, they’re still Hell bent on thrusting another Christian bible thumping religious candidate on the ballot only to be shot down again in 2016 by a majority of Americans who just don’t buy it anymore.

Witness the annual “Values Voter Summit” last week which invited as speakers only the most religiously oriented of the otherwise politically conservative Republican candidates. Competent Republicans like Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, for example, weren’t invited solely because they just aren’t religious enough to make the cut.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, however, the self proclaimed “libertarian” Republican candidate, did make the cut. He took the stage as a video of a fetal ultrasound played for the crowd in the background and declared that liberty virtue and God are intertwined, quoting a biblical passage from 2 Corinthians to make his point: “Where there is the spirit of the Lord, there is liberty.”

Paul, who likes to remind Republicans that ‘libertarian’ should not be confused with ‘libertine,’ pandered to the cheering crowd that: “What America really needs is a revival … I often tell people political parties are empty vessels unless we imbue them with values.  Republicans must first decide and clearly explain who we are before we can ask to take charge of the country.  Today we are here to talk about what we believe those values should be.”

“We have a great many problems in this country to solve.  But I believe there will come a time when we are all judged on whether or not we took a stand in defense of all life from the moment of conception until our last natural breath,” he continued. “One thing I promise you and I promise my constituents in Kentucky is, I will always take a stand for life.” 

“I agree with Ralph Reed, who often states that the First Amendment is here to keep government out of religion, but not to keep religious people out of government…  I think there is crisis in our country.  It’s not just a fiscal crisis.  I think it’s a moral crisis.  I think it’s a spiritual crisis. I don’t think the answer is in any politician.  I don’t think the answer is in any particular law… I think the answer really is that we need to somehow find our way back to God.”

Of course, the God he’s referencing is his own personal God and theirs, Jesus Christ, the Christian God of the Holy Bible. He has no qualms about telling the audience that he wants to impose his God upon the people of the entire nation with the help of our government whether we all like it or not.

That is who he is. That is what he wants the Republican Party to be, and those were the only values he spoke about to his adoring crowd. Yes, he was pandering to them. They’re the only values they much care about.

This “libertarian,” if given the chance, would use our government to force women to endure unwanted pregnancies “from the date of conception” until birth no matter what the circumstances. That was his promise. That is how he defines liberty. Liberty is intertwined with God. There is a spiritual crisis in America. So he would be the leader of a Christian revival as President of the United States.

This “libertarian” believes that the First Amendment was crafted to keep government out of religion but not religion out of government. Give him the chance and he will have prayers to God together with his religion taught in every public school; the 10 commandments posted prominently in every government building; and Christian crosses decorating every public square.

That is his notion of ‘liberty’ in the word libertarian. That “libertarian” – let’s call him Rand Paulpander – will not succeed with the majority of Americans in 2016. 

Justice Asleep

Imagine a scenario in which a woman wakes up from sleep one morning to find her three month old infant strangled to death in her crib. Police investigate the crime and ultimately conclude that all of the circumstantial and physical evidence points to the woman as the person who committed act.

Mom is horrified, but doesn’t remember doing it. She has a sleep disorder; she’s a sleepwalker who sometimes does weird things while asleep; things she wouldn’t do while awake. She must have done it when asleep. She asserts this excuse as a defense at her trial. She claims she’s not legally responsible for the death of her infant; not guilty of any crime.

Of course, the little baby whose life was violently snuffed out at the hands of its own mother is just as dead and gone as it would be had her mom been awake. It makes no difference to her whether mom was asleep, or insane, or mentally incompetent, or whatever the excuse. She’s dead; the victim of a homicide; and her mommy did it to her.

Should this woman walk away free? Should the law regard her sleep disorder an excuse which absolves her from guilt for the brutal homicide of her three month old infant?  Is she guilty or not guilty? Will there be justice for this homicide or, like the perpetrator; will it be an excuse for justice to fall asleep?

Yes, sometimes justice is asleep. The judicial disorder is manifest in situations as described above and when perpetrator’s of crimes successfully assert insanity and mental incompetence defenses.  Justice goes to sleep. The victims are just as much victims but that doesn’t matter to the law.

Recently, Mikeal Halvarsson, a Swedish man walked away free from a prison sentence on a forcible rape conviction courtesy of the “sexomnia” defense. He was asleep when he raped the woman so the law held him not accountable for the crime. It’s a legal defense in some jurisdictions. Sexomnia will make you free. Sexomnia will cause justice to go to sleep.

Well, I’m really sorry that some people have sleep disorders that make them do weird things while sleeping. My heart bleeds for crazy and mentally incompetent defendants who commit violent crimes they otherwise might not have intended to commit. It’s too bad. But these people pose a danger to others and justice requires that they be held accountable for their conduct.

Surely their disorders ought to be taken into account as a mitigating factor when it comes to punishment, but in no case should sexomnia, insanity, mental incompetence or any other human failing absolve one from responsibility as an excuse for harming others. The perpetrator is just as guilty and his victim just as harmed no matter the intent involved in the act.

There is no legitimate excuse for justice asleep. 

Put a Bounty on ‘em

I’m a committed libertarian and hate violence but was dead serious last month when I wrote that:  Religious Fanaticism Threatens Us All; and earlier this month when I made the case that: They Must Be Eliminated.

Now I’m advocating that an international bounty be put on each and every one of these uncivilized savages. If they resist capture and try to elude lawful justice for their crimes, they should be hunted down and eradicated like plague infested rats.

This week the Islamic State religious fanatics released a 42-minute audio recording on Internet social media sites calling upon like minded Muslims everywhere to murder innocent civilians in countries that belong to the anti-ISIS, U.S.-led coalition. "If you can kill a disbelieving American or European, especially the spiteful and filthy French, or an Australian, or a Canadian or any other disbeliever, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be," an ISIS spokesman says.

They’re serious, folks. And it’s time to get serious in dealing with them.

The U.S. government has taken a step in the right direction but our President is far too timid and incompetent to do the job right. This is really not a task for conventional military forces fighting wars with other nations. ISIS and Al Qaeda are nothing more than an army of criminals and they should be dealt with as criminals.

There should be an international coalition, approved by Congress and the President, consisting of every civilized nation on the planet willing to join. It should be dedicated to identifying, pursuing, rooting out and eliminating the threat posed by these international criminals. Each nation should chip in its appropriate share of the necessary funds.

First, the intelligence agencies of each nation in the coalition should seek to identify and publish the names and whereabouts of as many of the criminals as they can.  That task shouldn’t be too difficult to accomplish given the technology which exists today. A substantial financial bounty should then be put upon the heads of each individual identified criminal.

Each criminal should know that a bounty has been put on his head; each should know that he is a wanted criminal; that money will be paid to anyone, whether friend of foe, who assists in his being brought to justice; that he can trust no one, not even his own mother. Those who submit to lawful justice would be punished appropriately but have their lives spared. Those who don’t would be hunted down and taken out like vermin.

Next, the coalition, which should be led by the United States, should put together an elite well trained, well equipped and well paid fighting force consisting strictly of volunteers from the military forces of each coalition nation – men who can pass rigorous standards for Special Forces style combat missions.

The special force should operate separate and apart from the conventional U.S. military but be assisted by them logistically and otherwise while remaining answerable ultimately to Congress and the President. Essentially it would be a well disciplined highly motivated special force of mercenaries – an international military police force swat team consisting of disciplined men who love violence and want to fight -- willing to risk their lives anywhere in the world for honor and a price. They would participate in and share the bounties as well.

That is the right way to deal with armies of international religious fanatic criminals – put a bounty on ‘em.

Secret Courts Trash Fourth Amendment

Did you know that if the U.S. government decides that it wants to violate, i.e. trash, provisions of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, it simply creates secret federal courts of law that will rubber stamp all that it desires?

Did you know that the supreme law of the land in the United States of America – the Constitution -- isn’t what it plainly says, but rather what secret federal courts decide?

Did you know that “We the People” are not entitled to know what the law is or how it will be interpreted by judges if the government wants to keep it a secret?

Did you know that we have secret laws and secret courts to apply the laws in America?

Well, now we know a small part of the ugly truth about our federal government, and we have exiled hero Edward Snowden to thank for it. He’s revealed some of the nasty secrets and Uncle Sam is out to get him for it.

We know, for example, that Uncle Sam secretly threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day in 2008 if it failed to comply with a broad warrantless demand to hand over user communications — a request the company believed was unconstitutional — successfully forcing the company to participate in the National Security Agency’s controversial PRISM program.

Yahoo resisted the government’s demands but ultimately lost the battle in a secret court -- the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review -- which decided that the Fourth Amendment requirements for search warrants may simply be ignored when the government deems it necessary for national security purposes.

Now NSA enjoys extensive warrantless access to records of online com­munications by users of Yahoo and other U.S.-based technology firms. Eventually, most major U.S. tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and AOL, also complied in secret. Microsoft had joined earlier, before the ruling.

PRISM was first revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year. It allowed the NSA to order U.S.-based tech companies to turn over e-mails and other communications to or from foreign targets without search warrants for each of those targets. Other NSA programs gave even more wide-ranging access to ­personal information of people worldwide, by collecting data directly from fiber-optic connections. And the tech companies were bound by law to keep the governments nefarious activities secret.

Now we know that secret courts are constitutional because the secret judges say so, and using secret courts to trash the Bill of Rights is constitutional because the secret judges say so.

The implications are that our government is essentially lawless -- no provision of law in the United States of America is beyond the reach of government trashing in secret with secret courts.

Gestapo Nation USA

President Obama admitted it so it’s no longer a secret. As I wrote last month, the USA is guilty of the indefensible practice of torture. He admitted that it was “wrong” but then he defended it on the grounds that the CIA goons were faced with such a “tough job” after 9/11. I guess that’s exactly what George W. Bush thought when he personally authorized it.

Of course, the Nazi Gestapo goons were faced with a tough job too during WWII, so I suppose the President thinks that their routine torture practices were justified as well. I confess, I’ve never imagined that the President of the United States of America would ever liken America and Americans as the same kind of depraved and despicable human beings spawned by Adolph Hitler.

Now we learn that our American Gestapo torture thugs were not just engaging in torture light as they would have us believe. They weren’t simply using mild torture methods on their captives. It wasn’t exactly like giving them a bath and dunking their heads under the water for a few seconds to scare them into talking. No, they were torturing human beings “to the point of death” by drowning.

That’s what the U.S. senate will publish in an upcoming report on CIA interrogation techniques. One source admits that the torture went far beyond mere water boarding as the CIA previously claimed. “They weren’t just pouring water over their heads or over a cloth. They were holding them under water until the point of death, with a doctor present to make sure they did not go too far.”

“They got medieval on his ass, and far more so than people realize,” another source said regarding the torture endured by a prisoner. The upcoming report by the US Senate based on a review of classified CIA documents would “deeply shock” the public because of its graphic portrayal of the extreme interrogation techniques used by the CIA, a third source said.

Well, I’ve not yet seen the report and I’m already deeply shocked. The American savages, including former President, GWB, who authorized this atrocity and all those CIA goons who carried it out should be behind bars. They’re war criminals. They’re no different than Nazi war criminals.

They’ve turned my country and yours into Gestapo Nation USA.

Asserting Constitutional Rights in Georgia is Bullying

Suppose that a large majority of citizens of a small town in Georgia decide that no one who lives there may own a gun. The town tells people that they can’t have guns. Some of them – a small minority -- object.

They assert their federal constitutional Second Amendment right to bear arms. They insist that the town is violating their rights and demand that they immediately cease and desist. The town’s authorities respond by calling the minority residents bullies. “Stop bullying our kids,” they whine.

Apparently asserting your constitutional rights in Georgia is considered bullying. If you assert your rights there you’re bullying their kids.

Think about that for a moment. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Since when does asserting your constitutional rights make you a bully? The reality is that it’s the majority in that fictional town who are the bullies. They’re the ones who are violating the minority’s constitutional rights. They minority are merely standing up for their rights.

No logical person in his right mind would ever define those who assert their constitutional rights as bullies. One would have to redefine the word “bully” in order to conclude logically that people who stand up for their rights are bullies.

Well, I admit that the folks in Georgia do indeed respect most people who assert their constitutional rights – especially when it comes to Second Amendment rights. Never in a million years would they consider them bullies. Some might not like their neighbors owning guns but they would surely never call them bullies for asserting their right to own guns. The term “bully” just doesn’t fit in that situation.

But when it comes to people who assert their First Amendment Establishment Clause constitutional rights, it’s a far different story.  Logic in that situation is thrown to the wind. Those atheist scumbags are bullies according to a large majority of Christians in the town of Gainesville, Georgia. “Stop bullying our kids,” they whine pathetically.

The people of Gainesville Ga. want their government run public schools to endorse, support and sponsor Christianity at High School football games. They’ve established have a routine practice in which the coaches conduct Christian prayers with players and other participants right in the middle of the field during games. The official team documents contain biblical references and Christian messages.

Of course the townspeople of Gainesville know full well that this practice violates the First Amendment rights of minorities but they simply don’t care. If anyone objects and asks them to stop doing it, that person will be branded a bully. They have a new definition to the term “bully.” A bully is anyone who objects to the town establishing the Christian religion in public schools.

“The American Humanist Association (AHA) is about to learn a very important lesson -- folks around Gainesville don’t take kindly to out-of-town atheists trying to bully their children,” says commentator, Todd Starnes of Fox News. “As we say in the Deep South, local residents are preparing to back up and bring it.”

“If the atheist group doesn’t like the prayer, tell them to stick their fingers in their ears,” said one Christian resident. “I am a mom of two of the football players on the CHS football team and I consider it an honor and a privilege to have my boys on a team that is led by men that believe and trust in God,” said another. “I think it's a shame for one person to try and take that away from them.”

The American Humanist Association says that the coaches are using their positions to promote Christianity and that such religious activity is not an isolated incident.

“Guilty as charged,” said Congressman Doug Collins, who represents Georgia’s ninth congressional district. “The liberal atheist interest groups trying to bully Chestatee High School kids say they have a reason to believe that expressions of religious freedom are ‘not an isolated event’ in Northeast Georgia,” Collins writes. “They’re right. In Hall County and throughout Georgia’s 9th district, we understand and respect the Constitution and cherish our right to worship in our own way.”

Yes, the people of Gainesville Ga. respect the Constitution when it comes to their own First Amendment rights, but when it comes to the First Amendment rights of non-believers who are standing up for their minority rights – they’re bullies.  

The “Lost” Lie

It’s been several months now since IRS stooges testified under oath at congressional hearings that Lois Lerner’s infamous emails were “lost” when her computer crashed.

You know – all those pesky documents which would prove once and for all the nature and extent of her criminal wrongdoing in the matter of IRS targeting of conservative political groups to deny them tax exempt status.

But we know that when government agents testify under oath they’re too often lying under oath.

Those emails aren’t “lost.” It’s a lie – the “lost” lie. And so far Lois Lerner and her IRS is getting away with it.

But now, according to the president of the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, Justice Department attorneys have intimated all those "lost" emails likely exist in back-up computers. That’s because the federal government regularly backs up all its computer records to ensure the continuity of government in event of a catastrophe. So even if Ms Lerner’s computer crashed all those emails have been backed up and therefore still exist.

Of course they exist. The law requires that they be backed up. They exist on several computers. But that’s not the end of this charade. The DOJ attorneys insist that retrieving them now from the backup computers would be "too onerous" - a legal burden that can exempt an agency from complying with FOIA requests.

The government has a computer backup procedure to regularly backup all records in case of a crash. So the files won’t be lost. They can’t be lost. But retrieving the backed up files would be too onerous so they’re not going to do it. "They could get these records but they don't want to, and they haven’t told anyone about it until we were able to get it out of them on Friday," admits an administration official.

Everyone, including Congress, knows that those emails exist, but Congress seems completely powerless when it comes to retrieving them. Congress has apparently accepted the “lost” lie. 

They Must Be Eliminated

I took some heat last month for my post Religious Fanaticism Threatens Us All wherein I made a case for the whole world, including the United States of America, standing up to religious fanatics who threaten us with death for simply believing differently.  That case is even more relevant today.

These fanatics include specifically Islamic State jihadists in Northern Syria and Iraq; that band of savages terrorizing the people of the region; the monsters responsible for the ritualized videotaped beheading of journalist James Foley solely because he was an American.

They should be hunted down like rabid dogs and neutralized for their religiously motivated genocide. That’s because no religion confers upon its believers the right to murder, maim, enslave, or otherwise victimize innocent people for the “offense” of believing differently.

As a libertarian, I’m against the U.S. meddling into the affairs of other nations.

The Vietnam War, for example was a colossal mistake costing Americans tens of thousands of lives and $billions upon $billions of taxpayer dollars. The North Vietnamese presented zero threat to Americans. Trying to contain communism among people who wanted communism was a fool’s errand. We have nothing to show for it.

George W. Bush’s invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were likewise horrible mistakes costing $trillions of dollars and thousands of innocent lives. Saddam Hussein did not threaten the U.S. As bad a guy as he was he was still a stabilizing force in the region. The chaos we see there today would not be happening if the U.S had stayed out of Iraq.

Similarly, the Taliban government in Afghanistan was not a threat to Americans. We could have taken the fight to Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorists without overthrowing the Taliban and occupying the country.  Americans received no benefit from the folly of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Al Qaeda and the ISL jihadist religious fanatics do indeed present a clear and present threat to all Americans, all Europeans, and all of the other peaceful innocent people of the world. Their avowed purpose is to establish a world dominated Islamic caliphate and, in the process, to eliminate any people who refuse to accept their particular barbaric form of religion.

Lately these murdering pigs have publicly beheaded Steven Sotloff, another American, simply because he was an American. The threat to Americans is real. They intend to kidnap and kill Americans anywhere they can be found anywhere in the world. If given the chance they will terrorize and kill Americans in America. They intend to kill or enslave anyone who won’t accept their religion. No one is safe anywhere with these fanatics on the loose.

During the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries when the United States of America was a new player on the world stage, President Thomas Jefferson found it necessary to stand up with military force to the Islamic Barbary Coast Pirates of Northern Africa who demanded tribute from American merchant ships and others doing trade in the Mediterranean Sea.

If tribute wasn’t paid these pirates would seize ships and often kill or enslave the crews, and hold them for ransom. Jefferson sent a U.S naval fleet to the region and put a stop to it. He did it because it was necessary. Americans benefited.

The Al Queada and ISL jihadists are a far worse threat to Americans and the rest of the civilized world than the Barbary Coast pirates.

They must be eliminated.