Former CIA bin Laden Unit chief Michael Scheuer spent his career figuring out how to protect America.
Dr. Scheuer warns Americans, “We now have presidents who take the country to war on their whim; politicians who are legally bribed by “campaign contributions” from rich individuals, corporations, labor unions, and foreign lobbies and governments based on an absurd reading of the Constitution; a public that is increasingly endangered by flamboyant blasphemers who seek violence and war under the protection of the First Amendment; and the routine criminality of executive branch officials who refuse to obey their oath of office to execute the laws. We also have the overwhelming majority of both political parties willing to destroy the Fourth Amendment in the name of providing for national security against an enemy they have resolutely refused to either stop motivating or militarily annihilate.”
Scheuer includes for readers a menu of neocons that have dominated “both American political parties and for decades have made foreign policy for the United States. Since the early 1990s they have brought America constant war and its reliable companion, the steadily broadening erosion of constitutional liberty.” The “Kennel of War Dogs,” as I label the neocon contingent, includes, at the head of a long list, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Barack Obama, John Boehner, Marco Rubio, and Mike Huckabee, trailed by a supporting cast of lesser lights and all-purpose nation builders and fire starters.
In a coming post, I will introduce an extended list of participants in my “Kennel of War Dogs,” none of whom “America First” citizens would want anywhere near the reigns of power in Washington. As a warm up, I offer Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
Two names rightly missing from Dr. Scheuer’s list are Rand Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano, whom Mike refers to as “two singularly courageous individuals standing up and saying the destruction of the Fourth Amendment must stop.”
As Thomas Jefferson asked in 1787, “And what country can preserve its liberties, if the rulers are not warned from time to time, that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
Michael concludes, “And to ensure U.S. citizens can realistically discuss all options for preventing or destroying tyrannical government at home, the Founders left them the Second Amendment.”
As you know, certain .22LR ammo is as rare as hens’ teeth. But in your haste to load-up don’t make the mistake of buying ammo that turns out to be something you don’t need. Find what you like and become an expert on that brand. I have found that simply talking about ammo with friends and family has helped me to create a network. I got an email from a client this morning letting me know about an ammo sale that he came across. It’s that type of intelligence that keeps you in the game.
“The TSA is very little more than an employment program swelling the ranks of the American Federation of Government Employees, a sure source of Democratic political donations (more than $5 million in recent years; it is the 29th largest single donor in the country), and a platform for patronage,” writes Kevin D. Williamson in NRO.
Since 2002, taxpayers have forked over more than $60 billion for TSA. With 65,000 employees, TSA is now larger than the combined forces at Departments of State, Labor, Energy, Education, and Housing and Urban Development. Furthermore, air travelers are still obliged to go through the loathed full-body scanners, which, at $150,000 a pop, are “unable to distinguish plastic explosives from body fat.” Read here Charles C. W. Cooke’s take on the powerful, unionized TSA, whose actions are to “accomplish nothing” other than “to make the government look like it is on the job.”
The federal government has spent more than $60 billion on the TSA since 2002, a sum that has helped the outfit mushroom into the employer of some 65,000 people — more than the combined forces of the Departments of State, Labor, Energy, Education, and Housing and Urban Development. A congressional report from 2012 aptly labeled the congregation “an enormous, inflexible and distracted bureaucracy,” mostly interested in “consolidating power,” and a few months later, as if to grimly prove the point, the agency secured for itself a union contract via the American Federation of Government Employees. The first order of business naturally was to establish that annual leave be calculated not on anything as prosaic as job performance but instead on good old-fashioned seniority, the patron saint of inefficiency and inertia.
One can rather understand why the TSA’s bumptious stiffs were so keen to break the link between the security of their positions and the security of the public: They are doing nothing, and they know it. Here, incompetence is a feature not a bug — the foreordained product of a vast and intricate confidence-laundering operation that would have made the Wizard of Oz blush. Vanity Fair’s Charles C. Mann explained candidly in 2011 that the TSA’s actions are explicitly set up to “accomplish nothing,” and “designed” instead “to make the government look like it is on the job.”
In his new book Taking a Stand, the Senator heads a chapter “A New Kind of Republican.” Thanks to the misguided leadership of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, George W.Bush and John Boehner for starters, the Republican brand of Reagan, Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush has been distorted beyond recognition. Groups like FreedomWorks have made a sterling effort to get the party back on a fiscally responsible, small government track, but so far with just modest success.
I long ago distanced myself from the Cheney-McCain Republicans, not that I would ever unite with the Marxist influenced, income re-distributors of the Obama administration nor the disgraceful Clinton horde. Thanks to the political elite in Washington, America’s election system has been co-opted by self-serving billionaires best exemplified by one Sheldon Adelson, whom Senator Paul has rightly dodged like the plague. Were I running for president, I would make it clear that neither the concerns of Adelson nor his money would be welcome. And I think Senator Paul has taken just such an approach. Good for Rand.
Today’s two party system features one group who steals your money through (1) the policies of income redistribution and the progressive income tax and another through (2) the policies fixated on a hash of military/industrial complex, nation building and worldwide power projection activity favoring Wall Street and the Fortune 500 crowd. We the People, as you’ll note, are not in the mix.
What is badly needed in America is a third party that actually represents We the People, you know, real individuals like you and me. Far as I can see, we have little representation in Washington beyond Senator Paul, Justin Amash (Rep. Michigan) and a handful of others. In all honesty, I find it hard to understand how Senator Paul is actually going to be able to run under a Republican banner hoisted by the likes of McCain, Graham and Boehner. These guys present a huge roadblock for Rand and for We the People and are every bit as destructive as the duplicitous Clintons and their “charitable” foundation.
I have gone through Taking a Stand line by line, starting with every item in the index and the six and a half pages of notes. There is a lot to like. But I was disappointed to see names and subject matter omitted, such as any reference to Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, Calvin Coolidge, Thomas Paine, or the debilitating policies of the worst president in American history—Woodrow Wilson,( see here and here) who lied America into a WWI that was already stymied to a worthwhile stalemate. Nonetheless, the senator needs to get elected and has produced a road map that, to use the senator’s words, has moved “beyond partisan politics.”
In Target Switzerland, Stepehen P. Halbrook lays out the story of Swiss armed neutrality in World War II.
Switzerland, alone among the nations of central Europe, successfully deterred Germany from invading and occupying her territory.
Where did a small nation find the resolve and strength- military and spiritual-to resist against overwhelmingly larger and more powerful foes?
One answer lies in two words which describe Switzerland’s national military doctrine: armed neutrality.
Other European nations were characterized y centralized governments often headed by elites with the power to surrender their sovereignty to Hitler, either with a short even token resistance or no fight at all. By contrast, in Switzerland, sovereignty began with the individual, not the central authorities. And every man kept a rifle for the defense of his home, his family, his canton and finally, Switzerland herself.
Switzerland’s war time mobilization and armament-rooted in the centuries-old policy of active, armed neutrality-effectively deterred invasion by the most powerful and aggressive totalitarian state in modern European history.
America’s Founders intended that America adopt the same approach to government and national security as fellow federal republic Switzerland practiced. In the original Articles of Confederation, Sam Adams, John Hancock, Elbridge Gerry, John Dickinson, Richard Henry Lee and the other signatories intended: “Each state retain its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”
A weak central government of a part time nature was intended, with an appointed president selected for a one-year term to preside over “A Committee of the States” for managing the “general affairs of the United States.” In the exact same fashion as Switzerland, the Founders intended that the states and their citizens would hold the reigns of power, rather than the weak, even part-time central government.
In terms of national defense, the Articles were clear: “No body of forces shall be kept up by any state in time of peace, except such number shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such state.” The Founders had neither the intention nor the ability to become involved in the internal affairs of other countries.
America has much to learn from tiny Switzerland. Switzerland today has the same militia-based national defense system and decentralized cantonal (states) system of government presided over by a one-year president with few enumerated powers as it did back in the days of WWII.
In The Fourth Political Theory by Russian political commentator and writer Alexander Dugin, chapter 14 is sub titled The Evil of Unipolarity. “All traditionalists should be against the West and globalization, as well as against the imperialist politics of the United States.”
Alexander Dugin’s nationalistic, classical Eurasian view is that a Russian-Eurasian state must incorporate all of the former Soviet states.
Tradition has it that the soft-shell crab season is marked with the first full moon in May. This past weekend, which happened to be the last weekend in May—full moon or not—Dick and I bought half a dozen. You want to buy them live, and directions for cleaning the critters are pretty straightforward, assuming you are not squeamish about using scissors to cut out their little faces, gills and flat abdominal apron. Thankfully, our local fish market cleaned and prepared them for us.
You pay for soft-shells according to size, from four to six inches, measured across the back point to point. The largest ones are premium priced, but I’ve never been to a market that sells a variety of sizes.
Soft-shells begin their molting season to accommodate for summer growth. The time it takes for a crab to shed the shell can take anywhere from one to three hours. After that time, the hardening process continues, which reduces the quality of the soft-shell crab.
Our half-dozen crabs were about 4 inches across. Lightly dusted with seasoned flour (salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika) and pan sautéed in a generous combination of olive oil, coconut oil and butter, there is little better. Remove the crabs after cooking three to four minutes per side, deglaze the pan with vermouth (Julia Child’s favorite cooking wine), take the pan off the heat, whisk in cold butter then toss in arugula and a handful of garden herbs, garnish with a wedge of lemon, and voila. With them, try a dry, “elegant” Riesling from Alsace (try F. E. Trimbach).
The soft-shell crab season runs roughly May through September. My method of cooking soft-shells is an easy, quick-prep dinner. The WSJ has some interesting recipes if you’d like to take these treasures to another level.
The consequences of Wilson’s fateful decision to enter World War I played out long after he died in 1924, because of Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin. Those ruthless killers would not have come to power as they did if the United States had stayed out of the war. Their crimes are part of Wilson’s story, ignored in Wilson biographies and history books. Wilson biographies, like other biographies, typically end with the subjects’ death.
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Moreover, Hitler and Stalin were the principal instigators of World War II, so that’s a consequence of Wilson’s decision—part of his story. After World War II, Stalin grabbed Eastern Europe and provoked the Cold War, and Wilson’s legacy continued. The Cold War involved two major hot wars—Korea and Vietnam—and the United States entered both in the Wilsonian tradition of trying to do good even when there wasn’t a direct threat to America’s national security. Wilson’s shadow has loomed over the Middle East as well, since bitter adversaries were forced into a new nation—Iraq—thanks to the Versailles Treaty made possible by Wilson.
Looking to the 2016 presidential election, it is clear that only Rand Paul appears to understand the horrible legacy of Woodrow Wilson and its unintended consequences.
I’m looking forward to taking a trip to Yellowstone National Park with my family. It has been almost 30 years since I visited as a kid. A lot has happened since then. One thing I’m wondering is if I will be able to see a difference now that the wolves have been reintroduced.
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