Restroom Editorial Comment

Someone put this sticker on the hand dryer unit at a Jacksonville , Florida, Cracker Barrel restaurant:

Our Governing Geniuses Are Bankrolling Terrorism

America for all intents and purposes has abandoned its claimed policy of not negotiating with terrorists.

Or perhaps we just finance the thugs without talking to them.

In any event, Hamas, which the U.S. officially identifies as a terrorist organization, governs Gaza, which is getting $47 million taxpayer dollars from the Obama Administration.  

The money, of course, supposedly is to be used for "humanitarian purposes."  However, money is fungible, which means that our money will be used to provide food, shelter, and medical care for the residents of Gaza, thus freeing up other funds that the terrorist government otherwise would -- to some extent -- have to use for those purposes.  And the freed up funds can, are, and always will be used to finance and provide arms and ammunition and other lethal tools for the terrorist trade -- activities that are the raison d'etre of Hamas, which is committed to extinguishing the State of Israel and killing its people.

On top of that, our 'leaders' now appear to begging the bloodthirsty gang to take more of our money in exchange for stopping -- for a smidgen of time -- their rocket attacks on Israel.  Here is the capsule summary  report from today's edition of The Wall Street Journal: 

The U.S. and its allies are working on a Gaza truce plan to assure Hamas its economic demands will be met if it stops rocket strikes on Israel. 

Terrorism is a great business.  You take money from people who supposedly won't negotiate with you and attack your neighbor . . . and then the same people who lavish their citizens' money on you beg you to take more to stop the attacks. . . even if only for a little while.

Who says there is no such thing as perpetual motion?

Conveniently Forgtten History

Recognize and Abandon Every Faulty Premise

It was on an early April cab ride way back when New York City taxi drivers still spoke English that I learned to truly understand and appreciate the meaning of the term “faulty premise.”

My cabbie had responded with an expletive to a radio broadcast of the annually repeated news report about the indictment of some alleged tax cheat and the ensuing comments of the IRS Commissioner.

“Did you ever hear such  b_ _ _ s _ _ _,” exclaimed my driver, referring to the tax agency boss's claim that cheating increased the burdens of honest taxpayers.

My demurrer that the claim seemed credible, instantly transformed the cab driver, who until then had seemed to be a  “dese” and “dem” tenement kind of guy, into a sophisticated and articulate debater.  “It’s based on a faulty premise,” he snorted.  “It assumes there is some finite number of dollars, some limited amount of money that the government assholes will spend.”

“The fact,” he continued, “is that there is no limit to what they'll spend.  They will spend every dollar that they can lay their greedy hands on . . . everything that they can collect in taxes and fees as well as everything more that they can beg, borrow, or steal.  So even if nobody cheats, they’ll still get everything they can from every one of us.  God bless those who find a way, any way to escape their grubby grasping paws.”

(In those days the burdening of future generations was somewhat curtailed by actual efforts to set priorities and limit government spending to what was expected (with unrealistic optimism) to come into its coffers.  And just printing greenbacks had not yet come into vogue.)

In any event a similar faulty premise underlies and dooms the so-called “peace process” in the Middle East.

We somehow have been led to pretend that if we can get a party openly intent on murder and his intended victim to talk with one another, they will reach some kind of accord . . . that the intended victim can be induced to give up enough of what he holds to satisfy his would be killer's blood lust, notwithstanding that the latter, after accepting everything offered to him, continually professes openly that he never will be satisfied with anything other than his “negotiating partner’s” death.

That is why we keep going back to history’s longest running farce – the Middle East “Peace Process” in which Israel constantly gives or offers to give to the Palestinians bits and pieces of its country, hoping that at some point the latter will recognize and accept its right to exist.  On the other hand, their Palestinian “negotiating partners” are happy repeatedly to (i) accept everything offered to them, and yet (ii) constantly demand more as well as the extinguishment of the State of Israel.

It is long past time to abandon the faulty premise and for – to resort to a current phrase – a fundamental reset in the process.

To restart it on a sound basis, open and public recognition and acceptance of the State of Israel by the Palestinians has to be established as a firm and nonnegotiable starting place, a precondition for any resumption of negotiations.  Anything and everything else then can be the subject of subsequent negotiations.

Dear Mr. Obama . . .

So, Mr. President,  how's that reset with Russia working out?

Enjoying the snuggle with the bloodthirsty barbarian from the KGB?

Our Last Admirable and Respectable President

While I had little in common with Harry Truman politically, I miss him . . . particularly because we have not had a national leader like him since he left the White House.

He was a normal very human American -- a decent and modest man, a gutsy and unusually honest politician.

He embodied what America used to be, and I fear we will not see his like again.

Readers of this blog -- older ones as a reminder of what the nation was and now has lost, and younger ones to learn a bit about their disappearing heritage -- would do well to read Matthew Algee's charming book Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure; the True Story of a Great American Road Trip, as well as Peggy Noonan's excellent Wall Street Journal column Politics in the Modest Age, which can be accessed by clicking here.

Our Basic Problem

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. 

. . . John Adams

Aircraft Shootdown Murder(s)

Am naturally outraged and over-the-top angry over the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner from the skies over the Ukraine and the murder of the almost 300 people on it, and it is clear  that Russia and Vladimir Putin bear responsibility for the travesty.
 
However, rationally reflecting on the horrific event has led me to recognize that governments, including our own, murder people.

Although the number of lives lost was two-thirds of one percent of those in the Ukraine disaster, the horrific event brought to mind the 2001 murders of an American missionary woman, Veronica Bowers, and her seven-month old daughter,  Charity, by our government, which had the small plane in which they were heading home shot down in South America.  Mrs. Bowers’ husband, their six-year-son, and their wounded pilot survived both the crash and their subsequent strafing by the Peruvian Air Force jet that our CIA (through outsourced private contractors) directed to attack them.  A pretty good account of that travesty can be found by clicking here.
     
Despite the difference in the number of resulting deaths, the moral quality of the act was no different.  Furthermore our Congress previously had formally recognized and approved such grotesque actions by enacting a law absolving the government and its contractors from any liability for shooting down planes like the one that carried the missionary family (as well as some stuffed animal toys like those so poignantly scattered about on Ukrainian soil).

The sad fact is that governments kill people . . . historically their own people more often than not.  They do so both accidentally and intentionally.   How many innocent American victims like Donald Scott, whose name you can Google for just one example, have been killed in mindless no-knock SWAT team drug raids?  What about Wounded Knee, Waco, and Ruby Ridge?  There probably will be many more such incidents as Officer Friendly is being replaced by our increasingly militarized law enforcement agencies . . . real jack-booted thugs.  So we hardly can feel superior, smug, or self-righteous even about such things as the shocking propensity of Putin’s journalistic critics for tumbling from high roof tops in Russia. 

Large, powerful, and unaccountable organizations like governments will always do evil things as long as those in charge of them have no reason to fear any meaningful personal retribution.

Why NBC Booted Leno

WHY NBC GOT RID OF THE FUNNIEST MAN

ON LATE NIGHT - JAY LENO

News is leaking out from Hollywood executives in-the-know that the Obama White House had been leaning on, pressuring executives at NBC for the last two years to replace Jay Leno because the comedian was criticizing President Obama every night. Obama didn't like it and considered it a racist attack on him.

Since his inauguration in Jan. 2009 Obama had enjoyed three years of very, very friendly routines from all the late night comics on ABC, CBS, and  Leno at NBC - there was no criticism at all.

But after data came to light that $100's of millions had been spent on First Family vacations during a recession, Mrs. Obama's unpopular new laws that changed food in America's schools and other negative news including the disastrous Obamacare rollout & website mess, Jay Leno took his comedy to a different level and his ratings skyrocketed - none of the other comics were so bold.

THESE ONE-LINERS MIGHT BE THE REASON NBC GOT RID OF THE FUNNIEST MAN ON LATE NIGHT - JAY LENO

Of course NBC was on board when Jay Leno went after Republican George W. Bush every night for 8 years but they couldn't stomach the fact that Leno's jokes about Obama were always right on target about the first black president...and left-leaning Democrat executives at NBC were being harassed by Obama himself who thought the comedy was a racist attack on him.

GOLDEN OLDIES FROM JAY:

"I was going to start off tonight with an Obama joke, but I don't want to get audited by the IRS."

On NSA surveillance:

"We wanted a president who listens to all Americans - now we have one."

On a new IRS commissioner: "He's called 'acting commissioner' because he has to act like the scandal doesn't involve the White House."

On closing the Guantanamo prison for terrorists: "If he really wants to close it, turn it into a government-funded solar power company. The doors will be shut in a month."

Concerning the Benghazi, Associated Press, and IRS scandals:"Remember in the old days when President Obama's biggest embarrassment was Joe Biden?"  

On Obama saying he didn't know about the IRS scandal: "He was too busy not knowing anything about Benghazi to not know anything about the IRS."  

"The White House has a new slogan about Benghazi : Hope and change the subject."

"It's casual Friday, which means that at the White House, they're casually going through everybody's phone calls and records."

"It is not looking good for President Obama. Today his teleprompter took the fifth."

"Fox News has changed its slogan from 'Fair and Balanced' to 'See, I told you so!'"

On Obama's commencement address: "He told the young graduates their future is bright unless, of course, they want jobs."

On a Chicago man who set a record for riding a Ferris wheel:"The only other way to go around and around in a circle that many times is to read the official report on Benghazi."

On White House claims of ignorance on the scandals: "They took 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' out of the Pentagon and moved it into the White House."

Now the last and I think best!--

"These White House scandals are not going away anytime soon. It's gotten so bad that People in Kenya are now saying he's 100 percent American."