The latter fact is a major factor in the rise of Islamist terror, as the plain and obvious meaning of the actual words of Allah in the Koran lend credibility to those the extremists in the Muslim and Arab worlds and at the same time put peace-loving Muslims on the defensive. It appears that the only thing that reverses their respective roles in their homeland is when a liberty loving Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States is provoked to defend America, and post-regime change, empowers those that have “re-interpreted” Islam’s admonitions of “jihad”.

It appears that when American power kills enough of those that are actually faithful to the words of the book shared my all Muslims as Holy, the “reformationists” choose soccer and pizza over burka-garbed teen suicide pizza-parlor bombing as sport.

Three Blind Mice and/or See, Hear and Speak no Evil Monkeys?

Since 911 concentrated this Baptist mind, I have long contended that one can’t be a good Muslim and a good American, that is, if the actual words of the Book matter to you. For instance, consider these passages from a column that suggests that those who deny the clear import of the words are “Still Willfully Blind”:

At his blog today, Andrew Bostom, a scholar of jihadism, cites the following passage from “Reliance of the Traveler,” a widely distributed manual of Islamic law produced by al-Azhar University in Egypt, the most authoritative interpreters of theology and sharia jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, the dominant tradition among the world’s Muslims:

Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and, is etymologically derived from the word, mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion [of Islam]…The scriptural basis for jihad is such Koranic verses as “Fighting is prescribed for you” (Koran 2:216); “Slay them wherever you find them” (Koran 4:89); “Fight the idolators utterly” (Koran 9:36); and such hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] as the one related by (Sahih) Bukhari and (Sahih) Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And the final reckoning is with Allah”; and the hadith by (Sahih) Muslim, “To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.”

As Dr. Bostom points out, the first hadith referred to in the passage — the one in which Mohammed explains that Allah has commanded the Muslims to fight non-Muslims — was cited by Nidal Hasan in slide 43 of the June 7, 2007 presentation that Jonah discusses in his excellent column today.

How long will the Three Blind Mice of moderate Muslims, the political left (see liberals and Democrats) and our Commander in Chief keep their hands over their eyes and ears and refuse to speak of evil by its name? Must Hyde Park in Chicago of Honolulu be vaporized before the Apologizer-and-Inappropriate-Bower-before-Potentates-and-Emperors-in-Chief gets reality?

The ’see no evil’ face of Barack and the left

It is these same leftist mice and monkeys that spew a political correctness (see cowardly liars) of violent tendency equivalence between the Koran and the Bible; Christianity and Islam; and Osama bin Laden and Timothy McVeigh. The blindness required for such dismissive scoffing would render Stevie Wonder 20/20, as once has to ignore the actual words of the respective holy books; travel back centuries to find Christian church leaders justifying anything approaching justification for murder; ignore the disconnect between what authorities within the respective churches say and don’t say about individuals’ self-justifications for murders vs the position of the respective churches (Christian church leaders and neatly ALL Christians denounce all murder and especially including forced conversion based murder or infidel extermination. Islams leaders are mostly mute); and the exponentially large disparity in the numbers of victims.

In fact, when the left cites those non-Muslim terrorists that they say prove equivalence with Islam, they really help prove my point as the exceptions prove the rule. All they have are the OKC bombing, a few (2-3 incidents since 1973) of abortion clinic bombings and 1-2 murders of abortionists, with victims numbering less than 200. All this despite the fact that a majority of Americans are pro-life. The non-violence of the pro-lifers is self defining.

What of the numbers of victims of Islam, in the name of Islam, with mostly cricket chirps in protests from Mosques? 3000 on 911. Thousands of others since since Sirhan Sirhan gunned down RFK in 1968. Billions spent by the peace-loving to defend against terror. Israel under constant siege and the threat of extermination by Iran’s Mullahs in search of the end of time.

The Books

But DeVine Law, why so much emphasis on the words of the Koran, and how about those village genocides in the Old Testament? After all, look at all those years before the latter half of the 20th century when the Arab and Muslim worlds were mostly benign?

I could mention that America was born partly due to the refusal of Americans to pay tribute to Barbary Pirates (see Islamist terrorists). I could mention that the oil to fuel terror was not discovered in the Muslim world until well into the 20th Century. I could bring up the Cold War between two superpowers that kept the Islamists at bay (but at too high a price given the exponential evils and slaughter of Communism).

I do thank God that most Muslims eschew the real Prophet Muhammad and the actual words of the Koran in favor of a “reformed” Islam that makes kill mean pray and holy war mean strive to do right. Thank God for blind mice, up to a point.

But words matter, both in Holy Books and Constitutions. Men are flawed. Men have, at times twisted the words of the Bible to justify heinous acts. Yes, the numbers of religiously justified heinous acts are dwarfed by the numbers killed by godless Kaiserism, Hitlerism, Fascism, Socialism and Communism, throughout history. But one murder is one too many, no matter the justification, and given the civilization-essentials provided by faith, and especially the Judeo-Christian version, it is quite dangerous for the truth to be transmogrified.

The fact is that the actual words of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, are not only the eternal, spiritual soul-saving truth for believers, they also form the basis for the principles that have made Western Civilization the tolerant and prosperous miracle of history that it is.

No admonitions to murder in the Bible

Nowhere in the Bible will you find admonitions from God or anyone else to prospectively kill. You will find some history of past admonitions at particular times and places in the OT. Moreover, nowhere in the Bible will you find any calls to convert or be killed.

The Koran can make no such claim. For this reason, Islam will always be a danger. Words matter.

So, we conservatives, who properly insist that contracts of all kinds, from home mortgages, up to including Constitutions, be interpreted by the plain meaning and intent of the actual words, must pray that Muslims choose the equivalent of “activist judges” to call black, white for us to have peace.

The better alternative, of course, would be for them to convert to a Book whose strict construction produces peace. Let us pray. But in the meantime, I would be willing that some of our liberal friends that have re-written the US Constitution to justify abortion and the Bible to justify Government loving my neighbor with my money, apply the same logic to the Koran and make jihad mean scoring Goal in the World Cup.

God bless.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

John Stossel, famous for consumer horror stories for years at ABC, spoke mostly about his transition from liberal to libertarian at the event, co-sponsored by The Federalist Society.

We will be filing a more extensive summary, this weekend, of Stossel’s “Bashing Business” lecture and our interchanges; his latest book (”Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: WHY EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG“); and how his brand of libertarianism is essential element in building a conservative majority to turn back big government usurpations of liberty.

Suffice to say for now that the newest host of a prime time show on Fox Business Channel showed a lot of moxie in taking on our irresponsible legal culture in the belly of the legal beast at Emory.

The main point of his talk were how his consumer reporting over the years led him to understand that the free market is a better protector of consumers than big government, even as regards the regulation of legal drugs, and that his defense of private business causes the Left to hate him despite his very libertarian and liberal views on social issues.

Stossel is nothing if not consistent, and we mentioned that his recent column calling out presumptuous meddlers in the House of Representatives echoes StephC’s “Meddlers” columns at Hillbilly Politics and here at Redstate.

More later…this weekend, here and on my Examiner blog below…

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

The Way Forward in Honduras

For months Honduras has faced a political crisis. In June, its president, Manuel Zelaya, attempted to subvert the country’s constitution and was removed from office. He has since pushed to return to power, called the current president—Robert Micheletti—illegitimate, and has cast a shadow over presidential elections to be held at the end of this month.

On Oct. 30, it appeared the crisis might come to a close when representatives of Mr. Zelaya signed an agreement with representatives of Mr. Micheletti to create a reconciliation government to oversee the country until the next president is seated (among other provisions). But in recent days, that agreement—known as the Tegucigalpa/San Jose Accord—fell apart.

It’s more accurate to say Mr. Zelaya moved to destroy the accord. It called for him to propose members of the reconciliation government by Nov. 5, and it also gave Honduras’s Congress the right to vote whether to reinstate him as president. But Mr. Zelaya refused to make his appointments, even while Mr. Micheletti proposed his appointments on time. On Friday, Mr. Zelaya declared the accord null and void before Congress could vote on whether to restore him to power. Interestingly, he had insisted on adding the congressional vote to the agreement, so his decision to blow up the process before the vote is an indication that even he realizes he would lose a vote in a Congress controlled by his liberal party.

If there is to be a resolution to this crisis, it will likely only come if the Obama administration (which helped both sides hammer out the accord), leaders in the U.S. Congress, and the Organization of American States (OAS) make sure that Mr. Zelaya does not get away with breaking his word.

Democrat Davis is generous to the Obama Administration in refraining form stating obvious criticisms that are the import of his argument, that is, that:

The bottom line is that a deal is a deal. The U.S. government needs to insist on the implementation of the accord and endorse the results of the Nov. 29 presidential elections as verified by international monitors. Once that happens, Mr. Zelaya will be irrelevant, a footnote as a president who thought he was above the constitution.

And then, on Jan. 27, a new president will be sworn into office in Honduras. That will restore to normalcy the proud little constitutional republic that has always been a loyal and reliable friend of the United States.

Mr. Davis, an attorney at the Washington D.C. office of McDermott, Will & Emery, is a former special counsel to President Bill Clinton and represents the Honduran Latin American Business Council.

Lanny’s understated criticism is an even greater indictment of Obama as an enemy of the Rule of Law and Liberty. He echoes our previous admonitions with regard to the fact that there was no coup d’etat in Honduras.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ The Minority Report’s Live Wire

The main theme of this latest installment of “Foghorn Leghorns“, or getting our legs around Drive-by Media fog“, is the overall lack of journalistic curiosity, especially as pertains to running interference for President Barack Obama and his fellow democrats.

But, upon hearing of a planned partial lifting of the Obama Adminstration’s thuggish boycott of questions from Fox News tonight during a press conference in China, I deemed in necessary to also lower the foggy expectations of FNC fans that Obama will finally get asked a tough question and to review the actual “leghorn” performance of the only non-in-the-tank-for-liberals network as judged on the merits and as against their famous “fair and balanced” motto.

AJC’s best, birth certificates, Lou Dobbs and the credibility of the President of the United States

The “inspiration” for this column originated with a column by Jim Galloway, one of the best political reporters in Georgia. The “Political Insider” for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution “covered” the recent signing of a letter to President Obama requesting that he release a copy of his actual birth certificate, by Congressional Republicans, especially including Nathan Deal, who represents Gainesville, Ga., and has announced his candidacy for the 2010 Governor’s race in the Peach State.

Deal, like me, believes that Obama is a U.S. citizen. I have written DeVine Law analyses of the Constitution’s ”natural born” requirement for the Presidency, that convince me that so long as one parent (Obama’s mother) is a U.S. citizen at the time of one’s birth, then one is natural born, even if the place of birth is outside the United States.

Unlike Deal, I would not have raised the issue of the continued secrecy of Obama’s original birth certificate, but the drive-by media get no such pass, especially when Galloway’s story misleads his readers by diverting attention to assurances from “Republican” state officials that Obama was born in Hawaii and the release of a “certificate of birth” attesting to same.

Galloway fails to mention that the “certificate of birth” is state prepared document “based on” the actual original birth certificate. Shoddy journalism at best. Intentional subterfuge at worst. Not to mention the complete lack of curiosity as to why Obama would not release an actual copy of the original?

Is his father listed? If not, why not? And could it be that a non-Kenyan father is listed?

Galloway, the AJC and most of the drive-bys care about as much about that as they did his pre-election: associations with Rev. Wright of his G-D America church and terrorist political ally Bill Ayers (also the ghost-writer of the Marxist Dreams of his Father book); numerous statements deriding the Constitution, its framers and the Founders; and his numerous statements seeking high energy prices and bankrupting the coal industry.

Coincidentally this week, Lou Dobbs, the only member of the MSM interested in the juxtaposition of Obama’s honesty and the refusal to release his birth certificate, was released from his news reporting duties with CNN. Yes, I said news reporting. It is not an “opinion” to ask that the man with his finger on the nukes come clean for the anal exam regularly given Alaska Governors.

The abdication of responsible press coverage of those that would be the Chief Executive of our national government and Commander in Chief of the armed forces that defend us, is a clear and present danger to the continuing exceptionalism of these United States.

Think the issue of Obama’s trustworthiness and associations may have been relevant now AJC, after enduring the rushed stimulus passage lies? The attempted rush to cram socialized medicine and high energy taxes via cap and trade down our throats, especially after discovering Obama’s lies prior to the rush as regards the ability to keep current coverage and the 10-year and running cooling of the Earth?

The man-child bows before potentates and emperors that surely must be aghast that the freedom of the world is in a man’s hands that would bow so low before them that he gets shoe polish on his forehead. Were the liberal eyes so glazed over that they couldn’t see the stupidity of a fellow Ivy Leaguer that pats Queen Elizabeth on the back, refuses to give the French First Lady a peck on the cheek, and otherwise botches every state event he participates in.

At least he’s not a cowboy….

Chris Wallace & Bill Clinton and Major Garrett/Bill O’Reilly & Obama ‘08

Enter Fox News, fair and balanced. Guess they never heard the saying that the “Fair” only comes in October. Instead, Fox seems to accept the definition of “fair” as meaning accepting all arguments of the New York Times and the Democratic Party as legitimate and worthy of equal time.

Balance? I’m still looking for that too. Remember all the anticipation of the Chris Wallace interview of Bill Clinton? Yes, Chris got under Bill’s skin with a vague 911 question, that the walking Picture of Dorian Gray used to jab knees and make a scene. The question wasn’t tough.

Bill is “smart” to know that since he waited so long for an interview with a supposed non-sycophant, that the questions would mainly be vacuous “what do you think of” current events questions, rather than questions about pre-911 IRS records of political opponents; missile technology to China or his 2003 praise of Iran’s “democratic” political system. Luckily, the former president recently volunteered some “admissions” that we will cover in a story tomorrow, but I digress.

Remember the anticipation of Obama’s debut on The Factor? I do. It was dud as bad as when Jesse Jackson finally came in after years of being called a shake down artist by cable news’ ratings leader. You see, if you come on O’Reilly’s show, you have proven you are a “stand-up” guy and get treated with kid gloves.

Same was true for Major Garrett’s assignment to cover Obama’s “historic campaign”. The only people on FNC that covered the NEWS that really mattered before the Dem Party foisted Little Lord Obamalroy on America were Sean Hannity and pre-interview O’Reilly. Major asked horse-race questions that bored me to sleep.

Tonight, expect the same as Obama pulls a Clinton with a ten-minute pre-Christmas gift spot for Fox, in a setting that will compel the small minds of fair and balanced to ask some stale question about China and the dollar.

You see, it would be “unfair and unbalanced” to remind Obama of his policy dump the Saturday night after Joe Wilson called him a liar about citizenship verification requirements for health care, when Obama issued a statement demanding that the very verifications he lied and said were already in the bill, be put in. 

Just wouldn’t be cool, especially of you want another 10 minutes with the Messiah before the next Summer Olympics if you were to ask him about the COBRA-hole in the safety net; pitchfork threats against bank CEOs; or golfing while Americas die in Afghanistan waiting for him to appease Move On.org.

God help them if they ask him what Rev. Wright thought about Gates-gate; New Black panther thugs getting charges dropped; his lawyer-client years with ACORN or the name listed as “father” on his original birth certificate.

MSM runs interference for liberals and Democrats

Another curious story a recent issue of the dead-tree MSM in Atlanta declared:

Georgia Dems who voted against health bill fear costs — and potentially, constituents

Really? It seemed to me that the one’s in real fear of their constituents are the four democrats the AJC failed to list that voted for ObamaCare.

The examples of foghorn leghorns are an endless cornucopia, but this rooster must rest before tomorrow’s dawn-announcing duties on the dual myths of the existence of moderate Democrats and extremist Republicans.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Nor on the front page of Race42012

It is with great sadness that I am compelled to write this column defending Erick Erickson of Redstate.com against false charges of “pulling the race card”; “race-baiting”; and of being a “race pimp.”

Those are fighting words where I come from, and so, after following the Biblical step-by-step approach to resolve this matter; firstly, directly with the perpetrator of the offense, Kristofer Lorelli; and secondly, by an appeal to R412’s Powers that Be; and then delaying the matter further after receiving a communication from the perpetrator that indicated direct communications would be forthcoming more than 48 hours ago, which direct communications were not forthcoming, despite the provision of my cell phone, I can no longer have the defamations continue to go unchallenged.

I felt it my duty, as one of the four original contributing front page writers at Race42008.com to issue a rebuttal. I don’t issue apologies for things I don’t do. The apology is owed by Lorelli.

The series of events started when R412’s Matthew Miller re-published a video from a website created by Rich Heffley, a close confidant of Florida’s moderate Republican Governor, Charlie Crist and produced in the offices of the Republican Party of Florida. Miller’s blog smartly explains the obvious racial attack implications against Marco Rubio, Crist’s opponent in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.

Erick Erickson merely re-re-published the video from RACE42012.com, along with some obviously sarcastic comments akin to those used by our own Matthew Miller, to highlight the obvious race-baiting against the conservative Rubio, in order to further expose Heffley and the Crist campaign for playing the race card.

The GOP has been regularly and falsely accused of racism and playing the race card for over 40 years, when it is the Democrats whose whole program is based on racial politics.

Racism is evil. Appealing to racism is evil.

Matthew Miller and Erick Erickson do humanity, Americans in general, and conservative Republicans in particular, a great service in calling out those, especially within the GOP (We must police our own, especially when the Dems and Drive-by media consider us to be racists merely by being conservatives and Republicans.) who appeal to racism or who allow ambiguity to reign with such appeals so as to garner some benefit electorally.

All Crist has to do is utterly denounce the subject video attacking Rubio and his pal Heffley; and disassociate himself from the latter.

Crist has not done so.

I am confident in this because surely our good colleague here at R412, Lorelli, would have mentioned such significant events advancing the story in his blog attacking our Redstate conservative colleague? Wouldn’t he? Or, if such revelations had occurred after I raised the issue in private communications, surely they would have been made known to me by now so as to prevent this poor DeVine substitute for what should have been a direct apology from Lorelli to Erickson, or from the Powers that Be, if Lorelli remained obstinate?

Falsely charging someone with racism and/or race-baiting is evil. The use of the term “race-pimp” is vile when improperly applied. Lorelli did a vile and evil thing here. I found this quite shocking coming from a person whose work I had so often admired.

But words matter. It is best to remain silent than engage in such reckless defamations.

It is especially telling that there is no attempt in Lorelli’s piece to explain away the substance of the video. Rather, we are told the race and religion of the women to whom Crist and his associate are married. It is a regular tactic of the left to claim immunity from racism due to such irrelevant information.

And just as neither Crist’s nor anyone else’s familial racial and religious affiliations give him or them license to engage in vile behavior, neither does a good reputation excuse Lorelli’s behavior.

I do not know if Lorelli works for the Crist campaign (or is merely a rabid supporter), but, given his prior work at R412, can think of no other reasons that would cause him to risk his own reputation with such a lame defense of Crist and such a vile and unwarranted attack on a prominent conservative on a sister conservative website.

Erick, you were owed an apology from Lorelli. I failed to secure it. In fact, I failed, despite numerous attempts, to even get him to engage on the subject.

But I cannot let false charges of racism go unrebutted, whether they be against you or Rush Limbaugh. And especially since you have run such a tight ship at Redstate disallowing the mere appearance of racism, twice at my request insisting on the editing out of questionable material on the subject. For that sir, and many other reasons, you are one of my heroes in the conservative movement and as a Southern Christian gentleman.

God bless you in your work.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

This will also be published @ Redstate.com.

From the category of headlines the Drive-by media has conditioned us to deem unfathomable comes this from the AP:

Mormons back gay rights in Salt Lake City

It looked like a stunning reversal: the same church that helped defeat gay marriage in California standing with gay-rights activists on an anti-discrimination law in its own backyard.

On Tuesday night, after a series of clandestine meetings between local gay-rights backers and Mormons in Salt Lake City, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced it would support proposed city laws that would prohibit discrimination against gays in housing and employment.

The ordinances passed and history was made: It marked the first time the Salt Lake City-based church had supported gay-rights legislation.

The Mormon church — which continues to suffer a backlash over its support last year of Proposition 8, the measure banning gay marriage in California — emphasized that its latest position in no way contradicts its teachings on homosexuality…

It is not a reversal, even if it is a bit stunning.

There is absolutely no contradiction between protecting individuals from housing and employment discrimination as opposed to maintaining the 5000 year old definition of the, civilization creating and preserving, institution of marriage. [Although, I do think that Maine's recent referenda that vetoed an act of the legislature legalizing same-sex marriage did violate small "r" republican principles.]

I and most conservatives (especially including social conservatives) do not favor any government imprimatur of approval for any sexual behavior outside traditional marriage. Moreover, conservatives generally favor that rights protected by the constitution be of the individual variety, rather than group rights, especially those of a “mutable” variety such as what one Delores one’s particular “orientations” to be, as opposed to the immutable characteristics of race and gender/sex.

But, we do favor prohibitions of discrimination based on religion/free speech, so in that sense people of faith could justify the Salt Lake City ordinance as prohibiting mind control. One can believe anything one wishes and still expect to be able to rent property and get a job one is otherwise qualified for. Of course, if the particular beliefs and/or speech rise to the level of advocacy that interferes with the workplace environment and/or property owners’ maintenance of a habitable environment for families, then one could distinguish.

We particularly like to avoid such group distinctions when one would seek to mete out civil penalties and criminal punishments for free speech against certain behaviors or seek to diminish the value of the lives of certain groups by making it a more serious crime to harm people in other groups, especially when accompanied by a requirement to determine an “intent to hate”.

The criminal law has functioned quite nicely for 500+ years as passed down from the Common Law of England with the only intent being that of the men rea, criminal intent to harm, no matter the particular reason.

DeVine Law (pictured) is not sure he favors the particular discrimination law passed in Salt Lake City. We are sure that Mormons are not contradictory in opposing same-sex marriage and that their is nothing “intolerant” about such opposition. We find the most intolerance on the left, many of whom seek to make it a crime, via hate crime laws, discrimination and marriage laws, to make it a crime to advocate the traditional values of chastity, etc found in the Bible.

We also think discrimination laws are better tailored to behaviors and not orientations, and so would not deem it “intolerant” to oppose the Salt Lake City law. But we haven’t made our judgment yet on whether we favor it.

Still thinking and more later…

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

In our three previous columns concerning the treasonous murders (now at 14 counting the unborn child of one of the victims) perpetrated by Major Malik Ali Hasan, we primarily addressed the deadly political correctness (cowardly lying) that causes Democrats in Congress to fear asking Census form completers if they are U.S. citizens and allows known, overt, enemies of the USA to serve in its armed forces.

We suggested that November 11, 2009 mark the day We the People declare war against the PC-Police. Since yesterday, we also have considered other matters related to honoring vets, especially including:

• The contrast between the Obama Administration’s dismissal of suspicions against Hasan last spring with then Attorney General John Ashcroft’s post-911 round-up of Muslim/Arab country visa-overstays
• Obama’s treatment of the military as dependent children victims rather than congratulating their great Victory in Iraq
• Obama’s (and Hillary’s) refusal to honor the veterans that won the Cold War and made the de-construction of the Berlin Wall possible twenty years ago last Monday, including the absence of any utterance acknowledging the role of President Ronald Reagan
• The refusal of the ObamaDems to do anything for the general welfare of returning vets other than stimulate government growthulus to remove quality health care alternatives to the sorry state of VA hospitals.

President George W. Bush: “John, don’t let this happen again.”

Attorney General Ashcroft heeded his Commander-in-Chief’s words and America’s homeland was kept safe for over eight years. The Bush Administration suffered the slings and arrows of many democrats and the Drive-by media for “profiling” more than 900 illegal aliens that had overstayed their visas.

The same liberals and media that accuse conservatives of wanting to round-up the one-tenth of the population of Mexico that lives in the Lower Forty-Eight during the immigration reform debate years after 911, apparently preferred a round-up of tens of millions rather than any discriminating judgment of likely threats in the hundreds, the day after 911.

I have no doubt that the homeland security measures; enhanced interrogations of captured terrorists; removal of the Taliban and al Qaida’s safe haven nation-state in Afghanistan; and taking the fight to the enemy generally, and terrorist state supporter/war ceasefire abrogator in Iraq, all were critical elements in keeping us safe under Bush.

But I doubt that any act is more responsible for planned preventing follow-up attacks soon after 911 than Bush/Ashcroft’s defiance of the PC-police in getting the 900 off the Fruited Plain forthwith.

Victory in Iraq/Iraq as Connecticut

Iraq is poised to have elections again…..ho hum? Yes, isn’t it wonderful that this isn’t news! Neither are city council elections in Bridgeport.

We have won a great victory for democratic republicanism in the Middle East. The sectarian parties decrease, while the secular parties increase. President Bush’s vision of an alternative to Islamist extremism and/or totalitarian despotism has been made real by the armed forces of the United States and the lovers of freedom in the lands of Babylon.

Yet, our President speaks only of ending a war, not victory. He used to speak of “taking care of the troops” as if their reason for existence is to take care of us. He wants to bring them home to take care of them? Yet, when they get home, his FBI investigates a jihadist threat in their midst and lets the threat remain. He not only doesn’t take care of them, as promised. He is a danger to them, even in forts in the Lone Star State.

We must honor our vets and commons sense by killing the PC-police under all 50 stars and even the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

Merkel’s back-handed compliment to Gorby/Reagan’s War

President Obama was the only Western leader that refused German leader Angela Merkel’s invitation to attend the 20th anniversary celebration of the bringing down of the Berlin Wall. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added insult to injury by failing to mention Ronald Reagan’s role in the events that led to removal of that communist stain on the landscape of Europe.

I was pleasantly surprised with Merkel’s “thanks” to the former Soviet jail-keeper of millions, Mikhail Gorbachev, though, when she said:

“You made this possible — you courageously let things happen, and that was much more than we could expect.”

Sounds like a slap in the face to me, when you would expect a leader to “not let” (see KILL instead) people bring down a wall imprisoning millions of innocent people. She thanks Gorby for not slaughtering innocent people. Heck, where’s Hasan’s congratulations for such courage? He was peaceful that day as well, but like Gorby (whose hands were already bloodied in Afghanistan, Hasan would get red stains later, but I digress.

The real courageous people responsible for the bringing down (I do not say the mere “fall” of the wall, as that word fits into the fake history of the left that it was “inevitable” that the wall would come down of its own weight) the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain across all of Europe were the veterans of the armed forces of the United States that liberated Western Europe in WWII (under FDR) and later South Korea; fought in Vietnam; and other wise put their lives on the line under the direction of containment policy Presidents Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford and even Carter (more later) and under the direction of the only leader on Earth that sought to defeat the USSR (and did), Ronald Reagan.

The truth would set even Obama free, if he would only acknowledge it, and begin the healing of this land, and I would suggest he start with Peter Schweitzer’s “Reagan’s War”. That book recounts Reagan’s lifelong war against communism’s slavery of half the globe beginning with his heroic placement of his life on the line in 1940s-50s Hollywood against an attempted takeover of the unions by communists.

There were commie union organizer bullets with Reagan’s name on it. He broke the picket line anyway; much as he defied violent hippies at Berkeley in the 1960s; weathered Hinckley’s shots in the early 1980s and the violent nuclear freeze proponents and intermediate range missiles in Europe in the mid-80s.

Schweitzer documents Reagan’s “we win, you lose” plan formulated in the 1950’s and its precise implementation over the objections of nearly everyone in the 1980s; Lech Walesa and Polish Square re-namings in the 1990s along with various East German congratulations for bringing the wall down.

The book cites Kremlin diaries and tapes that credit Reagan’s military build-up; public calling out of the Soviet Empire as evil; and especially his refusal to drop Star Wars at Reykjavik as being responsible for the end of the USSR.

Contrary to leftist Democratic Party fiction, the fall of communism was not inevitable. The USSR was stronger in 1981 when Reagan took office than at any time in their history, save for before and immediately after WWII. The cuts in defense under LBJ, Nixon and Carter left Gorby with superiority in land-based missiles and troops on the move on three continents.

Reagan turned all that back by rejecting the mere containment/military equivalence policies he always saw as immorally sentencing two billion people to perpetual slavery for a policy of military superiority; confrontation and economic competition. He devised the plan in the 50s, implemented it in the 80s and saw it come to fruition in the 90s.

Obama could honor the vets that achieved the above and include his liberal hero Jimmy Carter, whose greatest act as President was to arm the Afghan resistance that led to the only Russian military defeat in history. I do find Schweitzer’s conclusion that Carter’s motivation was more personal than strategic, having kissed Brezhnev and trusted him, much as he had Iran’s Ayatollah. It is this personal way that too many democrats look at the world that makes them so feckless, weak and dangerous in foreign affairs. Not holding breath on this one, but maybe the economic facts of life could change the other major trait, which is that:

Dems don’t double dip care about jobs

Months ago President Obama floated a trial balloon that would have increased medical costs for veterans, while paying the bills for illegals. The balloon busted before even Fox News could bang the drum to try and get the see and hear no evil drive-by media monkeys and dems and indies still in denial to see the product of Rev Wright and Bill Ayers.

I think most Americans see Obama more for what he is now after Gates-gate and his Fort Hood 911. They were already starting to see the ObamaDems for what they are with the rush to pass a stimulus that only saved and created government jobs We the People have to fund thru taxes or inflation.

Does Obama care if former and retiring vets have jobs? What about their children and grandchildren? What about the 20% of We the People that are under- or unemployed? No signs yet, as documented by The Detroit News:

Americans are angry with Washington as much for what it isn’t doing as what it is. What it isn’t doing the most is paying attention to the still-raging economic disaster.

Last week’s job numbers show unemployment nationally bumping past 10 percent and surpassing 15 percent in Michigan. Unemployment keeps climbing, even though President Barack Obama and Congress nine months ago committed $787 billion to creating jobs.

Since then, neither the White House nor Congress has spent a minute honestly analyzing whether the stimulus program is accomplishing its goal, and if not, what other approaches might work. Instead, the administration is spinning dismal economic reports into positive news, allowing both it and Congress to ignore the economy while they pursue their ideological ends.

But while the economy tops every list of public concerns, job creation is not the hot topic in Washington. In fact, Democratic leaders, obsessed with reworking America, have proved more than willing to sacrifice precious jobs during the worst economic climate in a half-century.

It ought to infuriate anyone who’s lost a job, can’t find a job, is worried about his job or lives in a community ravaged by a lack of jobs that Congress devotes nearly all of its energy to arguing about health care. The promise of health care reform was not what got Democrats elected. Voters tossed Republicans on their fannies for ruining the economy, not because they didn’t enact wildly expensive social programs.

Read it all via link above…

Americans are angry and scared of the faltering economy that seems destined for a double dip and a President that assumes all whites are racist and no Muslims are terrorists, despite obvious evidence to the contrary over the past 40 years, and specifically over the past 4 months and 4 days.

We know what creates job. We saw Coolidge, JFK, Reagan, Clinton-Gingrich and Bush43 do it. Cut taxes and regulations and let Americans bail themselves out.

If Obama doesn’t start honoring veterans, as well as America generally, he will receive a dishonorable discharge after only 4 years.

Wouldn’t it be nice if on Thanksgiving Day would could thank God Obama finally got his mind right? Yes, but not holding breath and still counting pennies for a turkey wing.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

But when even our armed forces are so paralyzed by a leftist-inspired “politically correct” American culture that they can’t remove an obvious threat to their own troops, own their own base, and in Texas for God’s sake, I wonder if Liberty itself is in its 11th hour.

We now know that those with the power to remove Major Nidal Hasan for access to our troops were aware of his seditious statements and behavior, including and not limited to: showing a Power Point call for jihad to other medical professionals in the Army; numerous expressions of opposition to America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and sympathy for the call for Muslims to unite against us; his collaboration with an an Imam that inspired three of the 911-hijackers; and numerous e-mail contacts with a known recruiter for al Qaida.

American security agencies investigated the killer of 13 and wounder of more than 50 at Fort Hood and did nothing. It appears that some of the investigations may have been conducted and concluded before the Empathizer-with-Islamists-in-Chief was inaugurated last January. We know that many of Hasan’s threatening actions took place as long ago as 2007, so this PC problem is endemic in the culture and so not necessarily correctable by the presence or absence of a war hawk in the White House.

How many pro-jihad sermons could Hasan have preached to shocked doctors and RNs before his commanding officers would discharge him from his duty to protect Americans from the Islamist terrorists to whom he adheres. Do we simply allow traitors to operate openly rather than risk being called a racist? How many must die for this idiocy.

The term political correctness was first coined by the founder of the evil empire, whose defeat we celebrated two days ago on the 20th anniversary of the Destruction (It didn’t merely “fall” of its own weight) of the Berlin Wall. Vladimir Lenin considered controlling the language to be a necessary predicate to enslaving the masses with Marxism. Lenin also considered lying to be a valid tactic to further the communist faith.

A better term for PC, as Dennis Prager stated on his radio show this week, is: lying cowards.

Lying cowards cry racism and bigotry when it does not exist.

Moreover, the lying cowards in the Drive-by media and on the left want to divert attention from the religious and treasonous aspect of the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 911 (more killed and wounded at the hands of Hasan than via Anthrax or the D.C sniper, who was executed yesterday in Virginia). They want to characterize the killing as “insane” or an “act of passion”, as if that excuses or diminishes the venality of the killings or has any relevance to the failures of our military and national security leaders to take actions to remove his threat from his fellow troops.

What matters is that otherwise intelligent people acted like fools, ignoring the obvious with glazed-over eyes looks and fearing the lying cowards that could call them a bigot more than they feared the likelihood that an obvious enemy of the nation they serve would one day levy war against them.

Which do they fear more today? How many innocent civilians and/or veterans in forts, trade centers or pentagons must die before enough Americans muster the courage to declare war on the PC lying cowards that turn our mental judgments to mush.

Or, has affluence and sloth produced a people too weak to wake up before we go the way of Rome?

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Conservatives like me, applauded California’s referenda reversing its Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage creation.

We admonished same-sex marriage supporters to exercise their free speech rights in the arena of ideas. They did so in Maine, successfully lobbying the Pine Tree State into enacting a same-sex marriage law, only to be rebuffed by a public referenda law that strips the constitutional republican bark off Maine’s pine tree.

This conservative supports traditional marriage as the exclusive version, but I also love the rule of law and the finality necessary for it to be respected. Maine’s referenda as veto invites legislatures to abdicate their accountability and prevents legal finality, much like Roe v. Wade’s judicial fiat.

[This column originally appeared as part of a "Pro & Con" feature on page A11 of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday, November 8, 2009. If a link becomes available, it will provided here.]

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

When a communist Oswald snuffed out JFK, the anti-anti-communists in the Democratic Party completed their takeover of the party; snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam; nominated and elected a bemoaner of our “inordinate fear of communism”; appeased communists in Nicaragua; and, publicly and surreptitiously aided and abetted the Soviet-desired nuclear freeze and opposition to intermediate missiles in Europe.

Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II defeated Mikhail Gorbachev anyway. I do recall that Walter Mondale issued a tough statement and Mickael Dukakis rode in a tank along the way to feign toughness they didn’t believe in.

We saw a repeat of this typical aggression-inviting, weak on defense posture from the Democratic Party over the past decade after their 911-inspired support for the Iraq War didn’t result in a new Connecticut in the Middle East within 72 hours of the Shock and Awe. Democrats celebrated the prevention of homeland attacks after 911 by launching the “Bushlied Era” and feigned toughness on the Afghan theater and finding Osama bin Laden.

I knew the Democrats were faking it all along.

They never met an enemy since November 22, 1963 that they wouldn’t appease and never sought to claim credit for the fall of communism and the Berlin Wall before June 5, 2004, i.e. the day Ronald Wilson Reagan died.

I recall the obvious shock in the press that all their efforts to brand Reagan an affable dunce racist, the Reagan years an orgy of greed and the fall of communism as inevitable had failed when they saw the massive outpouring of love from the overwhelming majority of Americans for their fallen hero.

I’ll never forget that only after Reagan’s funeral did I hear Democrats laud Reagan for his efforts to defeat the Evil Empire and to claim shared credit.

And so, I am not shocked to see the latest Democratic Party President to dither while our troops languish in Afghanistan; refuse an invitation to celebrate the fall of an empire inspired by the same dreams of his own Marxist father; and hold out a standing invitation to meet, without pre-conditions, to a Holocaust-denying, Islamist terrorist evil empire in Iran.

Could it be that this same leftist mentality, enabled by the Democratic Party for so long, is responsible for allowing a subversive terrorist to remain a Major in the U.S. Army for years?

We think so.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Five moments define the Reagan Presidency for me, with the greatest of them (1) occurring on November 9, 1989, when freedom-loving East and West Berliners tore down (video of the fall) the symbol of Communist tyrannical oppression, some ten months after the Gipper’s Farewell address.

Yet, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that Republican Ronald Reagan challenged Gorbachev to tear down (2), America’s Democrat Chief Executive refused an invitation from Germany’s unified leader to commemorate the moment that ended the mass imprisonment of half the globe by adherents of the socialist ideology of Karl Marx.

President Reagan famously dubbed the prison run by its warden, the Soviet Union warden, an “evil empire” in a 1983 speech to Evangelicals (3) in which he also demanded the Judicial wall of separation be torn down, between We the People and laws protecting innocent life in and out of the womb.

The fourth moment that best defines Reagan’s Morning in America years was the dark cloud of Ted Kennedy-led Democrats trashing Judge Robert Bork, the man Reagan chose to tear down that judicial wall behind which five lawyers still stand behind too often to usurp our right to self government with Politburo-like impositions from “experts” that know best. The Democrats showed how vile they are in that episode. The contrast with Reagan is stark and informative.

Our 40th President also rejected the Marxian, liberal economic view of history by citing Whittaker Chamber’s in the Forward Letter to his Children in “Witness”:

It is not new. It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “Ye shall be as gods.” It is the great alternative faith of mankind.

Reagan believed that the first step on the F.A. Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” is putting one’s faith in Man’s expertise rather than accepting God’s wisdom.

But quite possibly, the moment that best defines Reagan’s Liberty-loving message, was his first (5):

” In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”

The crisis present in 1981 at the time of President Reagan’s First Inaugural Address was the, then, worst American economic crisis since the Great Depression. This week we learned that unemployment in the current Great Recession topped 10% for the first time since the Carter Recession that Reagan inherited.

Barack Obama and most of the elected officials and other leaders of the Democratic Party, i.e. ObamaDems, are old enough to remember that the 80s recession ended, followed by a 25-year recovery the likes of which the world had never seen; when Reagan killed inflation and bolstered the dollar with a steady money supply and tore down the tax and government regulatory walls that were preventing the liberty-driven creations of wealth and other happiness pursuits. They know that a Newt “GOP revolution” Gingrich-inspired President Bill Clinton declared the “Era of Big Government” over with capital gains tax cuts, free trade and welfare reform to keep the Reagan Recovery going.

Dems don’t care

Yet, ObamaDems, seemingly an unnatural species of humans not particularly enamored of prosperity (see Dems don’t Care), are about the business of destroying the dollar with deficit spending triple the worst in our history and Federal reserve out of control; and, incredibly, re-building the same high tax and massive regulation walls that led to the present crisis, as well as the one Reagan inherited 29 years ago. (And if you try and scale that wall, Obama sends out the pitchforks!)

As my Boortzian Stone Mountain Conservative non-political observer, best described ObamaDems in July: They want us to surrender!

What led to this housing bubble/credit crunch caused recession if not Democratic Party implemented (and protected by Senate filibusters in the Bush years) market regulations requiring banks to accept mortgages from families that couldn’t afford them, and then guaranteeing them with tax payer funds?

But it appears that Obama and his “never let a crisis go waste” Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acolytes prefer crises that allow them to present government as the “solution”. Because their solution is not economic prosperity for all. rather, it is economic dependency on them, for all. After all, they are the experts.

ObamaDems refuse to let We the People bail ourselves out!

So, it shouldn’t be surprising that Barack Hussein Obama alienates Iran’s freedom-fighters trapped inside the Mullah’s walls of religious oppression; or Jews having to wall themselves away from Islamists and the Palestinian death cult, featuring adolescent suicide bombers of proud parents. It shouldn’t be surprising that Obama wants judges that have “empathy” rather than respect for Constitutions.

ObamaDems crave power and craven power requires walls to repel the non-acquiescence of Liberty.

The brick and mortar for the building of the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtains are bread-driven crises. Just ask Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Then read the Dreams of Obama’s father.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Before we address why an apparent anti-American subversive who frequently spoke in support of Muslim solidarity in jihad against the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq and, yet, was allowed to remain an officer in the U.S. military, DeVine Law Layman has a question for those with experience on military bases and any JAG officers within hearing of this rooster and Michael Ledeen’s voice:

Gun Control on Military Bases (?)
Lots of folks have wondered why there weren’t more soldiers with guns at Ft. Hood, and I’m one of them. Our younger Marine is home for the weekend from The Basic School at Quantico, and Barbara and I asked him if there were Marines with guns on the base. There are. Lots of them. And they move around all the time, checking places where Marines congregate, from classrooms to outdoor obstacle courses and parade fields and barracks. Apparently it occurred to the base commander some time ago that it was a bad idea to leave his men and women unprotected. (emphasis added?

Why would it take four long minutes to take down a mass murderer surrounded by hundreds of military officers on a U.S. military base? This is not the kind of competence and efficiency we are used to witnessing when our armed forces face the enemy off base? A spokesman for Fort Hood kept repeating that “they don’t carry guns in their home neighborhood”. What did he mean?

This incident reminds me of the Massacre in Blacksburg, made possible by Virginia Tech’s gun-free zone invitation to killers. What gives at Fort Hood? I’m asking.

So traumatized by racial epithets that he remains for eight long years?

DeVine Law sees the formation of a not guilty by reason of insanity or “fighting words” defense for Nidal Malik Hasan emerging with family members’ and others’ alleged recollections of complaints from the killer about his traumatizing endurance of racial epithets beginning soon after September 11, 2009.

This reminds of Anita Hill’s last hour allegations of actionable “sexual harassment” against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomasduring his nomination hearing. Ms. Hill was so traumatized by a supposed “pubic hair Coke can” joke that she followed him from job to job for as many years as Hasan kept drawing a check from a U.S. Army he loathed.

DeVine Law has another question for those with experience in the Armed Forces of the United States:

Is it hard to remove obviously dangerous, subversive members of the military from the non-subversive members? Are brigs still in use?

On the same day of the Fort Hood Massacre, Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted down a Republican proposal to include the following question on Census forms: Are you a U.S. citizen?

Has the same kind of political correctness that controls the ObamaDems of the Democratic Party, now disarm our Armed Forces from protecting themselves?

Serious questions.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

The dead-tree drive-by media in Atlanta, as predicted here and here, has beaten the racial drum incessantly since Mary Norwood (46%) failed to garner the required 50% plus one votes to avoid a December 1 run-off against runner-up Kasim Reed (36%).

The latest insult to Atlanta voters cites MSM polls showing a strong inclination for people to vote for those of their own race. Who knew? I would remind folks that the AJC’s pre-Election Day polls had Norwood winning outright with Reed 20 points behind in her dust.

I’ll bet that polls would also show that most Atlantans prefer Democrats of any color and that Republicans resent being trashed by a former Republican depending on them for votes. But for the media to report on such matters would require “journalists” to avert their gaze from skin pigmentation.

Media that thinks Jim Crow still rules Dixie needs to eat crow

How fascinating do they find the variations on “one-drop” rules for legal marriages under Jim Crow? I wish they would join us in the 21st Century of Shirley Franklin’s landslide re-election victory four years ago. Maybe they missed that election in which white and black voted for color-blind leadership.

If the media would get over their obsession with black and white, they would also note that neither Reed nor Norwood have once appealed to voters based on racial solidarity. In fact, they have both explicitly denounced a Clark-Atlanta university appeal to same and have both stressed issues and leadership abilities in this race.

The AJC might also look at its own poll and note that the margin of victory on Election day was less than the percentages of assumed racial voting and that we can expect, based on their own poll, that from 15-25% of voters will vote across racial lines.

Racial culture has changed but media still projects their own racism

It used to be the case many black city majority elections, that the winner had to appeal to race. Any such appeals today would most certainly ensure defeat if one candidate so indulged while the other stayed on the high ground the drive-by media ignores.

I continue to remain convinced that much of the drive-by media projects their own racism onto We the People, assuming we share their monochromatic view of the world. They still live under Jim Crow and I only hope one day they are made to eat crow.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

Another you never see: Democrats block Census citizenship question.

The reason you never see the first question as an MSM news headline is that Republicans don’t object to asking the people being counted to determine the apportionment of the political power in this country among the States, the following question on a census form:

“Are you a U.S. citizen?”

The reason you never see the second question as a headline is that when Democrats, voting in the Democratic Party-controlled U.S. Senate, make it illegal to ask such an obviously relevant question, their PC-police allies in the Drive-by media, acting as an “accessory after the fact”, takes the Fifth, and refuses to name the Democratic actors in the original crime with the generic headline:

“Senate blocks census US-citizenship question”

“Senate”?

Are the Democrats proud of their vote or not and are we also not permitted to ask them questions not on a census form?

Given the vile excuse for journalism most Americans depend on, is it any wonder that so many have yet to discern the stark differences between the parties on economics, common sense immigration policies, defending the country and law and order in general.

So many members of the “World’s Oldest Political Party” are either: simply unaware of how many of their representatives simply do not share their values (and work to directly undermine their values with their votes in Congress) as opposed to the conservative acts they put on during campaigns; or, are in denial. I realize now that I was in denial about that party until I left it in 2000, but I digress.

Even Barack Obama gave the wink and nod to the far left while purposefully sounding conservative in the campaign, but the champion frauds can usually be identified today as “Blue Dawgs”. Not one of 60, too Yellow to ask a simple question, Dawgs in the Senate turned blue enough not to cower to the PC police and lobby for illegal immigration.

I haven’t heard the President asked his position on this question. But does anyone really wonder? The Rule of Law means nothing to some dogs, no matter the color.

And just hearing of all the alleged eye and ear witnesses to radical anti-American statements made by the Muslim-convert shooter before today’s shooting at Fort Hood, it is obvious that the PC-police are hazardous to the health of the United States military and America itself.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

I wrote last year that no matter who was elected President that we, as a people, would have our character tested to the nth degree by the economic consequences of the Fannie Mae-Dem Congress/Fed weak dollar era of the past 10 years, as well as the private and public debt run up over the last 25 years.

I expected the recession to get this bad for this long and worse, and I expected a filibuster-proof Dem Congress (that started sending investors on strike when they took over Congress in 2007 with the promise of more regulations and higher taxes, all with the votes of Senator Barack Obama) combined with a left wing Dem President (whose father’s dreams were Marxist) to make things worse.

I was right, but, partially because I don’t expect ObamaDems to have a supply-side epiphany and give up the socialist Utopian dream any time soon, I must express my support for a number of measures they have advocated or discussed  that pertain to the economy and the Reagan-described safety net for the truly needy, as well as a number of foreign policy moves that deserve all Americans’ support.

It would have been nice if the Stimulus bill had been more than safety net relief and government growthulus. I would have favored a mass shovel-ready public works bill, but the ObamaDems chose instead to save and create state and federal bureaucrat jobs instead with the public works plan consisting mainly of signs that announce potholes are being filled by the Recovery Act. Nice signs. It appears that most of the puny funds for actual public works were delayed until the Summer of ‘10 (and election year). Go figure.

But, during times of recession and depression, the safety net does need shoring up, and for that reason, and to keep money flowing in the economy to keep a pulse going, I do favor:

1. Extension of unemployment benefits;
2. Extension of COBRA health insurance subsidies for those that have involuntarily lost their jobs through no fault of their own and need to continue health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions;
3. Extension of the Home-buyer tax credit (with the proviso that no one be allowed a credit larger than their total federal tax bill, inclusive of FICA), which Georgia’s Junior Senator, Johnny Isakson (R-GA) has championed; and
4. Small business lending initiative.

I understand the problems caused by Fannie/Freddie coercion of bad loans, but don’t see a tax credit (Conservatives are still for tax reductions, right? And you do note my proviso above?) unaccompanied by lowered credit standards and federal guarantees as in any way a continuation of same.

I would note that I oppose a separate program of mortgage conciliation that does seek to save homes for those that can’t afford them. Thankfully, that program has done very little and has the left wing of the Dem Party angry with Obama.

I would also note that I am not one of those that is angry at banks for not making lots of loans to businesses just now, despite TARP. The reason for the lack of loans is the bad economy and the dim prospects for profits from which loans could be paid back.

For the record, this Reaganite supply-sider favors supply side income, cap gains and estate tax cuts; as well as regulation cuts that would allow expanded oil and natural gas exploration and oil refinery and nuclear power plant building. But, I don’t expect that even those policies would lift the economy in a meteoric way until people save awhile and re-build their wealth before taking new risks. Which is an argument for, not against, Obama’s small business loan initiative.

We need to support the few things ObamaDems propose that will stimulate the economy, so I do.

And in the mostly embarrassing and disgraceful foreign policy wasteland of betrayals to freedom and rule of law-loving Honduras, Eastern Europe and Iranian dissidents we do see two bright spots: Pakistan is fighting the Taliban/al Qaida on their own initiative and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repudiated the Palestinian refusal to negotiate with Israel until they ceased all third bedroom additions to houses with newborn babies on the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Yes, we know that Obama still deems such improvements to be “illegal”, but we are happy Prime Minister Bebe Netanyahu got a quarter.

Tomorrow, DeVine Law Gamecock returns to the column topic cornucopia of bad ObamaDem policies!

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson
Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

No matter how incessantly the Drive-by media talks about white and black voters, the change in the relative fortunes of frontrunner Mary Norwood and runner-up Kasim Reed is about leadership qualities, and not the relative pigmentation of their skins.

Less than 48 hours ago, polls showed Mary Norwood might be able to garner 50% plus one vote and succeed Shirley Franklin as Mayor of Atlanta. Then the only poll that matters reared its head (Norwood 46%, Reed 36%), and it turns out that many Northern Atlanta voters in mostly Republican areas came in less enthusiastically than expected for their supposed Buckhead champion. She now faces a run-off against surging Kasim Reed.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is already peddling the racist line that is par for the course that has them regularly referred to as the Urinal-Constipation.

Don’t believe a word of it.

This conservative Republican knows better, which is why I announced my support for Reed yesterday.

Mary Norwood blew it by being equivocal about her Republican past. Mary must have forgotten that conservative Republicans are proud to be so, and proud of the candidates they have supported at least beginning with Ronald Reagan. Mary Norwood also must have forgotten that most all voters appreciate strength, leadership and honesty in an executive leader.

Kasim Reed did not forget this. He knows who he is, what he stands for, and is proud of it. Bravo!

I left the Democratic Party nine years ago last summer, and so I have major problems with many of the positions of Reed, and Norwood for that matter, given her apparent liberal conversion in the 90s. But liberal/conservative doesn’t matter that much the more local the race, and Reed is conservative on all the right issues for the City of Atlanta.

Mary Norwood’s only chance, if she has one, is to come clean on her past and turn out more of her supporters in the run-off than Reed.

But no matter who wins this race, Atlanta’s reputation matters most to me, and I don’t trust the simplistic, operationally racist, Drive-by media to be able to look past the skin color of the voters and the candidates. It makes me wonder if the purveyors of the racism charge are projecting their own racism, or that of their own institutions, onto others.
 

Atlantans can, have and will, and they see major differences between Reed and Norwood under their respective skins. Let’s let the coverage and conduct of this race leading to the run-off be an indictment of the racist media, and not Atlanta.

Atlantans are too busy for that kind of hate. After all, we have a city to run.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

This I-85 South Carolina native has loved the Capital of Dixie since childhood. His brother was even born at Crawford-Long Hospital when the family moved to Bolton Drive during a Southern Railway shutdown of its Hayne (train repair) Shop in Spartanburg.

Our first love was the Braves (Mike DeVine Law Gamecock even loves the Braves more than his beloved USC Fighting Gamecocks for God’s sake), followed closely by the Falcons, Hawks and even, the now defunct, Nick Papadakis-led soccer team, the Chiefs. We loved Coca-Cola, the Varsity, Tech and the world’s busiest airport.

But mostly, we loved the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. that made great racial progress while also electing white and black mayors that fostered the growth of one of the great American cities.

This conservative Republican has been impressed with the governance of Atlanta for the last eight years by a non-racial, competent mayor named Shirley Franklin.

But we are most impressed now with the current campaign to succeed the term-limited City leader, for the non-racial conduct by all the candidates. Has their been some petty partisan party bickering even in this, officially, “non-partisan” race? Yes, after all, these are politicians, not candidates for sainthood.

But none of the campaigns have focused, at all, on the race of their opposing candidates, despite some puny attempts by two local college professors, and other outliers, to try and get blacks to gang up on the white poll leader.

Atlanta is a mature city focused on who can get the job done, and it appears to be moving towards that color-blind, judge by the content of one’s character goal of Martin Luther King.

Cockstradamus (pictued above) believes that this majority black Democrat city is about to elect a white woman for the first time, partially due to the resentment of many for the Georgia Democratic Party (and admitted Democrat candidates) attacks against Mary Norwood, that claim she is a closet republican.

Cockstradamus thinks that many black and white Democratic and independent voters resent the implication made by the GA Dem Party that they are mindless lemmings waiting for direction from on high.

We also note a possible affirmation of our apathy is good theory, given the likelihood of a low turnout. Atlanta has been hit hard by the Great Recession in terms of jobs lost, budget problems and crime. Yet, they seem to believe that all four of the major candidates are up to the job, and so are too busy to vote, so busy are they trying to make a living.

One thing is for sure: They are too busy to hate any candidate because of their race.

Atlanta, you make me proud. Gamecock would lean to voting for Kasim Reed if he weren’t viewing the Big City election from Clarkston and the Stone Mountain of Georgia, but we will flock to Manuel’s to celebrate the election, no matter the winner, because the real winner is….

Atlanta, the greatest city in America.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

[See * at end of column for background.]

Even while an activist Democratic Party official, I mostly refused to acquiesce in the liberal line that Republicans didn’t care about the poor or that they would take away the checks form the poor, old and disabled.

But I can’t help but think that many Democrats care much more power gains through victim dependency given their history since JFK was assassinated and especially given their support for a Cap and Trade energy tax that would directly and drastically lower the standing of living of the poor and middle class by making it impossible for them to afford many of the necessities of life.

We saw last summer what $4/gallon gasoline did to lower income families, by forcing choices between driving to one’s job or having enough money to feed the children.

Make no mistake, even if I thought that man’s use of and breathing out of carbon could cause the shoreline to receded, I would not favor a draconian assault on the modern world and return to a green Dickensian world or horse manure-filled streets and buck stove smoke-filled air in London.

But the whole man-made global warming (MMGW), now conveniently known as “climate change” (as if) since the earth has cooled since 1998 (thus calling into question whether there is an non-man made global warming taking place), is a crock. My client, The Sun, in the inter-galactic case styled as The Sun v. Al Gore et al, warms the earth; not cow flatulence and Chevrolets. In fact, half of the Eastern Seaboard was under the Atlantic for 10,000 years, tens of thousands of years before the first Corvette rilled off a Dearborn, Michigan assembly line.

Hence, my initial disgust with South Carolina Republican (btw, the first DC GOP office-seeker I ever voted for) Sen. Lindsey Graham’s agreement with Sen. John “I served in Vietnam” Kerry (D-MA) on the “reality” of “climate change” (Well, we all have to agree there is climate change every day, hell every minute…but they mean global warming and say so in the column).

The Pink Flamingo objected to my harsh judgment of Lindsey, despite his history of sticking McCain-like pointy sticks in fellow Republicans eyes so as to secure co-starring roles on TV network Sunday Shows. We do recall that Graham spoke to La Raza during the illegal immigration amnesty debate and called all the opponents of the bill “racists”? I remember. I also know that when LG gets something right, like the war, he can be the best advocate on your side, but I digress. Here is the very specific (I like that) retort from SJR (link above):

The following paragraph from the NYTimes is being constantly ignored. You might want to pay a little attention to it. To come from John Kerry it is extremely revealing:

“…Failure to act comes with another cost. If Congress does not pass legislation dealing with climate change, the administration will use the Environmental Protection Agency to impose new regulations. Imposed regulations are likely to be tougher and they certainly will not include the job protections and investment incentives we are proposing…”

There are at least two trains of thought on the danger of a President Barack Obama extra-constitutional Czar-like overreach in making law via new regulatory interpretations of existing statutes related to the EPA, CWA, ESA with respect to energy and environment restrictions on carbon as a pollutant and FDA with respect to tobacco.

Firstly though, whether or not a Cap and Trade bill would absolutely prevent unitary executive action would depend upon whether any new statute directly repeals existing vague language with respect to environmental protections, clean water and endangered species laws already in effect.

I doubt any new statute would deter Obama’s impatient regulators. After all, these folks have been waiting their whole lives to “fundamentally change” America (to use Obama’s campaign rhetoric - yes, he only used that specific phrase once before Axelrod schooled the Boy Prince…) and were frustrated when Bill Clinton triangulated with Newt and when Gore used to be the next President of the United States.

But, I should mention that many scholars think that the regulatory threat is a Red Herring since any attempts to increase carbon regulations via executive action would get tied up in the courts for many years.

In any event, that argument by the senior senator from the Palmetto State strikes me as more make weight, since Graham religiously asserts his faith in the fundamental premise of MMGW and in his support for a Cap and Trade tax on the energy that created the modern world and which tax is a sinfully regressive tax on the poor in the purchase of food and transportation to their jobs. It would eliminate any “luxury” like a weekly trip to any Grandmother living more than 30 miles away.

But, challenged to re-read the Kerry-Graham news deemed fit to print, I did find that I was pleased with a number of fundamental truths that Graham got a far left liberal to agree to, in writing no less. Yes, the truths are vaguely stated and offered as measures for merely tempering the effect of the NEW TAX on the American standard of living, but welcome, nonetheless, and quite useful for future debates.

The “good news” admissions by Kerry (link above) for the Left are that new on- and offshore oil and natural gas drilling and nuclear power can be part of the answer to our energy needs. They actually mention our need to end dependence on foreign oil; energy efficiency and pollution control.

Sign me up for all that. One wonders if they noticed how we cleaned up America’s air and water from 1970-2009 while greatly increasing the emission of carbon. The fact is that their Cap and Trade bill hinders all of those goals.

I especially liked these paragraphs from the Old Gray Lady aka The Times:

Second, while we invest in renewable energy sources like wind and solar, we must also take advantage of nuclear power, our single largest contributor of emissions-free power. Nuclear power needs to be a core component of electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction targets. We need to jettison cumbersome regulations that have stalled the construction of nuclear plants in favor of a streamlined permit system that maintains vigorous safeguards while allowing utilities to secure financing for more plants. We must also do more to encourage serious investment in research and development to find solutions to our nuclear waste problem.

Third, climate change legislation is an opportunity to get serious about breaking our dependence on foreign oil. For too long, we have ignored potential energy sources off our coasts and underground. Even as we increase renewable electricity generation, we must recognize that for the foreseeable future we will continue to burn fossil fuels. To meet our environmental goals, we must do this as cleanly as possible. The United States should aim to become the Saudi Arabia of clean coal. For this reason, we need to provide new financial incentives for companies that develop carbon capture and sequestration technology.

In addition, we are committed to seeking compromise on additional onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration — work that was started by a bipartisan group in the Senate last Congress. Any exploration must be conducted in an environmentally sensitive manner and protect the rights and interests of our coastal states.

Implicit in the suggested go slow approach so as not to threaten jobs and the burden on the poor, discussed elsewhere in the column, is that this is not a real crisis.

Thanks for that admission most of all! We now have a major liberal Democratic Party leader on record. Let’s use it to kill Cap and Trade; enact supply side tax and regulation cuts; open up expanded oil and natural gas exploration; and build nuclear power plants and oil refineries.

Kerry is all for it. Thanks Lindsey.

* [This column was inspired by regular R412 commenter, SJ Reidhead aka SJR The Pink Flamingo, who objected to my harsh criticism of Lindsey Graham's co-authorship of a NYT editorial suggesting a left-right compromise on a Cap and Trade Bill before the international community meeting on the issue this month in Copenhagen, Denmark. A portion of this column will appear in an upcoming column I am working on for this week that cites some DeVine conservative agreements with the ObamaDems on particular matters.]

See also Dr. Roy Spencer’s An Expensive Urban Legend.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Last week we documented the exposure of the faux global warming consensus and the collapse of the affluent society fetish post $4/gallon gasoline.

Yet, in the middle of a Great Recession with the fall of the American Dollar driving gasoline and heating oil prices back towards $3/gallon, we hear rumors that some of the Evan Bayh-led Blue Dawg Democrats that have courageously kept the Pelosi assault on American prosperity energy tax bill out of Harry Reid’s hands, together with Lindsey Graham and other moderate (read: enamored of receiving invites to Georgetown liberals’ cocktail parties) republicans, may be ready to compromise and pass this wicked legislation:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has turned his back on the latest science, economics, the Republican Party, and American national security, by announcing his new partnership with Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) to find “the winning formula” to pass global warming cap-and-trade legislation.

Graham is now touting his view that man-made global warming fears are real and can be “solved” by passing Congressional cap-and-trade legislation. Graham teamed up with Sen. Kerry to write an October 11 New York Times op-ed explaining that the GOP and Democrats should “work together to address an urgent crisis facing the world.”

We guess that the real crisis in Middle America losing jobs by the millions isn’t “cool” enough for Senators seeking co-starring roles on Sunday Shows.

The real climate change catastrophe is what they and their “international community” liberals want to do as a response to the now proven false global warming crisis:

We have “less than 50 days” to save the planet, declared Gordon Brown last week, in yet another desperate bid to save the successor to the Kyoto treaty, which is due to be agreed in Copenhagen in six weeks’ time. But no one has put the reality of the situation more succinctly than Prof Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most distinguished climatologists in the world, who has done as much as anyone in the past 20 years to expose the emptiness of the IPCC’s claim that its reports represent a “consensus” of the views of “the world’s top climate scientists”.

In words quoted on the cover of my new book, Prof Lindzen wrote: “Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly exaggerated computer predictions combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a rollback of the industrial age.”

Such is the truly extraordinary position in which we find ourselves.

Thanks to misreading the significance of a brief period of rising temperatures at the end of the 20th century, the Western world (but not India or China) is now contemplating measures that add up to the most expensive economic suicide note ever written.

How long will it be before sanity and sound science break in on what begins to look like one of the most bizarre collective delusions ever to grip the human race?

It appears that Brits asked to pay more taxes based on the fraudulent theory are now balking, and I suspect that any Democrat (whether yellow or blue) or Republican (whether named Lindsey or not) that were to assault poor and middle class living standards with an energy tax bill, would find that the real catastrophe for them would be losing their cush jobs in Washington, D.C.

[update at 4:13 pm EST]

From R412:

Comment #2

Okay Mike, who put out the political hit on Lindsey.  This is not what I expected of you.

This is what is in the NYTimes article, BUT everyone is ignoring it.

“Failure to act comes with another cost. If Congress does not pass legislation dealing with climate change, the administration will use the Environmental Protection Agency to impose new regulations. Imposed regulations are likely to be tougher and they certainly will not include the job protections and investment incentives we are proposing.”

Great and fair question and am glad you asked, as it shows the need for me to be more comprehensive and will, therefore update the column forthwith!

smile

Yes, I read that, but that assumes Obama is not already using the EPA’s vague language and sup ct and bush admin gift of carbon as pollutant (which they didn’t even need given the vague language of the statute) or that he would be deterred from using same if the Congress passed some law so weak on the issue from the libs perspective and thus, exonerating of Graha.

I am not so convinced.

Moreover, it does not justify Graham’s mindless acquiescence or dare we fear actual belief in the fauz science that is used as a front for the socialists turned greenies to attack capitalism.

The correct position is to have the courage to attack the PC climate police, esp now that it doesn’t take any courage given the debunking of the science and the turn in the public’s indulgence of this fetish.

Lastly, I would PREFER that ObamaDems own a carbon tax bill that takes effect NOW, as so great would be the immediate suffering and the resulting HUE and CRY, that we could win a filibuster proof majority that even Lindseys couldn’t stop.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.

[This column also serves as a special Halloween guide to all the characters that regularly contrubute to Mike gamecock DeVine's blogs and columns for The Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Minority Report, Race 4 2012, Redstate, Patriot Room, Town Hall, and Examiner.com.]

Braves-Gamecock (pictured above) called his brother in the announcement of dawns to discuss the usual Saturday religious services from late August thru Pearl Harbor Day known as College Football and to see if Cockstradamus (pictured below) wanted to end his prognostication pause with a bark for the Dawgs against the Gators.

We regret that the chicken who predicted the creation of Huckabee on FNC continues to keep future visions to himself, but did get an earful of crowing concerning all the grief the Cocky version of Jimmy the Greek took for the two years past when he called the whole global warming aka climate change supposed consensus and political power a “fetish” of the spoiled affluent society that would evaporate with $4/gallon gas and the Great Recession, not to mention any suggestion that they give up Le Seur peas for the Bi-Lo brand lest we lose 50 feet of Manhattan Island in 50 years.

The American public cares not a whit about it anymore.

This year, we have seen more and more scientists have the courage to speak truth to government grant-giving power as my client in the case of The Sun v Gore has allowed the Earth to cool for 11 years.

The bluest thing the Blue Dawg Democrats (leader pictured) have ever done, to date, is to block the cap and trade tax assault on the poor, middle class and small business bill in the Senate. Yes, we hear that Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wants to give up his senate seat by compromising on the bill and are sure ObamaDems may well accommodate him and defy the public if they can sneak this monster thru. And yes, we are even more sure that Lawless Obama will usurp the power of Congress if they don’t make this law, by simple executive regulatory fiat that is hidden and creeps all over American living standards just in time for Obama, Pelosi and Reid to have been re-elected, before it kills trips by the poor to see grandma 35 miles away lest they can’t keep the gas on to stay warm amidst the climate change, but I digress.

Cockstradamus was right.

Now, here is hoping the Dawgs upset Tebow-Nation and eventually get half a brain and end the annual trips to same. Earth to Georgia: gators can take a bus to Athens!

And of yes: USC Fighting Gamecocks (gamecock pictured, courtesy of The Minority Report) volunteer to beat Tennessee.

DeVine Law (pictured above) and Foghorn Leghorn (pictured below) approved.

Remaining questions and issues: Thank God that neither Supreme Court nor Bush Administration didn’t mention chicken breath when they labeled CO2 a “pollutant”;…

more links will be added here all weekend

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.