All Talk, but no action! America's leaders are gutless cowards, as are terrorists!

How many times does America and the rest of the non-Muslim world have to suffer through the terrorism and bullying by Islamist extremists followed by the failure of America to hold them accountable before we get fed up and stop it?  Apparently we have not reached that limit yet, or either we have not learned the lesson that every child understood from the time they were old enough to encounter bullying!

Ask a child how bullies are stopped.  They know the answers!  They will tell you that the only three things that stop a bully are if the bully's parents intervene, which usually never happens, if the bully gets intimidated and forced to stop by somebody that the bully knows can beat them up, which is not that common, or if the person being bullied stands up to the bully and fights with him.  Sometimes the bully is all bluff and will back down, but usually the fight is hard and ugly, and even if the bully wins, he is usually going to leave that person that stood up to him alone and find somebody else that he can intimidate.

Islamist extremists are bullies and they are fanatics.  Bullies are cowards; they pick on those weaker than them.  The Islamist extremists are cowards; they will not fight in the open, so they pick on innocent, unknowing, vulnerable individuals and terrorize them, then that supposedly sends a message to the rest of the world that if it does not conform to the will of the bullies, others will suffer.  That is just gutless, cowardly bullying.  For at least forty years, America and the rest of the world that is the target of the extremists have tried to surgically attack the extremists and leave the "peace-loving" rest of the Muslim world alone.  That strategy, my friends, has been an abysmal failure, as was illustrated once again this week by the attack and murder of U.S. diplomats in Libya and Egypt supposedly because of an independent film released in America making fun of the Muslim's supposed prophet Mohammed.

But the extremist Islamist are also fanatics, so the rules they play under are different in one serious way.  They will die for their cause, or at least will convince some other crazy fanatic that it is glorious to die fighting infidels and get them to blow themselves up while killing innocent victims.  This type of fanatical bully must be dealt with differently; the only ways to stop these crazies is to kill them before they kill you, or to make it so painful for their non-fanatical Islamist brothers that they force the crazy fanatics to stop.  Talk will not work with a fanatic until the pain is so great that they have no other choice but to stop.  After forty-plus years of trying to use reason, kindness, bribery, and limited kick-butt techniques, I personally think it is time to stop pussy-footing around with these crazies and get about the business of putting some serious hurt on ALL of them until either they are all dead, or their peaceful Muslim brothers and sisters make them stop.

So, instead of getting a belly-full and finally deciding to stand up and make the hard decision that will eventually and finally put an end to these bullies and cowards killing Americans, what does our President do?  Condemns the person releasing the film, then says we will find those who committed the murders and bring them to justice.  If I am one of those Muslim extremists, I am probably laughing my rear off right now.  Yeah, it only took eleven years to find Bin Laden, so we really expect the Libyans to hand over these extremists, or really even help in tracking them down and handing them over?
Yeah, just like I believe the Federal Government is going to pay for the added costs of Obamacare by eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare!  NOT!!!

America is going to continue to be the target of bullying and terrorism at the tremendous and unnecessary costs of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars because America does not have the stomach or the will to do what is necessary to stop it.  To stop terrorism, there is only one way to do it:  Wipe it out!

These bullies are no different than the Nazi extremists or the Japanese extremists of World War II.  They started small and kept growing through intimidation and thuggery until Great Britain and our eventual allies saw that there was no hope for a diplomatic solution and that the Nazis and Japanese could not be trusted to adhere to any promises or treaties they signed.  The same situation exists here, and American and its allies went to war full tilt to stop it.  That is what is going to have to happen to stop the Arabs; all out war against the Arabs.

To stop terrorism, America is going to have to reinstate the draft and build up our military to World War II levels, along with our war production effort.  We are then going to have to literally overthrow every Arab government that has ever contributed even $1.00 to the terrorism efforts of groups like Hezbollah or The Muslim brotherhood, starting with Egypt, Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, the Sudan, Iraq, and even Cuba.

In World War II, the generals and the President understood that not only did the combatants have to be defeated, but the will of the citizenry of those nations warring against us had to be broken to the point that the citizenry would revolt and lose their will to continue the war effort.  That same principle here must be applied. Most Muslims are content to stand by and do nothing to stop their extremist brothers and sisters from committing acts of terrorism because they do not suffer because of the extremists acts of terrorism.  As long as that is the case, nothing will change.  To kill a snake one must cut off its head, or it can still bite even after it is dead.  Same thing happens with terrorist organizations.  We killed Bin Ladin, but the acts of terrorism still go on because the cancer of terrorism still lingers in the hearts of extremists.  We are going to have to kill them all.

America's efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq were doomed because we lost our will to stay the course, and because we did not have sufficient forces to go through those countries like we did in World War II as we went through Europe; house to house, mountain to mountain until the leaders and the forces surrendered.  That is why America must have a military force of sufficient size and power, along with its allies, to do the total job, or we will end up like we are now in Iraq and Afghanistan, ten years of fighting later with no real security.

Too bad our government has lost its will to defend American lives and to make the price of taking American lives by our enemies too small to instill and hesitation in our enemies to continue their efforts against us.  Our soldiers can do the job, and our allies will support us if we lead, but without America's leadership, the rest of the world will continue to wander about aimlessly, suffering through the occasional terrorist attack with a sense of inevitability that is instilled from the lack of leadership by the governments of the world.  Cowards suffer a lifetime of abuse, and that is what America's leadership has become, a bunch of whimpering cowards who talk big, but are gutless to do what it takes to really secure America's or the world's safety and prosperity.  Teddy Roosevelt said it quite succintly; "...Speak softly, but carry a big stick!".  We speak loudly from the platform, but cower away from really standing tall against terrorism like the cowards from a grade-school bully.  Sad...really sad.

WAKE UP AMERICA!!! Stop drinking the Obama Kool-Aid! It's Killing America!!!

I am befuddled and appalled by what I see and hear on the news about people still believing Obama can do a better job of helping the middle class than Mitt Romney. What is wrong with those people? They must all be smoking some serious weed or taking some very hard drugs if they really believe that!

I really am confused. I just cannot understand how anybody other than somebody who has never had to really work for a living could possibly believe that a man who has never had a real job where he had to earn a living and make a payroll rather than be on the public payroll could be expected to understand what it is like to really have to take a risk to make a payroll? Romney has a proven track record of turning businesses around and making them profitable. Only a bureaucrat that is used to taking public funds instead of having to earn them by running a business could criticize that record, but what would one expect when the President has never had run anything but a public service organization. He is clueless what it takes to start, grow, expand, or manage a business where in order to survive, one has to make a profit!

Look at the results of Obama for four years; forty-three months of unemployment being over 8% when he promised it would never exceed eight percent (8%), and in 2012, it was supposed to be at six percent (6%). He has more than doubled the entire debt of the United States from when he took office until now. Two-hundred thirty two years to get the debt to eight trillion, and now it is doubled to over sixteen trillion dollars ($16,000,000,000,000) in forty-three months! And we still believe this man can help the middle class? He has added twenty six thousand dollars $26,000+)plus in debt for every American alive today that our grandchildren will have to somehow pay off, and he is advocating spending trillions more in debt with his disastrous health-care bill and his failed stimulus packages he is proposing. If we take into account that nearly fifty percent of Americans pay no taxes at all, then the reality is that every TAXPAYING AMERICAN has inherited about fifty-three thousand dollars ($53,000) in new debt that their children will have to payoff. Only an IDIOT does the same thing over and over and over and expects a different result. The stimulus has failed in the past, and the same type of stimulus in the future will fail again! Even the Moody's Financial rating company is threatening to downgrade the US Debt instruments if we do not stop this unconstrained growth of our national debt.

America, wake up! Stop drinking the Obama Kool-aid!. Wipe the scales off your eyes! This man is a disaster. Go to the dictionary; look up the definition of Socialism, then when you realize that this is exactly what President Obama is driving the US towards, find one nation in history where socialist countries have ever managed to keep from destroying themselves. Look at Greece, Spain, Russia, the old Soviet Union, Cuba. Socialism is a failed Utopian dream that can never happen in the real world!

Open your eyes, Americans. Four more years of Obama will be the death of this nation's future. We cannot sustain his policies. Come into the real world! Kick the socialist Muslim-loving bum out of office. Let someone who know how real businesses function take over and do what businesses need, rather than what bureaucrats that want to regulate everything we do and strangles us with higher taxes, more regulations and an unsustainable increase in our national debt.

Will somebody PLEASE get Chris Matthews a good Psychiatrist?!!! This guy needs help!

Chris Matthews is a pathetic, desperate excuse for a man and a news reporter/commentator, or whatever nut-cases in the media are properly labeled these days, and somebody needs to get that guy some help.  This guy is obsessed with the idea that every non-Democrat white person is a racist.  In this guy's mind, any white person who says anything negative about President Obama is racist.  If a white person does not live in the ghetto projects beside a black person, that white person is racist; if a white person speaks out against welfare, that white person is a racist; if a white person speaks out against illegal immigrants, that white person is a racist; if a white person speaks out and questions whether or not President Obama was born in Kenya instead of Hawaii, then we are racists.  Talk about paranoia run rampant, this nut-case is consumed by paranoia.

Chris, let me explain something to you.  I am one of those guys that does not like President Obama's policies, that does not like welfare, that does not like illegal immigration, that does not like The Affordable Healthcare Act, aka "Obamacare"; that does not like big government, that does not like biased news reporters, that does not like communism, Marxism, that does not like socialism, that DOES like Capitalism, that DOES like small government, that DOES pray, that DOES question whether Obama was born in the USA because of all the evidence pointing to a forged birth certificate, that DOES resent with genuine anger prima donnas like yourself who sit in judgement and stereotype those who do not hold similar viewpoints as yours worse than any stereotyping I have seen by Conservatives in the last fifty years.  Frankly, I do not like your characterizations of people like me, and I deeply resent your company giving a nut-case like you a platform.  You should be confined to a room with padded walls, where you are waited on by guys in white coats that will feed you pablum and take you out daily for nice walks in the sunshine until your paranoia and self-righteousness are gotten under control.

HOW DARE you sit in judgement of anyone.  You, who like in a virtually all white neighborhood where less than five percent of your neighbors are not white, are going to lecture us that we should like in more integrated neighborhoods?  Really?  Does the term hypocrite mean anything to you, Chris, or is just everyone else that is wrong and you are Mr. Perfect?  Tell me, Chris, you ever shared a water bottle with a black person?  I have.  You ever slept in the same room with a black person?  I have.  You ever made long road trips with a black person?  I have.  You ever looked at a black person and seen them just as another person, and not a black person?  You every thought to yourself, I wish I could be friends with that person when that person was a black person?  I have.

Maybe you have, also, Chris.  It would not surprise me to think you had.  So why would you be surprised to find out that I am a sixty-five year old white man from Louisiana who was raised during segregation, where my relatives had black people living in their house as cooks, gardners, drivers, etc., and where they called black people "darkies" because that is what their parents called them.  Would you now believe that I, a white, conservative blogger, have grown to admire and respect not only black people, but every person solely on the "content of their character and not the color of their skin..."?  Would you believe that I try to live that belief and pass that on to my children and my friends and anyone I come into contact with?  Would you believe that I actually admired Martin Luther King, and have quoted him several times in my letters to the editor over the last fifteen years? 

Are there poor misguided individuals that still are racists?  Absolutely! But the personality trait of racism is not a trait that is present only in white people; it exists very much so in all races today; black, white, Asian, Native Americans, Latino, Arab, Jewish, Christian, Muslim...America is so aligning itself by its racial heritage that we are destroying the idea that we are One Nationality...American...Under God!  Let me ask my African American readers (if there are any), any of you born in Africa and immigrated here?  I doubt it?  The vast majority of American citizens today were born here, most going back five or six generations.  We are Americans who happen to be black, white, Latino, Asian, Indian, etc.  AMERICANS, MY FRIENDS, and unless we band together under that banner, we will soon disappear from the face of the earth like so many arrogant superpowers of the past that tore themselves apart from within.

America is being split like a ripe cantelope; sectioned off according to what our skin color, our religion, our ethnicity, our heritage is, and it is making America a weaker, more vulnerable nation.  Some pretty wise people recognized the danger of being divided against oneself...Abraham Lincoln on June 16, 1858 in a speech where he accepted his party's nomination to be a U.S. Senator.  Before him, however, Jesus said the same thing in Matthew "...And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation;and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:Matthew 12:25

Our behavior as a society today makes us appear like most Americans today are too self-absorbed and selfish to remember the wisdom of our forefathers and the Son of God himself to put aside our need to spoil ourselves and punish those we perceive that have wronged us somehow so that the nation itself can come together to progress for the better good of our entire nation rather than our own little special interest group.

Chris Matthews, like so many other people that want to right every wrong, see every person treated equally, and to believe in the basic goodness of man, in his zealous passion to bring about utopia, refuses to believe that man, without the redeeming grace of God and the salvation of Christ, is basically an evil, deceived individual that Satan is manipulating to destroy everything Christ has prepared for us in this world that is good.  Chris Matthews, like anyone who believes that they can create a utopian society here on this earth, lives in a dream world that can never exist on this earth, because for utopia to exist, every person on the planet has to be willing to put aside their selfish interests and subjugate themselves to the common good of all.  Sadly, that is just not going to happen, because sadly the whole world is NOT good, and until Christ comes and re-establishes His kingdom on this earth, there will always be evil people, therefore evil rulers who will do everything in their power to make themselves the world's most dominant, powerful, rich person on the earth by taking whatever they want from those who are too weak or who do not have the will to stop them.  We are fast becoming a country so fractured by divisiveness that we will soon lose that will or that power to protect ourselves and our nation interest, and will, like Greece, Rome, Persia, England, France, Germany, and every other superpower that has become too arrogant, self-absorbed, and fractured from within, sadly take ourselves from the "shining light on the hill" of a nation to a "once-was" great nation status.  And while we would all like to see that utopian society exist on this earth, we must first protect our sovereign status as a nation based on the principals that our founding fathers established in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  Until Christ comes again to establish His righteous kingdom on this earth, there will always be evil, and our first duty as a nation is to protect its citizens from the evil and to prepare as best we can to make sure evil does not overtake us!

Chris, conservatives are not the "boogy men"; we do not want to push Barack Obama out of office because he is black, or part-black.  We want to push him out of office because he is driving America to bankruptsy, either intentionally because he wants to destroy us as a power, or because he is an ideologue who is so misguided that he really does think his way can work.  Any student of history and biblical scripture understands this.  Sadly, obviously, you do not, so you, too, need to be re-educated, or just run off and forced to go into early retirement with your jaw wired shut.  You need serious help, and I hope you get it soon.

Oh, by the way, if we conservatives are all racists, why is it that many of us would have supported Condoleezza Rice, Herman Cain, Alan West, or Colin Powell for President or Vice-President?  Please do not tell me you think all these individuals are Jim Crowe individuals!  Nah...I do not believe you think that; I just think you believe anyone who does not want to bow down at the alter of Barack H. Obama is a racist.  WRONG!!!  You are a pathetic little man with a lot of education and not enough common sense to pour water out of a boot!  There is NOT a racist conservative behind every tree, but there sure are a lot of paranoid news commentators that believe there are; I would hate to hang out with you and your friends!

Voter ID Laws; PRO or CON? PRO, no doubt! Doing otherwise dishonors Veterans and U.S. Citizens!

I have thought long and hard about this issue of voter identification laws.  Both sides have legitimate arguments, so making a decision on whether they are the "right" thing to do or the "wrong" thing to do is quite difficult, but something that must be done in order that every American has the opportunity and the right to vote.

On the CON side of the ledger, mostly liberal politicians are screaming that this is only an attempt by the Republicans to dis-enfranchise traditionally non-Republican voters.  Well, let's examine that.  The laws generally are requiring voters to show a photo ID in order to cast their vote.  Liberals are saying that there are many older, poorer voters that have never had a photo ID made, and that to require them to get one made before the November election would be an extreme hardship on them.  That argument sounds logical and reasonable at first glance, but let us take a closer look at ways this law could be made easier.

Most elderly people who vote are going to have to be mobile enough to go to their voting place to cast their vote, are they not?  If they are mobile and can cast their vote, why can't they go by the state driver's license bureau and get a photo ID made?  Most governmental institutions require individuals to provide proof of citizenship or residency to draw any form of government assistance, let that suffice.  Besides that, if they speak English without a foreign accent, then that really should suffice.  If they speak with a foreign accent, then I think that it should be mandatory for them to provide some proof of being a US Citizen to vote; that is not too much to ask.

On the PRO side, the argument is very simple (at least to me, that is!)...literally millions of Americans of all races and creeds have fought and died in wars for over two hundred years to protect American Citizen's rights to decide who will lead us and represent us at all levels of Government.  Until the last sixty or seventy years, trying to determine whether someone was a citizen or not was not a real issue; we enforced our immigration policy fairly and strictly.  Now, in America, our borders are like a sieve; literally millions of illegal immigrants are sneaking into America chasing their dreams for a better life, and trying to escape the poverty and lack of opportunities in other places, and, sadly, trying to find ways to disrupt and destroy American's freedoms.  I was one of those soldiers who served in both Vietnam and in Operation Desert Storm.  I fought for my fellow soldiers, my family, and my fellow American Citizens rights; not to allow some illegal to sneak into this country and cast illegal votes which can strip American Citizens of their protections, benefits, and rights.  If it is the will of this country to allow immigrants to come into this country legally and eventually gain U.S. Citizenship, then so-be-it, and I applaud that policy.  But I do NOT support, nor do I believe most Americans support allowing non US Citizens casting votes in US elections, and potentially doing so in such numbers that they could defeat the will of the majority of U.S. Citizens.  That is not right, and it is not legal, and I think it dishonors those who fought and died to protect the rights of U.S. Citizens.

I am insulted, and I am indignant at the suggestion that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise any American Citizen from voting by requiring some form of proof of citizenship before allowing someone to cast a vote.  It is NOT my desire, nor do I believe it is the desire of of any honorable U.S. Citizen to try to keep any U.S. Citizen from casting a vote.  As a retired U.S. Army MAJOR, I fought and was willing to die to protect that right, and I feel it is the DUTY of every American Citizen to do so.  In my opinion, to sit idly by and not vote dishonors the memory of every soldier who fought and died in every war that we have participated in over the last two hundred thirty-six years.

It is the duty of this society to protect the rights of every citizen of the USA to vote, but just as important, it is also the duty of this society to protect this nation from being illegally governed by representatives elected by voter fraud from non-US Citizens.  Both responsibilities are sacred, and both must be equally and forcefully enforced.  To do otherwise is morally, ethically, and legally wrong!

Frankly, instead of spending so much money and time trying to stop people from being required to show some proof of citizenship before being able to vote, why not spend that effort helping those American Citizens that do not have that proof get it!  That could be something that both political parties could probably benefit from!

SAGGING BRITCHES...ONLY A SYMPTOM OF AN AMORAL SOCIETY

     Once again, “freedom” has won out. Charles Kincaid and a host of individuals from Monroe's African American community were up in arms at the Monroe City Council meeting last night over a proposed ordinance to make wearing one's pants so that they “sag”, exposing one's underwear. This is a common attire among the black youth in Monroe and across the country.

      First let me say that I find this type of dress very offensive, the same as I find much of the modern dress that young people are wearing these days. Are we to outlaw halter tops, or see-through blouses where women's bras, or lack of bras is embarassingly evident? Are we to outlaw string bikinis, or men's Speedos? Are we to outlaw see-through shorts where one's pink-print bikini underwear are evident? I see worse than the sagging pants with underwear showing every time I walk into Wal-Mart.

     While I and millions upon millions of other Americans find the dress code that people with no pride and morals choose to exhibit themselves in disgusting and offensive, passing more laws to stop it simply will not work. As Mr. Kincaid stated, it leads to selective enforcement, profiling, and violations of civil rights. Too bad that America has let its morals and image degrade to that of a brothel or skid row flop-house.

     Yes, the courts say we cannot adjudicate morality, but when we fail to do so, we certainly do, by default, adjudicate immorality, crime, and VERY poor dress taste. This is NOT the America our founders envisioned, and the interpretations of the Constitution by our courts over the last sixty years are NOT in concordance with what our founders believed were required for our nation to survive and flourish.

     Here are some of the comments that our founding fathers made about America's absolute dependance upon religion and morality as pillars to our nation's foundation and survival:

“Probably, at the time of the adoption of The Constitution, and of the Amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from The State…An attempt to level all religions and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter Indifference would have created universal disapprobation [disapproval] if not universal indignation [anger].” Joseph Story, A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1854), p. 259-261, §441, 444; see also Story, Commentaries, Vol. III, p. 726, §1868.

“What is an establishment of religion…It [religion] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests….In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity; that, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions.  That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”1853-1854 HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE REPORTS

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion….Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any others” John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Frances Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts on October 11, 1798.

“Three points of doctrine, the belief of which, forms the foundation of all morality.  The first is the existence of a  God; the second is the immorality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments…. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these articles of faith and that man will have no conscience…the laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they can never make him wise, virtuous, or happy.” John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and its Teachings (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), pp. 22-23.

“Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.  Purity of morals [is] the only sure foundation of public happiness in any country….Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society” George Washington, Address of George Washington, President of the United States . . .Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore: George and Henry S. Keatinge, 1796), pp. 22-23.

     To even the casual observer, it is evident from these writings of our founders that the decisions that our Supreme Court have made over the last sixty years which have adjudicated religion out of school and the public sector were simply wrong. Our Supreme Court created the monster of Judicial Activism and started adjudicating the law of the land according to whatever social agenda was in vogue at the time. That was not the intention of our founding fathers, and those decisions have brought us to a point where morality and decency as the founders envisioned it is now illegal in almost every form. Christianity is the enemy, pornography, immorality, murder of unborn children, heterosexual marriage, and the common sense approach that our founders used in establishing this nation are now illegal. Condemnation of anything representing the views of our founders is one of the new “gods”, misguidely labled as “freedom of speech”. There is no moral code in schools or the public sector any more. America has virtually become an amoral society thanks to liberals who seek to turn America into a totally amoral, godless society where ones conscience and the Government's definition of morality is the rule of the land, rather than what our founders tried to protect and establish as they fought and died to found our nation.

     Shame on those that have perpetrated this injustice on America, and shame on us for letting them get away with it.

Thank God for Music that stirs and moves our spirits!...

     People are motivated by many different stimuli; a beautiful sunrise or sunset, the snow swirling around a mountain top on a day when it feels like one can just put out one's hand and touch the sun and clouds; the sound of a dove cooing when the rest of the world is still and quiet. All these things make my heart stir, make me smile, and bring peace to my spirit.

     Music is another stimuli that stirs my soul, and tonight on a movie called “Country Strong”, I saw one of the most amazing performances of a song I have ever seen, and for me that is saying a lot. Yes, I understand that this is a two year old movie, but I would not watch it before...for many reasons, but flipping through the channels last night, I saw it and watched it and was absolutely spellbound.

     To make a list of them all the performances that come to mind that “move” me would be too time-consuming, and probably boring, but tonight, I saw one of the most amazing total package performances, at least in my opinion, that has ever graced a movie screen, when Gwyneth Paltrow, in the closing number of her comeback performance as Kelly Canter, a Nashville Country Music superstar that is recovering from losing a baby and a serious addiction problem sings a song “Coming Home”, and suddenly, I was just sucked right into her heart, and her into mine.

     Country Strong overall was a “good” movie, but not a great movie, and there are parts that make it's PG-13 rating seem too conservative, so I would not let my children under seventeen go see that movie unaccompanied. But Paltrow's performance is worthy of note, especially in the finale where she sings “Coming Home”.  In that song, there is great symbolism as she is singing it while home movies of her early childhood are playing in the background. The lyrics of the song are obviously speaking her heart as they did to mine.

     The typical drama of the superstar who does not necessarily want the fame, but her husband promotes her and is pushing her back to performing before she is really ready to leave rehab sets the mood, and then events that happen during her attempts to come back and perform set the stage for a make-or-break night where if she does not perform at superstar level, she is washed up.

     Paltrow's performance where she is doing her stage show is great. I was amazed at the quality of the girl's voice, and I think that Paltrow never has to worry about making a living, because she would be a screaming success as a singer in any genre if she ever decided to give up acting.

     All throughout her stage show, she does fast, slow, and in-between songs, but when she starts her finale, her whole demeanor changes. She is performing, but it is more than that, she is singing her farewell song, and she is announcing to the world that she is “going home”, but not her earthly home.

     Here are the lyrics to “Coming Home”; as she sings it, and here is a link to a You Tube video of her performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4cpl0v0WBY; I encourage anyone to watch it; it is moving...very moving. my heart was broken for her; I felt her pain. She made me believe she was Kelly Canter, and that she finally knew where her pain would stop, when she went home.

“It's a four letter word
A place you go to heal your hurt
It's an altar, it's a shelter
One place you're always welcome
A pink flamingo, double wide
One bedroom in a high rise
A mansion on a hill
Where the memories always will
Keep you company whenever you're alone
After all of my running
I'm finally coming
Home - the world tried to break me
I found a road to take me
Home - there ain't nothing but a blue sky now
After all of my running,
I'm finally coming... Home
Well they say it's where the heart is
And I guess the hardest part is
When your heart is broken
And you're lost out in the great wide open
Looking for a map
For finding your way back
To where you belong
Oh well that's where I belong
Home - the world tried to break me
I found a road to take me
Home - there ain't nothing but a blue sky now
After all of my running
I'm finally coming... Home
Home
Home - the world tried to break me
I found a road to take me
Home - there ain't nothing but a blue sky now
After all of my running, I'm finally coming...
After all of my running
I'm finally coming... Home “

     It touched my soul. There are only a few songs that can do that. “God Bless America”, “The Lord's Prayer”, “America the Beautiful”, they all stir my heart and fill me with gratitude. When Barbra Streisand sang “With One More Look at You” in “A Star is Born”, I felt her pain and her victory as she displayed the emotions she felt over losing her husband, then finding the strength to come back and perform. When a trio of amazingly talented singers sang "Hallelujah, We've Been Found" at our church Christmas program in 2009, , I felt the wonder that Mary, the mother of Christ must have felt when she beheld her infant child, knowing that she looked into the face of God and the Messiah.  When I heard a Marine Corps Sergeant bugle “TAPS” at my Uncle Bubba's funeral, I felt the loss and the mournful sorrow that those notes echo as they have been played at innumerable military funerals and I saw the beauty, courage, respect, honor and dignity that the honor guard displayed to my uncle's children as they folded and presented the flag from his casket.

     Yes, music is a great gift that God has given us to touch our souls when the spoken word might fall short. Music gives us solace in times of sadness, worship in the time of intimacy with God, empathy in the time of mourning, and excitement in the time of celebration. It has been a long time since I saw a performance such as I saw Gwyneth Paltrow display last night as I watched the conclusion of “Country Strong”. I hope I see another one soon.

Chief Justice Roberts...Genius, or Fool, or both?

Just wondering...is Chief Justice John Roberts a genius, a fool, or perhaps a bit of both? Mitt Romney says he disagrees with the Chief Justice's siding with all the liberals on the court. Every conservative on the court plus the usual swing vote, Justice Kennedy, said that the Chief Justice's vote was nothing more than the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the The United States) making law through Judicial Activism, which is clearly unconstitutional. Other conservative commentators that I have heard are all over the map, some saying that Justice Roberts was wrong (Rand Paul, Alan West), others saying that he awakened a sleeping giant (Dick Morris), others brand it the death of America's freedoms (Limbaugh, Hannity, Laura Ingraham. Who is right?

Much remains to be seen here. But, like every other major decision from SCOTUS, there certainly is no lack of opinions, pontifications, and forecasts of gloom and doom or utopia, depending on one's political philosophy.

Here is an excellent website saying that Justice Roberts made the right decision, in an op-ed by Bert Atkinson, Jr. http://www.ijreview.com/2012/06/9398-why-chief-justice-roberts-made-the-right-long-term-decision-with-obamacare/ . Here is another article where numerous conservative commentators universally condemn the decision as an assault on freedom: http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/rush-freedom-just-met-its-death-panel/ .

What is the outcome? In all actuality, no-one really knows. One thing is for certain, however, is that America will never be the same again. The Supreme Court has, by abdication, become the most powerful branch of the Federal Government. It can, by judicial edict, make national law, as is seen in this latest decision (a power Constitutionally given only to the legislative branch of the Federal Government), or it can destroy law by declaring it unconstitutional, or even rewrite the Constitution by re-interpreting previous decisions, ignoring precedent making decisions from the past, and ignoring the original intent of the founding fathers as they wrote the case decisions of the past based upon the intent of the writer of the section of the Constitution or the case law decision being revised.

This was NOT what the founding fathers intended; in fact it is the exact opposite of what the founding fathers intended. Thomas Jefferson, who I believe was probably the smartest of our founding fathers, warned us of the implications of allowing the Supreme Court to dominate the three branches of the Federal Government when he said the following:

The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, Aug 18, 1821

We are seeing Jefferson's words come to pass as we live and breath today. With lifetime appointments, with really no firing mechanism in place but impeachment, which has never been utilized in the two-hundred forty years of the republic thus-far, these nine political appointees sit immune to any repercussions from their decisions.

This last decision, for instance, is replete with wrong-doing. Justice Elana Kagen, an Obama appointee, should never have been in on the Obamacare decision. A former Solicitor General under President Obama, she was obviously involved in the furthering of this bill, and correspondence shows that she was following its progress with anticipation of it becoming law. Yet, with her nomination by President Obama to the Supreme Court, it presents a clear case of “stacking the deck” with Justices that have a vested interest in the upholding of a law that she was part of the formulation of as Solicitor General to the President whose bill it is. This is a Supreme Court Justice that is so blatantly socialist/liberal in her political philosophy and so obviously had a vested interest in upholding the Constitutionality of Obamacare that she should have recused herself from this case. I cannot recall any situation in history where behavior like this has been tolerated. You have a Justice of the Supreme Court that undoubtedly was part of the formulation of a bill that the President of the United States that nominated her for the Supreme Court got passed through a loaded legislature, was overturned as unconstitutional by numerous Federal Courts in the land, upheld by the most liberal Federal Court in the land, went to the Supreme Court that she is now a part of, and she deems herself to be able to render an unbiased opinion on the law. Surely we must all be fools because we let her get away with that and did not even breath the evil “I” word (Impeachment!). That is one vote FOR this travesty to every U.S. Citizen that should NEVER have been cast, and would have spared us this interminable nightmare.

There was never any doubt about the way our Liberal/Socialist members of the court would vote. Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagen were givens...they will vote for whatever a liberal President or Congress wishes. Likewise, there are three conservative justices that will always vote according to the Original Intent of the founding fathers as they penned the Constitution and its Amendments, e.g., Justices Alito, Thomas, and Scalia. Usually, Justice Roberts has voted with the conservative members of the Court, and Justice Kennedy has been the swing vote, who in this instance voted with the conservatives. But Justice Roberts, in this instance, was the maverick on the Court and voted in a way, and with reasoning that no-one in their wildest dreams could have envisioned.

Chief Justice Roberts voted with the liberal wing of the Court this time and allowed Obamacare to stand as a Constitutional law, but did NOT do it in the way that was envisioned. The entire debate on whether or not this law was Constitutional or not has revolved around the Administration's claim that under the Interstate Commerce Clause (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3), they could impose a penalty fee onto anyone who would refuse to purchase insurance under Obamacare. As went the mandate, so went the entire law under the commerce clause, or at least so everyone in the nation except Chief Justice Roberts thought. Every Democrat in the House and Senate and the President of the United States swore up and down this penalty was not a tax increase, but that is exactly what Chief Justice Roberts called it, and therefore, because the Legislative Branch does have the power to levy taxes onto the citizenry of the U.S.A., this law is Constitutional. But Chief Justice Roberts was not through; he went on to say that the Administration's claim that they could use the Commerce Clause and force Americans to buy a product was NOT Constitutional; and he went further saying that the leverage that the Federal Government wanted to use via withholding ALL Medicaid funds (as opposed to the additional Medicaid funds associated with Obamacare) to States that did not implement Obamacare was not Constitutional. This was part of the lawsuit that twenty-eight states plus numerous universities and and other governmental bodies had filed against Obamacare.

Already, several States, including Louisiana, have made statements that they will not implement Obamacare, and basically there is nothing that the Federal Government can do about it. Many of the political commentators are saying that not only are many people just going to refuse to buy the insurance, but they are going to refuse to pay the penalty/fine/tax, or whatever that charge will be, and the commentators are saying that there really is nothing that the IRS can do about it. So...where does that leave us with our original question; e.g., is Chief Justice Roberts a genius, or a fool, or a little of both?

My personal opinion is that he is perhaps a little too smart for his own good and for the good of the nation. In my opinion, based on the Chief Justice's previous opinions and on his personal stated views during his confirmation hearings, it is my belief that the Chief Justice took a calculated gamble with the future of America. It is my belief that Chief Justice Roberts is determined to drive the Court back into the direction of a strict Original Intent representative view in its decisions. I believe he is a very conservative Justice and is trying to set an example of following the letter of the Constitution regardless of whether the decision is liberal or conservative in its outcome.

In this case, I believe he is sincere in believing that the “penalty”, or “fee” that the liberals have assigned to those refusing to purchase the individually mandated insurance under Obamacare is, in reality a tax, very similar to the Social Security tax, and therefore legal. I also believe that he declared it as such in order to re-ignite the conservative movement's backlash against any new taxes and in doing so, hopefully drive the election in November deeply into the Republican's hands, ultimately giving them a super-majority in both houses, which will inevitably lead to a total repeal of this monstrosity called Obamacare.

I also believe that this is a VERY dangerous gamble with the future of America's healthcare industry, and with the future of our economy in general. I am convinced that the Chief Justice is sincere in his beliefs/hopes that he has pushed conservatives over the edge and, as Dick Morris suggests, “awaken a sleeping giant, and instilled a terrible resolve into him” which will return America back to the nation that our founders envisioned. My only fear is what may happen if the gamble does not work.

Many American, me being one of them, are sick and tired of a tyrannical, nanny-state government using my hard earned money paid in as taxes to buy votes from deadbeats and illegal immigrants and their families. I am tired of paying people to sit at home on their butts and do nothing but have bastard children so that they can receive a handout from Uncle Sam for each child that results in them making twice as much as I make in retirement and social security combined! I had to work for forty years, and some woman can sit on her butt, pop out children like a baby factory, and collect TANF, Welfare, food stamps, and receive a free cell phone, free transportation, free child care, and free or subscidized housing, while I worked for forty years to provide for my family, and I have to pay for everything, including the deadbeat's free everything. That is not what our founding fathers envisioned, and is NOT the American way.

Our Declaration of Independence states that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, including Life, Liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness. It does not guarantee us happiness, it does not guarantee us a free cell phone, free food, free or subsidized housing, free transportation, or free anything. Even the Bible, which the founders of our nation said was the “...cornerstone of the republic...” states in Thessalonians 3:10-12: "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their own work quietly and to earn their own living."

I believe that America needs to phase out of the Nanny State mentality as quickly as possible. That philosophy has been tried throughout history and has never worked. It cannot work, because only in an all-Christian world could such a society every exist, and as we all know, that has never been, and will never be until the second coming of Christ, then the tribulation, and lastly the final judgement. Until then, we are going to have to function in a world filled with evil, and be ever vigilant against it. We are a nation built on freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. We are a nation built on a Constitution which was written to restrict the Federal Government's intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and which delineates the powers given to the Federal Government and strictly says which freedoms that Federal Government cannot invade. But, as Jefferson described so long ago, over time, a step at a time, the Court has slowly began usurping the powers away from the Executive and Legislative branches so that now, simply by declaring a law or a freedom as unconstitutional, they have neutered the Legislative Branch's ability to protect our freedoms, and through Judicial Activism, have stripped the States of most of their sovereign rights as guaranteed under the Constitution.

Justice Roberts, in my opinion, made a grave mistake with his decision. He is gambling that America's conservatives will rise up in revolt at the ballot box in November and will oust a vast majority of the liberals in Congress and the White House because of the overwhelming majority of them that hate Obamacare. However, he has taken a grave risk, because there is a large number of special interest groups that will virtually block vote for Him and liberals, regardless of anything that the conservatives do, because they are more concerned with protecting their government entitlements than they are destroying the nation's economy and freedoms. They are willing to sacrifice their self-esteem, their freedoms, and the nation's future in order to preserve their free ride, even if it bankrupts the nation, which it is inevitably guaranteed to do. I would much rather Chief Justice Roberts simply ruled that the Commerce Clause did NOT permit the individual mandate, not sought out an avenue by which he could keep the law Constitutional, but have just taken the Democrats at their word that the mandate was not a tax, and voted with the conservatives and ruled the law un-Constitutional. Instead, he may have awakened the sleeping giant, but instead just long enough for him to roll over and be lulled back to sleep nursing at the breast of the Un-United Nanny State of America.