Guns Don't Kill People. Stupid Politicians Kill People!

If you're looking for U.S. firearms facts to combat the blizzard of lies spewed by the usual suspects in the wake of last night's Las Vegas slaughter, feel free to use these. 

There is, of course, no such thing as "gun violence". Neither is there "knife violence", nor "ax violence", nor "club violence". Inanimate objects do not commit violence. People do that. Guns, like knives, axes, and clubs, are inanimate objects without any volition. No one has ever been murdered by an inanimate object. Many are murdered with inanimate objects (including guns)--but the killings are always committed by people. The term "gun violence" is a propaganda device intended to divert attention from a real problem that its politically correct inventors need desperately to prevent the public from considering, about which more shortly.

The deliberately misleading figures the Left loves to cite come from a ferociously anti-gun web site called ShootingTracker.com. The site conflates "mass shootings" with "mass killings". Included in the count are gang shootings, robberies and other violent outbreaks that do not result in fatalities. It is ironic that most of these "mass shootings" are suffered by the unfortunate residents of Chicago (Obama's home town) and other urban locations which have been controlled by anti-gun Democrat administrations for decades. Apparently, "Black Lives Do Not Matter", when the mayor is a Democrat.

The anti-gun Left is and has always been completely out of touch with reality. Consider (1) its continued focus on "gun violence" instead of overall violence; (2) its insistence that semi-automatic rifles are "assault weapons";  (3) its continued claim that the U.S. has an unusually high murder rate; and (4) its repeated assertion that the widespread private ownership of firearms is responsible for the murder rate. The facts are readily available to anyone who cares to look for them and they still are not being accurately reported by the establishment media.

The U.S. homicide rate per 100,000 population has been dropping since 1993. Exceptions are cities which have the tightest restrictions on the private ownership of firearms such as Obama's Chicago.  (See FBI-Uniform Crime Reports.)

The U.S. homicide rate (murders per 100,000 population) ranks 108th of the 207 countries for which data are reported according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s most recent report (see http://www.unodc.org/). All countries reporting higher murder rates than the U.S. require firearm registration and have very restrictive (virtually prohibitive) licensing requirements. Bear in mind that these data are from “the most recent year reported” and are subject to change as new information is added.

Gun ownership data comes from http://www.gunpolicy.org/. Although the U.S. leads the world in per capita ownership of firearms, more than one-half of the countries in the world have a higher murder rate than the United States, many of them much higher. If private firearms ownership “causes” murder, the U.S. murder rate should be the highest by far. It’s not even close.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. reported 14,196 murders in 2013, continuing a decline that has been occurring since 1993. To put these data in perspective, had the U.S. experienced El Salvador’s homicide rate, there would have been 218,039 murders and yet private firearms ownership is 15.3 times that of El Salvador! Greenland’s rate applied to our population would have resulted in 60,496 murders. In the face of these data, it is impossible to honestly believe that there is any meaningful correlation between private gun ownership and national murder rates.

It is also absolutely clear that the propensity to commit murder (and the probability of being murdered) is not equally distributed among the U.S. population. Black Americans kill and are killed at eight times the rate observed in the rest of the population. Again, see FBI-Uniform Crime Reports. The effect of this unequal distribution on the national murder rate is enormous. When the black murder rate is “normalized” to those levels observed in the rest of the U.S. population, the U.S. murder rate is cut virtually in half and falls close to rates seen in Western Europe and Canada. These data do not support the idea that there exists any causal relationship between national murder rates and private firearm ownership. These data make the Washington political establishment very nervous. The attack on the Second Amendment serves the purpose of diverting attention away from this undeniable but very Politically Incorrect fact, a diversion that may well be deliberate.

The mass killing at San Bernardino appears to be the result of a terrorist attack. The mass killings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook and Roseburg are of a very different type and the perpetrators have very different motivations although every single one of them took place in a "gun free zone", assuring the perpetrators of an unlimited supply of defenseless victims. Unlike the street killings that account for most U.S. murders in which black Americans are disproportionately both victims and killers, in mass killing incidents the killers tend to be White or Asian male mental patients. There are reasons for that difference which the political establishment absolutely refuses to consider.

Prior to 1968, there were virtually no mass killings in the United States and it was possible for anyone to purchase any legal fire arm with no background check. Guns could be mail-ordered from catalog stores such as Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Wards, JC Penny, or Spiegels and they would be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. Then, beginning in the decade of the 1970s,  the U.S. experienced a dramatic increase in the number of mass killings. Two factors accompanied that increase and both warrant exploration.

Throughout the 1970s, mental health care reform emptied out the state mental hospitals and made it much more difficult to have dangerous mental patients involuntarily committed for treatment.

Then, in 1987, the “anti-depressant” PROZAC was approved and widely prescribed followed by ZOLOFT, PAXIL and other SSRI drugs. Known side effects include suicide ideation and violent behavior. Most—if not all—of the mass killers from 1980 on were taking one or more of these drugs.

There is simply no demonstrable causal relationship between the private ownership of firearms and murder. In fact, despite an explosion in new gun sales, the trends shown on the graph below have actually accelerated.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest.  

This Is NOT about Football. This is about WAR!

Wake Up! The Wolves are at the Door!

The NFL appears to have learned nothing from the University of Missouri's self-destruction. The University of Missouri committed institutional suicide by tacitly supporting and promoting the post-Ferguson version of Kaepernick’s "Black Lives Matter" Lie ("hands up, don't shoot"). MU is now trying to recover some lost revenue by renting out its empty dorms. That solution won't work with empty NFL seats. If the NFL really supports these thugs, it deserves whatever happens to it. .

However, this latest drama has nothing to do with either football or the national anthem. What is unfolding comes right out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" handbook. Both "Black Lives Matter" and "Antifa" are hard core Marxist Shock Troops being continuously supplied with boots on the ground by Barack Hussein Obama's "Organizing for Action", a national army of fanatical Leftists that is hundreds of thousands strong and is actively recruiting "volunteers" through mass mailings to radical e-mail lists. Obama maintains a well-staffed Washington office for a reason. He and his posse intend to destroy what remains of the old American republic and install a totally socialist tyranny upon its ashes.

In the week before his second inauguration, President Obama's campaign machine ("Organizing for America") announced that it had been restructured as a community organizing group ("Organizing for Action"). Only a few political junkies correctly understood that announcement to be a declaration of war. If that sounds a bit "over the top", download and read Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”. Obama has taught and practiced Alinsky’s direct action methods his entire political life, most famously while working as a community organizer in Chicago. Alinsky taught that politics is war, that the goal is power, and that the first rule for community organizers working in pursuit of that goal must be, “There are no rules!”

What Obama is doing is deliberately revolutionary in every sense of the word and completely outside the experience of his political opposition. He has moved the locus of action from the air waves and the ballot box to the street and the sports stadium. This use of direct action is a dangerous move into uncharted territory, fraught with risk for the current political process, the American governing structure, and civil peace. Obama's radical thugs will use direct action to foment racial violence, instigate attacks on police and traditional cultural and national symbols, and use the resulting social chaos to push through every Marxist goal, including gun control, amnesty for illegals, increased taxation, unlimited deficit spending and greater federal power. Unfortunately for the rest of the country, the flummoxed Republican Party's feeble effort to oppose Obama's rapid advance is the political equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight. OFA is ACORN on steroids. It coordinates Obama's posse of union thugs, assorted radicals, overt Communists, sympathetic national and local “news" organizations, and other useful idiots in direct action campaigns to neutralize the opposition and destroy the traditional American political process.

Given the feckless cowardice, corruption, and total incompetence of establishment Republicans, the only thing that stands today between Obama and total control is an armed populace. Unless a effective opposition arises quickly, Obama’s incipient totalitarians will win this fight. Unorganized ordinary people who simply want to live their own lives and play by the rules don’t stand a chance against fanatics who recognize no rules, particularly when they are led by a narcissistic sociopath who believes he is infallible.

We must resist while we still can or our children and grandchildren will die in a Third World Hell Hole that was once the United States of America.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest. 

About Hillary Clinton's Popular Vote Win

We are reminded incessantly by Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and their obedient servants in the "Main Stream Media" that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.

If we assume that big city Democrat politicians have changed their ways, that no dead people cast ballots, and that illegal immigrants were turned away from the polls, she sure did. 

Here are the official final popular vote totals for the nation in the U.S. Presidential Election of 2016:

	Hillary Clinton	Donald Trump
U.S. Popular Vote Totals	65,844,610	62,979,636

As you can see, Hillary Clinton did defeat Donald Trump in the national popular vote totals by 2,864,974 votes. The problem is that Hillary's entire national popular vote margin exists because of the size of her popular vote in just one state: California.

A group of disgruntled anti-Trump Californians has launched a petition drive for the purpose of achieving California's secession from the United States. It is interesting to consider what the result of last November's popular vote would have been had that state already left the union.

	Hillary Clinton	Donald Trump
U.S. Popular Vote Totals (without California)	58,482,120	59,063,427

So without California, Donald Trump wins a national popular vote majority of 581,307 votes. In fact, except for the votes in just 12 of 58 California counties (Los Angeles, Alameda, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Sacramento, Orange, Sonoma, Marin, Santa Cruz, Ventura, and Solano) Trump would have carried California as well.

Do you think that 12 Caifornia counties should elect the President of the United States? I don't. It reduces to this. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in and therefore deserves to be President of Southern California. The rest of the country? Not so much.

If you agree and love our nation, please forward a link to this post to everyone you know.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest. 

This "Enough" post has been temporarily removed for expansion. My apologies for the inconvenience. FJB

r your interest. 

Why The Swamp Is Not Yet Drained: Shock and Awe 2.0

Trapped?

If President Trump is to save his Presidency and Make America Great Again, he must immediately fire all of his top advisors (including son-in-law, Jared Kushner) and every member of the White House staff who was in place when he arrived. Moreover, as much as he loves his daughter, he must ignore Ivanka's political opinions which appear to be uniformly wrong-headed and destructive.

The President is being systematically controlled and isolated by the very people he brought in to support him. Consider this incredible action by the White House staff to limit information available to the President which was publicly (and arrogantly) revealed yesterday in Politico.

It’s a quiet effort to make Trump conform to White House decision-making norms he’s flouted without making him feel shackled or out of the loop. In a conference call last week, Kelly initiated a new policymaking process in which just he and one other aide — White House staff secretary Rob Porter, a little-known but highly regarded Rhodes scholar who overlapped with Jared Kushner as an undergraduate at Harvard — will review all documents that cross the Resolute desk. 

The new system, laid out in two memos co-authored by Kelly and Porter and distributed to Cabinet members and White House staffers in recent days, is designed to ensure that the president won’t see any external policy documents, internal policy memos, agency reports and even news articles that haven’t been vetted. [Emphasis added]. Kelly’s deputy, Kristjen Nielson, is also expected to assume an integral role.

The "Kelly" alluded to in the Politico article is General John F. Kelly, Trump's newly-appointed Chief of Staff. Prior to his appointment, General Kelly served as Director of Homeland Security. And who is Kristjen Nielson, the staffer who is "expected to assume an integral role" in controlling the information that reaches the President? She is, among other things, Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Risk and Resilience. In other words, Kristjen Nielson is a thorough-going Globalist. All of the people named in the Politico piece (as well as many other key administration appointees) are integral parts of "The Swamp" that Trump promised to drain and they have a mission.

This White House Fifth Column's ill-concealed goal is to destroy Trump's relationship with the people who elected him by creating anger and a feeling of resigned hopelessness. The tactic has the potential to be spectacularly successful. I'm embarrassed to offer in evidence as Exhibit "A" my own initial reaction to Trump's Afghanistan speech (see my last blog post). 

Regular visitors to this page know that I have been a Trump supporter from the start of his campaign. Whatever his imperfections might be, I liked him because he was NOT an Establishment politician. He promised to "drain the swamp", ridding us of the corrupt revolving-door network of professional politicians, bureaucrats, judges, contractors, and lobbyists that robs us blind as it systematically demolishes what little remains of our constitutional republic. Trump's commitment to ending senseless, unwarranted and frequently illegal military interventions around the world was important to me.

Just to be clear on this last point, I am emphatically not a pacifist. I served this nation under arms for five years as a member of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 7th Infantry Division, and the XVIII Airborne Corps. I did two tours in Korea. Close friends of mine have died in combat. Two of my sons are retired career military men who served in war zones stretching from the former Yugoslavia to Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe that defense of the nation and her people is among Washington's most important responsibilities. I also believe that sending brave young Americans off to die in worthless wars is among its most egregious failures.

“The destructive cycle of intervention and chaos must finally come to an end,” Candidate Trump proclaimed, promising that the United States would be pulling back from conflicts around the world that are not in America’s vital national interest. Then came the President's disastrous August 21st speech announcing what was billed as a "new" approach to win the war in Afghanistan, completely reversing his anti-interventionist campaign promises.

On cue, just as planned by the White House Fifth Column, I and many others reacted with fury to the President's Afghanistan policy speech for the reasons outlined in David Stockman's brilliant article. Stockman is two-term former Congressman who served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan. As he passionately (and accurately) asks:

...for crying out loud – don’t these fools recognize that it is their bombs, missiles, drones and door-busting troops which have created most of the world’s terrorists? And that until Washington stops raining death from the sea, sky and land, the supply of fanatical young men in black turbans toting lethal weapons or wearing suicide vests will not diminish.

The President's apparent failure to understand the linkage between cause and effect was not the most troubling aspect of the speech. Its text was filled with misinformation, disinformation, half-truths and outright lies, all obtained through the advisors who have gained control of the Administration's military and diplomatic machinery and are now driving the nation into disaster at high speed.

On this blog, the day after the speech, I accused the President of betraying the millions of Americans who had voted him into office and theorized that there were only four possible explanations for his behavior:

1. The President has grown in office and learned that his campaign promises were wrong.
2. The President is being blackmailed.
3. The President and/or his family are being threatened with physical harm.
4. The entire Trump drama was fraudulent from the beginning, a fiendishly clever Deep State "black op" intended to demoralize public opposition to Globalism.

I wrote that I was going with number 4 because of Occam's razor. "The simplest explanation is usually correct."

Upon reflection and further investigation, there is a fifth possibility, one that provides an even more likely explanation. Like most successful executives, Donald Trump achieved his success as a delegator, not a hands-on "doer". Successful executives surround themselves with the most qualified experts they can find and rely upon them to make day-to-day decisions and to formulate decision options for the executive's consideration at the policy level. As his critics are quick to point out, Donald Trump had no previous experience in government as an executive. Understandably, he decided to apply the same formula that worked so well for him in the business world to the Presidency; hire the best possible experts and put them to work.

Trump's problem was that he needed experts in complex and unfamiliar fields of federal government policy. He instructed his campaign team to find those experts and, as this article explains, "Trump Team's Go-To Vetting Process Was 'A Quick Google Search'". Not surprisingly, Google's "best possible experts in the fields of federal government policy" all turned out be denizens of "The Swamp".

This would be funny if the result was not so tragic. While the fifth possibility does not put us or the world in a better situation, it does at least offer some hope that Donald Trump is simply an honest man who has been trapped by his decision formula and dishonest advisors. Unfortunately, the explanation does not provide a clear path to a peaceful solution.

If you agree and love our nation, please forward a link to this post to everyone you know.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest. 

Trump Morphs Into a Swamp Creature Before Our Eyes!

The President's speech last night committed the U.S. to continue its pointless and obviously unwinnable 18-year war of occupation in Afghanistan. That continued attempt at nation building is only the latest in what has become a serial abandonment of Trump campaign promises.

The President's new hostility toward Russia, his continued support of Washington's aggression in Syria and Yemen, his abject surrender on raising the national debt and his impending "compromise" on immigration are clear signals that we who supported him have been betrayed and that the White House is firmly in Establishment hands.

This is a tragedy of immense importance. Trump has thrust a dagger into the hearts of loyal supporters who've hung with him despite frequent and bewildering changes in positions he articulated so passionately and convincingly during the campaign. The immigration "compromise" to be announced within the next few days should finally do it for even his most devoted remaining supporters. Their spurned fury will stun the GOP and shake the Establishment to its foundations.

Only a few "explanations" of Trump's behavior are possible:

1. The President has grown in office and learned that his campaign promises were wrong.
2. The President is being blackmailed.
3. The President and/or his family are being threatened with physical harm.
4. The entire Trump drama was fraudulent from the beginning, a fiendishly clever Deep State "black op" intended to demoralize public opposition to Globalism.

I'm going with number 4 because of Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is usually correct.

It's almost as though someone sat down and designed a Candidate Trump from scratch, building the candidate's image to appeal to Americans with traditional values. That's not as preposterous as it might sound at first blush. Consider the President's "evolving positions" on just a few hot-button issues.

Abortion: For most of his public life, Trump proclaimed he was “very pro-choice”, once telling NBC’s Tim Russert that he would even uphold "partial birth abortions." Candidate Trump became pro-Life.

Gun Control: Before he began campaigning for president, Donald Trump said he supported assault weapons bans and a waiting period for gun purchases. In his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, he criticized National Rifle Association members who “walk the line” and “don’t look into firearms restrictions.” Candidate Trump became an ardent defender of the Second Amendment.

"Gay" Rights: In 1999, Trump sat down with Tim Russert for an interview on "Meet the Press" in which he said that allowing gay people to serve in the military "would not disturb me." As President, he banned so-called "transgender people" from serving in the military in any capacity.

The Establishment has either badly underestimated the public's reaction to its betrayal or it is hoping for a reaction sufficiently violent to justify the imposition of martial law.  Make no mistake; the Deep State is driving this train. Watch Phoenix tonight but, whatever happens, do not despair. The American people are resilient, there's more than one way to skin a cat and the Establishment's operators aren't nearly as smart as they imagine themselves to be.

If you agree and love our nation, please forward a link to this post to everyone you know.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest. 

America's Future Hangs in the Balance!

The threat we face was first described with chilling prescience by George Orwell. Now Establishment criminals are using Antifa and Black Lives Matter street mobs to bring his dark vision of the future into being.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nothing less than the survival of the nation and, indeed, the whole of Western civilization is at stake. We must defeat these animals now using any necessary means. If we fail to do so, America's true legacy will be destroyed, history will be erased, human liberty will be lost, and our children, grandchildren and all future generations will die as slaves in a deliberately-created Third World Hell Hole built upon the ashes of the old Republic.

If you agree and love our nation, please forward a link to this post to everyone you know.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest. 

The Establishment's New Public Enemy Number One: Straight White Christian Men

If you are a white Christian male who believes in God, the importance of the nuclear family, the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, traditional morality, national sovereignty, the Second Amendment, and limited government, you--and not Donald Trump--are the real target of the 24/7 hate campaign by Establishment media outlets to demonize the President and drive him from office.

The hysterical reaction to Trump's election was not driven by fear of him as a person. However, Trump's improbable victory, despite a never-ending blizzard of distortion, misinformation, half-truths and outright lies by Establishment media outlets, signaled a loss of control. That loss of control poses an existential threat to the Establishment's hold on power.

To understand the "why" behind what really happened in Charlottesville, it is first necessary to understand the difference between a state and a nation. Generations have been taught that state and nation mean the same thing. They do not.

• A state is a self-governing political entity of man's creation.
• A nation is a tightly-knit group of people that share a common history, ethnicity, geography, language, and culture.

Establishment efforts to destroy America's national culture have not been limited to the political and legal arenas. Media and educational establishments have engaged in decades-long propaganda and re-education campaigns extolling the virtues of "diversity" while demonizing positive references to the majority's national culture, including its Western European ethnic origins, as "racism". The current ahistoric propaganda campaign against the Confederate Flag is a case in point. The Establishment goal is to remove public display of this flag and all Confederate symbols, not because they are "symbols of hate" (which they are not not), but because they are symbols of resistance to unlawful Establishment power.

The Establishment has for decades deceived the American people into believing that their political state (the country of the United States) was under attack when, in fact, the Establishment has been using the political state to destroy the American nation. Trump's victory signals the awakening of an unexpectedly powerful remnant of the American nation, a result that threatens to thwart the Establishment's goal of total control. To attain the goal, that remnant must be destroyed or silenced and the Establishment has launched a desperate effort to do just that, putting you squarely in the crosshairs.

Judging from the ever-increasing absurdity of public statements issued by its personalities and the hyper-aggressive efforts to silence its opposition by overtly censoring content and public comments on FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and popular alternative media Web Sites, the state of Establishment panic is rapidly approaching the point of no return.

The pace and trajectory of events suggest that something major (a political assassination, a mass casualty incident, the outbreak of large scale war, a coup d’état, the imposition of martial law) lies just ahead.  The next few days and weeks may well be critical. I believe that one would be well advised to avoid large crowds and public gatherings.

Pray. Be alert. Stay safe.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest.  

We are one miscalculation away from a war of unimaginable proportions.

The Cost of Empire

We are standing at the doorway of a very dark place. 

North Korea's Kim is a dictator—but he’s not crazy. After witnessing the systematic destruction of the governments of Libya, Iraq, the Ukraine, etc., he has probably figured out that the only way he’s going to avoid the fatal experience of a U.S.-engineered “regime change” is to own a credible nuclear deterrent and demonstrate that he’s not afraid to use it if necessary. The Iranian Mullahs, by the way, appear to have arrived at the same entirely rational conclusion.

North Korea is NOT the “real problem”. The real problem is the Washington War Party, an alliance of Empire-building neo-conservative “Republicans” and “indispensible nation” “Democrats”, who are now operating openly under the just-announced “Alliance for Securing Democracy” label. See this Washington Post article for detail. The “Alliance” is actually a reincarnation of the Bush-era “Project for a New American Century”. You may have seen a link to this foundational PNAC piece that was published here some time ago. If you didn't and would like to see it, you can still download a copy from here. You might want to do so quickly because the links seem to be disappearing. Be advised that this is a 90-page long PDF file.

These people are insanely evil war criminals. They are responsible for instigating the violence that has killed more than a million non-combatants (many of them women and children) in the pursuit of global Empire, a pursuit that now threatens to ignite nuclear war. The drive for Empire started earlier, but let’s begin with Bill Clinton’s attack on Serbia in March 1999. Good Democrats are always shocked to learn that both Clintons have always been joined at the hip with the Republican “neo-cons” in the Empire-building enterprise but that is demonstrably the case.

The push to expand the Empire then spread across the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Yemen) into North Africa (Somalia, Egypt, the Sudan, Libya) and up to the Ukraine, the democratically-elected government of which was overthrown in February 2014 in an operation jointly spearheaded by Senator John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Hillary’s Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland. These people are so arrogant and contemptuous of the American people’s ignorance and naiveté that they seem not to care that there is a recorded Nuland telephone conversation (caution: crude language) plotting the make-up of the “new” Ukrainian government. Democrat operative Nuland happens to be married to Republican Robert Kagan, a prominent neo-conservative war monger. How very bi-partisan of them!

For more than a hundred years, the American people have been conditioned to believe that “American Exceptionalism” requires the U.S. to impose its views on other nations, always in the defense of “democracy”, “freedom”, or “our way of life”. Whenever a Republican neo-conservative utters the words, “American Exceptionalism” it is time to look for the exits because trouble is in the offing. To oppose this hubristic notion is to invite accusations of “isolationism”, the most deadly sin in the War Party’s taxonomy. If we minded our own business and allowed people to govern themselves, there would no doubt still be violence but it would not be violence of our making. As you know, I’m no pacifist. I certainly favor maintaining a military strong enough to defend the population and national territory of the U.S., but that does NOT extend to imposing the Empire’s authority on others by force of arms. It has been my observation that when one nation attacks another, bombs its cities, kills its residents, and overthrows its government, the survivors tend to look for revenge. It seems simple enough.

Washington should exercise extreme caution. I remember August 4, 1964 as though it was yesterday. I was driving into Fort Bragg when a morning radio newscaster breathlessly announced that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had fired on the U.S destroyers, Tuner Joy and Maddox. The Vietnam War was on. Now, 53 years, 50,000 Americans, and millions of Vietnamese dead later, we know that the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" was a complete lie. This matters because the U.S. government has a well-documented history of using False Flag incidents as a pretext for war (the Tonkin Gulf incident, Iraq’s non-existent WMD threat, “Operation Northwoods”, etc.).

Yesterday China announced that it would remain neutral in a new Korean war—but only if the U.S. does not strike first. The Korean confrontation takes place as the Washington Establishment's demonization campaign against Russia reaches fever pitch, with the U.S. moving troops, equipment, and supplies to the Russian boarder. Putin is not Saddam Hussein and Russia is not Iraq. Putin is likely to act preemptively if he feels an attack on Russia is imminent and a False Flag attack would almost certainly trip that trigger.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest.  

Another Memorial Day

Yesterday I joined the officially-estimated 50,000 people attending the Memorial Day "Celebration at the Station" in Kansas City.

The weather was perfect, the music wonderful, and the post-celebration fireworks spectacular. The crowd's mood was respectfully celebratory save for a somber moment when photos of several young area men killed in action since 2001 were displayed on two large HiDef screens.

I watched with growing fury as the pageant's official spokesman made the standard obligatory references to the "heroic sacrifices of these brave men who died defending our freedom". That these men were brave goes without saying and I'm certain that at the beginning of their service they truly believed they were defending our freedom. At one time I believed it too. The bitter truth is that every American soldier killed in action since 2001 died as a direct result of Washington's Official Lies and everyone in Official Washington and its enabling national media establishment knows it.

This morning, Senator John McCain called Russia a "bigger threat to global security" than ISIS and called Russia' s President Vladimir Putin a "thug and a murderer", echoing the meme that demonstrates just how thoroughly the Washington Establishment has absorbed and is now applying lessons learned from the tyrannical regimes with dreams of Empire that preceded it.

“The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. The public will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened”.  – Josef Stalin, Dictator of the Soviet Union

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” – Hermann Goring, Nazi Gestapo Founder

Since September 11, 2001, Washington has bombed Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan. It has overthrown the democratically elected President of the Ukraine in 2014 and its agents initiated the completely illegal effort to overthrow Syria's President Assad. Assad's was the only government in the region protecting Christians and other religious minorities from Sunni fanatics.

"Republican" Senator John McCain and "Democrat" Hillary Clinton's Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland orchestratred and directed the Ukrainian coup d'etat and McCain and Clinton were heavily involved in standing up, arming, and supporting the so-called "Syrian Free Army", a rag-tag gang of Sunni thugs and former al Qaeda members responsible for the violence occuring in Syria today. In that time, be it noted, Russia has attacked and invaded no one, Washington's self-serving and false characterizations of events in Crimea not withstanding.

Senator John McCain is the poster boy for the nation and freedom destroying cancer of Washington-sponsored aggression. He is the very embodiment of evil with the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children on his hands, including the blood of thousands of American soldiers. For Criminal McCain to call anyone else "a thug and a murderer" is a crime against truth and reason, an odious projection of his own faults. He and his fellow war criminals are busily about, preparing for their next wars. For them, it is a "target rich" environment. The occupation of Russia is the ultimate goal.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest.  

Time for Grandpa Crawford's Lesson

The duly elected President of the United States and the Constitutional structure of our government are under attack by traitorous criminals in both wings of the Washington Party, the national news media, and members of the judiciary. We are in the midst of nothing less than an attempted coup d'etat, a blatant and arrogantly overt effort to subvert the Constitution and impose the agenda of collectivist thugs who intend to destroy the country and subjugate its population.

This is an organized orchestrated assault by an army of bullying thugs, in and out of government. The assailants include political bullies like Chuck Schumer and John McCain, judicial tyrants like those of the 9th Circuit, direct action mobs like Obama's OFA and Black Lives Matter street thugs, and virtually every national news and entertainment media outlet. The attackers are immoral criminals and deserve to be treated as such. Instead, they are allowed to continue, regardless of the law and public outrage. How can this be?

It's very simple. There is no downside for the aggressors. They experience neither pain nor penalty for their behavior. We must change this result!

Many years ago as an enlisted man I took a solemn oath. Millions more have done so since. That oath is as follows:

(a) Enlistment Oath.— Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:

"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

That oath has no expiration date and it is now time to fulfill it. We must put all those participating in the effort to overthrow the President on notice that they pose an existential threat to peace and freedom and, if they persist, they should not expect to die a natural death.

Many Americans have been so thoroughly conditioned that the very thought of self-defense is alien, repugnant, and perhaps impossible. How could it be otherwise? By now generations have been taught that to physically resist an attack by a school yard bully is to earn a suspension. “No tolerance” policies make no distinction between aggressor and victim. Self-defense requires the use of force and that is not to be allowed. Toy guns—even pictures of guns—are forbidden by imbecilic administrators and school boards across the country. “Dodge ball” is banned because it encourages aggressive behavior.

I never knew how much formal education he had, but my Grandpa, Francis Marion Crawford, was one of the smartest men I have ever known. He was named after "The Swamp Fox", the American Revolutionary War General who led a band of irregular fighters against Cornwallis in the swamps of South Carolina and is generally identified as the Father of Guerilla Warfare. Grandpa knew things that most people had long since forgotten, important things, like how to shoot, how to hunt, what plants one could safely eat in the woods, and how one could catch a fish using string and a safety pin if all else failed.

He was a gentle man and I never once heard him raise his voice in anger. The closest I can recall occurred when I was about five. Grandpa and Grandma lived on a farm on the edge of the woods. He was teaching me how to shoot his Remington .22 bolt action rifle, targeting tin cans in the driveway. Grandma heard the shooting and stepped out on the porch. "Do you think his mother would approve of this?" she asked with concern in her voice. Grandpa never looked up or changed his tone. He just said quietly--and not at all  unkindly, "Go back in the house, Woman. This is important." Today's Gods of Political Correctness would not have been pleased but Grandma did so without objection.

I was by far the smallest child in my kindergarten class, quite near sighted and equipped with thick wire-rimmed glasses without which I was as blind as a bat. Think "Ralphie" of the Christmas Story. To top it off, it was my great misfortune to be named "Francis", (a "girl's name" or so my tormenters would falsely taunt) at the very moment the movie "Francis the Talking Mule" became popular. By the time first grade rolled around, I was a favorite target of school yard bullies, often reporting home with a bloody nose and broken glasses.

Then one sunny September Saturday morning after a particularly rough week, Grandpa Crawford called me aside to teach me what would prove to be one of the most important lessons of my life. "Francis," he said quietly, "there is a very important difference between the sport of boxing and a fight. In the sport of boxing, there are rules that must be followed. A fight is not a sport and there are no rules."

"What do you mean, Grandpa?" I was genuinely puzzled.

He smiled. "The next time a bully intends to do you harm and you KNOW he's going to hit you, I want you to double up your fist and hit him on the end of his nose just as hard as you can."

"You want me to START a fight?" I was incredulous. My Mom (Grandpa's daughter) had taught me never to start a fight and she had been quite firm about it.

"No, Francis," he said with a smile, "if you do this right, there won't be a fight."

As it happened, Butchie Halstead, the biggest bully in Arlington, accosted me on my way back to
class at recess on the very next Monday. For no reason at all, he offered to "beat the crap out of me". Butchie was at least a head taller than me and had already acquired a reputation of being "meaner than hell." I was terrified, but somehow I summoned my courage and, as Butchie approached with a practiced expression of sneering confidence on his face, I swung an overhand right that had every one of my 40 plus pounds behind it. The punch landed squarely on the end of his nose with a satisfying crunch and blood flew everywhere. Butchie staggered and ran off bleeding wearing an expression of total shock. He never bothered me again.

The next time I saw Grandpa, after making sure my mom wasn't within ear shot, I told him what had happened. "I'm not surprised," he said. "Most bullies are cowards. They are bullies because there is no downside for them. No one will stand up to them so they continue to get away with it. When they run into someone who understands that the first punch usually wins the fight, they'll fold like a cheap suit. Never forget that."

I never have.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. Please bookmark this link, forward it to others, and return often. Thank you for your interest. 

The Establishment's Ultimate Non-Surprise!

Seoul, The Day After

The content of this post was written and first appeared here more than two years ago on July 3, 2014. Given the current trajectory of events, it seems timely to run it again.
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At 11:05 New York time on the morning of Monday, July 7, 2014, the Liberian-flagged freighter Alimar and its mostly Bosnian 14-man crew steamed steadily northward in choppy seas forty miles off the coast of New York. Three hundred miles above the stratosphere, the Kwangmyongsong 3 satellite approached what would be its final destination over Indianapolis. It tumbled in a sun-synchronis polar orbit as it had since its launch eighteen months earlier. At the same time, in a sweltering shack seven thousand miles away, North Korean Senior Colonel Dae-Ho Yun chain smoked and paced nervously. His attention was divided between the wall clock's minute hand and the field phone atop his Artillery Corps command headquarters desk. 

The Kwangmyongsong 3 weighed nearly 200 pounds and was roughly the size of an apartment-sized washing machine. When its fission payload detonated at 10:11 a.m. local time in broad daylight more than 300 miles above Indianapolis the flash that accompanied the resulting explosion was barely noticeable from the ground. The event certainly did not escape the attention of Captain Kevin Reynolds, Duty Officer for the North American Aerospace Defense Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. He reached quickly for the red telephone--but it was already much too late.  

Although U.S. Defense Department Officials claimed that the low yield of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons' tests was evidence of failure, they were either spectacularly wrong or deliberately deceptive. North Korea was intent on developing a Hegemon-killing "Super EMP" weapon, not a mere atomic bomb. Instead of wasting the weapon's power in the generation of explosive blast, heat, and light, energy was diverted to produce a gamma ray pulse more powerful than would have been produced by a much larger thermonuclear fusion device in the multi-megaton range. Upon detonation, every electronic device between the Front Range of the Rockies and the Atlantic not shielded by a Faraday Cage was rendered instantly and permanently inoperable.

At eleven minutes after midnight local time, forty miles north of Seoul, a grim-faced Senior Colonel Dae-Ho Yun strode to his desk, extracted a silenced Makarov pistol from the center drawer, and efficiently shot dead the two non-commissioned headquarters clerks working at their desks. He picked up the field phone, barked out a terse two-word command, and then sprinted from the headquarters building toward shelter. Two minutes later, hundreds of NKPA M-1978 KOKSAN 170 millimeter self-propelled guns and MRL240 M-1985 rocket launchers launched a fire storm of high explosive death at the rate of 350 shells per minute on the 24 million unfortunate people of Seoul and the more than 5,000 American 2nd Infantry Division troops garrisoned just south of the DMZ at Camp Casey. Most of the Americans were sound asleep when they died. 

At 11:11 a.m. New York Time an Iskander missile was launched from the highly modified deck of the Alimar. Fifteen seconds later the Alimar and her unsuspecting crew ceased to exist, vaporized in a blinding flash so powerful that it registered briefly on NORAD satellite instruments. It took slightly less than thirty-one seconds for the Iskander to reach Manhattan at Mach 7. The 50-kiloton warhead detonated in the middle of the trading day at an altitude of 300 feet and killed every living person within one mile in all directions. Virtually all structures within a circle two and one-half miles wide were destroyed. Everyone within two miles of ground zero who survived the air blast suffered 2nd and 3rd degree burns.

Much of the financial, communications, employment, manufacturing and agricultural capacity of the United States was completely destroyed and it effectively ceased to exist as a functioning nation-state--all in the span of less than two minutes.

The oligarchs who run the world are frightened. People are awakening, the world's economies are crumbling, and the old lies don't seem to be working any more. As anyone who's hunted big game or spent much time in the woods will tell you, a wounded predator is a dangerous predator. Whether it is the scenario described above or an alternate to played out in the Ukraine or the Middle East, the accelerated flow of events and the increasingly desperate tone of establishment figure heads combine to suggest that a significant trigger is about to be tripped. The oligarchs need to divert public anger.

Buckle up.


FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. Please bookmark this link, forward it to others, and return often. Thank you for your interest. 

A Most Deadly Betrayal

Whatever You Do, Do NOT Look at the Flash!

Occam's Razor should be employed when it comes to the Trump attack on Syria: the simplest explanation is usually best.

This is a very difficult post for me to write. It appears that I was wrong. As regular visitors to this site know, I have been among Donald Trump's strongest supporters from the beginning of his campaign. Although I certainly hope that the optimism many of his supporters continue to express proves to be justified, the concern that has developed among many of us is prompted by much more than the cruise missile attack on Syria. There is a pattern of disturbing behavior that goes far beyond that.

1. The President has filled his Cabinet and inner circle with Goldman Sach's alumni and neoconservative war hawks who now appear to be in complete control of U.S. defense and foreign policy.
2. He was far too quick to accept a "deal" to replace ObamaCare with an even worse federally-controlled scheme put forward by Republican denizens of the "Swamp" he promised to drain..
3. He has increased U.S. military support of Saudi aggression in Yemen, authorizing an escalating number of air strikes against the Houthis.
4. He has maintained the totally unjustified "sanctions" against Russia, sanctions which comprise an act of economic warfare.
5. He has failed to inform the American people of U.S. involvement in the February 2014 overthrow of the elected government of the Ukraine, led by none other than the despicable John McCain and the harpy, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton's Under Secretary of State. This failure implicitly gives credence to the false "Russian aggression" meme which is being drummed into the American public consciousness 24/7 by the bi-partisan establishment war party. 
6. With respect to Syria, he has failed to inform the American people that under the Obama administration, the U.S. stood up, equipped, trained, and directed the so-called "Syrian Free Army" and is responsible for the years of war there. Although Assad is certainly an autocrat (on about the same level as our ally, the "King" of Jordan) when compared to the hideous regime in Saudi Arabia (also our "ally"), Assad is a virtual Captain Kangaroo.
7. Also with respect to Syria, Trump's UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, has now twice stated that removal of Assad is now a U.S. policy objective. This is exactly the kind of "regime change" operation that candidate Trump promised never to do!

Whatever rationalizations are presented to defend the President's actions, it is simply undeniable that the U.S. has no legitimate national interests in Syria. Neither the U.S. government or the President, acting alone, has the slightest constitutional or moral authority to attack another sovereign nation that has not attacked us. To do so is, by definition, a violation of international law and the Constitution.

One wonders if Trump will now drop the other shoe on the Korean peninsula. As one who spent two tours of duty there many years ago, I devoutly hope that he does not. Unfortunately, this morning’s media reports are not reassuring. This from The Guardian.

As the US navy deployed a strike group towards the western Pacific Ocean, to provide a presence near the Korean peninsula, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said China agrees with the Trump administration that “action has to be taken” regarding North Korea.

Given the direction things are heading, it seems likely that the next "news" come out of Washington will be approximately one of the following:

• Announcement of a "surgical strike" on the residence of the evil North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un.
• An expression of outrage over an alleged air strike by unidentified planes on the U.S.S. Ross and the U.S. Porter in the eastern Mediterranean.
• An expression of outrage over an alleged shoot-down of a U.S. military aircraft operating over Syria by Russian or Syrian ground-based, sea-based, or air-based forces.

The people of the United States and of the world are in a very bad place. Let us pray.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest.  

Facts Everyone Should Know About Hospital Insurance and Access to Primary Medical Care

Here are a few facts that should be understood and considered by all involved in the discussion about replacing the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare").

Our “health care” system is insurance-centered, not patient-centered.  “Obamacare” was designed to sell hospital insurance. So is its official Republican-sponsored replacement.

“Health care” is a made-up term coined in the 1940s after employers begin to offer hospital insurance as a benefit to get around war time wage and price controls. Until then, most Americans did not have hospital insurance.

The term “health care” conflates insurance costs with medical and hospital service costs, effectively hiding the fact that the insurance-based “Third Party Payment System” (Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross and Commercial Insurers) is directly responsible for at least 40% of today’s “health care” costs. Hospital insurance does not provide medical care.

The insurance-based “Third Party Payment System” (Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross and Commercial Insurers) has been distorting the market for more than half a century and is directly responsible for at least 40% of today’s “health care” costs. If the Third Party Payment System did not exist, the real cost of medical and hospital care would plummet.

Between 1960 and 2014, the portion of U.S. “healthcare” expenses paid:

• By consumers decreased from 48% to 11%.
• By government increased from 24% to 49%.
• By private insurance increased from 21% to 33%.

Every federal intervention in the payment system for the last 50 years has had the effect of hiding the cost of service from the people receiving that service. When potential consumers of a highly desirable service are shielded from its cost, demand for that service will increase exponentially as this graph demonstrates conclusively. 

Note: The clueless official caption proves that CMMS should not be in charge of anything.

 The average 30-year old will pay $9,156.38 out-of-pocket in premiums and deductibles per year before the insurance-based system pays one penny.

In any given year, only 1 in 4 Americans will incur medical expenses greater than what they pay for hospital insurance. For those under 50, the odds against incurring that much in medical expenses are even greater.

In a free market, when the costs of a service outweigh its benefit, consumers of that service will use other options.

The Third Party Payer System has priced itself out of the primary care market. For most people primary care insurance is a bad bet. Most would be better off to save the premium and pay out of pocket. However, everyone should be encouraged to voluntarily maintain catastrophic coverage to protect against the cost of a major illness or injury.

FJB

This site is not affiliated with any political party. Its goals are to advocate for individual liberty, traditional morality, and domestic peace and to resist all forms of tyranny and statism. It reflects the point of view of a life-long constitutionalist and recovering Republican. If you are among the millions trying to understand what has happened to the GOP, please visit "Who Killed the Republican Party?" If you agree with the content of this post, please feel free to print and distribute it or forward the link to your political representatives at the state and federal level Thank you for your interest.