This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Poetrooper

  • Planned Parenthood’s chop shops

    One reason it is so difficult to recover stolen cars is that many, if not most, are not stolen to be sold intact but rather to be taken to what are called chop shops, below-the-radar auto body shops that surreptitiously dismantle these vehicles, stripping away every conceivable part that may have resale value in the auto aftermarket. An automobile carefully dissected provides far more value from all those separate parts than it could ever have in its whole form.

    And sadly, such appears to be true with unborn babies. For the past two weeks we have been serially exposed to videos of various officials in the Planned Parenthood organization, some physicians and some not, who have been captured for all time, blithely discussing the means and details of how a fetus delivered into their hands through a government sanctioned abortion program can be carved up, dissected and dismantled, just like those cars in the chop shops, and for the very same purpose, to be sold for its high value parts.

    For Democrat liberals and their mainstream media public relations arm, who will quickly protest that these fetal fragments of what was once a developing human being are not viable human tissue, I would ask a simple question: If the whole of this little being was not viable, then how is it that its tiny parts are? How is it that if fetuses have no value their tender bodies are being routinely dissected and sold for parts, just like in the auto chops shops? You can’t have it both ways, if those parts have value, then the whole from which they came, most assuredly did as well. I would submit that in this case most especially that those tiny wholes are greater than the sum of their parts.

    What is truly frightening about these continually unreeling videos is the blithe, unconcerned attitude of the Planned Parenthood officials in their discussions of the systematic dismantling of miniature human bodies with such care as to not damage the various parts to be obtained for resale. Their expressed concern for the care with which these parts must be handled in the dissection process is delivered in an offhand manner which one imagines was that of those Japanese physicians who observed American POW’s being deliberately frozen to death to determine ways to improve the survivability rate of their own downed aviators; or perhaps the distanced concern of Nazi physicians watching Jewish prisoners being tied to posts and shot with weapons of various calibers so that they could immediately examine the varied damages.

    Planned Parenthood’s physicians can attempt to hide behind the lie that they do not abuse live human beings such as the Japanese and German medical researcher’s did, but that begs the question of whether or not those little humans they chop up for parts would be alive were they left alone to fully develop? Crude as I must be to point out this reality, I am nowhere near as crude as Planned Parenthood’s medical staff, which for all practical purposes is operating a human chop shop.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • No Teleprompter Trump

    No Teleprompter Trump

    Say what you will about the Donald – the man is never at a loss to express what’s churning around in that poorly coiffed skull. It simply flows, freely and naturally, unfearful of media consequences, in a manner that is quickly captivating large numbers of American voters who are sick unto death of mealy-mouthed politicians who parse every word of spontaneous speech for fear that they may say something that the lurking media will pounce upon.

    I have been saying for years here at American Thinker that the real enemy of free speech, especially conservative speech, is the liberal media, a force so powerful and influential for only one side of the political spectrum that Republicans and conservatives have grown to fear it, while Democrats look upon it as their servile public affairs department. Because of that hostile media environment, Republicans have become far too wary of opening up and speaking their minds, comfortable only in conveying their views and positions when leaning on a speaker’s stand and reading from a teleprompter.

    For the life of me, I can’t even imagine Donald Trump using such a constraining instrument as a teleprompter. The man is simply too freely expressive of whatever point it is that he wishes to make to be held back in his delivery by an electronic, computerized device that operates at far slower speed than Trump’s brain and mouth. I can envision Donald trying to do so, and when he finds the instrument falling behind, yelling at it with forefinger, stabbing, “You’re fired!”

    As this 2016 campaign progresses, it will be interesting to see who among the myriad Republican candidates will be able to match the fearless and refreshing spontaneity of No Teleprompter Trump.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Sinking CNN refloats the swift boats

    Sinking CNN refloats the swift boats

    In the media kerfuffle regarding Donald Trump’s stupid remarks about John McCain’s Vietnam service, the ratings-sinking CNN noted that while Jeb Bush had condemned Trump’s boorishness, he had long ago defended the swift boat veterans’ attacks against John Kerry. Had CNN been content to leave their news article with a passing reference to political history, I wouldn’t be writing this. But no, they just had to follow with a couple of pernicious lies that have long been poisonous serpents in that increasingly fetid swamp called the Democratic Party.

    From the article:

    All of the charges were contradicted by official military records and almost all of the men who served with Kerry came out in defense of their former crewmate, praising his courage. Only one of the swift boat critics served with Kerry.

    Kerry received several medals for his service in Vietnam, including several Purple Heart medals for injuries he sustained in combat.

    The CNN writer, perhaps a student at the time, apparently has no real knowledge of those records, or he would know that John Kerry cherry-picked for release those parts of his military records that were supportive of his heroic fairy tales, while refusing to open his entire records for media examination. When called out on that by the many men of the swift boat veterans organization who actually did serve with him – not the one man claimed by CNN – Kerry repeatedly promised to sign an authorization form allowing the Navy to release his full records. The operative words there are repeatedly promised. And then he promised again. And again, and again, and again and again, but guess what! It never happened throughout the course of the campaign, because John Kerry knew that what was in those records would torpedo his prospects as a presidential candidate.

    And what might that torpedo be? Most likely it was a dishonorable or other form of unfavorable discharge given to Lieutenant Kerry for his traitorous behaviors in treating with the enemy. Kerry was still a commissioned junior naval officer when he met with North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris in May 1970, an action that could have brought charges of treason and a lengthy prison sentence. During the 2004 campaign, there was speculation by those investigating Kerry’s discharge that Jimmy Carter had reversed Kerry’s bad discharge in 1977 and issued an honorable version. That would have been an unusually long time between an officer’s separation from service, 1970, and the issuance of his discharge in 1977.

    The fact that John Kerry to this day has never released his military records is quite telling when one considers the fact that upon losing the 2004 campaign, he vowed to sue the members of the swift boat veterans organization for defamation. After all, those sailors who had served with him in Vietnam had publicly challenged virtually every claim to valor and wounds that Kerry had made and ballyhooed during the campaign, effectively calling him a liar and a fraud, a candidate for president who had committed the later to come crime of stolen valor. Those were serious charges, and they were made quite prominently and quite publicly. Most importantly, they likely cost John Kerry the presidency of the United States of America.

    If those swift boat charges were untrue, then John Kerry had himself the biggest, most publicly and financially damaging case of defamation the world has ever seen. There were of course the lost prestige and the need for vindication of character and valor, but more importantly, think of the financial losses. Kerry’s lawyers could point to the tens, maybe hundreds of millions made by Slick Willie since he left office, using that as a template for determining monetary damages. John Kerry could have won the largest defamation lawsuit in history, except for one thing: discovery. In any defamation suit against the swift boat veterans, John Kerry knew full well that first among the documents subpoenaed by the lawyers for the swifties would be his full and entire military records.

    The primary defense against defamation, libel, or slander, any of those torts against demeaning and damaging a person’s character or performance, is truth. If what they say about you is true, then you can’t sue them successfully for saying so. John Kerry knew that not only was truth on the side of the swift boat veterans, but there might also be further disclosures in those records that he did not want to see made public. That has to be the only reason that John Kerry’s long-promised and repeatedly threatened lawsuit against the swift boat veterans never came to be.

    John Kerry is and was a phony hero. Of course, the fact that he lied about his military service and caused truly good and faithful sailors to be demonized by the liberal media actually qualifies him for heroic status in the Democrat party’s pantheon.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • How to formally arm our troops

    The terrorist organization known as ISIS has made it clear that a part of its jihadist war plan against America is carrying out so-called “lone wolf” attacks aimed primarily against members of our military and possibly their families. The attacks in Chattanooga by an apparent Islamic lone wolf are the latest result of that terror tactic. We can only guess as to what the future holds for American warriors and their families. We should not wait to find out.

    Our first step should be to end this foolishness of sending our military personnel out into harm’s way unarmed. ISIS cells and individuals operating in this country are well aware that military recruiters are sitting ducks in their glass-paned, storefront offices, as was made evident in Chattanooga. They also know something that most Americans do not: the incredible reality that our reserve and National Guard personnel serving in their armories and operations centers spread throughout this country also are unarmed when conducting their routine duties and training. There may be weapons present, but they are secured and signed out to personnel only when they are conducting combat preparation training within the boundaries of official military installations, or when they have been ordered into policing duties following community disasters, when armed looting prevention may be required.

    One of the first objections to allowing these military personnel to go armed, even from those serving, is that many, especially the newer troops, who are usually the youngest members as well, do not have the training in personal security defense to allow them to carry firearms safely. As some combat warriors have pointed out, even those who have served in combat zones are not necessarily trained in personal security in a working environment surrounded by unarmed civilians.

    Accepting that as true, why not train those who are potential targets of terrorist attacks in effective armed responses to such attacks? Completion of the initial training should be noted in their permanent records. Annual requalification training such as is now done for all arms training in the active forces should be a requirement to maintain their status as Personal Arms Qualified, or PAQ. This training should be uniform across all services – active duty, reserves, and National Guard – for those personnel whose duties place them at risk of terrorist acts. Importantly, PAQ should not be limited to off-base personnel. Every active unit should have most of its members qualified, with PAQ duty being rotated so that several troops are armed and on heightened alert at any given time. PAQ should permit service members to carry their weapons off post so that they are armed 24/7, affording protection to their families. States should be urged to accept PAQ as equal to their own permitting requirements for the carrying of weapons.

    Just as with the training, PAQ should be formalized across all services, with a universal qualification badge to be awarded and prominently worn by all service members on all service uniforms when their duties require them to go armed. Basic Personal Arms Qualification should probably involve sidearms only in its initial phase, with advanced training and qualifications in shoulder-fired automatic weapons to follow for key personnel so designated by their commanders. Such qualification could be shown by imposing crossed rifles on the PAQ badge or by other means. There should be a minimum of one person so qualified and so armed on duty at every off-post military work site when troops are present.

    When lone wolf or group attackers begin to be met with a full-on barrage of automatic return fire augmented by semi-automatic pistol fire from behind better fortified workplaces, their effectiveness and their lifespans will be greatly diminished.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • The new Israeli airspace

    One outcome of the Iran nuclear agreement that I’ve not heard any of the pundits mention is the beneficial effect it will likely have on Israeli combat aircraft’s egress to those fat nuclear targets in Iran they have circled in bright red in their deepest command bunkers. Remember all those past predictions of Israeli problems in finding clear air lanes into Iran because they would have to violate the airspace of multiple Middle Eastern countries to get from home base to targets? The dithering concerns were that no Arab countries would betray the faith by permitting those Jew devils to fly over their nations to attack another Muslim country.

    With the Obama capitulation to Iran virtually guaranteeing that Persian nation’s future status as a nuclear power, complete with nuclear arsenal, other Arab rulers have to be taking a long, hard look at how greatly they may benefit from ignoring the rapidly passing shadow of an Israeli air armada overflying their boundaries en route to Tehran and other strategic Persian targets. As of now, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Persian Gulf States all have to be weighing the cost/benefit of that scenario. And with the certainty that it is Iran, not Israel, that represents the greatest threat to their own continued sovereignty, it is easy to conclude that Israel could enjoy unencumbered attack routes all the way from takeoff to bombs away, even repeatedly as necessary to render Iran an irradiated, smoking, never-to-be-again threat to its Arab neighbors.

    Mind you, the Israelis likely have enough submarine-borne nukes to make old General Le May smile around his cigar when it comes to returning Iran to a condition predating recorded civilization. But any commander, and most surely Netanyahu, welcomes the multiple offensive options of sea/air operations.

    Those mullahs are chuckling into their beards about making the Great Satan and her feckless leader grovel before the world. For now…

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Forget guns, illegals kill with cars

    Forget guns, illegals kill with cars

    We’re hearing a lot about the unfortunate murder in San Francisco of an innocent woman by an illegal Mexican thug who had been arrested and charged with numerous crimes, then deported multiple times only to return to cap his criminal career with an irrational, cold-blooded murder. While Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez may be drawing a lot of media heat, he’s small beer when it comes to illegals maiming and killing innocent Americans in other ways.

    What the Obama administration and their sycophant media do not want you to realize is that the favored weapon of young male illegals is not a stolen handgun or a cheaply made switchblade knife, but a much larger instrument of mayhem and death. That would be the junker – an automobile nearing the end of its useful existence by American standards, but still utilitarian enough for a drunken, unlicensed, uninsured male illegal to drive through your community at high speed, without regard for the public welfare or any consideration of the huge harm he is capable of inflicting upon innocent American citizens. Those of us who may have the misfortune of entering an intersection simultaneously with this outlaw as he blows through it at double or triple the speed limit, against the light, will be lucky to survive the impact, and even more fortunate to ever learn who it was – who, in those few seconds, changed our whole world.

    Because, you see, while the dust is settling amid the reek of spilled gasoline and perhaps blood, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles strobe surrealistically, you and the first responders will be the only involved parties in the intersection. That illegal Mexican, Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, or whatever will be long departed, fleeing the scene at the same reckless speed and with the same abandon abandon that has you on a gurney sliding into the back of the ambulance. He has no insurance, much less a license to operate the vehicle that has so damnably and perhaps permanently altered your life. That of course is predicated on whether or not you are still in possession of that life, or whether it was taken from you with one violent impact by that thoroughly irresponsible young man, whom your president and the Democratic Party welcomed to this country and whom your city fathers granted unquestioned sanctuary.

    Welcome to Obama’s America, where every intersection has become a potential site for your random execution by an irresponsible, unlicensed young illegal immigrant getting the thrill of his life driving his beloved clunker at perilous speed, something he surely never had the chance to do in the small village that produced him (so he’s likely not even a competent driver). He also likely has no record and may even be a hardworking laborer for a landscaping business or something similar. All well and good until he climbs into that wreck he’s bought with his sweaty wages, and takes off hell-bent under the influence of drugs or alcohol. That young fool your president and the Democrats opened the gates for and welcomed in has now become a deadly threat to all of those in his path. One has to wonder: who are the bigger fools here?

    If you think I exaggerate, look at the news reports; Google the topic, and you will quickly find that those states with the highest rates of hit-and-run incidents are those states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. And it’s not like it hasn’t been reported previously here at American Thinker.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Our Debt to Our Valiant Few

    We are a nation whose all-volunteer military constitutes less than one percent of our total population. Yet those young men and women are called upon to fight continuing wars all around the globe to protect more than 300 million of the rest of us from the depredations of the savage wolves of Islamic terrorism. Consider those numbers this Memorial Day and then reflect upon those of our protectors who have given their lives in that endeavor. Then ponder how appropriate to our current times are the words of Winston Churchill when praising Britain’s Royal Air Force for fighting off the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain:

    Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

    So true then and so very true today — we, the many, owe a huge debt to the few, those valiant few sheepdogs who have laid down their lives in protecting their beloved flock.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Obama, Distrust, and the Armed Forces

    Obama, Distrust, and the Armed Forces

    I recently wrote a piece [at American Thinker] about the Jade Helm military operations scheduled to be conducted across large areas of the U.S. this summer. A few irresponsible conservative web sites are using these routine military training activities to frighten citizens in the selected areas into believing the federal government is planning an armed takeover of their locales. I warned in that previous article that neither the training operations nor the alarmed citizenry are anything new; the U.S. Army has conducted such training for decades and there has always been some civil protest. I made jumps into civilian areas and ran ops back in the 1960’s. But this time, through the wide reach of the Internet, the fear factor among the citizenry has been driven through the roof.

    I’m a conservative, registered Republican who has been a contributor of conservative themed articles here at American Thinker for a decade. I’m also a ground combat veteran of Vietnam who spent much of his post-college career marketing to the military, a job that took me to Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine installations all across the country and overseas. I have shared many meals and happy hours with enlisted personnel and officers, during which many frank, forthright discussions were held regarding politics and the political leadership of the times.

    Not once in almost five decades of my association with the military have I heard any serving member or veteran agree that he would take up arms against fellow Americans to impose the political will of a sitting president. Conversely, I’ve heard many times that an order to do so would be considered unlawful and refusable. When the Jade Helm article was cross-posted at my favorite soldiers’ blog, This Ain’t Hell, I was gratified to see that the majority of comments there, almost all from still-serving service members or veterans, validated that belief.

    That was in stark contrast to the reaction here at American Thinker. Comments here were almost universally negative with my denial that the operation was a federal takeover of Texas and Utah by Obama being heavily ridiculed. Even readers who normally post supportive comments on my writings, sometimes even thanking me for stating their views, called me a naïve fool and a dupe of the Obama administration. It was a bit of a downer until those military comments began coming in later at the soldier’s blog, reaffirming my faith in my fellow warriors. Clearly, distrust of Obama is very strong on both sites; the difference being the troops trust our troops.

    One of the evidentiary cudgels that was used on me here at AT was the militarization of local and state level police departments in recent years and how those forces, using military weapons would join with the military forces of Jade Helm to suppress, oppress, even imprison dissenters in Texas and Utah. I found that ironic in that I have written articles here in the past critical of this heavy arming of civilian law enforcement. On that topic, the primarily civilian readership here at AT and the military followers of TAH were in agreement that this practice needs to be curtailed. It was only some law enforcement officers at both sites who accused me of ignorance or treachery and even among that cohort, some LEO’s agreed with my premise.

    Today the Obama administration, in a move no doubt attributable to the increasing level of conflict between law enforcement and the black community, announced it will cease supplying certain surplus military weaponry, such as tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and grenade launchers among numerous other items including, for suspect reasons, bayonets. Some surplus weaponry already distributed may be recalled and future use of military weaponry may be restricted by federal guidelines. Of course, the administration is hiding behind the skirts of a federal commission that recommended these changes in federal policy after a lengthy study that was initiated after the Ferguson incident.

    If we Americans really want to get mad about something, shouldn’t it be the fact that the Obama administration was unresponsive to citizens’ concerns on militarization of local law enforcement until it became a black issue? For example I rather suspect that the inclusion of bayonets on the federal list of proscribed weapons is likely due more to the symbolism of rifles with fixed bayonets having been used in black riot control in the past than for any heightened lethality lent to police armories, an indicator of the real priorities of this administration as it winds to a close.

    When I wrote criticizing police militarization, many readers expressed concerns that those weapons would be used against the public in an Obama coup. What do you say now? Do you suppose Obama would quit arming local police departments with some of the most lethal and effective tools of civil suppression if he were planning future local takeovers? Wouldn’t he want those paramilitary police forces armed just as well as the troops they’ll be assisting once Jade Helm commences? OK, I know I’m asking for it with those questions so:

    Ready on the Left; ready on the Right; ready on the firing line; commence fire!

    Crossposted at American Thinker