Category: Politics

In an American Thinker article recounting the seriously negative effects the backlash boycott against Target’s open bathroom policies is having, a commenter named Maggie said this:

Let me get this right….a male CEO pretty much just told women it’s not ok to use the restroom at Target with reasonable peace of mind because a minor handful of men need to feel special…another example of men telling women it’s ok as long as it doesn’t affect them. Identify with this, ovarian cancer, uterine cysts, PMS, rape…I’m sorry but, why not ask 157 Million “WOMEN” how they feel about it rather than make a decision for all of us just so a miniscule percentage of men can identify. Angry.

Think about that: Target’s $28-million-a-year CEO, Brian Cornell, has handed every Republican candidate in this country who is accused of being a part of the so-called War on Women by his Democrat opponent a double-barreled 12-gauge response to that phony charge. Essentially, all such Republicans need to do is remind their audience or media interrogators of the negative financial impact of the Target CEO’s decision to involve his company in an increasingly bizarre and unpopular liberal socio-political campaign and then turn the charge right back on Democrats with Maggie’s excellent point: a male CEO can simply dictate to the millions of women in his customer base, without any attempt to solicit their opinions, that they must set aside their long held cultural beliefs and their sense of personal safety to accommodate a Democrat sponsored, microscopic percentage of men? That a small group of males whose confused and questionable sexual self-identification is considered a mental aberration by the larger population including many medical professionals is more important to Target than their millions of female customers?

Boom! That’s the first barrel.

The second barrel comes when the Republican points out that what Target is doing is not at all different from what our male Democrat president is doing by federal dictate, using the power of federal school funding to enact and enforce the identity-confused platform of the Democratic National Committee. The candidate should then state that it is his position that such decisions should be determined by local customs, at no higher level than the state, but absolutely without any federal or national political party input. And that should be followed with:

“So tell me: just which political party is waging social war on the women of America?

Boom! That’s the second barrel.

Obama’s misguided insistence on pushing this trans insanity and using federal education funding as a club to beat the states into compliance is a gift to the Republican Party in state and local races. There are millions of women out there like Maggie who are angry over having males cram this trannie issue down their throats, and Obama’s threatening their children’s school funding has to make them even more so. But Barack Obama has failed to heed his own advice: he’s brought a club to a gunfight. As soon as active campaigning starts, every Republican candidate should gratefully take Maggie’s 12-gauge in hand and start blasting.

Crossposted at American Thinker

As the Trump bandwagon rolls on and the parade grows behind it, there has to be a growing unease in many federal office buildings throughout the country that computers and file cabinets may contain emails and documents that could be used against them if Republicans take total control of the government. Even if a Trump justice department chose not to determine the truth about Fast and Furious, Benghazi and the IRS scandals and take prosecutorial action, a friendly administration might allow hundreds if not thousands of civil suits to be filed against federal departments and employees by citizens and organizations who consider themselves damaged by the Obama administration’s dishonesty and many abuses of power.

What if all those FOIA requests for documents and information that have been routinely stonewalled by multiple federal agencies and departments for the past eight years were suddenly honored by a Trump administration? Such an action could very well result in a treasure trove of culpability falling into the waiting hands of countless plaintiffs’ lawyers or even federal prosecutors. The thought of that happening has to be keeping some bureaucrats, as well as elected and appointed politicians, from sleeping too soundly as Trump’s election appears more possible with every passing day. You would have to be naïve beyond belief to not realize that there must be thousands or more of those individuals who are beginning to wonder just what’s in their files that could provide the rope that hangs them. And of course, the very next thought that follows that mental inventory is what can be done to get rid of the rope.

Trump could enhance his popularity immediately and immensely if he were to add to his stump speeches the promise that those in the Obama administration who have ignored the law or acted illegally on behalf of their political masters won’t necessarily be investigated for such actions by a Trump administration, but they will most certainly be prosecuted to the fullest extent if they attempt to obstruct justice by destroying official communications and records. He should cement that thought in their minds by reminding them that even if they destroy electronic and paper evidence in their personal possession, in this day and age, there are always copies of those records in other computers and file cabinets that inevitably will be found. And that evidence could very well provide the obstruction of justice rope they hang by. Trump should emphasize that even someone as powerful as Hillary can’t escape investigation for mishandling and likely destruction of official communications and documents; she may avoid prosecution perhaps, but then bureaucrats aren’t Hillary, with all that Clinton Teflon magic.

To absolutely mangle Dr. Samuel Johnson: The thought of your hanging by the next administration, should wonderfully concentrate the mind of a federal bureaucrat.

Crossposted at American Thinker

Chief Tango sends us a link to the Huffington Post entitled “7 Powerful Photos Of Military Moms Breastfeeding In Uniform“.

I’m wondering a bunch of things. First of all, what makes them “powerful”? It’s something that millions of women do each day, so what’s the big-damn-deal? Some of the kids in the pictures appear to be too old to be breast feeding – that’s kind of creepy.

I have to wonder how many times a day a woman has to breast feed her baby while in uniform in public? It doesn’t seem to me it’s that often. Are they taking their kids to work? To the field? On deployments? That would be powerful.

Some of the pictures were taken at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. What’s that about?

“I have learned that many active duty moms are struggling to find support to continue nursing and pumping once they return to work full-time,” [photographer Vanessa] Simmons told The Huffington Post.

Simmons is the founder of “Normalize Breastfeeding” which is another of those organizations which think they have an issue. I don’t know how you cannot “normalize” something that our “Creator” endowed half of us with the ability to accomplish. Seems a lot more normal than some of the other behavior that is being being “normalized” these days.

With this series, Simmons wants viewers to see the beauty and power in military moms breastfeeding.

“I hope that others recognize the difficulty at hand for every mother to breastfeed their baby, yet I also hope that they see the strength of the women who serve our country while serving their families simultaneously,” she said.

“I am inspired by their stories, I am impressed by their bravery in the midst of mothering, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to share the images that I have captured,” she added.

It seems to me that Simmons is trying to politicize the issue instead of normalizing it. I guess “powerful”, “bravery” and “beauty” are just words we use these days like “is” and “are”.

From the Poetrooper archives circa December 16, 2006;

I have just read a mea culpa by Vietnam War protestor, novelist and poet, Pat Conroy, who possesses the literary skills to express what I am willing to bet many other older American males, his former brothers at the barricades, also feel, but lack the skills and the honesty to articulate. It is left to men like the politically born again David Horowitz and novelist Conroy to speak for these old troupers of the Left’s long-haired legions, to reveal their long hidden recognition that they were possibly misguided in their protesting but more often than most will ever admit, motivated more by fear of serving in combat than by any sense of moral/political rectitude.

For that reason this is an issue that reverberates only within the ranks of male protestors of that era. For the braless, hygiene and make-up challenged young women of the movement, there existed no threat of death or disfigurement in combat, so the purity of their motives is questionable only in the intellectual, not the moral sense. They may have been naïve fools but they weren’t hiding a blushing personal cowardice behind the skirts of world socialism. This then, is an issue of character only for these now old, greying men who, like Conroy, must eventually face the moral consequences of their actions in those turbulent days.

As someone who, like most of us, has experienced events in my life where I now wish that I had shown more moral and physical courage, more honesty, and most importantly, more unquestioning love and understanding of family, I know how those failures live with you long after the memories of trying to do so many things right have dimmed. Many of my lapses involved nothing more than minor events where I failed to speak up, or stand up and be counted, or even stand up and be knocked down; but regardless of their minor nature, it is these life events that forever remain active in my psyche. In my mid-sixties now, I have learned all too well that it’s not the fights you won or even the fights you lost that keep niggling away at the edges of your conscience: it’s the fights you failed to fight when you knew damned well that you should.

Deceased author John D. MacDonald, who wrote the wonderful Travis McGee mystery series, once explained through his fictional hero, McGee, the way to make correct moral decisions and it is a simple wisdom that has stayed in my brain, but not always exemplified by my behavior, through the remainder of my life. It is nothing more than this: do the hard thing. When faced with tough choices, look to that course of action which is the one you want least to follow because it appears to be the most difficult for you; it may hurt personally, but almost always, it is the right course for you to follow for the good of others.

My belief is that a lot of Vietnam War protestors were rightfully fearful of the physical perils of combat, as were all those of us who chose to serve there; but where we tamped down those fears and continued the mission, they wrongfully used a contrived moral outrage against the war as convenient cover to conceal their cowardice. To buttress that theory one simply has to look at how the huge, angry protests diminished, and ultimately disappeared in a remarkably short time once Congress ended the military draft. As young, draft-age men, all those angry protestors were able at the time to righteously rationalize away their true motivation until Congress stole their alibi, and only now, with the awareness and self-accounting that comes with age, are they, like Pat Conroy, facing the truth of their personal cowardice. Sadly, too late, they have come to realize the truth of Conroy’s most perceptive quote:

“America is good enough to die for even when she is wrong.”

I believe those are words worthy of being carved into every war memorial in America. And I am thankful that I and all my brothers and sisters at arms who served then, and those who serve now, possessed then and now, but even in our callow youth, the intrinsic wisdom to recognize that truth. All Americans must die, but those who understand this fundamental reality about this very unique nation will die with their chins held just a few degrees higher than those who didn’t realize it when they should have, but now do, like Conroy and his legions, and sadly, those young people of today who still do not.

Crossposted from American Thinker

My first reaction when I saw the photos of the black female West Point graduates in their seemingly defiant, fists-raised black power poses was probably similar to that of a large segment of conservative America: “What the hell is going on here?” That was accompanied by an old Army vet’s revulsion that the barracks, uniforms, and prestige of a hallowed American military institution were being used to showcase support by junior Army officers for what I consider racist black supremacist politics.

Then I started reading reader reactions to the many articles that mushroomed all over the internet, including the one written here at AT. It was while reading comments to this piece that what was bothering me about the hundreds of responses I’d read here and elsewhere gelled in my mind. I’d expected the widespread angry reaction, but what I had not expected was the openly expressed racial bitterness and censure directed at a group of young women who without question had made a very thoughtless and truly dumb mistake. Some of those comments were absolutely venomous and left no doubt that their venom sprang from a very deep racial antagonism. There was much discussion that these young officers were only on that porch by virtue of affirmative action and that their demonstration confirmed a common lack of emotional control among Africans. There were many questions regarding their intellectual qualifications to be there, and only the rare commenter ventured that there might be some very bright young women in that group.

Don’t get me wrong; I was once an infantry NCO, and as such, I would have been furious with any second lieutenant who showed such a poor lack of judgment as to bring such public disapproval on my unit and my soldiers. Were I her platoon sergeant, I’d be having a really intense discussion with that butterbar on the basics of leadership, and if the lieutenant chose to blow me off, then she’d be having a likely more intense discussion with the company executive officer. Similar feelings to mine were expressed by many veteran commenters, both retired officers and enlisted, all of whom are well aware of the foolhardiness of any officer openly demonstrating such political racial solidarity.

But the main takeaway from this incident is that had this same event taken place ten years ago, it would have drawn similar media attention but most likely fewer critical comments by readers, and most assuredly the racial intensity and hostility expressed in those comments wouldn’t have been even close to what they are today. Most certainly a large number of them, especially here at American Thinker, would have been blocked for being too racially insensitive – but now, after almost eight years of a black president, they’re just part of the acceptable racial narrative. It’s no secret that Eric Holder was speaking for his boss and setting out the racial position for the Obama administration when he described black felons as his people. Obama’s recent black college commencement address where he lapsed into black vernacular demonstrates that it’s still in place. Gullible voters put Obama in office and kept him there all this time based on the hope that he would end racial strife. They may as well have hoped for the Tooth Fairy to leave it under their pillows.

If Obama wants to know what his real legacy is, he should start reading web comments.

Crossposted at American Thinker

Reuters reports that the investigation into the destruction of a hospital in Kunduz last year highlights the problem that we all know exists, but the Pentagon doesn’t want to talk about – the rules of engagement that the soldiers use to make the on-the-scene decisions while bullets are flying by them are more murky than ever before. The classic problem of soldiers asking for permission to fight from politicians;

The Kunduz report indicates at least some U.S. troops have been sent into battle with questions unanswered.

The Green Beret complained that failure to provide clear guidance represented “moral cowardice”, and that political leaders intentionally keep the mission vague.

That allows them to “reap the rewards of success without facing the responsibility of failure,” he added.

Soldiers pleaded for “clearer guidance” and more clarification of overly complicated rules, according to investigators.

The strength of the American military has always been the ability of the soldiers on the ground to make independent decisions based of the changing situation on the ground. All of our enemies throughout history have complained about how the actions of unit commanders from squad to Brigade-size units are not easily predicted. Armed only with the “commander’s intent”, leaders have always achieved the desired outcome with minimum supervision. However, that is harder to achieve since the politicians have the ability to communicate directly with troops in contact from the safety of the cushy office far from the sounds of battle.

A thousand books and memoirs have communicated soldiers’ frustration with the nanny politicians and their micromanagement of the battlefield. In World War II, President Roosevelt would have to make a plane trip to communicate his desires to General Eisenhower, but 20 years later, President Johnson was picking targets in the basement of the White House for individual bombing missions. During Desert Storm, President Bush turned General Schwartzkopf loose on Saddam Hussein with his guidance and now we’re back to the White approving every bullet fired against terrorists who aren’t hamstrung by similar restrictions.

In the heat of the battle, lines can be blurred, and the problem is not exclusive to Afghanistan: questions have arisen over the role of U.S. troops in Iraq after a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed by Islamic State this month.

“‘How far do you want to go?’ is not a proper response to ‘How far do you want us to go?’” one special forces member told investigators in a report into the U.S. air strikes on a hospital in Kunduz that killed 42 medical staff, patients and caretakers.

It’s typical of politicians who don’t trust their military to accomplish the over-arching political goals. It’s also typical of politicians who have no coherent strategy to communicate to their military subordinates.