Monday, March 30, 2015

Laws or hoods: things you can hide behind


This kerfuffle over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act makes me wonder - why is religion a protected class? It's is clearly a choice, like Hawaiian shirts, or riding a llama to work. Here's the thing: I want my future Hawaiian shirt purchases to be tax free. And I want rules relaxed on where I can feed my llama. Why not?

Regarding this article, some states, such as Illinois, have added sexual orientation as a protected class, so the drum beat by Governor Pence that then-Senator Barack Obama supported the same law in Illinois is disingenuous.

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Bibi got backing

Today, traitorous scalawags, drunk with power, diminished their own country in a grotesque breach of diplomatic norms.

Members of our own Congress invited a foreign leader to speak against our own President, and applauded him for doing it. Bibi Netanyahu, who apparently considers peaceful negotiations folly, and who is bent on war at our expense, was gifted the attention of our entire Legislative branch, his message delivered over a chorus of grotesque, congratulatory bleating.

That's not to disagree with his stance, nor even consider it. This was about a Congress of rednecks shooting their guns in the air. A power move designed to convey a message to the American people: we won't sit idly by while this President sullies the good name of 'Murika.

Mr. Netanyahu fell for it, hook, line and sinker. He made the best of the opportunity, and bullied the President over his negotiations with Iran. He pilloried our Middle East foreign policy, to a cacophony of hoots and hollers. He questioned the decisions of his most ardent ally, who finances a large percentage of his own defense budget.

What of his position on the prospects for peace in general, and talks with Iran specifically? To ascertain his record of gauging threats, we only need remember when his bellicose rhetoric helped seal the fates of thousands of young American men and women, and trillions of American dollars.
"If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." ~ Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu urging the US to invade Iraq in 2002.
He wasn't the only one who got Iraq wrong. Still, he's being compared by some to Winston Churchill. I'd say to bear up to that comparison, he'd need to be right about at least one of the Hitlers he has manufactured. Do some wish harm on Israel? Certainly. Will remaining in a constant state of war with those entities build bridges? Certainly not.

That's beside the point. Diplomatic protocol was breached. The President, charged with developing and executing our foreign policy, was bypassed. It is a defining day when the hatred of one man can overpower centuries of tradition and precedent. But John Boehner managed.