Please Withdraw Your Endorsement of My Senator, Mr. President

  Mister President, during your rally in Fayettenam, you were recently duped into endorsing Senator Thom (pronounce that with the diphthong 'th', as in the, those, them) Tillis.  In his most recent ad, Thom quotes you calling him a warrior.  Truth is, he is just another overly ambitious professional politician.  The main thing that I would beseech you to recall and remember from that Fayettenam rally, Mister President, are all of the "boo's" he received from the crowd, which would have included me, if I hadn't had to work that night.  They were and are due to his bottom of the barrel approval ratings among R senators.
Starting out as a town commissioner, Thom quickly moved to the General Assembly and with amazing rapidity, was selected as Speaker of the House.  In that position, he showed himself to be a conservatively fiscal hawk.  For that, I was an easy and adamant supporter in his quest to unseat Sen. Kay Hagan, Baracka Hussein and Shemelle Obama's probable threesome partner.

Upon assuming his Senate seat, Thom immediately put his head up NC's senior senator, Richard Burr's butt to instantly become an establishment Repulsican.
   As a tenured Congressman, representing current Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's district,  Dick Burr was a capable and competent conservative representative for the people of the western piedmont.   But upon his inclusion into the 'most exclusive club in the world', Senator Burr's primary objective became personal political power and prestige.  Time and again, he sought selection to the body's party leadership.  Time and again, he was rejected.   He was placated by the leadership with the assignment to chair the highly important Senate Select Intelligence Committee.
But back to Thom, Mister President...yes, he supported your national emergency declaration to build the border wall.  But that was only after flip flopping from his original position opposing the declaration, as he declared in his Washington Post article.  It is easy to assume that he would not have changed that position, if not pressured to do so by you and fellow conservatives, or face a conservative backed primary challenge.  After your cancellation of Baracka Hussein O's DACA executive order, he devised a plan to allow illegal alien minors a pass and a path to citizenship.  Thom joined with the likes of 'Spartacus' Cory Booker, Lindsey Gramnesty and uber-lib Chris Coons to protect rapscallion Robert Mueller.

He is siding with Fauxcahontas Elizabeth Warren in opposing your plan to reduce foreign aid.  He also worked with her to co-sponsor basically meaningless legislation supposedly designed to help veterans in dealing with federally backed mortgage lenders.           

Tillis can be credited with siding with the Trump agenda 93% to 98% of the time. depending on source.  But these votes were ones in which ANYone with ANY type of 'R' after his or her name pretty much had to do so.  They were cast for the sake of personal protection, rather than for political principle.  Relatively, I must credit Thom with introducing legislation that would allow victims of illegal alien criminality to sue sanctuary jurisdictions.  But, all in all, Thom's 'R' stands for RINO, much like his three big endorsers, Jip Bush, Mutt Romney and Putz McCrory.


Thom has recently positioned himself as a supporter of yours, Mr. President, but only for political expediency of avoiding party primary opposition.  Despite your recent endorsement and the backing of the RNCC, intra-party primary challenges have arisen.  The first one of which I learned, which piqued my interest and excited my hope is that of retired businessman, entrepreneur and author Garland Tucker.
.  Much like yourself, Mr. President, Mr. Tucker can and will be, to a lesser extent, a self-financing candidate.  Other positive points to ponder about Garland Tucker include that he is a native North Carolinian.  He's a fellow at the John Locke Foundation and and a board member of the Civitas Institute.  Generally, those associations are good things.   Realistically, they point out that despite having never run for office. Garland Tucker is a professional politician.
In the earliest stages of the 2016 Republican primary season, he supported Scott Walker.  I have absolutely no problem with that.  I like and respect Scott Walker as a true conservative.  I've always maintained that he is whom you should've picked as your Secretary of Labor, Mr. President. 
  After Governor Walker left the race, Mr. Tucker's final primary support went to perhaps the quintessential 'Never Trumper' and epitomical establishment politician John Kossack.   Tucker finally did come to support you in the general election, Mr. President, but only as a lesser of two evils.   Granted, early on, I suggested John Kossack as your best choice to be your Vice-President, for a variety of reasons.  But that was before I learned what an absolute asshole and epitomical prevaricator he is.  If Kossack proceeds with his apparent plan to run a primary campaign against you next year, Mr. President, you can imagine that Garland Tucker will be in his camp.  And there are two other Garland Tucker negatives to consider:  He's an Ivy League pinhead and he's already well into his seventies.  As for that last one, he does promise that he'll serve only one term.  I can imagine that Mr. Tucker is intelligent enough to know that that about all the time he has left.  And it would be enough to secure all those cushy Congressional retirement benefits.
President Trump. here in North Carolina, we are being daily deluged with negative campaign ads from both camps.   Primarily, these ads point out each candidate's propensity for prevarication.  Mr. President, they both are epitomical prevaricators and Repulsican party hacks and political opportunists.  They both lyingly align themselves with you, simply because they both know how  popular and approved you are among and by the state's electorate.  If Thom is reelected, he will immediately return to his previous anti-Trump positions.  If Garland is elected, he will immediately show his establishmentarian stripes, most likely by sticking his head up Mutt's butt, much like Lindsey Gramnesty did with John McCaint Tell the Truth and as Tillis did with my senior senator, Dick Cur.
Mr. President, the declared candidate whom you should be supporting, advocating and endorsing is North Carolina native, businesswoman and farmer, Sandy Smith.
  She's a real constitutional conservative, who is pro-America, pro-Trump and a believer in national sovereignty through border enforcement and defense.  She is a proud military mom, with a daughter in the Marine Corps.   
Sandy is an honors graduate of the state university system with a Bachelor of Science degree in business and technology.  She has extensive real world work experience dating back to her early teens, including acquisitions, negotiation and arbitration, and corporate training.   If she's not chosen to serve North Carolina and the nation as a senator, she could and would well serve you, Mr. President, as well as the rest of us (US) as your US Trade Representative.
Sandy says that "we have the most women ever elected to Congress and the Senate, which is truly a great thing."  I agree.  She goes on to say "The problem is, that in many cases, we've elected the wrong women."  I wholeheartedly agree.
 

Sandy concludes that thought by declaring "The time is now that we elect the right women.  I am a strong conservative woman who loves this great country, respects and stands with our President, and is truly proud to embrace all of America's greatness."   Agin, I wholeheartedly agree with that about the right women.  Sandy Smith would be a excellent addition to that too short of a list.
    

At this point, Sandy doesn't have a snowball's chance in Estados Unidas del Nuevo Norte Mexico.  But a public Presidential proclamation denouncing Tillis and Tucker and emphatically endorsing her definitely could and most probably would change those chances.
Mr. President, do North Carolina, the nation and yourself a favor.  PLEASE publicly withdraw your endorsement of professional political opportunist Thom Tillis to openly, adamantly and enthusiastically endorse Sandy Smith for US Senate. I do, as I (at least temporarily) cease my write-in campaign for the seat.  😁

To the Voters of California 28

For two decades, you dumb mass Dummycrap denizens of eastern Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale, Hollywood, Hollywood Hills, West Hollywood, et al. have elected and reelected just another lying, cheating, conniving, shyster, charlatan Ivy League lawyer turned professional political party hack.  It's time; it's past time to CUT IT OUT!
  Adam Schiff has now risen to the pinnacle of epitomical personification of political prevarication.  I know that you LA liberal lunatics are too egomaniacal and ignorant to ever vote for anybody but a Demoncat.  I know that you're just too stupid to ever vote for anyone with an R after his or her name.  If you can't vote Libertarian or Unaffiliated, write in Mickey Mouse.  That would be a more truthful and accurate choice to reflect the cartoonish caucus you have been supporting for way too long.     
 

What Happened Over the Weekend?

First, if not foremost, and most definitely of the least importance, my Carolina Panthers finally figured out how to win a football game.     It was a simple solution.  It's a solution that I, and many others in Panther Nation have been advocating for some time. It is time to recognize and realize that it is time to admit and advocate that it is past time to replace a past his prime, injury prone quarterback. 
  Cam Newton has moved beyond being a League MVP and Super Bowl quarterback, to assume the persona of egomaniacal fashion maven and pimp. 
 In watching backup quarterback Kyle Allen lead the Panthers to their resounding 38-20 victory, I couldn't help but realize some parallels.  Could this young man be another Kurt Warner?  Waived and released, Allen seemed to be looking at the end of his NFL career before it got started.  But he was brought back due to Newton's ongoing injury status.  In each of his limited appearances, he performed well, with a quarterback rating of 113.1.  If given the chance, could this outstanding athlete be a Kurt-like comeback kid, taking his team to their first Super Bowl victory, as Warner did with the Rams?   
 Another parallel I envision is the possible similarity to Tom Brady.  Brady came onto the scene replacing injured overall first draft pick, Pro Bowl/Super Bowl quarterback Drew Bledsoe
  Since that time, Brady has become, arguably, the best, most successful quarterback in NFL history.  If given the ongoing opportunity, could Kyle Allen become this generation's Tom Brady?   That depends on a couple of things, most notably that aforementioned opportunity.
It has been announced that Nwton will not be available for the Panthers' upcoming week 4 game against Houston and may miss more games after that.  Coach Ron Rivera has stated that Allen will be the team's starting QB for that time.  I hope, wish and pray to God, Jesus and Mother Mary that Riverboat Ron will not make the same mistake relative to Newton that former Panthers coach, John Fox committed in regards to then QB Jake Delhomme.  Jake led the 2003 Panthers to an 11-5 record and the Super Bowl.  Following their narrow, waning moments loss to the Patriots, Delhomme never again exhibited the championship calibre consistency that took the team to Super Bowl XXXVIII. 
In spite of that, Coach Fox demonstrated a professional sports practice that I've never understood.  If a basketball team's leading scorer suddenly can't hit the hoop, he's benched.  If a baseball team's ace pitcher can't find the strike zone, except to give up hit after hit and run after run, you bring in the bullpen.  If a football lineman can't make tackles or misses blocks, a receiver drops catchable passes,  or a running back fumbles and/or can't hit the holes, substitutes come into the game.  Why is that not the case with a poorly performing quarterback?  In fairness, Coach Fox id go against that practice when he replaced starting QB Rodney Peete with Delhomme in the first game of that 2003 season.  But after their Super Bowl loss, and the ensuing inconsistent seasons, Delhomme remained under center, despite the obviousness of his decline.
I fear that Coach Rivera may make the same mistake this year.  In their ridiculous Week 2 at home loss to Tampa Bay, Newton could hardly find his butt cheeks using both hands, throwing four  interceptions and numerous inaccuracies.   In two games, he has a 71.0 rating and minus two yards rushing.  Comparatively, in his two appearances last season, Allen had that aforementioned 113.1 rating and yesterday posted a rating of 144.4, including four TD throws.
If he can continue that level of excellence against the Texans, and possibly in subsequent weeks, as Newton continues to heal, Kyle Allen should be allowed to quarterback the Panthers, even after if and when Cam Newton is deemed and declared 100% healthy. 

*********************************************************************************
Of course, the big story of the weekend was (and hopefully is) senile Uncle Joe Biden and his equally villainous, fellow lawyer son, Hunter.   From the whistleblower claptrap with which the lunatic, leftist liberal lame street press was trying to again entrap President Trump, a real truth relative to US dealings with Ukraine has been exposed.
During his tenure as Vice-President, Biden openly extorted the President of Ukraine.  This was an act about which Biden publicly bragged.  The one point in that braggadocious talk that really makes me wonder is the part in which Biden tells the Ukrainian president to call President Obama for verification that he (Biden) had the authority to blackmail the Ukraine.  Therefore, what I wonder about is, how complicit in this extortion was Baracka Hussein O.?
Just as he shamed himself out of his first presidential bid in 1988, ole Joe may very well have ended this race before it even really got started.  I would opine that international extortion is far more serious than plagiarism in campaign speeches and law school papers.
If the Demoncat front runner is indeed out of the running, that only strengthens my opinion of whom the eventual party poster child shall be.  I have maintained in vocalizations for awhile that none of the current candidates have the overall appeal to garner enough delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot.   After that, it becomes a brokered convention, in which pretty much anybody can be nominated to lose in a landslide to President Trump. 
Unless the real hidden truths about her sort of same sex bisexual husband's presidential corruption and criminality, including high treason (and not to mention his birthplace nationality) are exposed, I predict that the 2020 Demoncat nominee for president shall be Shemelle Obama.                           

Red vs. Blue: An History of Political Colors

By Philip Bump

November 8, 2016

There have been a number of good assessments of how the way in which we depict the two parties has evolved. One of the earliest appeared here in the Post, shortly before the 2004 election. There was one shortly after that in Washington Monthly which is often cited; probably the most thorough is one, from the Smithsonian.

What's clear is that, prior to 2000, talking about "red states" and "blue states" wouldn't necessarily have resulted in any understanding. In 1992, David Nyhan of the Boston Globe wrote of his mixed feelings about Bill Clinton's candidacy. "[W]hen the anchormen turn to their electronic tote boards election night," he wrote, "and the red states for Clinton start swamping the blue states for Bush, this will be a strange night for me." You'll notice that those colors are backward, by our current understanding. Nyhan is being figurative we can assume, recognizing the standard red-blue split if not the significance of the colors.

But by 1992, networks seem to have mostly settled on red-for-Republican, blue-for-Democrat. 

The Smithsonian article tells a great story.  

There's some discussion of why networks first drifted toward those colors. Red, the Smithsonian article suggests, was color non grata in American politics at the time, thanks to the Cold War. Red, of course, was associated with the Soviet Union, because it was associated with communism and socialism -- and with left-leaning parties internationally. (See this poll from the  British elections: Labour is red; the Conservatives, blue.)

Most Americans probably weren't paying very close attention to the decisions made by networks every four years, so it's pretty safe to assume that they wouldn't immediately have associated the parties as we do now.

Then there was the election of 2000, which, if you were born at any point after, say, 1985, and care even a tiny bit about politics, is seared into your memory. This was just at the cusp of the internet/cable news era, so pundits kept busy making and pointing to and discussing maps of the states and how Bush or Gore would end up winning this thing. And those maps, in heavy rotation, looked like the maps from election night: Republican red, Democratic blue.  

The 2004 Post article by Paul Farhi suggests that "the 2000 election, NBC's graphics department and David Letterman all played critical roles." NBC graphics, because that prompted Tim Russert and Matt Lauer to discuss red and blue states shortly before Election Night. David Letterman, because he made one of the early jokes on the subject, while Florida's votes were still being counted. "The candidates will work out a compromise," he joked on November 14. "And thank God, not a minute too soon. Here's how it's going to go. George W. Bush will be president for the red states. Al W. Gore will be president for the blue states. And that's -- that's the best they can do."

Two things are interesting about that. First, that the audience is expected to understand what it means. And second, that Letterman was hardly the first to make the joke. A letter to the editors of the Post on November 11 from Robert Forman made the same proposal, "Why not let Gore be the president of the United States of America to include all the blue states east of the Mississippi? Bush could be the president of the Confederate States of America, to include all the red states on both sides of the Mississippi." The dichotomy had already set in.  

It's become so familiar that there's no reason to think it will go away in our ever-so-polarized politics.   

It is surprising to me that the liberal rag Washington Post would mention, even in passing that red was the traditional color of leftist liberal/socialist/communist politics.  It is not surprising that such libs as Russert and Lauer would flip flop the colors to disassociate their beloved Demoncat party from its fascist/socialist foundations.
I do appreciate and admire Dave Leip for assigning the traditional/historic colors to the parties in his Atlas of US Presidential Elections.  

The World War Continues

Much of this post is excerpted from the intelligent and insightful Alan Dowd article from February 26, 2018, entitled A Quarter Century War.  In actuality, this war has been being waged for over two and a quarter centuries.

"We’re turning the page on a decade of war,” Marxist Muslim President Baracka Hussein Obama promised Americans in 2012. He was definitely in tune with the American people—wearied, as they were, by the costs of open-ended military interventions from Afghanistan to Africa—but he was way off on the war’s length.

In fact, by the time Manchurian Candidate President Obama reassured the American people they could turn the page on a decade of war and “focus on nation-building here at home,” a Saudi terrorist had been waging global guerilla war against America for the better part of two decades. The attacks of September 11, 2001, merely marked the moment America awoke to the nightmare.

Few Americans remembered on 9/11 that Osama bin Laden’s henchmen had attacked the World Trade Center years earlier, on February 26, 1993, when Ramzi Yousef detonated a van full of explosives in the underground parking garage of the north tower. The blast blew a hole 100-feet wide and five stories deep into the bowels of the tower, killing seven and wounding 1,500.

Fewer Americans realize that Islam in general has been at war with America since October 11, 1784, when Moroccan Muslim pirates seized the US brigantine Betsey.  Though Spain negotiated a release of that ship and her crew, this same type of Islamic revenue raising war fighting continued for a decade and a half.  Shortly after taking office in 1801,  President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay $225,000 to Islamic Pasha Yusuf al-Qaramanli.   That is roughly equivalent to $3.39 million on today's dollars.  TJ had witnessed his presidential predecessors pay out multiple millions of 18th century US dollars to Muslim pirates/kidnappers/ slavers to rescue our merchant sailors and recover our ships.  In 1786, future presidents Adams and Jefferson asked Islamic ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja why they "make war upon nations that have done them no injury".  Abdul replied that it was written in their Koran that it was the right and duty of the Muslims to plunder and enslave all who do not acknowledge the bisexual gigolo who founded their stupid ass, most irrational and unreasonable religion.  All religion is irrational and unreasonable, in that they were all founded by ancient man to answer the questions that they couldn't answer through their limited reason and rationality, particularly the utmost question of what happens after death.  Islam has overtaken 16th and 17th century Catholicism as the epitome of ungodly repressive religion.      

Following President Jefferson's refusal to pay tribute, the Pasha symbolically declared war on the US by chopping down the flagpole in front of our consulate.  With a bellyful of the bull squeeze, President Jefferson dispatched our new, little twenty ship Navy,  deploying US Marines and mercenaries, giving us the "to the shores of Tripoli" line of The Marine Corps Hymn. 

 As a tangentially relevant sidenote, many, if not most, or even all ill- and uneducated contemporary American Negroids and guilty white liberal Caucasoids believe that history's only slavery was practiced here in the US, between 1619 and 1865, with American and European Caucasoids capturing and enslaving African Negroids.  Many, if not most of those enslaved African Negroids were sold into slavery by other African Negroids.  Of course, slavery has a much more diverse history.  The Egyptian Semitic Arab Mullatoids enslaved Moses' Semitic Hebrew Mullatoids.  And these north African Muslims enslaved well over a million Caucasoids between the 16th and 19th centuries.  It is a practice that continues to be practiced by modern day Muslims.      

With allies Sweden and Sicily, the US stomped the Shiite out of the pre-Marxist Muslims, winning the war, resulting in the May 10, 1805 formal Islamic surrender/peace treaty signing.  

This American victory was so resounding that we heard little or nothing from the Islamic world until 1970, when Palestinians hijacked five airliners as a terrorist tactic.  This was a practice throughout that decade, culminating in the 1979 capture of our embassy in Iran, and holding hostage its diplomatic staff.  That ploy was abandoned at the mere inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.  It was a dozen years later, during the feckless administration of Slick Willie Clinton that they earnestly resumed their war against us (US).    

We later learned that one of Yousef’s co-conspirators was related to bin Laden; that Yousef had stayed in bin Laden’s guest house before and after the attacks, as NBC reported; and that Yousef was the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—the man who described himselfas al-Qaeda’s “military operational commander for all foreign operations around the world” and took credit for that first attack on the World Trade Center.

In the months and years that followed, the attacks increased in frequency, ferocity, and audacity.

In October 1993, Somali warlord Farah Aidid’s militia brought down two American helicopters and cut down 18 American troops in a daylong gun battle in Mogadishu. “My colleagues fought with Farah Adid’s forces in Somalia,” bin Laden later smilingly revealed.

In November 1995, four “self-described disciples of bin Laden” used a truck bomb to kill five American servicemen in Riyadh.

In August 1998, al-Qaeda conducted simultaneous attacks on United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 240 people, including 12 Americans.

In October 2000, al-Qaeda suicide-bombers attacked the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 Americans.

Then, in September 2001, al-Qaeda maimed Manhattan and scarred the Pentagon, murdering 2,977 people.

Targets

Bin Laden had warned us that his cult of killers “do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets.” That became obvious on February 26, 1993, and again on September 11, 2001, and again and again in the years that followed.

After 9/11, the jihadist war on civilization bloodied Morocco and Mumbai, Manchester and Madrid, Pakistan and Paris, Saudi Arabia and San Bernardino, Istanbul and Indonesia, Ottawa and Orlando, Britain and Brussels, Boston and Baghdad, Ft. Hood and the Philippines, Nairobi, Nigeria and North Carolina, Ankara and Amman. The list goes on and on, including the 9/11/2012 attack on our Benghazi facilities.  For that one, I want Hitlary Clinton shot in her fascist, feminazi face for high treason. She may have not been complicit, but she allowed it.  Either way, she gave aid and comfort to the enemy. 

Some of the attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, some by its offshoots, and some by organizations and lunatic lone wolves that used it as feedstock for their rise. But all of them were inspired by al-Qaeda and its founding father. It’s as if bin Laden broke some sort of invisible barrier with his audacious attacks on America.

Devoid of compunction, constraint, or conscience, bin Laden’s death cult attacked commuters in London, vacationers in Bali, businessmen and children in Manhattan and Arlington and Shanksville, Christian churches in Pakistan and Baghdad, and Shiite pilgrims in Karbala, Christmas/Hanukkah party attendees in San Bernardino and students in Chapel Hill.  In 2007, long before the Islamic State (ISIS) brutalized Iraq’s Yazidi minority, al-Qaeda murdered 400 Yazidis, just because they were Yazidi.

In 2012, the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq—which had been crushed by the US surge only to reconstitute and rebrand after the US withdrawal—“morphed into the earliest version of ISIS,” as the Financial Times reported. ISIS has been called “worse than al-Qaeda,” and perhaps deservedly so. As proof of its savage piety, ISIS summarily executed thousands of Shiite Muslims; drowned and burned alive prisoners of war; conducted genocide against Yazidis and Christians; executed imams and hospital workers; ordered Christians to convert or die; conducted a systematic campaign of rape in conquered territories; sold children into slavery; and used “mentally challenged” children as suicide bombers.

Differences

This is the enemy the US military has been fighting for decades now. However, the US is not at war with Islam—after all, in the past quarter-century US troops have rescued Muslims in Kosovo, Kurdistan, Kabul, Somalia, and Sumatra—but it is at war those who would force people to submit to Islam. It is at war with those who take literally Muhammad’s injunction “to fight all men until they say, ‘There is no god but Allah.’” It is at war with those who “do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians.” It is at war with murderers and rapists masquerading as holy men. It is at war with those who seek to destroy civilization.

Make no mistake: There’s a vast difference between those who use force to defend civilization and those who use force to dismember it. Motives matter; as scripture reminds us, motives are weighed by the Lord. At its core, the primary motive of our jihadist enemies is to kill and injure innocent civilians. Yes, the bin Ladens, Baghdadis, and Zawahiris of the world have a broader political goal, but to achieve that goal they must achieve the primary goal of killing and maiming innocents. Terrorism loses its power without achieving that goal.

America is not perfect. Without doubt, innocent people sometimes die as a consequence of American military action. But the undeniable difference between the terrorist and the US soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine is motive and intention. Americans do differentiate between combatants and civilians, and we go to great lengths to prevent the loss of civilian life.

We see the difference in the way the enemy defines success and the way we react to failure. When our terrorist enemies kill civilians, they cheer and use their latest atrocity as a recruitment tool. When our defenders kill civilians, they order bombing pauses; they investigate and apologize; they demote and court-martial; they change targets and scrub missions. And their civilian leaders invest in ever-more precise, ever-more expensive weapons systems to prevent mistakes.

Perhaps it is past time to abandon these restrictive rules of engagement.  Sometimes, you absolutely have to fight fire with fire.  They make no distinction between armed forces and unarmed civilians.  We should probably adopt those practices, especially considering that many of their armed combatants are disguised as face hiding women and mindless minors.  I am sick, nearly to death of the politically correct approach to warring with these people.  I am tired to exhaustion from the crapola of peaceful Islam and moderate Muslims.  We are told by these peaceful moderates that it is only a small percentage of Muslims who wage war on the world.  We need to let this overwhelming majority of Muslims know that if they don't take care of their murderous minority, we will take care of all of them, before they can do so with all of Christendom, Judaism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Atheism, et al.    

 Attention

As ISIS collapses in Iraq and Syria, as al-Qaeda’s attacks on the homeland fade into history, Americans may be tempted to declare victory and turn their short attention spans elsewhere. That would be a mistake.

In December 2017, the US military killed “multiple” al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan in a series of operations spanning several weeks. Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats reported this month that al-Qaeda is operating across large swaths of Mali, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

This helps explain why US troops are still in Afghanistan, why the US military is bolstering its presence in Syria, and why US weapons releases are up 44 percent in Afghanistan, 29 percent in Iraq/Syria, and almost 10 percent in Yemen.

The war bin Laden began 25 years ago—what US military leaders aptly call “the long war”—is far from over, unless we start fighting to win, rather than to bolster the military-industrial complex, of which President D.D. Eisenhower warned us (US) to beware.  

This Is All That Needs Be Said About Red Flag Laws

                 
                                    

This Is an Ode Which I've Owed

This Saturday past, I was, for the third consecutive year, ear and eye witness to the live, on-stage artistic brilliance and optic beauty of Celtic Woman.  Despite their world renown, these young women are as open to and accepting of their fans' fervor as any artist ever.  After their superlative performance, they graced a group of us waiting by the stage door to sign autographs, pose for pictures and engage in conversation.  I wish that I had had the courage and conviction to say what was truly on my mind and in my heart.  Though I know that writing it here will not truly impart the emotion by which I know that I would have been overwhelmed, I shall pen it anyway. 😂 I shall attempt to convey it through punctuation and font, but it shall lose some in the translation from verbal to written form, including a beleaguered Irish brogue overtaking my deep Southern drawl.   And I shall hope beyond hope that they may see this. 

"Ladies, I know that you must be on your way to New Jersey, but I beg and beseech you for a few moments of your valued time to share with you what you mean to me, as I am sure that you do for so many others.  For much of the past decade and a half, Celtic Woman has provided promise of Heaven for me, through your voices of angels.  I believe that Heaven is as the individual perceives it to be and my perception is of a place of a bright and temperate clime, where beautiful women make beautiful music.  

  Mairead Carlin...I was angry when you joined the group.  I felt that the producers picked you for the usurpation of your name, to placate silly old fools like myself, in preparation for the inevitable departure of Mairead Nesbitt.     

Such is obviously not the case.  All of the women of Celtic Woman are top tier talents and breathtaking beauties.  And for me, you are the purely prettiest with the best high range soprano, at least since Maev.    

But as I loved Lisa and Lisa together , I loved Mairead and Mairead together.    As a foolish old chauvinist, I see it as just short of sin for a woman to cut her hair, but I do adore the new do, Mairead.  It suits you so.

 Eabha McMahon...for reasons inexplicable, even to myself, you are my heroess; my absolute heroess.  I don't have to see you sing to know that it is you singing.  Yours is the most distinctive voice of all of the Celtic Women's.  And now, along with being perfect performer, you are most competent and accomplished composer.   You are truly a goddess gift from God. 

  And you; newcomer; Meagan Walsh.  You are epitome proof that Ireland shall forever produce beautiful women to make beautiful music.  Your duet with Mairead of Over the Rainbow was audially astonishing.  It let me know that it will be okay to go over that rainbow some day soon.  Your vocalization of Shenandoah', which is how we pronounce it here in the South, where the river flows, was as moving and magical as Mairead's instrumental version at Slane Castle.  My deepest gratitude to you is for your presentation of what has long been a touchstone song for me for reasons into which I shan't now go: Fields of Gold.  Your performance was as personal and powerful as Lisa Kelly's at Powerscourt.  Thank you SO many!

   Finally, though first in my heart....Tara McNeill.  I was CRUSHED beyond consolation and heartbroken beyond healing when I learned of Mairead's departure from Celtic Woman. 😭 💔  I KNEW that NO one could EVER take her spot.  Then, I learned that it was to be you and I so fondly remembered you and your harp from Destiny.  And I said okay, as I still say okay.  You have healed my wounded heart, Tara.  Your beheld beauty and violin virtuosity, along with your heavenly harp have made me joyously happy.  It has been my privilege and pleasure to witness your maturation and matriculation in becoming the polished, professional performer whom you are.  You continue to twirl, girl.  As there can never be another Mairead Nesbitt, there is no other Tara McNeill.  You are the most Irish of all of the Celtic Women...at least since Lisa Lambe.

As I loved Chloe, Lisa, Orla, Maev and Mairead ; as I absolutely adored Chloe, Lisa, Lynn Hillary, my beautiful cousin Alex and Mairead ; as my spirit soared for Chloe, Lisa, Lisa and Mairead ; Chloe, Lisa, Susan and Mairead , you four touch my soul as no combination of Celtic Woman has accomplished.   If you continue to come to North Carolina and I continue to draw breath, I shall be sitting in the best seat available to buy.

Now, godspeed to New Jersey and God bless you in all of your journeys.  And thank you for liking my bow tie 😁"   ----Kenneth, of the family Sharpe and the clan McNair.