Another Issue of Salient Snippets -- Part III

Posted by Charles (Chuck) Fowler on February 25, 2013 at 8:06pm

I publish Salient Snippets on my blog every once in a while when I have some things which don't warrant a whole article by themselves but which might nonetheless be of interest. These are in no particular order or ranking:

Gun Bans

Given the current, and sometimes raging and misleading, gun ban efforts by liberals in and out of government and in and out of the lapdog media, I think I speak for many gun owners like me when I say Spartan King Leonidas said it most succinctly and best in 480 BC, when at the last stand Battle of Thermopylae and facing the massive Persian army, he was told to surrender his forces' weapons. He said simply, "Molon labe," which translates "come and take them."

Reverse Racism

I really think we need a White Caucus in Congress, a White Entertainment Network, an Alabaster Magazine, a National Association for the Advancement of White People, and an annual White Entertainers awards show. Oh, and White Appreciation Month, too. But that would all be racist, wouldn't it?

Hillary's Real Legacy

A New York Times article recently praised the legacy of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, counting how many miles she had traveled and how many countries she had visited, among other things. (No record, at least in the article, of the other things for which the liberal media often give her credit -- how many beers she consumed or dances she danced.)

I beg to differ. To me, Clinton's real "legacy" is the same as Obama's: (a) 9 countries in which al-Qaeda operated when she became Secretary of State and over 30 now, (b) no Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to help secure what we accomplished in Iraq, (c) no support for the 2009 Iran uprising for freedom but support for a Honduran president who sought to become a dictator, (d) 8 unanswered terrorist attacks on our facilities overseas on her watch, including Benghazi, in which we were successfully attacked on our own soil for the first time in 11 years and our first ambassador in 33 years was killed, (e) "reset" relations with the Russians which have benefitted the Russians more than us, (f) North Korea becoming bolder than ever, (g) so-called "soft power" and American appeasement and apology doing little to rein in Iran, and (h) the so-called Arab Spring resulting in a significant loss of US influence in the Middle East, both with our allies and our enemies. Yeah, some legacy all right. Drink it up and dance it up, Hillary.

Obama's Inaugural Address

In his recent inaugural speech, Obama warned that Americans shouldn't "...mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate." I totally agree, Mr. President, so why don't you stop being a leftist, liberal ideologue and stop the fear mongering, the class warfare, interjecting race into local events you admit you know little or nothing about, and the multiple and seemingly never-ending staged photo ops to support whatever the latest thing is you're campaigning about?

Gun Violence Around the World

From the World Health Organization, the latest Murder Statistics for the world per 100,000 citizens:

Honduras 91.6
El Salvador 69.2
Cote d'lvoire 56.9
Jamaica 52.2
Venezuela 45.1
Belize 41.4
US Virgin Islands 39.2
Guatemala 38.5
Saint Kits and Nevis 38.2
Zambia 38.0
Uganda 36.3
Malawi 36.0
Lesotho 35.2
Trinidad and Tobago 35.2
Colombia 33.4
South Africa 31.8
Congo 30.8
Central African Republic 29.3
Bahamas 27.4
Puerto Rico 26.2
Saint Lucia 25.2
Dominican Republic 25.0
Tanzania 24.5
Sudan 24.2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 22.9
Ethiopia 22.5
Guinea 22.5
Dominica 22.1
Burundi 21.7
Democratic Republic of the Congo 21.7
Panama 21.6
Brazil 21.0
Equatorial Guinea 20.7
Guinea-Bissau 20.2
Kenya 20.1
Kyrgyzstan 20.1
Cameroon 19.7
Montserrat 19.7
Greenland 19.2
Angola 19.0
Guyana 18.6
Burkina Faso 18.0
Eritrea 17.8
Namibia 17.2
Rwanda 17.1
Mexico 16.9
Chad 15.8
Ghana 15.7
Ecuador 15.2
North Korea 15.2
Benin 15.1
Sierra Leone 14.9
Mauritania 14.7
Botswana 14.5
Zimbabwe 14.3
Gabon 13.8
Nicaragua 13.6
French Guiana 13.3
Papua New Guinea 13.0
Swaziland 12.9
Bermuda 12.3
Comoros 12.2
Nigeria 12.2
Cape Verde 11.6
Grenada 11.5
Paraguay 11.5
Barbados 11.3
Togo 10.9
Gambia 10.8
Peru 10.8
Myanmar 10.2
Russia 10.2
Liberia 10.1
Costa Rica 10.0
Nauru 9.8
Bolivia 8.9
Mozambique 8.8
Kazakhstan 8.8 Senegal 8.7
Turks and Caicos Islands 8.7
Mongolia 8.7
British Virgin Islands 8.6
Cayman Islands 8.4
Seychelles 8.3
Madagascar 8.1
Indonesia 8.1
Mali 8.0
Pakistan 7.8
Moldova 7.5
Kiribati 7.3
Guadeloupe 7.0
Haiti 6.9
Timor-Leste 6.9
Anguilla 6.8
Antigua and Barbuda 6.8
Lithuania 6.6
Uruguay 5.9
Philippines 5.4
Ukraine 5.2
Estonia 5.2
Cuba 5.0
Belarus 4.9
Thailand 4.8
Suriname 4.6
Laos 4.6
Georgia 4.3
Martinique 4.2
United States 4.2

Note: ALL the countries listed above the US have 100% gun bans, so what does that tell you about absolute gun bans stopping gun violence?

Sequestration's Bottom Line

Aside from the sequester being Obama's idea to start with, so he could use it to make Republicans cave on the debt ceiling (which worked) but which he now finds so inconvenient all of a sudden, the bottom line is that the $85B in across-the-board cuts amounts to about only 2% of the overall federal budget, an amount which Obama has ample latitude to shift money around to cover with no impact which everyday citizens would even notice. Instead, Obama, who previously said there would be no off-ramps or compromises on sequestration and that if Republicans asked for any, his answer would be no, is now playing Chicken Little, acting like the sky is falling, staging a recent White House photo op with first responders (who are paid locally anyway and not by the federal government), claiming that the mail won't be delivered and Social Security checks might be at risk, as well as having his cabinet henchmen and handmaidens join in, notably recently DOT's Ray LaHood claiming that FAA air traffic controllers will have to be laid off, thereby making our skies and the flying public more unsafe, and DHS' Janet "Big Sis" Napolitano (I say Incompentano for obvious reasons) saying our borders will be less secure and we will be more subject to terrorist attacks, and on, and on -- and lions and tigers and bears, oh my! I say, although sequestration is using a meat cleaver to make cuts in spending, rather than a scalpel, if you have a president who won't propose or make any real spending cuts on his own, Republicans might just have to let sequestration happen, just to get any cuts at all in exchange for the $800B in increased revenues (taxes) which Obama campaigned for and which they in good faith gave him right after his reelection -- that is, until he moved the goal posts again and said he wanted $1.2T more in taxes instead.

Dr. Conservative

And now, with acknowledgement, as well as apologies, to Dr. Seuss, I will end this series of Salient Snippets with a bit of whimsy:

I do not like this Uncle Sam,
I do not like his healthcare scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks,
Or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals,
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like ex-Speaker Nan,
I do not like this "Yes, we can."
I do not like this spending spree,
I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.
I do not like their smug replies,
When I complain about their lies.
I do not like this kind of Hope.
I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!


Another Issue of Salient Snippets -- Part III - Patriot Action Network