Just A Sign Of The Times......

Link: Did Obama Threaten To Shoot Down Israeli Warplanes?


Its so hard to believe, but 2016 is almost upon us.  For me, the years pass so quickly, now that time has become so valuable.  When I was younger, the term "middle age" was always confusing to me.  It was meant to describe people in their 50s and early 60s (if my memory serves me correctly), but I found myself doing the math each and every time, and coming away perplexed.  When I was fourteen, my middle-aged Grandmother was fifty-nine years old.  Since she was considered middle-aged, shouldn't she expect to live to be somewhere near one-hundred twenty?  She departed for her just rewards at around seventy-three years old.  So "middle age" will just remain one of those quaint American terms that are impossible to translate.  But my age is immaterial to this post.  Hillary Clinton's age is a more apropos topic.  How old is Hillary nowadays, anyway?  Wikipedia says she's sixty-seven.  Wow; the years have been rough on Hillary, and I mean no disrespect.  Washington DC is a stressful town, and the cost of doing the nation's business can always be seen on the faces of the veterans like Hillary.  Poor Mitch McConnell; his turkey neck will on occasion catch a gust of wind and blow him backwards five feet.  I was going to say that Barbara Mikulski has been in DC so long that you can't really determine her gender, but actually, she arrived that way.  Not too many pretty faces in Congress nowadays, and some of it is self-inflicted.  I'm still totally confused about John Boehner's merry-go-round of tans. Sometimes he's Bahamas brown as a coconut, and the next day he will be lightly bronzed like a peanut.  What a circus. 

Circus or not, 2016 is almost upon us.  I am so appalled at the state of affairs in the United States that I try to avoid addressing the long-term.  My view is, that from an integrity perspective, its never to late to start doing the right thing.  If the 2016 President-elect, with a compliant Congress, decides to tackle the national debt, how exactly do you get your hands around twenty trillion dollars?  Don't forget, all of those outstretched hands aren't going anywhere, and the first elected leader who realistically attempts to attack Entitlements had better have thick skin.  The only way to effectively attack the national debt is with targeted, substantial cuts to Entitlements.  The current Administration has presided over the most massive growth in Entitlements that this country has ever seen.  Commercials are produced by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that encourage people to examine themselves to look for evidence of partial disability.  There can be no doubt that the Obama Administration is determined to create a population that is solely dependent on the government from cradle to grave.  I can't think of anything more un-American.  But President Obama can't run for re-election, and currently he's singularly focused on trying to salvage his legacy by sponsoring a Nuclear Power Treaty with Tehran.  Is there an American in this country who actually believes that the government of Iran will abide by a Treaty it signs with the U.S.?  Since they've been so quick to remind us of our "Great Satan" reputation, why would we expect them to feel bound to any agreement they might sign?  But you can rest assured that a Treaty will be signed.  President Obama likes to pretend before the cameras that his tough-as-nails negotiators won't accept a weak or unverifiable Treaty, but you know just as well as I do, that their marching orders were to conclude a Treaty first, apply window dressing second.  Welcome to Operation Salvaging the Legacy.

Out here in the Texas Hill Country, I rarely hear rumors.  But believe it or not, we do get the internet down here deep in Red State territory, and so close to the Cradle of Texas Liberty, the Alamo.  Per the link that I have provided above, a few weeks back a Kuwaiti newspaper (with a respected Editor) published a report, claiming that sometime in 2014, the Israelis were considering a pre-emptive strike against the Iranian nuclear research facilities, and that U.S. President Barrack Obama threatened to intercept and shoot down any Israeli planes who attempted such unilateral military action.  We have learned only recently that negotiations with the Iranians were ongoing in 2014 as well.  What have we become?  And how was it accomplished in such a short period of time?  I have no choice but to assume that the approval numbers for Obama, which currently reside near fifty percent, are accurate.  Is it possible that fifty percent of the American public believe that Obama has done a good job with the economy, and has made the United States a safer place to raise our children?  I'm old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter was elected President in 1976; it was the year of the bicentennial, and the year my beloved Guinea Pig, Snowball, died of heat stroke.  I remember my father supported President Gerald Ford for re-election, but many people, especially in the younger subgroups, were visibly excited about a Carter Presidency.  Many folks associated the Republicans with two negative issues: the Vietnam War and the Nixon scandal.  Governor (of Georgia) Jimmy Carter promised an entire new direction. 

Carter was victorious is one of the most astonishingly close elections in our nation's history, and his was true to his convictions.  His policies were implemented at the earliest opportunity. And before you could say "oops", the country began to come apart at the seams.  The economy was stagnant and refuse to grow.  Our foreign policy appeared to be crafted as the day went on, with a public opposition to all terrorism but a behind-the-scenes willingness to talk to anyone.  By the time an attempt to rescue the American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran had failed, even Carter seemed to understand that his ideas just weren't in sync with the American people.  he did run for re-election, beating Senator Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, but he was thoroughly trounced by the former Republican Governor of California, Ronald Reagan.  The reason we have taken this little trip down memory lane, is because I can recall that many people who originally voted for Carter in 1976, had not trouble admitting that they had made a mistake.  Just as many Republicans were quick to acknowledge their support of Richard Nixon as an error.  In fact, being big enough to own up to a bad political decision seems very American to me.  But we have undergone a tremendous Sea Change in the last twenty years.   The country could be burning to the ground around us, with Al-Qaeda chopping of heads for lunch at the local Dollar General, and folks would still vote for Barrack Obama.  This explains why, with a twenty trillion dollar deficit, a confused and bumbling foreign policy, a military that can't provide basic health care to its veterans, and a small group of elite politicians who continue to live above the law (Hello, Hillary).  I guess its all just a sign of the times......