Equality

"No politician can afford to let women come home in body bags."

That's a quote from the 1997 film G.I. Jane.  "Senator Lilian DeHaven" (played brilliantly by the late Anne Bancroft) said it.

In an article published in April of 2013, the nonprofit Center for Military Readiness listed the names of the 148 U.S. military women who died after 9/11/2001 while deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Syria.

Now a judge in Texas has ruled that the male-only requirement to register for the Selective Service is unconstitutional.  The U.S. has not held a military draft since 1973 but men are still required to register with Selective Service.  Failure to do so is a criminal offense, although no one has been prosecuted for failure to register in recent memory.  Not registering also makes a man ineligible for federal student loans for college and prevents them from being hired for most federal jobs

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1981's Rostker v Goldberg that the male-only Selective Service registration requirement was not discriminatory because women were prohibited from serving in combat roles.  Now the judge says that since all combat roles are open to women, it is discriminatory to continue the male-only Selective Service registration requirement.

* * *

The question is, should the response be to require women to register when they reach their 18th birthday; or just do away with Selective Service registration altogether?

Until last year, the all-volunteer Army had met its recruiting goals every year since 2005.  It missed its goal by thousands last year.  Can we rely on an all-volunteer force to safeguard our nation?  We have since the end of the Vietnam War.

Selective Service is not a draft.  It is a contingency plan so that if a draft becomes necessary, it would ostensibly be easier to conduct that draft.

Last June the U.S. Army began a pilot program that increased the time it takes to fully train an infantry soldier from 13 to 21 weeks.  Would a true national emergency that required the institution of a draft be such that the all-volunteer force we have now could keep an enemy at bay while we spent weeks training the draftees?  I think not.

In the end, if we are truly seeking equality between the genders, either men AND women need to be part of the Selective Service system, or it needs to be done away with entirely.

Which stories should be the headline

This afternoon, Empire actor Jussie Smollett was indicted for filing a false police report.  It is the biggest story in the news on Fox News, CNN and other outlets.

It is a story involving a celebrity.  It involves accusations of racially motivated violence which may turn out to have been part of an elaborate hoax.  We may never know what really happened and that isn't important at the moment.  There is a judicial process ahead to handle this matter.

There was another story that broke today.  I think it should be a much bigger headline than a famous actor being charged with filing a false police report.

Not a great photo to be sure.  But the story involves a U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant who was arrested last Friday.  Christopher Paul Hasson allegedly had compiled a hit list that included the names Chuck Schumer, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and other politicians.  It also named Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo and other prominent journalists.  You can read the CNN reporting here.

As of this writing, Donald Trump has not used his favorite platform of Twitter to say anything about this story.  He did find time to say that a young woman named Hoda Muthana cannot reenter the U.S., in spite of the fact she was once issued a U.S. passport.  Passports are issued only to citizens.

Lieutenant Hasson had stockpiled an arsenal of weapons and ammo.

If this story was about someone from south of the border, Mr. Trump would have had a lot to say on the subject.  If the accused in this situation was a Muslim, we would also be witnessing a Trump tweetstorm for the ages.

This is a white man who says he is a white nationalist.  No fence, no barrier would have helped here.

This should be the top headline story.

The difference between a manufactured emergency and a real emegency

The Ohio Jobs and Justice PAC has a website that they have labeled as a "Victims of Illegal Aliens Memorial in honor of the thousands of American citizens killed each year by Illegal Aliens."

Thousands every year?  In the deaths identified below, all are alleged killings except when the suspect was convicted.

Officer Ronil Singh was murdered on 12/26/2018 by an illegal alien during a traffic stop.

12 year old Clinton Howell was murdered on 12/18/2018 by an illegal alien in a drive-by shooting.

51 year old Rocky Jones was murdered on 12/16/2018 by an illegal alien in a convenience store robbery.

76 year old Robert Page was murdered on 11/8/2018 by an illegal alien who was his tenant.

21 year old Sabrina Star was murdered on 11/2/2018 by an illegal alien in a shooting.

38 year old Steven Marler was murdered on 11/1/2018 by an illegal alien who was his roommate

23 year old Aron Hampton was murdered on 11/1/2018 by an illegal alien who was his former roommate.

14 year old Justin James Dennis Lee was killed on 6/11/2018 by an illegal alien in a case of reckless driving.

20 year old Mollie Tibbitts was killed by an illegal alien after she went missing on 7/18/2018.

Those nine victims are all of those on this memorial website who were killed in 2018.  Sure doesn't sound like thousands.

All of those deaths are tragic.  Would a wall on our nation's southern border have prevented all of them?  Not in Clinton Howell's case, unless the man suspected of his murder entered the U.S. illegally from Jamaica by way of Mexico.

But that is not a national emergency.

In 2018 there were mass shootings at:

Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL

Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA

The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA

Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, TX

Bakersfield, CA

Columbia, TN

Robstown, TX

Prices Corner, DE

Annapolis, MD

Orlando, FL

Ponder, TX

Yountville, CA

Detroit, MI

Paintsville, KY

Melcroft, PA

In every single one of those mass shootings, at least five people died.

That is a national emergency.

* * *

The public debt has increased by more than $2 trillion since Trump was inaugurated.  It now stands at $22 trillion for the first time ever.  While the debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio isn't in the danger zone yet, at 104.1%, it is close.  The fact that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was projected to add $1.5 trillion by itself between 2018 and 2018 tacked on to the increase in public debt already is staggering.

That is a national emergency.

* * *

Trump said he didn't need to declare the border a national emergency, he just did it to get the wall done faster.

If it were a true national emergency, would he have departed for a golf weekend at his Mar a Lago home immediately after signing the declaration?

Uh, NO!!

A simple question with a complicated answer

Is criticism of Israel in and of itself, anti-Semetic?

Some say yes.

Some say no.

First-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives Ilhan Omar tweeted a response that brought this subject back into the headlines over the weekend, on Twitter:

It's all about the Benjamins baby 🎶 https://t.co/KatcXJnZLV

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 10, 2019

AIPAC! https://t.co/UdzaFUEfrh

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 11, 2019

The subject of whether or not Israel is a Jewish state is debatable.  The Chief Rabbinate is governed by Israeli law, but it is not the official state Rabbinate.  But that Chief Rabbinate does not recognize two of the three divisions of Judaism.  The three are Orthodox, Conservative and Reform.  To illustrate, marriages performed by Conservative and Reform rabbis are not recognized as valid.

On the other hand, Israel passed into law The Right of Return in 1950, which grants any Jew from any nation the right to enter Israel and become a citizen.  

* * *

Congresswoman Omar made reference to AIPAC.  The American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent over $3.5 million lobbying Congress last year.  In their last not for profit tax return, covering a fiscal year that ended on 9/30/2016, they received just under $95 million in contributions.  Their mission statement is telling:

TO STRENGTHEN, PROTECT AND PROMOTE THE U.S. ISRAEL RELATIONSHIP IN WAYS THAT ENHANCE THE SECURITY OF ISRAEL AND THE U.S.

Note how Israel is mentioned first.  

Former member of Congress Brian Baird had a lot to say about AIPAC in an article published in The New Yorker in September of 2014.  Here is an excerpt:

Baird said, “When key votes are cast, the question on the House floor, troublingly, is often not ‘What is the right thing to do for the United States of America?’ but ‘How is AIPAC going to score this?’ ” He added, “There’s such a conundrum here, of believing that you’re supporting Israel, when you’re actually backing policies that are antithetical to its highest values and, ultimately, destructive for the country.” In talks with Israeli officials, he found that his inquiries were not treated with much respect. In 2003, one of his constituents, Rachel Corrie, was killed by a bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier, as she protested the demolition of Palestinians’ homes in Gaza. At first, he said, the officials told him, “There’s a simple explanation—here are the facts.” Or, “We will look into it.” But, when he continued to press, something else would emerge. “There is a disdain for the U.S., and a dismissal of any legitimacy of our right to question—because who are we to talk about moral values?” Baird told me. “Whether it’s that we didn’t help early enough in the Holocaust, or look at what we did to our African-Americans, or our Native Americans—whatever! And they see us, members of Congress, as basically for sale. So they want us to shut up and play the game.”

Is criticism of AIPAC or the actions of Israel anti-Semetic?  That's your call.

Candace Owens' remarks about Adolf Hitler

Candace Owens is the Director of Turning Point USA, a conservative non-profit that has been criticized over its "Professor Watchlist" that identifies college professors who it accuses of discriminating against conservative students.  It also stands accused of attempting to secretly influence student government elections as part of its agenda to "combat liberalism" on college campuses.

She was in London last December when she made some comments about Adolf Hitler in response to a question.  Responses to those who criticized her comments claim they were taken out of context.  Here is the Buzzfeed article that broke this story.  This the portion of the article that contains all of her comments:

Asked by a member of the audience about nationalism in Western politics, Owens brought up Adolf Hitler. “I actually don’t have any problems at all with the word ‘nationalism’,” Owens said. “I think that the definition gets poisoned by elitists that actually want globalism. Globalism is what I don’t want. … Whenever we say nationalism, the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler."

“He was a national socialist,” she continued. “But if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is that he wanted, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German. Everybody to look a different way. To me, that’s not nationalism. In thinking about how we could go bad down the line, I don’t really have an issue with nationalism. I really don’t."

Ms Owens tweeted the following regarding her comments being taken out of context just after I began this blog:

Congratulations to Business Insider for being the first publication to publish the ENTIRETY of my comments, not taken out of context.

This is what responsible journalism looks like. @businessinsider https://t.co/GPA58FdTjh

— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) February 9, 2019

* * *

If I am interpreting the comments of Ms Owens in their entirety correctly, her problem with what Hitler did begins when he began his attempt at conquering the world, which was his definition of her term "globalism."  

In February of 1933, Hitler promulgated his foreign policy of incorporating Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans living outside of the nation's borders), expansion into and domination of western Europe and Lebensraum (living space, which was to be acquired in eastern Europe).  But it wasn't until March of 1938 when Germany annexed Austria that Hitler took action outside of his nation; where Ms Owens lauds his nationalism.  Let's look at some of the things that Hitler did between those two events:

Later in Feb 1933 - the Communist Party was banned following the Reichstag fire.  This gave the Nazis complete control of the government.

March 1933 - The Enabling Act is passed, giving Hitler authority to make laws without consulting the Reichstag for the next four years.

April 1933 - The German secret police, the Gestapo is formed.

April 1933 - The Nazis seized control of local governments.

May 1933 - Trade unions were banned.

May 1933 - Over 25,000 "un-German" books were burned at the urging of Joseph Goebbels.

July 1933 - All political parties other than the Nazi Party are banned.

All that in less than six months.

June 1934 - 150 leaders of the Sturmabteilung SA, the paramilitary unit of the Nazi Party were assassinated in what is now known as The Night of the Long Knives.

September 1935 - Nuremberg laws redefine German citizenship.  Relationships between Jews and Aryans are banned.

December 1936 -  Membership in the Hitler Youth organization was made mandatory for all boys.

One other item occurred after Hitler's annexation of Austria and seizure of Czechoslovakia, merely two months later.

November 1938 - Kristallnacht.  Night of the Broken Glass.  Named for the shards of broken glass from two nights of violence against the homes, businesses and synagogues of German Jews.  Hundreds dead.  30,000 Jewish men arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps.

If it was the intention of Ms Owens to dismiss these things as not being part of the problem because Hitler had formulated a foreign policy, but not yet undertaken any real expansion efforts outside of Germany's borders, that doesn't fly.

More wall or nothing

There is a lot of speculation about what Donald Trump will say when he delivers the State of the Union address tonight.  Will he declare a national emergency or not?  Given that a number of Republican lawmakers oppose the move, he may be reconsidering that move.

A CBS News poll released on Sunday, Feb 3rd shows that 73% of Americans surveyed are opposed to funding the construction of a wall by a declaration that it is a national emergency.  Considering most of the people in the U.S. illegally are those who entered legally on visas and did not depart when they expired and most illegal drugs entering the U.S. come through legal points of entry, this is NOT an emergency.

That being said, we cannot allow another shutdown to happen and do further damage to our economy and our natural resources.  I propose a compromise.

1.  Congress will fund $2.85 billion in wall construction.
2.  Congress will give Trump statutory authority to divert $2.85 billion in funding from other Department of Homeland Security appropriations for wall construction.
3.  The bill that makes 1 and 2 happen will also change the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) from executive order to federal law.
4.  This bill also prohibits ICE from attempting to deport those in this country illegally who have not been convicted of a serious crime.  Serious crimes would be defined as:

Murder.
Manslaughter, including vehicular manslaughter
Rape and lesser forms of sexual assault.
Armed robbery.
Assault, including misdemeanor assault.
Burglary.
DUI (except for first offenders where no one was injured).
Other crimes including violence or theft of property that are felonies.

I suspect Trump would reject this compromise because he wants to deport anyone here illegally, including those who are protected by DACA.  But it would require him to choose to reject the funding he has been demanding.

Just a thought.

This behavior is not in keeping with who I am today

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam is being inundated with calls for his resignation.  Why?  Because of a photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook.

I am all of eight days older than Governor Northam.  We are both veterans.  It is 2019 and neither of us are who we were in 1984.  In June of 1984 I was stationed in South Korea, working very hard and playing almost as hard when I wasn't working.  I'm sure I'd be a bit embarrassed if there were photos of some of the stuff I did during that one year tour of duty.  I wouldn't want to be judged about who I am and what I do in 2019 by photos from 1984.

However, neither youth nor the passage of time can be used to excuse racism.  This is not a youthful indiscretion or bad judgment.  Governor Northam was within months of his 25th birthday when those photos were published in that yearbook.

During his senior year at Virginia Military Institute, he was President of the school's Honor Court.  That is the student-run group who sits in judgment over those who are accused of violations of the school's very stringent Honor Code.  That post should have thoroughly inculcated Governor Northam in the issues of right and wrong.  Apparently it didn't take.

His desire to try to weather this storm is understandable, but naïve.  Democrats and Republicans are calling on him to resign.  There is no issue related to keeping the governor's office in the hands of a Democrat, since current Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax would become Governor if Northam resigned.

Governor Northam followed up a statement released by his office with a video:

My fellow Virginians, earlier today I released a statement apologizing for behavior in my past that falls far short of the standard you set for me when you elected me to be your governor. I believe you deserve to hear directly from me. pic.twitter.com/1rSw1oxfrX

— Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) February 2, 2019

He talks about regaining the trust of Virginians.  A worthwhile, if nearly impossible goal.  He needs to step down if he is truly interested in healing.