Points to Ponder

By William L. Garvin

“An interesting aspect of the rumored treaty with Iran is that, at the very least, they will be able to pursue nuclear energy to their heart’s content, which is more than the liberals, taking their marching orders from environmental zealots, will allow us to do.  How is it we’re not insisting that Iran start relying on solar panels and windmills for its energy needs?  Although nuclear energy is cheap, available and safe, and would make us energy independent for the foreseeable future, we haven’t built a nuclear plant since the 1970’s.  Perhaps if America could go to Switzerland and negotiate with John Kerry, we too could start building centrifuges for peaceful purposes.”  Burt Prelutsky

Iran has an abundant supply of oil and it only costs about $4.00 for them to produce each barrel   As a result, gasoline is about $.25 per gallon so from a purely practical perspective, why is there such a need for nuclear energy?  Also why isn’t their production of intercontinental ballistic missiles being addressed at the negotiating table?  They already have rockets that will reach Israel and indeed, “wipe it off the map” if armed with nuclear warheads.  But pay no attention to all those “Death to America’ chants—they don’t really mean it.

Everyone should be very concerned about this “deal” which may not even be confirmed in writing!  Remember, the Obama-Hillary-Kerry administration has hardly left a track record of successful negotiations.  They couldn’t even successfully negotiate a “status of forces” agreement with Iraq.  Kerry’s mediation in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was a miserable failure.  The missile defense system for Poland and Czechoslovakia was thrown under the bus.  Hillary couldn’t even spell her “reset button’ for Russia correctly let alone protect Crimea and the Ukraine.  Uncle Sam not only got his pocket picked in the START treaty but the Russian bear also ate his lunch!  The “deadlines” and “red lines” in Syria became and international joke.  And lest we forget, they recently traded five top Taliban terrorist commanders for a soldier now facing charges of desertion and misbehavior (which carries a life sentence).

Given that Israel’s very existence may be at stake, she is making use of every avenue available for survival.  Not too surprisingly, Mossad (the Israeli CIA) is monitoring every word and every action of the countries that are determining her future.  The Obama administration, increasingly hostile to Israel in general and her prime minister in particular, appear exceedingly vexed that Israel is looking out for her own self-interest.  Why they are even spying on the USA!  And how did the USA find that out?  By spying on Israel of course!  Oops!

On the national political front, the left is now doubling down on double standards.  Since Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for president, there is now much liberal hue and cry about a first term senator being qualified.  They even have a “birther” movement challenging his eligibility.  The media immediately branded him as “uppity, divisive, a flamethrower, a demagogue, rigid and uncompromising.”  When he said he grew fond of country music after 9/11 because of its patriotic themes, MSNBC’s Jamilah Lemieux idiotically brayed “Nothing says ‘Let’s go kill some Muslims’ like country music….”  Haters gotta hate even if their viewers dissipate and ratings tank.

Meanwhile, just as there were “Jordan Rules” in the NBA, there now appear to be “Clinton Rules” in presidential politics.  Somehow it is perfectly acceptable for Hillary’s foundation to rake in millions of dollars from foreign countries while she was Secretary of State.  It’s perfectly acceptable for her to continue to accept untold buckets of money from individuals and countries that won’t allow women to drive, will stone them for adultery, require four witnesses to a rape and allow husbands to beat their wives.  It’s perfectly acceptable for her to conduct our nation’s most sensitive business on her own private email accounts with her own private server.  It’s perfectly acceptable for her to destroy all the emails she chooses and to wipe her server clean even though congress has requested those documents for months.

But if you criticize her or point out the recent CBS News poll shows that only 26% view her favorably while 37% view her unfavorably, beware the wrath of the Clinton “Super Volunteers,” who notified the New York Times that they will carefully track the media for “sexist code words.”  So don’t you ever say that she is “polarizing, calculating, disingenuous, insincere, ambitious, inevitable, entitled, over-confident, secretive, will do anything to win, represents the past, or out of touch.”  Never dare to blaspheme their saint!  Prepare for the thought police and their cyber-bully tactics.  You must never dissent.  You will kiss your freedom of speech goodbye…or else!

IRAN AND HEZBOLLAH NO LONGER THREATS?

The following is from a Newsweek story written by Jack Moore today, March 16:  "An annual security assessment presented to the U.S. Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, has excluded Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah from its list of terror threats to U.S. interests, despite both being consistently included as threats in previous years.

The unclassified report, issued by Clapper on February 26 and entitled the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities, was published by the Times of Israel amid Israeli concerns that Iran was omitted simply because of Tehran’s efforts to combat ISIS.

In a previous report from January 2014, Clapper included Iran and Hezbollah in the ‘Terrorism’ section, writing that both “continue to directly threaten the interests of U.S. allies. Hizballah [sic] has increased its global terrorist activity in recent years to a level that we have not seen since the 1990s”. Iran was also given its own sub-heading in the ‘Terrorism’ section of such assessments in 2011, 2012 and 2013."

So let's all get together and learn how to love the Iranian bomb now that we're not negotiating with terrorists!  If you believe this is a good move, then Bo Bergdahl, Bradley/Chelsea Manning, and Nidal Hassan are all patriots.

Bill Garvin

Double Troubling Inconsistencies

By William L. Garvin

This world is teeming with blatant double standards and glaring inconsistencies yet many in the general population are only selectively outraged.  The first examples must be an anathema to the veterans of the UC Berkeley Free Speech movement in the sixties.  It would be appalling for them to see swastikas painted on a Jewish fraternity at a sister campus.  It would be incomprehensible for them to hear Jewish students shouted down with cries of “allahu Akbar” as they attempted to speak against a resolution to divest all campus investments in Israel.  Their puzzlement would be compounded by another campus voting to remove all United States flags because they might be “offensive” to some.  They would also equally abhor and vigorously debate the foolish frat boy rap of the Oklahoma University fraternity.  Somewhere along the line, “freedom” and “responsibility” have been irrevocably rendered asunder.  Having the right to do it doesn’t always equate to it being the right thing to do.  Burning flags, misogynistic rap lyrics, and profane and offensive “art” abound in these times.

An offshoot of this theme is the irresponsible promulgation of the “hands up, don’t shoot” mythology.  Where are the apologies now that even activist Attorney General had to totally exonerate Officer Darren Wilson in the Ferguson shooting?  Let’s hear the NBA and NFL players apologize for helping ruin the life of Officer Wilson.  Let’s hear an apology from Hakeem Jeffries, Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green, and Yvette Clarke, all Democrat members of the Congressional Black Caucus, for “acting stupidly” by holding their hands up on the House floor.  Let’s hear President Obama apologize for listening to the foolish race-baiting polemics of Al Sharpton.  Let’s hear the media apologize for perpetuating the “gentle giant” fraud and doctoring tapes and using prepubescent cherubic photographs of Trayvon Martin all the while giving comparatively scant attention to the assassination of two New York officers, to the shooting of two officers in Ferguson, to black on black crime, and horror of horrors, black on white crime.

Then there’s the “smartest woman in the world” attempting to gender morph from the perpetually dissatisfied Madame Bovary into President Ovary.  Even though she brags about having an iPhone, a Blackberry, a mini and an iPad, apparently she couldn’t figure out how to have two email addresses on a single device or use two devices.  Also, how does her State Department generate a billion emails but preserve only 61,000?  This makes the eighteen and a half missing minutes on the Nixon tapes look like a warm-up act.  If all those deleted emails had to do with yoga poses, prom dresses, funeral and wedding plans, there were far too many government employees doing personal business on official time.  Maybe if they had actually been doing their jobs, four Americans would be alive in Benghazi today!

Nonetheless, the Dems will rally around Hillary if no other reason than they don’t have anybody else.  They will continue to characterize her as a champion of women although even her most ardent supporters are hard pressed to list any concrete accomplishments (other than miraculously making a small fortune in cattle futures).  Given the sorry state of affairs in international relations, her only successful operation was the “nuts and sluts” character assassinations to cover up her husband’s bimbo eruptions.  (By the way, why are multiple complaints against Bill Cosby indicative of his guilt but multiple complaints against Bill Clinton so easily dismissed?)  And if a Republican candidate ever paid his or her female staffers at a lower rate compared to male staffers just as Hillary does, they would be pilloried.  That’s as bad as Clint Eastwood using non-union crews…oh wait—that was Michael Moore!

Speaking of acting, look at all the faux outrage Democrats exhibited regarding the speech to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.  Nancy Pelosi said she was “nearly moved to tears” by his presentation which she deemed insulting to her president.  Her childish pantomimes of displeasure (until she and the Black Caucus stormed out) was the epitome of disrespect to what she once called “our staunchest ally.”  With friends like that….  She and John Kerry continued their manufactured outrage by castigating a letter that 47 senators sent to Iran.  She had no such qualms about personally visiting Bashar al-Assad in Syria against President Bush’s wishes but of course, that was then and this is now.

Thanks to a lack of principles and utter disregard for the truth, inconsistency and double standards are the mother’s milk of today’s politics.  For those who continue to foolishly foment racial discord, division and discontent, here’s your new slogan:  “Bloody hands up; don’t drip!”  

Saying What You Mean

By William L. Garvin

‘Intelligence is derived from two words, inter and leger, inter meaning ‘between’ and leger meaning ‘to choose between.’  An intelligent person, therefore, is one who has learned ‘to choose between.’  He knows that good is better than evil, that confidence should supersede fear, that love is superior to hate, that gentleness is better than cruelty, forbearance than intolerance, compassion than arrogance, and that truth has more virtue than ignorance.”  J. Martin Klotsche

In their search for independence, generations sometimes differentiate from their elders by their use of language.  Sometimes they invent new words such as “Daddio,” “gremmie,” “homies,” “brah,” “bling,” and “selfie.”  Sometimes they develop generational “cool” by changing spelling such as “phat,” “dat,” and “def.”  Another differentiation is to change the traditional meaning of a word as has happened with “boss,” “hot,” “lame,” “bad,” “gay,” “gnarly,” and “booty.”  Most of these are merely cultural phases, harmless and ephemeral.  There is a much more serious issue when the press, government, or societal transmogrification obscures reality and the truth.

The Obama administration promised that its cornerstones would be the “rule of law” and “transparency.”  Those were its words but hardly its actions.  Throughout its scandal-plagued six years, the public has been inundated with obfuscation, stonewalling, “misremembering,” and blatant hypocrisy.  Anyone opposing the progressive transformation has been subjected to the full force of government retribution much as Tea Party and conservative groups have had to endure.  There is a campaign of “eradication of opposition” that has been aided and abetted by establishment Republicans with their “go along to get along” policy of appeasement and a complacent, compliant media that willingly follows White House marching orders.  Therefore, just as in a Brian Williams or Dan Rather newscast, you will never get the full truth.

When American soldiers were slaughtered at Ft. Hood by a Muslim shouting praises to Allah, Islamic terrorism became “workplace violence.”  The Jews slaughtered in a Jewish deli in Paris became “folks” who were killed at “random” even though the murderer said he was after Jews.  Now we have 21 Coptic Christians beheaded by ISIS in Libya who are identified as “Egyptian citizens” and “innocent victims.”  However, when Craig Hicks executes three Muslim students, they are immediately identified as victims of their faith and manner of worship.  In genuflecting support of this knee jerk reaction, liberal media has tried to paint Hicks as representative of the “white, right wing extremist.”  They deliberately ignore the fact that he is an ardent atheist, a fan of the Southern Poverty Law Center (an extremist group that calls out others as extremists!), the Huffington Post, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, many anti-Tea Party and anti-conservative Facebook pages, and of course, MSNBC’s resident White House apologist—Rachel Maddow.  Some blame the movie AMERICAN SNIPER for these murders.

Even though the police have reported the murders to be the result of an ongoing dispute over a parking space, the confluence of a “perpetual grievance mentality” with the “perpetual liberal guilt mentality” has resulted in a new hashtag campaign of “Muslim lives matter.”  Of course they do along with Black lives matter, White lives matter, Christian lives matter, Hindu lives matter, Buddhist lives matter, atheist lives matter, etc., (unless they are in a liberal womb!).  This was epitomized by MSNBC’s peripatetic Chris Hayes who anointed it a “Trayvon Martin moment,” “a Michael Brown moment,” typifying the “routine stereotyping and marginalization of Muslims.”  He went on to say “It takes place in a context where subtle, persistent, anti-Muslim bias is a part of American life and this feels like a wake-up call.”  What a crock of horse manure!  First of all, there is no similarity at all between a couple of street punks and these young students.  Secondly, there is no wave of Islamophobia in this country even though the President and Muslim leaders think there is.  Thirdly, who cares what it “feels like” to you?  Where are your facts?  Reality check--you don’t have any.

Meanwhile, swastikas are painted on a Jewish fraternity in California, Jewish and Christian cemeteries are desecrated in Europe, American marines are forced to destroy their weapons before abandoning our embassy in Yemen, a Christian genocide is occurring throughout the Middle East, 300 marines are about to be surrounded in Iraq, the embassy in Kabul is now within reach of the Taliban terrorists (rather the “armed insurgents who resort to terrorist activities,” and another estimated 20,000 “boots on the ground” have joined ISIS.  Still President Obama fantasizes that “ISIS is on the defensive” and “morale is low” because of his “smart diplomacy” and “strategic patience.”  This is all Obama-speak for “dithering” and “I don’t have a clue.”  That is truly “cray cray” and since SNAFU, YOYO, and GLTA!

High Horse, Hobby Horse, or Stalking Horse?

By William L. Garvin

“Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”  President Barack Obama

Seasoned citizens were often queried as whether it was “live or Memorex.”  Today it’s a question of whether it’s April Fools or whether someone’s getting punked or whether it’s just a “Saturday Night Live” spoof.  In any event, nearly everyone who is paying attention is channeling their inner John McEnroe and screaming “you can’t possibly be serious!”  Even die-hard democrats are bowing their heads, not in reverence but in shame and chagrin, because of the president’s perplexing performance at the National Prayer Breakfast.  It was devastatingly wrong on so many levels.  Furthermore, this event raises significant concern as to whether or not there have been “high crimes” against logic, “misdemeanors” against optics and common decency, and “treason” against historical accuracy, all committed by President Obama.  As a result, anyone other than low information voters must be disturbed as to why our Commander-in-Chief has morphed into the Islamapoligist-in-Chief.  Elections do indeed have consequences that are “coming home to roost!”

As Lou Dobbs noted: “… the president seems to constantly be mounting his high horse.  It’s a wonder that he doesn’t suffer chronic nose bleeds.”  It is usually this president who sits astride the “high horse” with nothing more than a hobby horse foundation.  He’s quick to condemn police for “acting stupidly” without gathering necessary facts but equally quick to caution others not to “rush to judgment” when Nidal Hasan is shouting “allahu Akbar” and slaughtering American soldiers.  He’s quick to perpetuate the Ferguson myth of “hands up, don’t shoot” before the United Nations general assembly but slow to retract or correct his error.  He’s quick to establish red lines and deadlines but they are all sound and fury, signifying nothing as they impotently fade into memory.  He’s slow to defend but quick to condemn the country he was chosen to lead.

 “Crusades’ was not a term that was used until the seventeenth century though the Christian military actions against Muslims started in the late eleventh century.  Muslim military actions, incursions and conquests into Christendom started four centuries before that.   Indeed, Muslims had subjugated nearly two-thirds of the Christian world at the time the Pope initiated the first crusade.  Another significant observation about Islam and Christianity is that Mohammed personally led military actions whereas Jesus the Christ did not.  The early sections of the Quran read more peacefully but the later verses became more aggressive corresponding to the faith’s growth in numbers and strength.  Quran (8:12)—“I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve.  Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”  There is no similar verse in the New Testament of the Bible.  Nor are there any Christian equivalents for “fatwas” or “jihads.”

Christians do not burn people alive, behead babies, bury people alive, shoot children for watching soccer matches, stone women, keep women from school or driving cars, throw homosexuals off rooftops, or kidnap and rape young girls as a matter of contemporary faith or culture.  Anyone doing so would become an instant pariah and would be vehemently repudiated by the entire Christian community.  Christianity has embraced reform.  Such is not the case in countries under Islamic rule.  We are told that 99.9% of Muslims are moderate.  Where did that number come from?  If so, why are they powerless to eliminate the one-tenth of one percent of violent extremists that is “perverting” their faith?  It’s up to them to clean up their own act.

As for Jim Crow and slavery, the abolitionist movement was fueled from Christian ranks, not from the worlds of academia or government.  Christian leaders such as John Wesley, William Wilberforce, Charles Finney, and Theodore Weld through Martin Luther King labored tirelessly and spearheaded slavery’s demise often at great personal risk.  In his labored invocation of Jim Crow laws, note that those activities and those of the Ku Klux Klan stemmed from his own Democrat party!

This president seems to like to wade into waters even though his knowledge has no depth.  He thinks climate change is more dangerous than terrorism.  He thinks Islamaphobia is more dangerous than Muslim extremism.  He refuses to even say the words “Islamic terrorist!”  He would rather fabricate moral equivalencies from a thousand years ago than effectively challenge the evil of global Islamic extremism.  Sins of yore deserve more condemnation than the barbaric savagery of today.  Until his world view changes, it will represent an “existential threat” to this country.

Differing States of Affairs

By William L. Garvin 

The vast majority of Americans tuned out and turned away from the State of the Union speech by President Obama.  What they missed was a carefully scripted paean to the brilliance of his administration in governing our country.  If there were to be a soundtrack for accompaniment, it would have been “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “Accentuate the Positive (Eliminate the Negative),” and “What a Wonderful World” as the finale.  Thankfully, there would be no James Taylor!  Why did so few watch?  Why were his ratings a 15-year low?  Maybe they didn’t want to see a poorly rated rerun of perpetual tax and spend democrat policies, hate the rich class warfare, and pie in the sky Monte Hall giveaways.  Maybe his oratorical luster has faded.  Maybe his failure to carry through on his previous promises has “come home to roost.”  Maybe his glitch ridden policies, lack of transparency, proliferation of scandals, incomprehensible foreign policy and deceitful domestic policy (i.e., Obamacare, Keystone pipeline, open borders) has jaded many of his customary supporters. 

That’s why Seth Meyers of NBC noted, “Obama gave the SOTU address and I just have to say that I don’t know what union he was describing.  But I want to live there.  I want to move.  It sounds outstanding.  There’s a middle class.  They have small businesses.  It sounds great.”  NBC has carried enough water for the Obama administration to fill the Great Lakes.  When even they start mocking “the One,” storm clouds are forming on the horizon of “fundamental transformation.”

He should have seen the warning signs of his impending fall from grace when his party’s candidates declared him persona non grata on their campaign trails last year.  He should have known that when “every single one of my policies” was on the ballot yet his party still suffered nationwide annihilations in the 2014 elections.  He should have known that in 2008 he inherited 257 House Democrats and 57 Democrat Senators.  His ranks have now eroded to only 188 in the House and only 44 in the Senate.  Furthermore, state Democrat governorships have dwindled from 28 to 18 while Republican governor ranks have increased to 31during his “leadership.”  He should have known that non-Gruberized, non-low information voters know that the national debt increase averaged $251 billion during the Bush years.  Senator Obama called that “unpatriotic” and a “failure of leadership.”  However, his average annual national debt increase has been an astounding $1,078 billion!  Now he’s offering up another $4 trillion budget which will add another $475 billion to the national debt.  .  Remember the company that horribly botched the Obamacare website rollout?  Some say that incompetence bordered on criminal negligence.  Well, that same company has been hired by the IRS to handle the Obamacare tax issues!!!  It’s the same old, same old wasteful and irresponsible spending

There’s another reason no one watched his SOTU—they were at the movies watching AMERICAN SNIPER, the story of Chris Kyle.  That movie not only continues to set box office records week after week after week, but it also exposes the hypocrisy of the radical left.  Since their disgusting treatment of veterans coming home from Viet Nam, like the president, they said they had “evolved” and learned to “separate the warrior from the war.”  Poppycock!  Leftists like Moore, Rogen, and Dean called Kyle a coward, linked him to the Nazi’s, and said anyone seeing the movie had anger issues, respectively.  An NBC “journalist” called him a “racist” who went on “killing sprees.”  Others labeled him a “homicidal psychopath.”  The shallow veneer is ripped away and their core ugliness is once again revealed.

The irony permeating this repugnant ingratitude is that Chris Kyle did four tours of duty in harm’s way defending their right to make such idiotic and irresponsible statements.  Remember, there’s a blogger in Saudi Arabia who is getting 1,000 lashes for making a statement insulting to Islam.  Remember Charlie Hebdo.  Try exercising freedom of speech in Iran, or Cuba (our new best friend forever), or in Russia, or in the burgeoning caliphate of ISIS.  Try it in Yemen, or in Nigeria, or in North Korea.  Speak out in Pakistan, or in China…or in Hollywood (as Clint Eastwood does) and see what it gets you.

No matter how smoothly you talk, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  The American people are sending a message with their feet, their remote controls, and their pocketbooks.  They are telling you what they like and what they don’t like with their time and with their votes.  It’s a curious world when you go to the movies to see something that is real and when you watch President Obama’s SOTU address, you see something that is imaginary.  It’s time to get real.

New Year, Same Old Stories

By William L. Garvin

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” 

President Barack Obama

The nascent year of 2015 is already plagued with the continuing horror of Islamic terrorists wreaking havoc and destruction.  They recently murdered ten members of CHARLIE HEBDO, a satirical magazine in Paris, and two police officers.   A synchronized Muslim attack on a Jewish kosher market resulted in more innocents being executed and seems to have galvanized an international spirit of resistance.  However, there are underlying ripples of concern.  Overtly, millions have marched in solidarity with France and nearly forty leaders of nations walked point.  This was the largest demonstration in French history!  Unfortunately and conspicuously absent was the United States of America, the reputed leader of the free world.  Though he was already in Paris, Eric Holder failed to make an appearance and the President and Vice President remained safely ensconced in D.C. and Delaware undoubtedly performing other functions of great import.  Responding to criticism about the lack of a senior official, Secretary of State John Kerry huffed “I really think that this is sort of quibbling a little bit,”  and of course, they stand “four square” behind the French in their fight against terrorism and in defense of free speech.  The optics declare they are standing very, very far behind and the distinctions between “quibbling” and “quisling” become very blurred!

In the midst of all this, Boko Haram, the Islamic terrorists in Nigeria slaughter another 2,000 villagers.  Their barbaric activities have become so commonplace that they barely merit a terse scrawl at the bottom of the newscasts.  Correspondingly, the American media continues in its complicit if not cowardly conspiracy to minimize the obvious worldwide threats of radical Islam.  Instead they speak in the “lone wolf” and the “not representative of Islam” and the “this is just a small group of extremists” motifs.  How many dots need you need before there is no need for connection because the entire picture is black and bleak?  The Associated Press tries to link the demonstrations in Germany with their Nazi past and Chris Cuomo on CNN thinks the black terrorists in France are African-Americans!  Repeatedly they warn of the backlash from “right wing extremists” replete with their inherent Islamophobia.   They are much more concerned with the possibility of a hypothetical overreaction than they are with the atrocities being committed right in front of their eyes.  They seem ignorant to the fact that Jews are much more likely to be the target of a hate crime than Muslims and synagogues are more likely to be vandalized than are mosques in America.  In a paroxysm of sophistry, CNN’s Sally Kohn tweets “Since 9/11, right-wing extremists (incl. anti-abortion, anti-gov) have killed more Americans than Islamic extremists--).  This is as horrifically in error as is MSNBC’s Chris Hayes phony photograph of the phony Colorado Springs bombing of an NAACP office and his phony equivalency to the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  Then again, that’s what you can expect from MSNBS.

As for the defense of free speech, remember this is the administration that imprisoned a filmmaker who made a YouTube video critical of Islam.  This administration not only keeps him incarcerated but also blamed him for the murders in Benghazi.  President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made commercials apologizing for the movie trailer and assuring the Muslim world that they were appalled by the “disgusting and reprehensible” depiction.  This is the administration that will sic the IRS on organizations that espouse conservative speech.  This is the administration that spies on reporters, hacks their emails and demonizes conservative news channels.

Subsequently cowed and subservient, the mainstream media now cravenly forsakes its duty to the American people.  Where were they when Sharyl Atkisson was stonewalled and subsequently fired for her investigation of Benghazi?  Where were they when the fatwa was issued against Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris?  Why did the FBI say it could not protect her?  Why did she have to go off the grid?  Why didn’t the American Society of News Editors or the Society of Professional Journalists condemn this travesty?  (Read Mark Hemingway’s great story.)  Why aren’t newspapers, magazines, and newscasts showing Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons in an act of defiance?  The New York Times says it’s because of “sensitivity” but in reality…it’s because they are cowards.

Satire is effective when there is a barb, a biting edge, a bitter truth that is readily apparent and with which one can identify or at least understand.  Cartoonists frequently do this with a great deal of skill.  In a world of lies, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.  “Avec solidarite, en verite…’je suis Charlie.’”