The good news from Ferguson

First, the bad news, I'll come to the good news in a moment. 

A black youth was killed by a police officer, in Ferguson.  That is an accepted fact.  And it is of course, very sad that yet another life has been violently ended.  It is not clear if the police officer will be charged for the death.

The youth, Michael Brown, certainly won't now be tried for the violence and intimidation that he inflicted upon a shopkeeper from whom he stole, immediately prior to the shooting event.  As we have seen in recent days, the almost cherubic image that is portrayed by the photograph displayed on British media, is now transitioning to a more complete picture.   This is a picture of a 6' 4" individual weighing 290 lbs (130Kg).  You get a good sense of what those bare statistics mean when one views the confrontation between Michael Brown and the diminutive shopkeeper.  Michael Brown was a powerful young man and seemingly was prepared to use that power in furtherance of criminal activity.

Indeed, the circumstances surrounding the shooting are in dispute but Darren Wilson, the police officer that shot and fatally wounded Michael Brown, was assaulted by Brown.  The degree of Wilson's injuries is disputed - some saying a swollen and bruised face and others saying a fractured eye-socket.  What isn't disputed is that Wilson did suffer injuries.  Also that prior to this, Wilson had a clean disciplinary history in his 4 years with the police department.

There is a clamour for Officer Wilson to be tried for the 'murder' of Michael Brown.  It will come as no surprise that the usual suspect, race-baiter (and sometimes FBI snitch) Al Sharpton is leading the charge for Wilson's arraignment.  Sharpton, you may recall, led the campaign related to the case of Tawana Brawley, in 1987.  This, then 15 year-old girl, made accusations that she was raped by 6  white men.  These allegations were found to be entirely without foundation though not before Sharpton whipped-up community anger and garnered much media attention by insisting that the alleged rape was racially motivated.

This time, Sharpton has a black president in the White House and a black Attorney General and these two now come onto the scene.  President Obama's comments have been reasonably moderate as he needs to be mindful of not prejudicing the ongoing inquiries (and also no doubt his plunging poll ratings).  Eric Holder has been somewhat cautious in his remarks but has shown by his visit to the family of Brown and comments about his experience as a black man, where his sympathies lie.

Eric Holder though, is the good news we have all been waiting for.

Eric Holder has discovered that he has jurisdiction over the FBI.  Indeed such power that he can order that the FBI sends 40 investigators to look into the shooting of Michael Brown and 'establish the truth'.

Now I think this is very encouraging.

I am heartened by Holder now finding out that he can order the FBI to conduct investigations.  Perhaps he can now move away from such issues as the Michael Brown case, which stir so many negative memories from his own youth, and move on to other matters which pre-date Michael Brown's death.

I am talking about, Holder setting the FBI loose on the IRS scandal or the deaths in Benghazi  of 4 American citizens.  Or investigating the scandal surrounding the porous southern US border or the flagrant disregard for human life shown by personnel within the Veterans Administration.  Other than the IRS scandal, these issues have all generated far more deaths than the single tragedy that was Michael Brown.

I know that most people would expect that any investigation of these scandals would bring hard times for the Obama administration but, when Holder isn't playing the race card -given the frequency that he does play this card, he must surely be using two decks - he insists that the integrity of his office requires that he act properly etc. and so we can surely expect that now that Holder knows he has an investigative arm, he will use this on these scandals?  Do you think??

I know that former IRS chief, Lois Lerner, keeps taking 'the fifth' but surely a concerted effort by the FBI can discover or recover some or all of those deleted e-mails?  In this digital age, our electronic 'prints' go far, deep and wide!

Similarly, the premier investigators at the FBI could uncover the conspiracy at the heart of the maladministration of the VA?  Shinseki fell on his sword and was replaced but the fundamentals - veterans being denied medical treatment for extended periods of time - continue.  The head has been changed but the cancer at the heart of the administration carries on eating away and causing the unnecessary deaths of former military personnel.

Maybe the investigators could also look into the activities of the race-baiter, Al Sharpton.  This man has made an industry out of his hatred of white people.  He loses no opportunity play the blame game - the one where all of the ills of society are the fault of the white man!  In a world where children get suspended from school, because they abuse another child by calling their actions 'gay', surely the hatred that spews from the maw of Sharpton is an actual crime, in addition to being an aural one?

Take heart though!  Holder now knows he can investigate!!

What's wrong with America Part 3

Today is July 4th - America's Independence Day.   Happy 4th of July to you all!

Okay, niceties out of the way, now down to business.

What is up with you guys?  While you sit out with your families and have your picnics and BBQs, today, you will probably agree that President Obama is a failure or be more truthful and call him a disaster but then you will kick back and say 'hey, he will be gone in 2016'.  Are you sure?  Frankly speaking this is an American President that has little regard for the US Constitution, especially when it doesn't fit his agenda.

You all (I am English and we don't say y'all!) need to get focused.  America is in trouble and getting in deeper. 

America's southern border states are being flooded with illegal immigrants but instead of strengthening the border, the DHS chief is suggesting that this is a consequence of not offering an amnesty to illegal immigrants!  Don't look for logic in that argument - he is a government employee!

The IRS scandal continues.  We are now supposed to believe that Lois Lerner's e-mails have become lost!  Right!  What kind of system does the IRS employ?   When conducting investigations, the Department of Justice requires private companies to have e-mails from the neolithic period available for review!  Also, isn't it kind of worrying that data, say personal tax returns, can just disappear, just like that?  Who is the IRS' Chief Information Officer - Kriss Angel?

The Veterans Administration debacle continues.  It was never about just changing the man at the top (though that was a start).  The VA needs root and branch reform and a sharp injection of transparency (that's the buzzword for what used to be called openness and honesty!).  Mostly what it needs though is for America's veterans to receive the care to which they are entitled.  Somehow I don't think that is high or even on the agenda.

The Benghazi hearings, chaired by Trey Gowdy, may uncover more shenanigans and  double dealing but, by itself will unlikely unseat Obama.

The attack on Second Amendment rights will continue.  Here the fightback is in the hands of ordinary Americans - simply boycott those organisations that support taking away your rights.  There are lists a plenty of who these are.  Remember the power that consumers have - think Duck Dynasty!  People power got a wrong, righted!

Ignoring the law, the Obama administration freed 5 Taliban terrorists in exchange for someone who it is widely claimed was a deserter.  That was against US law and could easily be considered as treasonous since it directly aids America's avowed enemies.  

 And so it goes on and on.  See here  http://bit.ly/1ksmipu  and here http://bit.ly/1oidzHz

Today though, when you sit with family and friends, resolve to join the movement to impeach President Obama.    Write and call your elected representatives, congressmen and women and Senators and Governors.  The message is simple, Impeach Obama, he must go - Signed John Doe!  Don't depend on others to do it, ACT! 

Today, America starts another year of independence - make a new year's resolution to do all you can to impeach President Obama and then go after Attorney General Eric Holder and the rest of the people that have dragged America down.  2016 is too far away to wait.  The American democracy and Constitution includes suitable provisions to defend it against enemies both foreign and domestic - use them, while you still can.  2016 might be too late!

You may think it presumptuous, on the day that you celebrate your independence from Great Britain, that a Brit is giving you such advice but I do so out of a very strong belief that the world needs a strong USA and right now, because we don't have such, there is much greater peril for us all. 

What is integrity?

I think most people would say that integrity is about doing the right thing.  The best description I have heard is that 'integrity means doing the right thing, even when no one else is looking'.

Most people would, I suggest, also like to think that they and their fellow countrymen and most particularly their political leaders, act with integrity.  There is a sense that is common, on how we should behave.

However, and you knew there was one coming.  However, when people enter through the doors of the  political world, integrity leaves through the windows.

In short, why do politicians act as poorly as they do?  And, to be clear, when I say politicians I include all the government service bureaucrats and all of those that swim in the public-funded pool - be they directly funded organizations, NGOs or 'funded' scientists, etc..

Take Lois Lerner, as an example.  This is the woman that was, until recently, the head of America's Internal Revenue Service.  During her tenure, the IRS targeted right of centre groups.  These groups were entitled to certain tax-privileged status under the US Tax Code, so long as they met certain conditions.  Lerner's IRS repeatedly challenged and delayed the special tax status for these right of centre groups - such as various Tea Party organizations.  The purpose seems clear.  Use unelected government employees to frustrate, using illegal means, the rights of American citizens to exercise democratically passed tax laws, in the furtherance of opposing political aims.  One defence put forward by Lerner and her allies, is that they applied the rules 'even-handedly'.  They did the same due diligence on tax exempt status for left of centre groups.  As evidence they talk of 5 or 6 such groups being impeded in gaining their special status.  When you contrast that with the hundreds of 'right' groups that suffered delays and bully-boy tactics, you can see a very clear political agenda being followed.

Lois Lerner, an employee of the IRS - or, put another way, a (well) paid servant of the American people, was called before Congress.  Now, excuse me while I get a little 'utopian' on you but Congress, or in the UK, parliament, is where the representatives of the people go to transact business on behalf of their electorate.  Where we expect them to do things and hold people to account for things, that we, as individuals cannot.

Ms Lerner, then preceded to plead the 5th Amendment in front of Congress.  She refused to answer questions put to her, on the grounds that to do so honestly, might incriminate herself.   So, when asked, by representatives of the American people,  about how she did the job for which the American people lavishly compensate her, she refused to answer.  I guess I wouldn't make a good juror if Lois ever came to trial before me.  I figure that asking her how she carried out her job is an entirely legitimate question and, when she pleaded the 5th, I would draw the reasonable conclusion that she was  not carrying out those duties in a legal manner otherwise she wouldn't be worried about self-incrimination.

Anyway, it seems that Lerner will now face sanctions of some kind as the House of Representatives found her to be in contempt of Congress.  The vote was 231 in favour and 187 against.  Those in favour included 6 Democrat party representatives.  In terms of integrity though, I find it both appalling and and at the same time interesting/instructive that 187 politicians - all Democrat Party members - didn't see that Lerner's actions were, in fact, a contempt of Congress and, by extension, contempt for the American people.

To take it a bit further, acting with integrity, screams that Lerner is in contempt.  Abandoning integrity and toeing the party line, says that while she may be in contempt, we Democrats won't throw her to the Republican wolves nor will we do anything that aids the opposition.  (Or, for that matter, we Democrats will do nothing to restore the faith of the people in politicians either knowing or doing the 'right thing'!)

Some of those 187 will be out of a job, come November and will have more time to ponder their character deficiencies.  But think about it.  What causes such people to abandon morality on political grounds?

In case you think I am Lerner obsessed, I am not.  I am just using that to illustrate the point about the decline or lack of morality that is seen in modern day politics.  My focus is on the UK and US.  These are 'mature' democracies and as such, one would expect the basic values to be more ingrained.   There are numbers of European countries, for example, where democracy and the rule 'of the people, by the people' are new concepts - some being in place for less than 40 years.  In those countries, one might expect the flower of integrity to be fragile and initially feeble as the plant comes up against modern day real-politiks but in the established UK and US democracies - countries founded on documents like Magna Carta and the US Constitution and indeed, a Judeo-Christian religious ethic - one would really expect that the roots of integrity and basic honesty, would be deeper and stronger.

What makes Jay Carney, the White House Press spokesman, stand up in front of a largely compliant media, and day after day, dodge and prevaricate, when answering the few questions that he gets asked, about Benghazi?  It surely isn't to protect the national security interests of the USA - that might make it slightly more legitimate - but no, it is solely to protect the Obama administration (the one that was elected by we the people, I do hope you are keeping up! ) from questions to which the people, want answers.

I do hope my American readers don't think I am targeting them and suggesting that my home country is any better.

In the UK, we have seen and heard, over the years countless examples of politicians and public servants acting without integrity.  From accepting money to ask questions in parliament to other far more serious issues. 

To illustrate the latter.  Under the (envy of the world, so British leftists claim) National Health System
more than 1,300 patients died at a hospital group called Mid Staffs.  These hospital patients were found to have received very poor and in some cases downright inhumane treatment from the staff into whose care they had been placed.  An eventual Public Inquiry found significant numbers of short comings and examples of abuse.

And yet.  Sir David Nicholson, then head of the NHS area that included Mid Staffs, who later went on to become overall head of the NHS received no punishment.  Indeed he was able to retire, just this year on a full, highly remunerative, pension.  Andy Burnham, who was the Labour Party minister responsible for the NHS, has received no sanction.  Indeed he continues to represent that portfolio for the Labour Party.  

Okay neither received punishment.  I think that many, if not most, people would say that they should have experienced some small percentage of the suffering that  was inflicted on those 1,300 victims but, that aside, what kind of people are they, that they have no integrity or moral compass that screams at them saying 'this was wrong and even while I didn't personally commit any injury to people, this happened on my watch and I must set an example and do the decent thing' ?

Why is it that so many people, on entering politics or public service, abandon basic morality and act with little or no integrity?  We have scientists for heaven's sake, scientists who purposefully distort data and suppress information and then seek to silence and punish any critics, all in the furtherance of  an unproven theory.  (In fact a theory that is not just unproven but for which the contrary position is becoming ever more apparent, based on facts and evidence!)

We have American military people who are given orders to not go to the aid of  Americans that are being attacked (and ended-up being brutally tortured, raped and murdered) and these people do not have the integrity to do the right thing.  Incidentally, the current stories suggest that President Obama wasn't even in the White House Situation Room while events in Benghazi unfolded.  The word is that the President's special adviser, his fellow-traveler from Chicago, the unelected Valerie Jarrett, was calling the shots.  Maybe that's what Jay is covering-up?

I am not seeking to set off some kind of moral crusade here but is it so crazy to expect higher standards from our elected officials?  Suppose it is.  Is it crazy to expect that those that are paid by 'the people' are at least answerable to those self same 'people' and this is especially important when those 'sucking on the public teet' are unelected.

Please feel free to pass this on and particularly to your elected representatives - we really do need to bring about change and restore the notion that acting with integrity is the right thing to do.