The Oklahoma Execution: Time to do Away with Lethal Injection

CNN is all atwitter over the "botched" execution in Oklahoma of Clayton Lockett.

It seems, and I stress seems, that there was some mistake made in administering the lethal injection cocktail, producing a massive heart attack and death some 45 minutes after that injection. Death is supposed to be much quicker and, I gather, that the inmate is also supposed to be unconscious when that death does come. Lockett apparently was awake and perhaps suffering for much longer than is prescribed.

I have a conflicted view on the death penalty.

On the one hand, as a conservative/libertarian, I have serious reservations about giving government authorities even more power to kill us; they already have SWAT teams, over-armed law enforcement officials of all types, soldiers, drones, etc., with which to do that. In addition, I have ever less respect for prosecutors who many times appear to be just bureaucratic careerists who, along with the cops, are not above loading up an accused with all sorts of charges in the hopes of getting a conviction by way of a plea deal.

Having said that, I am aware that certain people do things for which death seems the only appropriate punishment, the only statement that society can truly make about that individual and his acts. Clayton Lockett would appear to be one of those certain people.

As noted, I am conflicted about the death penalty.

I, however, am not conflicted about lethal injection. I find it disgusting, and, in fact, totally repellent. It is a classic euphemism of our politically correct times. It was an effort to make capital punishment appear, well, less capital. Hanging, firing squad, guillotine, even the electric chair and the gas chamber were seen as too, well, too "deadly," there was no disguising the purpose. Death was certain and, above all else, graphic.

Those forms of capital punishment were all too much for our modern sensitivities, so we came up with "lethal injection." This is a bizarre, quasi-medical procedure with almost Mengele-like vibes. It was an effort to make capital punishment less offensive, less disturbing, in sum, more palatable. I hate it, and think it should go away.

IF, and I emphasize IF, we are going to have a death penalty, it should be straightforward and unambiguous: noise, blood, violence. If we can't do that, then we have another argument for doing away with capital punishment.

Kerry Should Go

On January 30, 2013, I wrote

Well, they did it. 

The Senate voted in their "old boy" way and made fellow Senator John F. Kerry the next Secretary of State. 

I am disgusted beyond words. 

This is a man who openly consorted with the enemies of the United States, openly gave comfort and support to those enemies while fellow Americans were on the battlefield fighting those enemies, lied about his service in SE Asia, and, to top it off, has shown no particular knowledge about or understanding of the role of the United States in the world. With Jane Fonda, he was our generation's version of Lord Haw-Haw, Tokyo Rose, and Ezra Pound all rolled into one; unlike those other traitors, and along with Jane Fonda, not only did he pay no penalty for supporting the enemy in a time of war, he prospered financially and politically. 

He is now to be our Secretary of State. 

One could expect no less of today's Democratic Party. 

Where, however, were the Republicans? Except for a tiny grouping of three--Cruz, Cornyn, and Inhofe--the Republicans went along with this travesty. Even Tea Party darling Marco Rubio voted "Yea." 

I guess loyalty is to membership in the Senate club, not to the country and our dead.

I was always amazed at how the media, Senators, Kool Aid drinking liberals in all walks of life, and, of course, my fellow FSOs at State kept up a drumbeat about how much Kerry knew about foreign affairs, how he was so experienced, and how he would make a GREAT SECRETARY OF STATE . . . . The two greatest things President Bush ever did for our country were preventing two world-class frauds from becoming President of the United States: Al "The Climate Changers Will Make Me Rich" Gore and John "If I Marry this Loon I will Get Rich" Kerry.

In his short time as SecState, Kerry has proven a disaster, at best "an innocent abroad," at worst a John "Xmas in Cambodia" Kerry abroad. He is a fraud with no understanding of America's interests in the world, or more accurately a man who sees America as a hindrance to resolving the "true" problems, e.g., Global Climate Change and bludgeoning Israel into suicide.

It seems, Kerry has revealed his true self yet again.

In a closed-door speech to the Trilateral Commission, our SecState said,

If there’s no two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon, Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state,” Secretary of State John Kerry told a room of influential world leaders in a closed-door meeting Friday. < . . . >

Kerry also repeated his warning that a failure of Middle East peace talks could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens. He suggested that a change in either the Israeli or Palestinian leadership could make achieving a peace deal more feasible. He lashed out against Israeli settlement-building. And Kerry said that both Israeli and Palestinian leaders share the blame for the current impasse in the talks.

Kerry also said that at some point, he might unveil his own peace deal and tell both sides to “take it or leave it.”

Israel has been fighting for survival since its creation, and this is how its greatest ally speaks about it? His reported comments (and apparently there is a tape) show a man of arrogance, ignorance, and, at best, with a shocking insouciance for how his words can get people killed. Do you think Palestinian terrorists  won't interpret those comments as a green light? Kerry is essentially threatening Israel with "justified" Palestinian violence, to wit, the poor PLO and Hamas are fighting "apartheid." These are community organizer blackmail tactics, the kind of stuff you use in Chicago against a McDonald's franchise reluctant to hire your people, or pay a kick-back.

Mr. Kerry, listen up. There already is a two-state solution to the Middle East. It goes by the name of Israel and Jordan, yes, the same Jordan that held the West Bank for some twenty years before Israel got it. There are 1.6 million Arabs with Israeli citizenship--the freest Arabs in the Middle East. They aren't making plans to leave Israel, but if Jews cannot live on the Arab West Bank, does that mean Arabs cannot live in Jewish Israel?

A take it or leave it Kerry peace plan? Wow! I wonder what answer the Israelis will give?

Kerry should go now, before he endangers our security any more. He should go off and paraglide, and wind surf, live the life of the billionaire, and rest on the laurels of his diplomatic career, e.g., his great "successes" in Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and Ukraine, and now as a "peace negotiator."

Contrast and Compare: ROK PM with US Prez

Just a quick note. I have been reading about the horrible ferry accident in the Republic of Korea. It seems that somewhere north of 200 people died, with many more missing. Many of the dead were teenaged students. I gather that the cause of the sinking has not been determined yet, and this sort of disaster, it seems, can hit even the most sophisticated countries. 

I note, however, the reaction of ROK PM Chung Hong-won.

According to CNN,

South Korea's prime minister announced his resignation Sunday morning, taking responsibility for the slow initial reaction to a ferry's sinking that has left nearly 200 dead and scores more still missing. 

Prime Minister Chung Hong-won explained his decision on national television. He apologized "on behalf of the government for the many problems that arose during the first response and the subsequent rescue operation," in addition to "problems that existed before the accident." 

"During the search process, the government took inadequate measures and disappointed the public," Chung said. "I should take responsibility for everything as the prime minister, but the government can assume no more. So I will resign as prime minister." 

Chung urged South Koreans to stand united, rather than divided. 

"This is not the time for blaming each other but for finishing the rescue operation and dealing with the accident," he said. "In order to get over these difficult times, I ask the citizens for help."

Perhaps there are wheels within wheels--I am no expert on Korea--and the resignation is a stunt. I don't know. For now, however, I am struck by how Chung reacted to a national disaster compared to how our politicians do.

Holder resigning over "Fast and Furious"?

Sebelius resigning over Obamacare rollout?

Clinton resigning over Benghazi?

Kerry resigning over failed Mid East strategy?

Obama resigning over all of the above?

Nah. Doesn't happen here. We're too good at moving on . . .

Bits and Pieces of Weird Stuff

It's the weekend. Life, in the form of a grueling house hunt and a new puppy who loves chewing electrical cables, is intruding on my blogging. That said, there are some genuinely weird things out there that deserve commentary.

Obama's Most Excellent Crimea Crisis

Given the failure of previous "efforts" to get Putin to roll-back his annexation of Crimea and his pursuit of, at least, de facto control of all Ukraine, the Obama misadministration geniuses have come up with a weapon so unconventional, so diabolical that Putin will have no option but to OBEY. Yes, by now, of course, you all know that the United States has demonstrated a nonpareil #hashtag strike capability! We have the vaunted second strike! The State Department spokesman, Jen Psaki, a bubbly, goofy product of the "best" universities, has warned the Russians that they had better live up to the promise of the "#unitedforukraine" hashtag, or else . . . well, or, or . . . we will engage them in a #hashtag war from which they can never recover! I am sure Lavrov is shaking with laughter--and he does not laugh easily--and telling his President, "OK, sir, let me know when you want to move on Estonia."

On the slightly positive side, I am glad to see that not all the MSM is buying the absurdity of Obama's foreign policy re Russia.

Putin's Tsarist/Stalinist dreams of recreating the old Russian Empire can only be stopped with a strong US military capability led by a resolute President, and, more importantly, by an economic onslaught, e.g., fracking, for which Russia has no answer. The Russian economy, military build-up, and political stability are very vulnerable to energy prices; that is where we need to focus.

In the meanwhile, we #hashtag.

Obama and the MidEast

What more can I say about this misadministration's never-ending quest to undermine Israel's security and permanently erase American influence in the Middle East? I have noted that the whole Palestinian issue is a hoax, and that the creation of yet another corrupt, authoritarian Arab state will solve nothing. Kerry's insistence on expending what little credibility he has on this issue makes no sense, and shows how disconnected he and our president are from reality.

What have we achieved?

Let's see.

We pressured Israel into releasing gobs of locked-up Arab terrorists, who will, of course, strike again.

We have seen the Palestinians laugh in our face and cobble together a reconciliation deal between the PLO and Hamas that, if it holds, guarantees 110% that there will be no deal with Israel.

Good work there, John "Xmas in Cambodia" Kerry! And congratulations to all the State Department personnel who are undoubtedly receiving "Superior Honor" awards with cash bonuses, and promotions based on their "indefatigable (favorite word on award citations) efforts in favor of peace during a very difficult time." It's all about input! We spent a lot of time on this, so it must be good. Imagine if a business worked that way.

Meanwhile, the Syrian civil war churns on, Iran builds its bomb, North Korea threatens the world, China makes its moves, and the jihadis plan for their coming take-over of Afghanistan.

Brandeis University Goes Full PC

Ah, my old alma mater on the River Charles in beauteous Waltham, Massachusetts.

Brandeis, the "Jewish Harvard," as it liked to bill itself, has gone full-blown insane.

Ol' Brandeis long had a touch of the daft when it came to domestic politics, but as a rule the institution was pretty solid on the need for a strong US foreign policy and a strong Israel. I studied politics there, and many of the professors were what today we would call neo-cons, or just old fashioned Hans Morgenthau "balance of power realists." Yes, there was a long history of craziness there, e.g., Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Abbie Hoffman, but it generally was relegated to the fringes. No more.

The crazies have taken over. They decided to disinvite Ayan Hirsi Ali and to scrap the offer of an honorary degree. The Jews of Brandeis found her just too, too pro-Western, and just too, way too, anti-jihadi. They didn't know this when they invited her? This is of a piece with Brandeis's effort in 2003 to form an academic alliance with Al-Quds University--that alliance lasted about ten years and was suspended when Al-Quds went so overboard in demonstrating its true anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments, that even liberals had to act shocked. Brandeis is in the hands of either the most naive and ill-informed people on earth, or something else is afoot.

On Pakistan: A Rerun with an Update

Almost three years ago, I posted the piece that I have copied below--it was on May 5, 2011, to be exact. I wrote it in the wake of the Osama take-down and my concerns about Western intel capabilities and the role that Pakistan played in hiding that mass murderer. A couple of days ago,  a reader asked for my views on some recent lit that argues that Afghanistan was the "wrong" war and that the real war should be with Pakistan.

As you can see in the May 2011 piece below, I touched on that, noting the highly conflicted relationship we have had with Pakistan. Let me add a bit to that, and then return to the issue of the "wrong war."

India has viewed the West, and the US, in particular, as the protectors of Pakistan. As is the usual case when Indians tell their own history, they blame foreigners for much, if not most, if not all the misfortune, real and imagined, that has befallen India before and since independence. You will meet very intelligent and well-educated Indians who tell you that the British (and later the Americans) used "divide and conquer" when dealing with India. They conveniently forget, of course, that India is a British invention; there was no unified sub-continent when the British arrived. It was the British who united India and gave it whatever collective consciousness it has. The British did not invent the communal riots-cum-warfare that have swept through India since way before Hartza was a pup. The British did not introduce the dozens and dozens of languages, the many religions, and the myriad, great, colorful and very diverse cultures that characterize and divide the subcontinent.

The British bequeathed India much of what is good about India's politics and economic infrastructure. India's politicians, however, squandered much of that inheritance. The British left behind a highly educated elite that, unfortunately, proved much better at divide and conquer politics than the British, to say the least. The splitting of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan was the work of that elite; the horrendous ethnic violence that followed the British departure and the carving away of Pakistan cannot be blamed on the British, the West, or the Man in the Moon. That was the handiwork of the elites, in particular the horrendous Nehru and the somewhat less horrendous but still divisive Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Nehru and his clan decided to take India in a direction away from the West and strike up friendships with all manner of leftist dictatorships, helping found the anti-US G-77 ("Third World") movement. They never really resigned themselves to the existence of Pakistan and, in essence, decided to make the poor and even more horribly misgoverned Pakistan's life hell. Pakistan was forced to exist with the constant threat from India that it could be terminated at any moment. This helped push Pakistan first towards the West, joining in military agreements with the United States including allowing US military facilities aimed at the USSR; then later, Pakistan tilted towards China, India's great Asian rival. India, in particular under the reign of Nehru's daughter Indira Ghandi, became very close to the USSR, and enjoyed trying to frustrate US objectives wherever and whenever possible. Under Indira, for example, the Indians would not condemn the Soviet invasion of  Czechoslovakia nor years later of Afghanistan. India was very opposed to US efforts to work with Pakistan in support of the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan.

Now to the issue of the "wrong" war. As I state below, we did the right thing by working with Pakistan and the Afghan resistance to expel the USSR from Afghanistan. Once the USSR collapsed, we did what we always seem to do after major victories, we assumed that "history had ended," and could reap the "peace dividend" without fear. Well, of course, Afghanistan quickly fell apart, and the more ruthless radical jihadis, i.e., the Taliban, soon had the country in their grip. I mention below that the Taliban was a creation of the Pakistanis who, operating under the growing influence of Islamists largely funded by the Saudis, also played a role in helping AQ set up shop in Afghanistan.

Throughout the "war on terror" the Pakistanis have played at best an ambivalent game, and usually a duplicitous one. Pakistan's government is a badly splintered one; when I served there, one was never sure with whom one was speaking and making a deal--and it has gotten worse. So, yes, Pakistan is an "enemy" to the extent that their heart is not in the WOT, but it is an enemy with grave divisions and factions that want certain other factions killed or otherwise neutralized. The Pakistani military, for example, as a rule, still relatively jihadi free, does not, despite public statements to the contrary, really object to our drone attacks on militants in the tribal areas. There are wheels within wheels within Matryoska dolls within Matryoska dolls. So, again, for example, one can never be sure what side the powerful ISI (Pakistan's intel service) is on any given day.

By invading Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, we did the right thing. Taking out the Taliban and the AQ had a powerful impact upon jihadis around the world. They never expected that the US would dare launch an invasion of Afghanistan, that it would be mounted so quickly, and carried out so efficiently. It was a stunner.

Some would argue that we would have done better to invade Pakistan. Much messier objective, and it would not have satisfied what we needed right away, to wit, to knock out AQ's base in Afghanistan and punish its Taliban hosts. If, furthermore, we are going to worry about fighting the wrong war, then we should probably also be talking about invading Saudi Arabia, which is in many ways a much greater threat to the US and the West than is Pakistan. Are we going to do that? Doubt it very much. As I have said many, many times, our secret weapon for dealing with the jihadis is our vast energy reserves. If we frack and drill, go nuclear, dig coal, and just stop putting impediments in the way of our energy independence, much of the money-generated steam will go out of jihadi efforts.

Anyhow, here is what I wrote three years ago. I think it still holds up OK.

May 5, 2011
Pakistani Perfidy and Western Incompetence in the Hunt for Osama
In the long ago 1980s, I spent several years working on Pakistani issues. I lived for two years in Islamabad and Peshawar, travelled all over the country, including in many areas now off-limits, and spent another two years working on Pakistan in Washington and returning frequently there. Those were the Reagan years, and we were working closely (sort of) with the Zia ul-Haq government to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan (more on that below.)

Pakistan is a strange country with a strange history.  It is a rump piece, a backwater of the great Indian Hindu civilization, and is wracked by any number of complexes and pathologies. It is a Muslim state founded by one of the most non-Islamic people ever, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, who only reluctantly came to the conclusion that Pakistan should be created. Most of his life he had argued for keeping the Muslims of India within a democratic India.  He was intelligent and good looking; dressed well; was not religious; spoke beautiful English; and was more at home in the salons of the well-to-do and educated than he was with the street rabble. He was never clear whether his vision for Pakistan was as a secular or a religious state, and that debate over his intentions still rages in Pakistan with a lot of historical revision undertaken to show the second. A heavy smoker, and, reportedly, a man who liked his Scotch, he died very soon after the creation of Pakistan. He therefore, never saw the country's subsequent humiliations and defeats. The carving away of Bangladesh, gave the lie to the creation myth of Pakistan as THE homeland of the subcontinent's Muslims, as did the fact that India continued to host one of the world's largest Muslim communities. We should note that more Muslims live in India than in either Pakistan or Bangladesh, and do not seem in a hurry to move to either of those "homelands."

Pakistan is and always has been a mess. It is held together just barely by two forces: the military, and hatred of India. Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis, Pashtos have little in common except religion, and there are even differences there. The Pakistanis, especially in recent years as Saudi influence has grown, have tended to  oppress non-Sunnis, and to institute a copy of Saudi-type Islamic rule. Things have gotten progressively tougher for intellectuals, artists, writers, and women in Pakistan, as well as for Christians, Ahmadis, and Shias (although the Ismaili followers of the wealthy Aga Khan have bought themselves some respite from persecution--money does wonderful things in Pakistan).  Most other religious groups have long been driven out, or firmly underground in Pakistan.  It is not a democratic country; democratic values run very thin and weak, and even then only among a handful of mostly Western educated elites--many of whom see "democracy" as a great way to get very rich by buying and selling votes, favors, parliamentary majorities, etc. The late Benazir Bhutto, whom I knew quite well, and her extraordinarily corrupt husband, now President of Pakistan, shine as classic examples of that sort of "democratic"elite so beloved by the West.

Pakistan is a weak, resentful state, very envious of the success of India, especially since India freed itself of the horrendous Nehru clan, in particular that evil, murdering, pro-Soviet Indira Gandhi. Islam has done nothing positive for Pakistan. Under Zia ul-Haq, later assassinated along with the US Ambassador, the country became more and more Islamized, became progressively crazier and, frankly, stupider and stupider. It was Pakistan's intelligence service, the corrupt and faction-ridden Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) outfit, working with the Saudis that created the Taliban and, eventually, al Qaida. It was not the CIA, the United States, or Great Britain. That the USA and the UK created those operations is one of those little stories put out by the left and certain others to try to discredit our current efforts against the Taliban and AQ. It was the Pakistanis and the Saudis, not the US and the UK, who created the Taliban and AQ.

I worked in Pakistan at the height of the relationship between the US and Pakistan. Even then, however, we knew not to trust them too much.  Zia, after all, did nothing to protect the US Embassy when it was attacked by a mob in 1979, following false local press reports of a US-Israeli attack on Mecca. That mob burned the Embassy, and killed four embassy employees, including a young Marine guard shot in the head by a sniper.

We knew they were double dealing us on the Afghans. We would insist they not support certain groups, they would promise, but then do so anyhow. They also played games with the Iranians, and we knew they were lying about their nuclear program. We reluctantly went along, as you often have to do in the real world, because we had the theory of defeating "one enemy at a time." We, too, did things that we did not tell them about. We were on a mission to destroy the Soviet Union, which at that time, and rightly so, was seen as the major threat to the United States, including to our homeland.  That mission succeeded, and I still think we did the right thing by focussing on that mission.  I am proud of the very small role I played in helping bring about that defeat.

Every victory, of course, brings consequences which successors must handle. The defeats of Germany and Japan were the right things to do, although those then opened opportunities for the Soviet Union and later Communist China.  Our defeating Iraq in two wars benefitted Iran, but that doesn't mean it wasn't right to defeat Iraq.

Anyhow, bottom line, don't trust Pakistan. That government is ridden with factions, corrupt beyond belief, full of liars, and of people out for themselves and their families, not for the "country." Did Pakistan know that Osama had his man-cave in Abbottabad? I am sure parts of Pakistan's government did; almost certainly some officials were bought and paid for.  I have been to Abbottabad many times in the past.  It is inconceivable that a sprawling compound could go up in this sleepy and quaint town, without questions asked by Pakistani military, police, or intelligence services, or even by local politicians out to get some Baksheesh from an obviously rich potential benefactor who had just moved into town.

This episode, sadly, also raises some embarrassing questions which I have not read or heard asked about the West's intel services. When I worked in Pakistan, and this was well before high-tech drones, Google, and all the rest of that stuff, somebody with our Embassy, or with our friends at the neighboring British High Commission, would have commented on this compound, and undertaken an effort to find out who lived there, how it was being paid for, etc.

Since 9/11/2001, we have undertaken a multi-billion dollar manhunt for Osama, a hunt that focussed largely on Pakistan. It never occurred to anybody that he or some other very big fish might be in that complex? Had we become so enamored of the "he is living in a cave in the mountains" scenario that we couldn't conceive that this rich, spoiled, cowardly, and not very healthy man might be living in relative comfort somewhere more, shall we say, urbane? I hope I am wrong, and that the true history of the effort will show that somebody on our side asked about that compound. I am afraid, however, that this episode just shows how degraded we have let our intel services become, and, most notably, the poverty of our HUMINT capabilities.  That degradation is understandable coming as it does after decades of attacks, mostly by the Democrats, on our covert capabilities.  If the bad guy doesn't have a cellphone or internet we don't know who he is or what he is doing? That is a lesson our enemies, I am sure, have noticed, and that is not cheerful news.

Bits and Pieces of Good News

The news from home and abroad is almost uniformly bad. The damage wrought by the Obama misadministration is now in the incalculable range. As I have mentioned before some of the damage this horrid president has inflicted on us and the Western world might well be permanent.  I, however, don't want this post to be yet another recitation of the Obama catalog of destruction. For one of very few times, I am going to write a relatively optimistic piece.  Please note the word relatively.

While as noted the picture is bleak, there are glimmers of light that give some hope. Let me rattle off a few, starting overseas.

In Australia, of course, we see a conservative government in charge and, one hopes, on the way to undoing the progressive damage to that great country's economy, image, culture, and soul. We hope, at a minimum, that the new PM will be able to reverse the destructive "green" and immigration policies that threaten Australia and the rest of the West. Lead the way Australia!

In other good news, this time from Latin America, the Nobel-prize winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez is dead.

One of the great phonies and bootlickers of leftist dictators has passed from the scene. Those who love freedom can only be grateful.

I will speak ill of the dead. It is hard to exaggerate the damage that GGM has done to the image of Latin America and Latin Americans, portraying the region and the people as some sort of quasi-magical place, a place filled with ethereal, mystical beings without logic, common sense, and ordinary human emotions and foibles. For all his "magical realist" vision, he could not or would not see, for example, the horrors brought to Cuba and Cubans by the Castro brothers. On the contrary, he had an enormous house in Havana provided by the regime, with servants and cars at his beck-and-call, and a ready chummy access to the bloodstained brothers and their rule of terror. He convinced generations of gringo academic Latin American "specialists" that the region could not be understood in conventional terms; that supply-and-demand economics did not work there; and that ordinary people did not want individual liberty and political democracy. He helped create and perpetuate a horrid stereotype of Latin America, one in which the atrocities of leftist regimes could be ignored because the region operated on another level of consciousness, one beyond our poor powers to comprehend. Good riddance to this poseur and his unreadable sentences! An enemy of freedom is gone.

In Venezuela, the revolt against dictatorship continues.

Ignored, when not maligned by the rest of the Americas, the Venezuelan protestors have revealed the Chavez-Maduro regime for what it truly is: an economic, political, humanitarian, and moral disaster. It is a rotten regime that now survives only by eating its foreign reserves, using the full power of the state to try to crush dissent, and by lying non-stop. Despite the lack of international support, the sort of support that would have been shown students, for example, revolting against a right-wing regime, the protests continue on a daily basis. The Maduro regime is in a death spiral, and that is all to the good. The passing of this hideous regime will be due to the people of Venezuela, who abandoned by their alleged friends, took matters into their own hands.  

Here in our own beloved but sorely distressed and bedraggled USA, we also see some signs of hope that the fog of leftism is not impenetrable.

I have written before of the defeat handed the bloated, corrupt, and politicized United Auto Workers (UAW) in Tennessee.  We have more good news on that front. The press is reporting that,

The United Auto Workers has dropped its challenge of a vote to organize workers at Volkswagen's only U.S. plant that went against the union. 

The National Labor Relations Board was set to start a hearing Monday on the UAW's complaint that Republican politicians improperly interfered before the Feb. 14 vote at the Chattanooga, Tenn. plant, which the union lost 712 to 626.

But the union issued a statement Monday saying it was dropping its appeal because fighting the election through the NLRB could have dragged on for years. 

"The UAW is ready to put February's tainted election in the rear-view mirror," said UAW President Bob King in a statement. 

The union said even if the NLRB ordered a new election -- the board's only available remedy under current law -- nothing would stop politicians and anti-union organizations from again interfering. 

But some experts had suggested that the union stood little chance of winning a new vote, even if the NRLB ruled in its favor. 

"Most people thought they'd win the first time around," said Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University. "I think the chances of winning a second vote will be more difficult than winning the first vote."

They will just have to go home to Detroit and rest on their laurels . . .

Gun ownership has won some significant battles. We see the idea of concealed carry by law abiding citizens gaining currency throughout the country. Come on folks! How many of you thought you would see concealed carry in Illinois in your lifetimes? The anti-gun hysterics are losing and losing badly. Oh, and guess what? As gun ownership and concealed carry have expanded, crime rates, including gun crime, have declined.

Sherryl Attkisson, the former CBS reporter and one of the very few MSM reporters outside of FOX who tried to report the truth on Benghazi, has now reported that (Surprise!) the folks at CBS were ideologically reluctant to criticize the government, and that reporters who do not toe the lib line will come under attack. You mean the media has a leftist bias? Wow! That's a scoop!

The Bundy Ranch standoff I have covered before. It still remains a remarkable event, and I think one that is going to force the government to rethink its heavy-handed SWAT tactics in the future. American citizens stood up to armed agents of the Federal government and forced them to back down. That is a major development.

Despite its best efforts, the Obama misadministration has been unable to stifle US oil production. The US, by some calculations, is now the world's top energy producer, and we're only getting started. Making the US energy independent is the best way to increase our foreign policy options, and provide a steady stream of good paying jobs here at home.

These are just a few of my favorite things. I am sure readers can come up with more. Look, I realize that the overall trend line is not promising, but that should not blind us to the occasional bits of good news which come to us thanks to the actions of some brave and dedicated people.

Hope to have something up soon . . .

Sorry.

My life keeps getting in the way of my Diplomad obligations.

Big crisis. Had to take the Vette in for service to the dealer. The idiots at a "major electronics chain" incorrectly installed the radio/navigation system and had produced a short that was draining my battery.  Any Vette owners out there know that anything that affects the Vette is a major life event. Stopped eating. Ignored the wife and dogs. Blogging fell off . . .

Am working on something for this humble blog. Hope to have it up soon now that the Vette is back on the road.

Did I mention that my Vette had to go in for service? You see, it . . .