At War with Radical Islam

At War with Radical Islam—————————————-

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

                A reader recently telephoned the Coronado (CA) EagleJournal offices to complain that the flag at the Coronado Rotary Plaza was not flying at half-staff in honor of the five service members killed in Chattanooga. The unarmed victims, four marines and a sailor, were gunned down at a gated naval facility by Mohammed Abdulazeez, a 24-year old Muslim-American. Mr. Abdulazeez, an electrical engineer, was apparently radicalized after a visit to the Middle East, after which, acquaintances reportedly said, his attitude and appearance changed markedly.

The caller to the newspaper was described as very upset, saying that “these victims deserved to be remembered”, as indeed they do. She said that she had called Coronado city officials and asked that the flag be lowered to half-mast. She said that she waited in vain at the park for over an hour and then called the newspaper. She was encouraged to write a letter to the editor, expressing her concern, but she declined, adding that she expected the newspaper “to do the right thing”. The editors thought that this might be an appropriate subject of a commentary and kindly referred it to me.

By way of disclaimer, I am not an employee of the newspaper. My opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or publisher. Also, I don’t usually write about local issues unless invited to, preferring to focus on regional, national, international and defense issues. I believe that there are plenty of readers better versed in local issues than I, who can and do write about them. That said, I never could pass up an invitation, so herewith are some views on the subject.

First of all, with all due respect for the anonymous caller who described herself as elderly, she should have written a letter to the editor as she was invited to do. Her views are valid and age is no excuse for not expressing them and signing her name to them. I’m 84 (gasp!) and am still writing newspaper commentaries as I have for 40 years.

President Barack Obama took a great deal of flack for not ordering the flag to be flown at half-staff until five days after the shootings. The president’s proclamation, when it was finally issued, applied to flags displayed on federal buildings and military installations. It did not apply to state, local or private facilities, although many often follow suit voluntarily and some governors, mayors and county officials often issue similar proclamations. Presidential Proclamation 3044 by President Dwight Eisenhower prescribes the rules with respect to the display of the flag of the United States at half-staff and is quite specific regarding the when, where and how.

We all, particularly those in the military community, grieve the deaths of any who serve in the military, especially at the hands of the enemy. And Mr. Abdulazeez was an enemy of the United States, radicalized by the anti-American hatred of the Islamic State to the extent that he wanted to become a martyr to please Allah by murdering Americans. His is the very face of the enemy we face here at home and there are undoubtedly many others like him in our midst. We are very vulnerable to them and military members are prized targets. When members of the armed forces are placed in harm’s way, as they are in recruiting stations and many military installations, they need to be armed, posse comitatus doctrine notwithstanding. What is it about the adjective “armed” in armed forces that opponents of this don’t understand?

During the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other wars, we lost thousands of brave servicemen, with casualties often occurring daily. We didn’t lower the flag to half-staff each time we lost a warrior. Their lives were just as precious as the five we lost in Chattanooga. Sometimes I feel that we are too preoccupied with symbols and gestures. Lowering the flag, building temporary monuments of flowers, candles and balloons, holding hands and “coming together” is touching and may ease our anguish and comfort the friends and relatives, but they won’t stop these attacks from happening again and they won’t do a thing to defeat our enemy. Sterner measures are needed.

Americans and their political leaders need to understand and acknowledge that we are at war with radical Islam and not just in the usual rhetorical sense. It will not be won be waiting for the next domestic attack to happen, conducting pin-prick air strikes, and assembling impotent coalitions of the hardly willing which we attempt to lead from behind. Islamic State is at war with us. It now has conquered enough territory to establish a caliphate which it  rules like a nation. It has recruited potential fighters among us. Perhaps we could at least start with a formal declaration of war against Islamic State and behave like we actually intend to win it. Or have we forgotten how?

July 26, 2015

Unaffordable California

Unaffordable California—————————————–

                A commentary

                By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

 

                The Golden State, the nation’s most populous, has always been a magnet for people from elsewhere in the country and from other countries. It’s a huge state with an economy the size of Canada’s. Its size provides it with a range of climates from the temperate northern forests to the semi-tropical south. It has picturesque deserts, lush farmlands and a spectacular coastline. It is truly a paradise.

But, alas, it is the least affordable of the states, especially for newcomers in search of housing and decent-paying jobs. Inflated home prices, high energy costs, relatively low wages and high taxes combine to make the cost of living unaffordable for many. But still people come, though fewer in recent years, lured by the gentle climate and natural beauty, increasing the competition for jobs that pay enough to cover the cost of living here, increasing the demand for limited resources like water and buildable land, and staining the fragile ecology as we overbuild hillsides and canyons in the populous south.

The rural north and interior of the state are very different from the coastal communities both culturally and politically, but all Californians have one thing in common: ineffective state government. Sacramento’s infatuation with green politics and environmental activism is largely to blame and contributes in a major way to the high cost of living and the cost of doing business here. That cost affects people in vastly different ways. Most of us who have lived here for a long time, are established here and own our own homes can survive or even prosper. But in too many cases, their children and newcomers to the state cannot, forcing them to leave for more affordable areas, thus separating parents from their children and grandchildren.

Politicians often blame the higher cost of living on greed and excessive profit-seeking, especially on the part of industries like big oil. The greater portion of blame, however, belongs to government itself for environmental protection policies that add to the cost of nearly everything and make it difficult to build facilities or operate small businesses profitably.

Let’s examine some of those policies. Sacramento has mandated that renewable energy sources provide one-third of California’s electricity by 2020, just five years hence, and the governor and legislature have proposed that this percentage be increased to one-half by 2030. As the more expensive renewable sources like solar and wind come on line and nuclear plants are decommissioned, electricity rates, already as much as four times higher than the national average, can be expected to soar.

Californians rely heavily on their cars for transportation since most of the state lacks adequate public transportation. Gas prices are highest in the nation, owing mainly to anti-emission regulations requiring expensive additives to gasoline. Also, the high cost of the electricity used by refineries adds to the cost of refining and it is all but impossible to get needed new refineries built because of environmental restrictions. High state tax rates on gas add more to the price. Is it any wonder, then, that gas prices in California are now over a dollar higher than the national average?

The agriculture industry, critical to the state’s economic health and the nation’s food supply, is being severely affected by the current drought but that effect is being exacerbated by California’s bizarre water policies. Huge amounts of fresh water from the Delta region are being flushed into San Francisco Bay in a largely futile effort to preserve the Delta Smelt, a tiny fish of no particular use to mankind. Large areas of the fertile Central Valley are now unfit for farming, deprived of water.

It has often been noted that the western states have less of a water supply problem than a water distribution challenge. Water could be piped from the wetter north to the drier south but little has been done in Sacramento to address this challenge or to build needed desalinization plants which, of course, are nearly impossible to get built because of opposition from environmental protection groups.

Sacramento’s obsession with green activism makes this state increasingly unaffordable for ordinary people. Environmental protection laws are adding to the cost of doing business here and are driving businesses and jobs away to more business-friendly states. What is difficult to understand is why California voters tolerate the politicians and their policies that make it nearly impossible to live here.

July 21, 2015

Broken Borders and Sanctuary Cities——————————
A commentary
By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

By now, everyone in the nation who reads a newspaper or watches TV is aware of the apparently random murder of a young woman out for an evening stroll with her father on San Francisco’s scenic waterfront. Her accused assailant is Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a long time drug dealer in this country illegally who has been deported multiple times in the past.

Lopez-Sanchez has a number of felonies on his record. He was released from prison in April in spite of a detainer request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Had ICE been notified of his impending release, ICE might have been able to deport him (again) and the life of an innocent victim, a citizen of the United States who deserved better protection from her government, might have been spared.

But San Francisco, like over 200 American cities including San Diego, is a sanctuary city and local law enforcement, including the Sheriff’s Department, is precluded from cooperating with the federal government in enforcing immigration laws. The liberal politicians and immigration rights activists who decided that their cities should just ignore federal law pertaining to illegal aliens should reflect awhile on how their efforts may have led to an innocent woman’s death and continue to impede efforts nationally to enforce our immigration laws.

The tragic and senseless death of Kathryn Steinle has rightly generated outrage across the nation. Meanwhile, advocates for illegal immigrants are reflexively accusing those expressing outrage of exploiting a tragedy for political purposes. But outrage is no longer sufficient and the time for excuses from the apologists for illegal aliens is over. Action is required now to fix America’s broken borders and rigidly enforce its immigration laws. This is not a time for overhauling immigration policy. It is a time for securing our boarder, uniformly enforcing the laws we already have and punishing those who willfully violate or ignore them.

For too many years honest debate on this urgent matter has been stifled by political correctness and accusations of bigotry against anyone with the courage to speak out in defense of our borders and immigration laws. Most politicians will say whatever it takes to pander to the Hispanic vote and get elected but voters of any national origin or ethnicity who care about the security of our country and the safety of our citizens need to speak out and demand action.The sanctuary city concept is an abomination that needs to be abolished. It should be a responsibility of all local, state and federal law enforcement officers to cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies to help enforce all our nation’s laws, not just those they agree with. What gives any city the right to decide that they will be sanctuaries for law breakers?

Data on the percentage of crimes committed by illegal aliens vary widely depending on the source and the percentage committed by illegals may very well be less than that of the population in general, but it doesn’t matter. It should be zero. They shouldn’t commit any crimes at all because they shouldn’t be here in the first place. And, by the way, they have already committed a crime by entering the country illegally.

For the record, I still do not advocate rounding up all illegal immigrants and deporting them unless they commit additional crimes. But neither do I advocate granting them a path to citizenship except by returning to their country of origin and applying in accordance with our laws. We are a country of laws, after all, in addition to being a country of (legal) immigrants.

Decades of failure by our elected officials to enforce our immigration laws uniformly while pandering to Hispanic immigration activists and the Hispanic vote have created a situation that cries out for change. Voters should demand in writing to their elected officials that all levels of law enforcement be required to cooperate fully with federal agencies in enforcing immigration laws and that the misguided concept of sanctuary cities be abolished. And don’t settle for promises. Tell them that your vote and support depends upon action and results. A nation which cannot control its borders and ports of entry cannot possibly ensure the country’s security and the safety of its citizens and our elected officials of both parties have failed utterly in this fundamental responsibility.

July 12, 2015

Supreme Overreach

Supreme Overreach—————————————–
A commentary
By J. F. Kelly, Jr.

In the United States, we the people are supposed to be endowed with the power to determine by whom we will be governed. We elect legislators to craft laws and executives to ensure that they are faithfully executed. The people are supposed to have the ultimate power in a democracy like ours. But sometimes it doesn’t seem that way.
Supreme power now appears to be vested in nine political appointees, unelected lawyers, all elite products of Yale or Harvard Law, who know what’s best for us and are gifted with the wisdom to determine what our elected legislators really intended and what language really ought to mean.
In the space of two days, an interval which one GOP presidential candidate described as the worse 48-hour period in the history of the republic, the U.S. Supreme Court managed to change the commonly-understood definitions of words like “state exchanges” in upholding the right of the federal government to pay taxpayer-funded subsidies to Obamacare enrollees in states where no state exchange was established, in violation of the law’s language, crafted, albeit clumsily, by Congress. Then, in Obergefell v.Hodges, the Supremes struck down the centuries-old, biblical-based definition of marriage as between a man and a woman. How’s that for two day’s work?
Chief Justice John Roberts had previously rescued Obamacare by deciding, in the majority opinion, that a penalty is really a tax. No, it isn’t. A penalty is a fine and a tax is not a penalty. We all must pay some taxes, or at least should, but we don’t all incur penalties. Our legislators may not be the most intelligent people in the land but surely even they know the difference.
In King v. Burwell, the Chief Justice decided that the drafters of Obamacare “passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not destroy them.” But the law specifically states that only enrollees in state exchanges would be eligible for federal subsidies. Clearly, the intent of Congress was to encourage the establishment of state exchanges. So when a majority of states decided not to, Roberts again rescued Obamacare by deciding himself what Congress really meant. Since the Chief Justice has this amazing ability to determine what Congress really meant or what he thinks it should have meant, perhaps he should resign and run for Congress. For his heroic efforts in twice saving Obamacare from the perils of the law’s own flawed language, it should be re-named Robamacare.
The very next day, the same Chief Justice Roberts, writing in dissent of the same-sex marriage ruling, accused the court of overreach in “stealing the issue (of what marriage means) from the people”, noting that the Constitution says nothing about marriage. On one day he re-writes legislation. On the next, he blasts the court for creating it. Consistency is not his strong suit, another reason why he might be better suited to serve in Congress than on the court where consistency in interpreting laws and the Constitution is much to be desired.
The nation will survive the rulings on Obamacare. They may hasten the march toward socialized medicine with the federal government as single payer and rationing authority with respect to who gets covered for what. We will become more and more like the European social democracies with cradle to grave care and the bills for future generations to pay.
But the decision changing the traditional definition of marriage can be a huge game-changer. A Supreme Court majority of five justices, finding no basis in the Constitution to re-define marriage, has imposed its own moral views on the entire country in callous disregard of the nearly half of Americans who believe that marriage is and was always intended to be between a woman and a man and that children are best reared by a mother a and a father. What’s next, marriage between first cousins and siblings? With this court anything is possible.
Using the equal protection clause to justify this ruling is bogus. Equal protection and benefits to gay couples are either already provided by law or else legal remedies exist to provide them without the court intruding into an area that the Constitution doesn’t even address.
The court patronizingly concedes that religions will be free to teach traditional views regarding marriage. Thanks. The Constitution already grants that freedom but this or future courts can change that, too. How about the freedom to teach that homosexual acts are sinful? Will that someday soon be prosecutable as a hate crime? Make no mistake about it, the ultimate goal of gay activists was never the mere legalization of gay marriage. It was, is and will remain complete acceptance by everyone of homosexual actions and same-sex marriage as not only legal, but wholesome and normal as well. Traditional religious beliefs and teachings are now the last remaining obstacle to that and traditional religions and their members will inevitably be accused of hateful, discriminatory and illegal practices in refusing to accommodate to the new popular culture and in actively practicing and living all aspects of their faith. The court’s ruling will accelerate, not end, the culture wars.

July 6, 2015