Guns Don’t Solve Problems, People Solve Problems

The Charleston Church shooting was a terrible tragic one that the political and media elites think should never be repeated. And yet we have almost become chilling numb in the face of such violence. From the Charleston shootings to Aurora school shootings to this kind of evil senseless violence has almost become routine in the psyche of America. The question is why?

It starts with guns of course. Weapons or tools that can be used for combat or sport, to defend rights or take life. I am in firm defense of the 2^nd amendment yet the founding fathers under no circumstance intended the 2^nd amendment to be a cop out nor government nor the citizenship from acting responsibility.

Yes, yes I have heard it before. According to many conservatives “studies” show that takings guns away from law-abiding citizens will only empower criminals. While that would probably happen in some cases I doubt it would be the national trend. Indeed if one examines (almost) every developed democratic nation in the world besides the one will find that gun massacres so common stateside are non-existent.

Of course the argument swings back around. This is the United States of America we are not like those other countries they say. It is true we are not like them. We broke away from the most powerful nation in the world and then took on the tremendous task of restoring democracy to the world after it had been lost for thousands of years. And with the forming of our nation we created our Bill of Rights. One of the most powerful of these rights is the right to bear arms with the theory that should the need arise the average American would be able to defend against the federal government.

I agree that the average citizen should fight against a nation that had become tyrannical, uninhabitable for those who strive for freedom and equality. Yet what happens when the amendment designed to protect Americans ends up causing pain where men, women, and children of all colors and creeds are sacrificed in order to preserve tradition. I believe that Americans should always have the right to bear arms yet not a right to bear all types of arms. It must be reexamined that some states can allow all manner of firearms into the hands of their citizens. We often look outside our own nation to enemies whom would take our cherished rights away. But what happens when a fellow citizen deprives another of one of the most important rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Jeb & Mitt

The Republican Party has taken a turn to the right. Many moderate Republicans have had to turn to the right to survive politically. Those whom refused have been vanquished by ultra-conservative forces. Two men, whom may very well run for President of the United States, embody the moderate Republican agenda. These men are Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. While Romney swung to the right during the 2012 Presidential campaign and primaries while he was Governor of Massachusetts he was a moderate common sense Republican. Quite a rarity these days.

If the Republican Party attempts to run an ultra-conservative candidate (such as a tea party backed candidate), they will certainly lose the general election against the Democratic nominee. Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney are the best chance the Republican Party has of recapturing the White House in 2016.

Governor Bush and Governor Romney have served in the highest echelons of business and have held one of the highest political offices in the United States that of Governor.

However only one can run for either to be successful. Both of them appeal to big business, posses similar philosophies, and can draw in voters whom are tired of Tea Party obstructionists and anti-modern views on social issues. Both are simply logical moderates with years of executive and business experience.

I believe Governor Bush is the best chance for Republicans to pull in swing/moderate voters and defeat the presumed Democratic nominee Hilary Clinton. Governor Bush has proclaimed, bravely (at least politically) his view on controversial issues such as immigration and gay marriage While Governor Bush didn’t come out firmly in support of gay marriage he did say that same sex couples along with rule of law must be respected. On immigration, well, Governor Bush is married to a Hispanic women born in Mexico and has strongly supported immigration reform. I say that gives him the advantage over any Republican when it comes to garnering the Hispanic-American vote. Unlike Governor Romney who said in the nineties he is to the left of Senator Ted Kennedy on abortion, Bush has proclaimed his views just a few months before potential nominees will announce their candidacies and cannot as easily cop out of them by saying his views have changed. Governor Romney was attacked constantly for ( in the 2012 Presidential Election) changing his values and views on issues he supported as Massachusetts Governor and Senatorial Candidate. Voters like firm leaders whom profess their views clearly and do not hide from them.

Jeb Bush has the powerful Bush name behind him. Much like the Clinton name the name Bush can be helpful as well as a hindrance. It can invoke emotions ranging from awe to disgust. A famous name associated with two US Presidents and a governor polarizes and garners instant support. The name Romney is simply not as powerful nor as polarizing.

Finally Jeb Bush is associated with political success. While his father, President George H.W. Bush did lose his reelection campaign to Bill Clinton, his brother, President George W. Bush served two terms as President and he himself served two terms as Governor. On the other hand Governor Romney lost his parties nomination in 2008 and lost the 2012 Presidential election to President Barack Obama. Voters can at times forgive but party leadership will rarely forget about a candidate whom has lost a Presidential election, and so the Romney name carries with it a mark of defeat. Something Jeb Bush certainly does not.

I do believe Jeb Bush will run for President. If so he can capture swing voters, appeal to the Republican base (once ultra-conservative candidates our knocked out of the race), and out fund most competitors. Other competitors such as Chris Christie are just to polarizing or like Rand Paul too conservative to win in the general election. Romney is just a non-starter, he and Bush occupy the same sphere and the weight of Bush is just to great. I do believe Jeb Bush will seek the Republicans nomination for President of the United States and if so has the greatest chance of delivering the White House to the Republican Party. Nominating Governor Romney again will be a great mistake and a waste of a campaign.

 

A Conservative congress. Progress on legislation?

Speaker Boehner & Majority Leader McConnell

The 114th Congress has already begun, just yesterday Congressman John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, was reelected as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Speaker Boehner needed 205 votes to win the speakership and won with 216 votes. For the past years Speaker Boehner has had to hold a possible revolt from the more Conservative elements of the GOP, namely the Tea Party. This year only twenty-four conservative Republican representatives went against the party line and voted not to elect Congressman Boehner as Speaker of the House.

Luckily for Speaker Boehner, the Republican Party, and the rest of the country Tea Party influence has been waning the past few years. The Republican National Committee during the 2014 midterm election cycle heavily vetted its congressional candidates and poured massive amounts of money into congressional primary campaigns to squash Tea Party backed upstarts whom threaten to taint the Republican Party with insensitive, ridiculous rhetoric and policy.

With that said I fear that this division within the Republican caucus right at the beginning of the 114th Congress may be, as it has been in past years, a preview of things to come. The Republican mainstream has had to take a decidedly right turn as ultra conservatives have routinely attacked any GOP members (including the congressional Republican leadership) whom sought compromise with the Democrats and to a greater extent President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Although the fire of the Tea Party may be dying down, grassroots conservative groups are still a forced to be reckoned with for the GOP. Speaker Boehner, along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, may reject compromise in order to whip up conservative support for Republican’s in 2016 and retain the loyalty of rank and file members.

Speaker Boehner

With the Republican’s controlling the House and the Senate by good majorities the burden of legislating now fall upon the shoulders of Republican representatives. There still exists ultra conservatives in both the House and the Senate whom will force party leaders such as Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader McConnell to reject common sense legislation proposed by Democrats in order to whip up their conservative base. Though the threat of a loss to Democrats in the 2016 Presidential elections looms I fear that again the 114th Congress will be a do nothing Congress and that the Republican Party will remain the obstructionist party.

Is North Korea responsible?

It was not to along ago that the American company Sony Pictures Entertainment was cyber attacked by North Korea. Or so it seems. While the Obama Administration’s official stance and the stance of government cyber security experts is that North Korea was behind the cyber attack, independent cyber security experts have doubts and believe there is a possibility that the attack came from a third party hacking organization.

However for good or for ill the die has been cast, President Barack Obama this week announced that in light of the recent cyber attacks North Korea will face new United States sanctions.

In light of the discrepancies about who was behind the attack and North Korea’s subsequent actions I believe I was to hasty in deeming North Korea guilty in the Sony hack. While North Korea is certainly a rogue and tyrannical state its actions after news of the attack broke were not the actions of a guilty nation.

For one North Korea offered to help the US government find out whom was behind the hack and threatened the US if the US refused North Korea’s offer. I, and no doubt the US government, considered North Korea’s offer bizarre and ridiculous as I was certain they were behind the attack.

However in retrospect this offer makes sense especially if North Korea is not behind the attack after all. There is a political component of course, the Chinese government, which supports North Korea, does not approve when North Korea causes unnecessary trouble with the US. In fact the US asked China to help with preventing future attacks that come from North Korea.

The above factors combined with cyber security experts disagreeing on where the attack came from leads me to believe that North Korea was not behind the attack but was setups. This is a theory that cyber security experts have formulated as they believe that traces of North Korea’s code was planted to frame North Korea.

The Obama Administration immediately had a response by shutting down North Korea’s internet, which I believe was a correct move regardless if North Korea was behind the attacks as it disproportionally effects the North Korea elites and punishes them for their people suffering.

But now there are sanctions coming, which regardless of North Korea is guilty or not guilt of the cyber attacks, is the wrong move. Sanctions against North Korea will not effect Kim Jung-un or his inner circle, the sanctions will probably include North Koreas ability to export and prevent food aid from going into the country which will only effect the people of North Korea whom have no say in their government’s actions. Economic sanctions against North Korea will not work as their leaders stay fabulously wealthy by selling illegal arms to country’s such as Iran for hard currency. North Korean elites have little to no liquid assets that the US can freeze unlike sanctions passed against countries such as Russia.

In the end whether guilty or not sanctions, as they have been in the past, will be ineffective in harming Kim Jong-un’s regime. The United States sanctions will disproportionally harm the people of North Korea without harming its leadership. North Korea will become more hostile to aid organizations and it will become risky for aid organizations to bring food into the country. Sanctions that do little to weaken North Korea’ regime and harm its people should not be passed just so the US can appear to be retaliating against North Korea’s leadership.

Whom to Represent and Whom not to Represent?

The United States prides itself on local representatives, that is members US House of Representatives, colloquially known as congressmen ( and congresswomen), whom prioritize there local interests once elected into Washington DC.

There exists a tension between local representative and constituents in the United States; should Congressmen and Congresswomen prioritize their congressional districts even if that means harming the greater national interests?

Many of my fellow Americans, perhaps, do not phrase that question in such a way. I find that the question congressmen and congresswomen must ask is; what gets me reelected? Unfortunately for our political process and us, the citizens of this nation, congresswomen and congressmen must overwhelming side with local interest instead of the national good. We get the representation we deserve, we deserve whomever we vote for and whatever polices we vote for.

Why bring this up now? Well that’s simple, I have for several years read about the problem of the quantity of tanks in the United States Army. O but don’t mistake me, the problem isn’t that the US Army is undersupplied with tanks, in fact it is quite the opposite. Congress, in their annual approval of the national budget (with this year’s budget being no exception) consistently approves the manufacturing of new tanks. The reason tanks are continuously approved for manufacturing, though the US Army no longer needs them, is related to the issues I outlined above.

While the US Army no longer needs tanks, it just so happens that a certain congressmen with a tank producing factory in his district has a strong incentive to keep said factories open. And so to get the federal budget passed funding for said tank manufacturing plant is written into the federal budget every year. At a hundred or so million dollars the American taxpayer buys the US Army tanks it no longer need.

The problem is that the American people expect their representatives to put their interests above all, even above the national interest. The tale of the unneeded tanks is just one example of where congressmen and congresswomen must cave to local interests and demand.

Such behavior harkens back to out split with Great Britain in favor of local representation. With that said I do believe that the balancing act that Congress performs all to often lean heavily for local interest while collectively harming the national one. Such practices create a bloated, nationally unnecessary, budget all to often bills filed with obscure statues to help one congresspersons district, such is the evils of pork barreled spending.

Developing a conscience while in elected office is difficult especially when the American people expect congressmen and congresswomen to vote the way they would vote. However developing ones own conscience is necessary to effectively bring our nation into the future and restore the integrity of the political process. If we are not unified in mind, purpose or law ; how can we expect to endure in these troubled time?

Hacking Away at our Freedoms

Cyber warfare will usher in the next stage of conflict between nations. Cyber warfare is when one nation, through digital means, digitally attacks another nation. The attacks can target infrastructure, steal information, disrupt relations with international allies and are generally hard to pinpoint and punish. While seemingly less dangerous as other forms of conflict Cyber warfare and its co cyber terrorism cant threatened the national security of the United States and the American way of life.

Of course, why bring this up now? In the past few days Sony Entertainment was digitally attacked by unknown entity, this entity is assumed to be the rogue nation that is North Korea.

The theory is simple a plausible, Sony was scheduled to release the film the Interview starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, on December 25th. The films plot is that Franco and Rogan will conduct and interview Kim Jong-Un and attempt to kill him.

Image that appeared on Sony Entertainment’s computers after the hack

Not surprisingly North Korea, whom considers their national leader Kim Jong-Un a powerful savior, had a bit of a problem with the Interview. And so Sony was digitally attacked, disrupting the multinational companies for days and releasing confidential emails. The attacks and the emails sent the political and digital world into a tailspin.

While the US can respond and will respond, international laws regarding cyber warfare are difficult to enforce, and so little substantive harm will come to North Korea or at least to its leaders. To make matters worse, Sony along with several national movie theater chains decided, in light of the cyber attack, not to show the movie.

Political and entertainment scions President Barack Obama and George Clooney denounced the decisions believing its sets a dangerous precedent for censorship in the US by the decree of another nation.

I must agree, with President Obama and Clooney. Freedom of Speech, which film fall under, must be rigorously defended. Due to the actions of an outside nation, entertainment companies should not grovel to meet that nation’s demands.

The US must remain a place of free intellectual and cultural expression, a place were films like the Interview, that mock political leaders, can be shown and celebrated, if it does not, our very of life, our freedom to express ourselves, would slowly but surely unravel.

Torture? An American Oversight

The United States is a proud defender of human rights throughout the globe. Yet it seems during the
War on Terror, which has encompassed the Presidential Administrations of President Bush and President Obama, the United States took part in the barbaric practice that is torture.

Don’t get me wrong though, the Bush Administration, while admittedly knowing little about the CIA’s (Central Intelligence Agency) torture program, would not confirm that torture was being used on America’s enemies during the War on Terror. Instead a new phrase was created, the United States didn’t torture it simply used “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Such a phrase is some of the greatest political malarkey I have ever heard.

Yet the CIA consoled presidents and the public alike with one fact; such techniques, the CIA said, illicit information that lead to the 2011 death of Osama Bin Laden.

It appears such a claim is patently false. Torture or “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” did not in any way lead to the death of Osama Bin Laden.

The CIA with little oversight used techniques that go against American values and subsequently how prisoners of war should be treated. Furthermore these cruel techniques did not result in information that lead to the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Balancing oversight with security is always a difficult battle, the nature of what the CIA does is secret, to much oversight could greatly hamper the CIA’s reputation as a premier intelligent gathering agency.

With that said, covert programs that go against the grain of American values and break international law cannot be tolerated. A problem is once violations are uncovered in covert programs no one is held accountable

If necessary the President must be briefed on the specifics of covert programs, for to long our nations Presidents have consistently ducked responsibility by denying knowledge about the specifics of a program, such a defense is often legitimate. While I don’t like the idea of the Executive Branch policing covert programs, programs that violate basic human rights show there is some need for executive oversight.

A Weary Public and a Mission Creeping

The United States is, unofficially of course, waging war against ISIS ( Islamic state of Iraq and Syria). While I don’t like jumping into conflict, wars cannot be fought with drones and US forces posing as military “advisors”. Yet the US, particularly after what many considers failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, is war weary. Politicians, such as but not limited to President Barack Obama, are on the lookout for mission creep and the accompanying American investment (such as money, lives and prestige) that follows.

Mission creep. A term used to describe a foreign policy excursion that eventually becomes a long-term military occupation. We saw it in Vietnam, now we are seeing it in Syria and Iraq. I am referring to the US’ conduct against opposition to ISIS and how our role as military “advisors” can quickly transition to war fighting combatants.

Politicians and the public now prefer wars to be fought on the cheap with drones that strike strategic targets and high-level enemy personnel. Why send in tens of thousands of troops when you can send in a few hundred Special Operations Operators to fight America’s wars? While I am all for avoiding bloodshed, fighting wars cheaply and not showing massive force in the beginning of a conflict is why Iraq and even Afghanistan is considered the foreign policy failure that it is today.

While I understand Americans are frustrated with perpetual warfare, wars cannot be halfway affairs; they must be conducted with massive and overwhelming force to ensure a quick victory. The Powell doctrine must be invoked; if politics and public opinion cannot guarantee a quick American victory along with a massive show of force then the United States should take no overt action in that conflict.

Hagel Chucked Out

It seems President Obama is losing key members of his administration left and right. The latest loss from Obama’s Administration comes from Chuck Hagel, a former Republican Senator and the Secretary of Defense.

It was announced yesterday that within a few weeks Secretary Hagel will be stepping down as Secretary of Defense, one of the most powerful posts in the United States. While he has officially resigned he will still remain the acting Secretary of Defense until a replacement is found

While officially the White House sends Secretary Hagel out the door with praise there are “rumors” from administration insiders that Hagel is seen as a lackluster Secretary of Defense whom has done little to make good on President Obama’s agenda.

I for one find the announcement quite surprising. While Hagel is not particularly effective I did not find Hagel particularly ineffective. The question is, Was Hagel really looked down upon by administration insiders or did he just wish to leave what he may see as a sinking ship?

I hope that President Obama chooses a Secretary of Defense that can lead this nations vast military bureaucracy and just as importantly be confirmed by the United States Senate. We are transitioning to a new era of conflict and thus need someone in charge of the Pentagon whom can lead the US military through multiple crisis.

O Executive Action, How we need you

O executive action, that time honored pseudo legal power that modern Presidents possess, is coming under scrutiny as President Obama vows to act unilaterally on immigration reform.

Americans universally acknowledge that the United States’ immigration system is broken. While we may be divided on what to do about immigration we all know something must be done. Our political leaders, elected to lead us, have not been able to compromise on this important issue.

President Obama feels, as do I, that if Congress does not act he has the responsibility to enact immigration reform to benefit the nation. This has naturally lead to outrage from Republicans as an abuse of executive authority. I would rather Congress act on immigration but politicians from either party have shown a reluctance if not an inability to compromise

The political back drop, is of course, the shellacking Democrats took in the midterms elections earlier this month. With the lame duck congress gridlocked and the following Congress to likely follow suit; President Obama will most likely act on immigration if Congress cannot pass meaningful legislation.

The problem of President Obama acting unilaterally is dubious legal reasoning (which other presidents have exploited in the past), the weakening of Congress’ power (though they have weakened themselves), and overreach of the Executive Branch. While the claims may be valid President Obama cannot preside as a figurehead over a nationally debate that will effect the lives of millions and potentially the future of the United States.