Treason and Traitors

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

So says 18 U.S.C. §2381, the federal statute that defines treason and its consequences. Furthermore, 18 U.S.C. §2385 states: 

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

To me, it seems pretty clear what treasonous and seditious activity is.  Lately, with the recent revelations that two turncoat Americans, Adam Gadahn and Ahmed Farouq, were killed in drone strikes, there's been a lot of handwringing about the lack of due process afforded these traitors prior to their executions.  From a purely legal standpoint, there's probably some truth to the concern.  A duly sitting court of law with the traitors represented by counsel before the obvious verdict is handed down never existed for these two (and a couple of others before them, it should be noted).  Technically, this is wrong according to our constitutional guarantee.  

At the same time, I have no trouble with what happened to them.  Nevermind the collateral deaths of two hostages -- that's another topic for another day.  These two traitors were clearly bent on the overthrow of our way of life and the installation of sharia law, a medieval way of life that elevates Islamic men over all others, with serious consequences for anyone not an Islamic man or one not following sharia law to the letter.  

It's antithetical about everything I believe as an American, an attorney and a human being. Were the most heinous criminal in American history, caught on tape doing his crimes, to be brought to justice, I would insist that he first have the benefit of his constitutional guarantees.  But these traitors are a different breed apart.  They threaten not only our lives, but our way of life and all that we hold dear.  They want to convert the entire world into an Islamic caliphate.

I don't claim to know a lot about the Koran.  I have a copy -- know they enemy, they offered to send me a free copy, probably thinking I would be happy to convert once I read their truths -- and intend to read it to decide for myself whether it's the religion of peace as they claim.  In the meantime, these two traitors, whether they've bought into a radical version of Islam or the real thing, meet the defintions set forth in the United States Code as traitors.  Since trying to round them up to bring them to justice as we'd expect under our system of justice is problematic, I have no issue with them being eliminated without due process.  For my money, they've forfeited their right to constitutional protections through their treason.  What's more, by actively waging war outside the country against us, they necessarily don't have the same level of rights as they would were they in the country.  In other words, were they caught here planning terrorism, or if they'd carried out an attack here and were caught, then they'd have to get their constitutional rights.  But outside the country, they enjoy no such privileges.

It's hard, it's indifferent and it's fundamentally wrong, but I have no trouble with my position.  They wouldn't hesitate to kill me and mine because we're Christian.  I have no hesitation killing them because they're traitors.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Get Americans Home

What with the Iranian nuke deal and the Bergdahl trade, one would think that the administration would be eager to combine the two and combine its questionable negotiating skills to make political hay and get back four Americans being held in Iran.  Thus far, at least publicly, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to link the negotiations to the fate of the four captive Americans, but the public outcry has been met with yawns and denials that anything other than sanctions or nuclear weaponry would be included in the agreement with Iran.

The administration has a very curious approach to negotiations and getting Americans released from jail in foreign countries.  Marine Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi took a wrong turn at a border crossing in California and spent four months in a Mexican jail because he had weapons in his car that he was lawfully carrying -- in the United States. What should have been a very quick diplomatic resolution dragged on for months.  Contrary to assertions that the administration did the right thing by not pressing for Mr. Tahmooressi's immediate return, there are scores of such incidents involving citizens from both countries who mistakenly cross the border and are returned with reasonable dispatch. Such was not the case with Mr. Tahmooressi.

Then there is the journalist, the Marine, a pastor and a tourist reputed to be a CIA agent being held by the Iranians.  Three of the cases seem like slam dunks:  The journalists and the pastor, at least, should be returned.  I suppose each of them could be a covert agent, but there is little evidence beside the Iranians' assertions in support of such a thesis.  The pastor, Saeed Abidini, is a Christian, which seems the only plausible reason for his incarceration.  The journalist, Jason Rezaian, is of Iranian descent as is Pastor Abidini.  He's been charged with security-related offenses, probably espionage, and awaits trial.  The Marine, Amir Hekmati, obtained permission from the Iranian government before his trip so he could visit family in the country.  He's also been charged with espionage.  The fourth, Robert Levinson, was an FBI employee investigating cigarette smuggling in a region that doesn't require a visa to visit.  Iran has denied Mr. Levinson was in its country, but the state-run Iranian press has acknowledged the government's involvement in his disappearance.

If nothing else, we should hold up the nuke deal until the fates of these men are settled, preferably with repatriation.  But for some reason, the government is proving itself feckless and refuses to include their cases in the nuclear deal.

This is both typical and unusual at the same time.  Remember the trade for Bowe Bergdahl?  The administration created a cover story that Bergdahl was a serviceman who had served with honor and distinction and that under the rubric of leaving no American behind, we had to get him back.  At the same time, it served the President's purpose of emptying Gitmo to trade five hardened Taliban terrorists for him.  The political implications were transparent, only to blow up in the administration's face when the Army later brought court martial charges against Bergdahl for desertion and misbehavior with the enemy.

It would seem like a no-brainer: Either we get out American citizens back or there's no deal, the sanctions will continue and Iran's economy will be ruined.  Yet the administration seems to be hell-bent on restoring the country that is the foremost exporter of terrorism, one with whom we are in a proxy war in Yemen, to the league of nations and will not allow four Americans' lives to get in the way.  The chances of Iran ever having the capability to send an intercontinental nuclear weapon to the States are slim, but lifting sanctions and getting Iran to slow down its effort to build the bomb are more important than Americans' lives.  Just as emptying Gitmo and ridding ourselves of five terrorists in exchange for a deserter whom the President could turn into political fodder is more important than keeping the terrorists locked up.

History will be the best judge of this.  Perhaps there are things to which we aren't privvy at this time. But unless there's some shocking revelation in a history book in the future, these missteps involving Americans' lives will paint a shameful picture of our government.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

The Iran Nuke Deal

Admittedly, I haven't been following the capitulations negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal with rapt attention.  But I do watch the news.  And not surprisingly, I'm not impressed by what our negotiators have accomplished.

First of all, as with many Americans who are not part of the Star Chamber inner circle of this administration, I do not know for sure what's in the agreement.  I'm sure this is by design for a couple of reasons.  To begin, to ape what Nancy Pelosi infamously declared about Obamacare, we need to agree to it to find out what's in it.  This administration seems to feel that the best approach to governing is akin to shooting first and asking questions later which is antithetical to our deliberative style of government.  I believe that is more likely this time because, first, the President is confronted with a Congress that he no longer controls and, second, he is trying to couch the agreement as something that doesn't require Congressional approval.

Under the Constitution, certain kind of treaties require two-thirds concurrence by the Senate.  Mr. Obama rightfully fears he would never get that approval, given the way he's handled Republicans with his approach to bipartisanship (which means, you agree with me or else).  Of course, there are different kind of agreements, or treaties, and the Hair-Splitter-In-Chief is trying to claim that this is an Executive Agreement that doesn't require Congressional approval.  The only problem with that approach is that Congress already put in place sanctions that would, were this agreement to be binding, would undo those sanctions without Congressional approval.

Faced with a testy legislative body, last week the White House agreed to give the Senate thirty days to review and pass the agreement...once it's reduced to writing.  That's another interesting part of the story.

Since nothing was reduced to writing, we don't know for sure what the agreement is supposed to be. Interestingly, Washington and Tehran disagree, apparently, on an essential term in the agreement, that of the timing of the lifting of sanctions.  Washington claims that they will be phased in gradually, while Tehran says that they are to be lifted immediately.  How there can be an agreement when one of the crucial elements of the agreement isn't even agreed upon makes one wonder.

Then there's the whole Death to America/Death to Israel facet, where our opposites continue to chant the former and pledge the latter.  How can one negotiate with an opponent who is trying to liquidate its opposite?

The Russians then muddied the waters this past week, finally allowing an agreement reached in 2007 to supply advanced anti-aircraft defense systems to Iran to go through.  As a form of realpolitik, this makes sense:  Although none of the rhetoric directed at the West has been directed at the Russians, with former Soviet territories largely populated by Muslims, and with a nuclear Iran sitting on its southern border, it makes little sense to allow Iran to get nukes.  Then again, giving it the capacity to defend itself against air attacks would seem to be counterintuitive to that rationale, my suspicion is that there's something underhanded in approving the deal at this late date.

Finally, there's the tangled, complicated real world situation in the Middle East.  As I understand the way things are right now, Iranian Shi'ite militia are helping American-trained and -equipped Iraqi forces combat ISIS forces that American warplanes bomb while Iranian-backed Yemenis have overthrown the American-backed regime, which has prompted the Saudis to bomb Sana'a.  That makes for tremendously strange bedfellows indeed.  It also makes for a hopelessly confused backdrop for a putative agreement coming from an administration this is as transparent as mud.

Is it any wonder we're not respected or feared anymore?

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Ugly Studs

Since I wrote a blogpost on women who are held out as beauties whom I find less than appealing, I think it's only fair that I do the same for men.  The problem, of course, in that writing this piece, I expose myself to multiple but competing charges:  One, that I'm jealous of these men and the women they attract and two, that I'm gay.  I'm neither jealous of any of these men nor am I gay...not that there's anything wrong with that.

There are guys who end up with beautiful women that leave me scratching my noggin.  By no means am I in the class of George Clooney or Brad Pitt, but some of these guys...let's just say they must have other endowments that recommend them to women.  Sure, athletes and musicians and rich people necessarily attract women no matter what they look like.  But that doesn't mean we have to hold them out as being among the handsomest men around.  It just means they have the wherewithal to attract beautiful women no matter how ludicrous it would be if they lacked the athletic prowess, celebrity or wealth with which God endowed them.

Here, then, is my completely arbitrary list totally devoid of envy:

Tom Cruise:  Please.  The man's 5'7" to begin with.  He has the profile of a shark.  He's batsh*t crazy and a Scientologist to boot.  The only thing he has is a smile and a healthy head of hair.

John Travolta:  By no means nearly as obnoxious with his Scientology as the man above him, I've just never understood this one.  He seems like a  nice enough guy, but he too is weird.  With that nose that never ends and his penchant for dressing absurdly, I just don't get it.

Jake Gyllenhaal:  This guy looks like a neanderthal.  Sure, he can bulk up for a role, but that face? His jawline has the contour of a shovel.  And he has questionable taste in women, what with that whole Taylor Swift dalliance.

Adam Duritz:  Courtney Cox.  Mary Louise Parker.  Monica Potter.  Emmy Rossum. Even Jennifer Aniston, whom many believe is gorgeous.  This guy looks like an oversized furball some cat coughed up.  He may be the nicest guy ever, but for crying out loud...

Anthony Kiedis:  Another of the great unwashed, his features are better suited to character actors than Lotharios.  Still, it's the bad boy musician thing.

David Schwimmer:  This is the Friends effect.  Both he and Jennifer Aniston benefited from being on that show.  At least Ms. Aniston can act.  Mr. Schwimmer reminds me of the goofy guy in high school who tried out for plays so he could get girls, because that was about the only way he was going to get close to them.

Bradley Cooper:  Mr. Cooper's not unattractive, he's just not as attractive as he's made out to be.  He seems like a nice enough guy, and he's a good actor.  But he's no Adonis.

Joe Jonas:  Just because.

Donnie Wahlberg:  Contrary to what anyone thinks, no matter how hot Jenny McCarthy is, I'm not jealous of this guy.  I just don't see how he's attractive in the slightest.

Adrian Grenier:  If things were any different, he could be a hot ethnic woman.  He's not a good looking man.  Just sayin'.

John Cusack:  I'm not sure he's regarded as handsome, but I know there are women who drool over him.  His face is pinched and I hear he's not exactly the nicest guy.

Javier Bardem:  Despite my love of all things Spanish, this guy is not remotely attractive.   Sure, Penelope married him, but that was almost a dynastic arranged marriage.  He's another one who would be better cast as the heavy in movies rather than the love interest.  Great actor, though.

Tommy Lee Jones:  Just kidding.

Dennis Quaid:  On what level is this guy good-looking.  No, I'm not confusing him with his uglier brother Randy.  I just don't see it.  As with Mr. Gyllenhaal, he has a shovel face that doesn't say male perfection to me.  His choice in women is also questionable.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Food and Taste

I like food, but I don't think I'm a foodie.  I watch Top Chef and that's it.  What can I say?  I like Tom Colicchio.  But I could never be a chef, because it appears to be an essential part of a chef's repertoire to be able to use eggs in a variety of ways and serve scallops.  I hate eggs -- can't stand the smell of cooked eggs, although I can bake with 'em and use raw eggs with no problem -- and I think I'm allergic for scallops, so how would I know if what I was cooking was safe for human consumption.

Even so, I'm fascinated by what the contestants do on TC.  They come up with ingredients that I've never heard of, much less considered mixing to make a fabulous dish.  And to be as knowledgeable about so many different cuisines is tantamount to algebra to me.  I sit in awe of these chefs.

That being said, I don't like being told what to eat or how to enjoy it.  Take meat, for example.  I used to know a guy who was disdainful of anyone who would eat meat cooked above medium raw.  That meant he was disdainful of me.  I'm sorry, but I was given opposable thumbs for a reason.  I don't hunt my food on the open plain, I don't eat it immediately after killing it and I use utensils not only to be civilized but because my food is too hot to handle with my bare hands.

That this isn't considered haute cuisine doesn't bother me in the slightest.  I can't think of any French foods I really like, so trying to imitate the way they approach food is really irrelevant for me.  Raw meat, or tartar, as some like to call it, doesn't appeal to me in the least.  I like my meat cooked.  My girl likes her meat really cooked, in part to make sure whatever living organisms are still in the meat but shouldn't be are killed.  I'm not into carbonized meats either, but I'm a heck of a lot closer in my appreciation for medium well-done steaks than raw or medium raw steaks.  Karen likes her bacon very crisp.  I like mine rubbery, or so she says.

I also don't care for sour cream on potatoes.  This is something that mean people enjoy, but I don't. Likewise, these same people will put sour cream on things like tacos and nachos.  I detest corrupting perfectly fine tacos and nachos with sour cream or, worse yet, guacamole.  I don't give a darn how healthy avocados are:  I hate them.  The only thing I like about avocados is their color.  After that, they make me gag.

Admittedly, I have a lot of weird food pairings where I like one thing but not another thing of which they're made.  To wit:  Banana nut bread.  I hate the stuff.  I love bread and I like bananas and nuts perfectly fine, but I can't stand banana nut bread.  I don't know why this is.  But I don't like banana nut bread.

Similarly, the thought of eating bread pudding is disgusting to me.  Again, I love bread and pudding's fine, but wet bread is horrible.  In Chicago, Italian beef sandwiches are traditionally dipped in juice. When I'd order mine, I'd tell them to leave it as dry as the Sahara desert.  Nothing, besides eggs, is more gross than wet bread.  But I'm not going to eat Italian beef dipped in juice just because everyone else is doing it.  At the same time, I'm not eating bread pudding.

Those who insist on pairing wines with food are beyond me.  If I like a particular kind of wine, I don't care if it's red or white (actually, I do; I don't drink white wine if I can avoid it) and will drink it with whatever I'm eating.  Not only that, don't ask me about hints of this or aromas of that that one can find in the wine.  If it tastes good to me, that's all I care about.  The notion of going to all that trouble to get the right wine with a particular meal is just too much fuss for me.

And when it comes to dessert, I could care less about how it looks.  In fact, if it looks too pretty, I won't eat it.  The same goes for presentation of main courses too, I suppose.  Food is food, not art.

To paraphrase a saying about beauty, taste is on the tongue of the eater.  As with my music, I know what I like and I like what I know.  I'm not adventurous when I eat, and I'm not snobbish.  I'm just steak and potatoes.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

The Race to Judgment

With the recent shooting by a police officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, of a fleeing, unarmed black man, everyone -- including me, this time -- has already convicted the police officer of crimes ranging from murder -- I say second degree, because I don't see any premeditation given the dash-cam footage that was released -- to a hate crime -- no way; the cop just lost it.  Some are sensibly urging patience, which is something I typically do, because in most instances, we don't have video of the incident on which to base our opinions.  This time, I think there's very little doubt what happened or what should happen to Officer Slager.

That being said, we've had an awful lot of incidents recently and going back twenty years or more where a rush to judgment took place, only to have it turn out that the judgment was wholly incorrect. Perhaps it's worthwhile to take a stroll down memory lane and revisit some of those incidents where a national outcry was heard only to have the outcry prove to be wrong because what was reported was incorrect.

(That last statement should be a cautionary one for people  Bad reporting has, more often than not, led us into these problems.  When bad reporting slants a story one way, inevitably those who seek not to solve the problem but profit from it use the reports to push their agenda as if they'd just gotten the tablets from God Himself.  Careless and rushed journalism pervades almost every one of these stories.)

Tawana Brawley rape allegation:  Largely championed by that noted race baiter Al Sharpton, it turned out later that that Ms. Brawley invented the story to avoid getting whupped by her mother for being out late.  Nevertheless, Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan both led protests demanding justice for a black woman raped by a white man.  Even Bill Cosby stepped forward to help the unfortunate Ms Brawley (insert joke here).  The rape never happened.

Duke lacrosse gang rape:  Frat boys are easy targets, usually because they do such stupid and insensitive things that it makes them easy targets.  Rich frat boys are even better targets.  Rich student athletes are in the same class.  Or so thought Crystal Mangum.  Ms. Mangum went after the Duke men's lacrosse team, claiming she'd been hired to strip for them at a party and was later raped.  The prosecuting attorney, Michael Nifong, was so intent on making a name for himself that he corrupted the investigative process.  Nifong was later disbarred.  Jesse Jackson, never one to shy away from the bright light, declared that he would pay Ms. Mangum's college tuition no matter if she'd invented the story.  Apparently, Ms. Mangum never took the reverend up on his offer, because a couple of years ago she was convicted of second degree murder and was sentenced to a minimum of fourteen years in prison.  The lacrosse players did realize $30M from various entities involved in the case.

Trayvon Martin:  Shot by neighborhood watcher and police officer wannabe George Zimmerman, called by the press a white man of Hispanic descent, it was readily reported that Martin was shot dead in cold blood.  Martin was portrayed as an innocent kid who was preyed upon by the racist Zimmerman.  It turned out that Martin wasn't as chaste as the driven snow as portrayed by the MSM, and a jury agreed that Zimmerman was innocent.  Or at least he wasn't found guilty.  In any event, much of the MSM was trying to inflate this beyond what it really was:  A very tragic mistake.

UVA frat house gang rape/Rolling Stone:  Anxious to get a big scoop, a reporter very carelessly developed a story that wasn't edited very well about a woman gang raped at a frat party.  It caused a big splash, with women's groups virtually marching on Charlottesville with pitchforks and cudgels.  Not surprisingly, it turns out there was virtually no evidence of the incident beyond the woman's story.  The article was picked apart by fellow journalists as well as students who were at the party in questions but never interviewed.  As with the Duke lacrosse players, this fraternity is probably going to receive a very large sum of money with a lot of zeros involved, because the fraternity sued Rolling Stone for its shoddy but salacious story.

Michael Brown:  Many innocent storeowners in Ferguson, Missouri, were put out of business because of the race baiting aided by breathless news reports that a white cop had gunned down an unarmed black teenager.  Conveniently left out of the initial reports were the facts that the 6'4" Brown had recently knocked over a convenient store, where he shoved an older and much smaller store owner; that he'd charged the officer, Darren Wilson; that eyewitness accounts were less than reliable; and that forensic evidence vindicated virtually every point of Officer Wilson's story.  Nevertheless, Ferguson burned, Officer Wilson resigned and moved away and the Justice Department launched an expensive but ultimately futile inquiry to see whether Officer Wilson had violated Brown's rights.

In each of those cases, there was no reliable video of the incident.  In the Walter Scott shooting, we have pretty clear evidence of what happened.  I expect that Officer Slager will go away for a long time, although being a cop, his time in prison may not last long.

Unless there is incontrovertible evidence of an incident, the rush to judgment ought to be delayed. Largely, this rush to judgment is fueled by the MSM, which is oftentimes more concerned about being first with a story instead of being accurate.  At the same time, the MSM acts this way because we the public hang on every report as if it was announcing the Second Coming.  Most often, these are simply tragic and unfortunate cases where people acted injudiciously or even stupidly.  The results of those actions are bad enough.  They don't need to be compounded by our collective stupidity.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Police Brutality

I've ragged on blacks for making too much about racism when it comes to shooting deaths at the hands of police.  I'm not backing away from that.  To suggest that every police office in nation is plagued with rampant racism is simply wrong.  That being said, the police have a problem in that when confronted with blacks they believe have committed crimes or have had traffic violations, all too often excessive force is used that leads to grievous injury at best and death at worst.  This past weekend another senseless death was caused by an overzealous and probably criminal cop.  All too often, Barney Fife's who in high school were picked on feel their oats now that they have a badge and a gun and go well beyond what is needed to serve and protect.

To reiterate:  The Michael Brown shooting was justified, in my opinion.  However, I don't believe that excessive force in these instances was justified:

Rodney King

Eric Garner

Floyd Dent

Dillon Taylor

Walter Scott

Not one of these incidents required the excessive use of force used by the police.  Should the decedents have complied more readily with the officers' demands?  In hindsight, assuredly.  But what each of them was doing did not justify the use of force which, in the case of Michael Brown, was justified.  Make no mistake:  Being a police officer is a dangerous and oftentimes thankless job.  But that doesn't mean that they have an unfettered right to use this type of force.

What's more, in both the Floyd Dent and Walter Scott cases, there may have been police tampering with evidence, trying to plant items that would justify their use of excessive force.

Cretins like these have no business being police officers.  Yes, the vast majority of cops are good and restrained.  But examples like these sully the public's perception of police officers and, in the case of blacks, make them resistant to officers' orders or generally make the public wary of police officers.

Do I think the Justice Department needs to become involved?  Possibly.  Internal affairs departments do a good job, usually, but that's after the fact.  Preventive measures need to be taken to weed out the Barney Fifes so that more such incidents are reduced and then eliminated.

Cops are supposed to serve and protect.  They are not supposed to divide and murder.

(c) The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Bergdahl

I've held off on the Bowe Bergdahl issue for many reasons.  I have my own opinion -- I think he was at least a deserter -- but I decided that until more facts were in, any comment on my part would be premature.  It would appear that I undershot the mark.  Besides being a deserted, he may also have been a traitor.  We'll see what the court martial determines.

That he left his post is undeniable.  It's not like he was captured in combat.  The facts are pretty well known:  Bergdahl left his weapon and other gear at the base.  He sent some stuff home.  Then he walked to find Afghans in some weird attempt, so he claims, to resolve geopolitical matters far above his pay grade.  Six men died indirectly trying to find him.

He was in captivity for five years.  It is said that he was tortured.  That may well be true.  But unlike a soldier or Marine taken on the field of battle, Bergdahl almost enlisted for this, deluded that he was some peace emissary who was going to rectify all that was wrong in Afghanistan.

The administration made a horrible miscalculation, even at first blush.  It traded him for five high ranking Taliban commanders.  Only Mike Ditka's made a worse trade in recent memory.  The thinking, so it was said, is that we don't leave Americans behind.  Largely, that's true.  Even at the Chosin Reservoir the Marines brought out the bodies of their dead comrades in arctic conditions while under enemy fire along a narrow defile in the mountains.  But this was different.

Apparently, from new reports, it is being leaked that Bergdahl tried to get in touch with elements of the Russian mob in Uzbekistan, among other things.  More evidence supports the notion that besides being a deserter, Bergdahl may well have been a traitor.  Ironically, some of what is known about Bergdahl is coming from the sensitive materials leaked by Edward Snowden.  What's more, this information was collected by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service over the five years of Bergdahls' captivity.  That means that the White House, or elements within the White House, had to have known at a bare minimum that Bergdahl was, in terms of public relations, kryptonite.  Yet it trotted out its piñata who declared that Bergdahl served with honor and distinction.  This after Jay Carney, the disingenuous former White House spokesperson, uttered the same false words about Bergdahl.  And all the while, since 2009, the White House had to know that there were questions about Bergdahl's service that called into question those encomiums.

It's becoming more and more apparent that the administration used Bergdahl as a political pawn to boost his ratings with the American public while at the same time to keep a campaign promise to shut down Guantánamo by releasing five Taliban incarcerated there.  The Rose Garden ceremony at which the President made the announcement, flanked by Bergdahl's very relieved parents, was a photo opportunity that wasn't warranted.  The trade itself foreshadowed the now equally questionable Iran nuclear deal which, as more details emerge, seem to indicate that the optimism with which the administration announced this deal was misplaced, what with the Iranians publishing wildly differing details about the agreement.

The disrespect the Bergdahl fanfare shows for our men and women in uniform who are doing their jobs correctly is mindboggling.  That this administration touts a deserter over men who have given their lives for this country, making political hay while ignoring the dishonor with which Bergdahl served while allowing the VA mess to continue, not awarding Purple Hearts to those injured in the Ft. Hood shootings and cutting benefits to veterans is an affront to all for which this country stands.    It would be one thing if the administration truly didn't know about Bergdahl's service, but it is readily apparent that, like so many of the scandals that have plagued this administration, it turned a blind eye to it so that it could pat itself on the back publicly.  It should be ashamed of itself.

The truly sad part about this is that should the court martial result in a conviction for Bergdahl, the President could very well rub salt in the wound and pardon him in one of his final acts before he leaves the White House.  There would be no political ramifications for him at that point.

Just watch it happen.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Race, Hate Crimes and Double Standards

In the wake of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths at the hands of police, there was a groundswell of anti-police and anti-white hysteria that manifested, and continued to manifest, itself in the form of protests with the cries of Hands Up, Don't Shoot; I Can't Breathe; and Black Lives Matter.  Recently, at least one of these -- Hands Up, Don't Shoot -- was proven to be predicated on a lie, but that hasn't stopped activists who now protest against innocent white people in restaurants or deranged people from shooting cops dead while they sit in their patrol cars.

Make no mistake:  I believe there was a miscarriage of justice when the grand jury refused to indict the overzealous police officer who choked Eric Garner to death. Because grand jury testimony is not published, we'll never know what happened exactly.  But the video evidence suggests that at a bare minimum, a jury should have heard this case.  

In the case of Michael Brown, the forensic evidence proved that Officer Darren Wilson did not use excessive force and was justified in shooting the 6'4" nineteen-year-old who had just committed a robbery within hours of his death.  As unfortunate as that was, it was perfectly defensible.

Less defensible than the shooting was the reaction by the MSM who only fanned the flames of fears of racist cops run amok and the Justice Department's Eric Holder flying to Ferguson, Missouri, to investigate, allegedly, the racist situation that existed there that engendered the shooting in the first place.  Meekly, quietly, months after the incident and after scores of businesses were looted and trashed and two police officers were murdered in cold blood in New York City, Justice said that there would be no indictment against Officer Wilson, who subsequently quit his job and move away.

The drumbeat continues:  Blacks are oppressed, whites oppress.  There is no variation on this theme, as it has been sanctified by the MSM and the heightened rhetoric from the White House, Congress and the Department of Justice, not to mention such leading civil rights acolytes such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Because whites (not all whites, but whites in general) were once slaveholders, necessarily all whites have racist tendencies -- just ask that leading sociologist Chris Rock about our duty to accept responsibility for slavery -- and blacks are always the oppressed, never the oppressor.  

To mitigate this, the theory of hate crimes arose a couple of decades ago.  Not only was it directed at acts committed with racial motives, but also ones with homophobic or ethnic ones as well.  The funny thing about hate crime legislation, however, is that it specified no particular group that could be assessed with a hate crime violation.  All that was necessary, allegedly, is that racial, ethnic or sexual preference discrimination be the motivation to cause an aggravated charge of hate crime in addition to the murder, rape, assault and battery that was the underpinning for the charge.  

Yet that's not what happens in reality.  Where there seem to be clear reasons to elevate a charge to a hate crime involving a black suspect, officials inevitably say they saw no reason for the elevated charge.  That's odd, because there seem to be plenty of instances where blacks commit crimes against white people simply because the victims are white which, reading the plain meaning of the hate crime statute, would almost invite the greater charge.  Part of the problem is that the MSM and Justice can't seem to find any evidence of racially-motivated crimes involving black suspects.  It's as if blacks can't possibly be motivated by hatred when committing crimes.

The saddest part about this is that the majority of the examples I'm about to list I found on Facebook. Yep, for all those lefties out there who think that I get my misinformation from Fox News -- Faux News to them -- I routinely am left gobsmacked by stuff I find on Facebook, a site founded by that noted liberal Mark Zuckerberg.  So let's consider some of these salient examples for readers to decide whether hate crime charges would have been advisable:

2013, Christopher Lane:  Mr. Lane was an Aussie exchange student playing baseball on scholarship for a small college in Oklahoma.  While out jogging one day, he was shot and killed by three youths, two black, one Latino, who said initially that they did it because they were bored.  It later came out that the Twitter account of one of the murderers held tweets that indicated that he hated white people, had knocked out five whites after the Trayvon Martin verdict and that 90% of white people are nasty, that he hated them.  No hate charges filed.

2013, Staff Sergeant David Dunlap and Whitney Butler:  Mr. Dunlap was shot in the back of his head when he came home to investigate when the house alarm went off.  As his pregnant wife looked over his body, she too was shot in the back of the head.  Her unborn child died as well.  The killer got life in prison but is eligible for parole because he was seventeen-years-old at the time of the murders. Why he had to kill them from behind instead of simply fleeing raises serious questions as to intent. No hate charges filed.

2008, Jan Pawel Pietrzak and Quiana Jenkins Pietrzak:  The biracial couple was killed execution style after the Marine husband was bound and gagged and forced to watch his wife be sexually assaulted.  Although the murderers stated that the motive was mere robbery, Nigger lover was painted on the walls of the crime scene.  When the Marine's mother wrote the White House asking why her son and daughter-in-law inspired such hatred and loathing, the White House issued a form letter of condolence.  Only after that letter was made public did the White House issue an apology.  Despite the obvious evidence of a crime motivated by racial hatred, no hate crimes were charged.

2015, James Stuhlman and pet:  Three black youths got bored playing basketball, so they decided to rob someone.  Mr. Stuhlman happened along at the wrong time and place and, when he pleaded for his life, they shot him dead.  No hate crime charges were filed.

2015, Unknown victim:  A white man minding his own business on a subway when an unknown black man asked him about the Michael Brown case.  After saying he hadn't given it much thought, he was savagely beaten.  The beating was filmed on a cellphone by another passenger.  Security footage was used to identify the thug, who was charged with assault and battery, but no hate crime.

2014, Dillon Taylor:  An unarmed white teen was shot by a black cop in Utah.  The investigation continues, but at this point, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Dillon did anything threatening to the officer.  There is even body-cam footage of the incident.  Yet the MSM and the Justice Department see no reason to report this story or investigate the incident.

There are probably more such incidents out there of which I'm unaware.  I mention the Dillon Tyler case only because of the reverse similarities with the Michael Brown case and the comparatively little national attention to it that's been paid.  By no means am I suggesting that it was a hate crime; but the lack of attention is eyeopening.  If Michael Brown's death warranted national attention due to the circumstances, so did Mr. Dillon's death.  Yet the MSM and the Justice Department remain silent.

The point is that American lives matter, not just black ones or white ones.  And just as whites can commit crimes out of racial hatred, so can blacks.  This notion that only whites are racist or motivated by racial hatred is absurd.  Blacks are human and subject to the same prejudices as whites. To act otherwise is itself racist, not to mention unfair.

The laws is supposed to be colorblind.  In Mr. Obama's America, that's untrue.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles