White Lives Don't Matter

I happened to catch this segment on The Kelly File the other night.  I'd been thinking about posting this blog but Ms. Kelly beat me to it.

Since Ms. Kelly did such a fine job, I'll only add some embellishments.  With Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and the Charleston Nine, the administration jumped at the chance to look into whatever issues the individual incidents presented.  Certainly, there were issues that merited attention in each of them, although to the same extent to which the administration involved itself is debatable.  But beyond the involvement of the FBI and the DOJ, in each instance the administration, including the President himself, commented on the tragedy.

Yet whenever a white person is killed tragically by a minority the administration is telling silent.  Ms. Kelly mentions Kate Steinle, but she leaves out a host of others killed by minorities:

--  In 2014, Dillon Taylor was an unarmed white teenager shot to death by a black policeman in Salt Lake City, Utah.

--  In 2013, Australian exchange student Christopher Lane was shot in the back and killed by three minority teenagers in Oklahoma.

-- Also in 2013, World War II veteran Delbert Belton was beaten to death by black youths in Spokane, Washington.

-- In Moore, Oklahoma, Colleen Hufford was beheaded by a black Muslim convert.

-- Within the last two weeks, Carrie Jean Melvin was killed by a shotgun blast to the back of her head  by an unknown black assailant while walking with her boyfriend on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

There is also the casual indifference displayed by the administration to other white deaths:

--  After the gruesome video of the beheading of white journalist James Foley, the President made a statement while on vacation and then went golfing within fifteen minutes after his statement, never once calling the family to offer his condolences.

-- When Major General Harold Greene became the highest ranking battlefield casualty since Vietnam, no one from the administration appeared at his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.

- When Steven Sotloff was beheaded, no attempt was made by the administration to contact the family.

Like the Brown, Gray, Martin and Charleston incidents, these are incidents at least as worthy of the administration's commentary, if not involvement, as are the Brown, Martin, Gray and Charleston cases.  When random acts of violence occur that seem to have a racial component, it behooves the President to use them as -- in his words -- a teachable moment.  Yet it seems that the only people who deserve a lecture are white people and the only lives that warrant such lectures are black people.

It is beyond disgusting how the administration uses sophistry to worm its way out of talking about uncomfortable minority-on-white crime but has no hesitation about becoming involved on white-on-black crime...even when it is later proven that there is no crime.

Perhaps the Reverend Jeremiah Wright influenced President Obama more than he lets on.  But he's supposed to be the President of all the people.

Not just the black people.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Questions for the MSM

I am a dire critic of the MSM.  I believe that it, not ISIS, is a greater threat to this country's existence. The reasons I believe this are well-documented in this blogspace.  The MSM has become a lapdog of this adminstration and is no longer concerned with either investigative journalism or holding our government accountable for the decisions it makes or the actions it takes.  Simply put, it wants to play with the cool kids.

Knowing that, I would love to see the day when someone in a position of authority -- say, a network anchor, the head of the news division or some such person -- was put under oath and forced to answer these questions without being able to filibuster.  It would be interesting to see what truthful answers were obtained, if any.

--  What does the expression The Fourth Estate mean to you?  Does that meaning change depending on which party sits in the White House?

--  Where race is involved in an incident, whether it be a criminal action or merely a social action, how is it decided when to cover the story as racially motivated?  Who makes such a decision?

--  Is it the responsibility of the press to further the agenda of one party or one politician over the other?

--  Realistically, how big a role do ratings play in what stories are put on the air and what anchors read the news?

--  Does the press believe in the theory of Chinese walls?  To wit, is it acceptable for the head of a network news division to be related by blood or marriage to someone high up within the administration or in another position of power within the government?  Do you believe such a relationship compromises the impartiality of the press?

--  When the Trayvon Martin shooting occurred, who made the decision to refer to the shooter, George Zimmerman, as a white man or Hispanic descent given his biracial background and why was that done?  Furthermore, wouldn't it then be fair to describe President Obama as a white man of African descent, and why isn't this done?

--  In your opinion, is it more important to be first with a story or to get it right?  For example, in the Duke lacrosse case, the Aurora, Colorado shootings and the Ferguson incident, the media was wrong with key elements of the story in the rush to be first with the story.  How would you change this?

--  Is it proper to give noted agitators like Al Sharpton a platform to push their political agenda under the guise of promoting diversity?

-- What, for you, constitutes journalistic ethics?  What would you have done with Britt McHenry, Brian Williams and Martin Bashir?

--  Do you believe that the MSM has a particular political bent?  Explain your answer using examples.

--  Can you explain why none of the major networks and cable outlets, besides Fox News, have kept on the following stories:  the IRS scandal, Benghazi, the VA story, the Bowe Bergdahl trade, the AP story, the James Rosen incident, the NSA surveillance and Obamacare?  Or do you simply believe that Fox News acts out of spite in covering these stories?

--  Why does the MSM avoid reporting on and questioning stories involving black-on-white crime and the administration's handling of such incidents?

--  Do you believe that a debate moderator's role is to ask questions only?

--  Just how close can the media be with the subjects it covers regularly and still maintain an unbiased approach to its coverage?


--  Should one network take potshots at another network?

-- Should there be proper labels on network shows to differentiate between straight news shows and those that either give nothing but opinions or that editorialize?

--  Who makes the decisions as to what stories to cover and are those decisions arrived at impartially, or is there concern that by covering a certain story access to those in power will be shut down?

--  Does the First Amendment protection allow the MSM to be partial, or should the MSM try to be as impartial as possible for the benefit of the American people?

The answers, elicited by a very good litigator, would quite interesting.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Gay Intolerance

With the recent SCOTUS decision legalizing gay marriage in the United States, there's been an outpouring of emotion, especially from the gay community, Given the historic struggles of the gay community, the release of emotions is understandable.  From Stonewall to Matthew Shepard to the countless and nameless gays and lesbian  who were attacked and beaten for their sexual orientation, the SCOTUS decision was the equivalent of the Jews being freed from Egypt.

On the other side, there has been a mixture of reactions.  Some are overtly hostile to the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, others are happy and supportive and a large number are casually indifferent. I'm somewhere between the last two camps, worried about the slippery slope this begins and more supportive of the notion of civil unions.  But I digress.

What's troubling me is the reaction from some quarters of the gay community.  As with any labeled community, the whole can't be blamed for the parts that comprise it.  Yet for a community that, generally speaking, preached tolerance and understanding before Obergefell seems to have forgotten all about that in the euphoria following its issuance.

Three incidents in particular concern me.  A young Catholic priest walking by two gay men celebrating the decision spat upon him despite not being provoked by the priest.  Admittedly, the priest was probably not supportive of the ruling, but the randomly spit on this man simply for what he represents is no better than a pair of knuckleheads beating the tar out of a gay man simply for wearing a rainbow flag on his jacket.  For a group that preached tolerance and understanding to suddenly become what they opposed taints the position they once held.

The more national manifestation of this anger came from a noted gay rights activist and online darling George Takei, who played Sulu on the old Star Trek series.  Mr. Takei, not satisfied with the Court's ruling, took issue with the dissent penned by Justice Clarence Thomas and called him a clown in blackface.  This isn't the first time that the progressive/liberal/sensitive/thoughtful has used ad hominem attacks on Justice Thomas, a man who raised himself up from humble beginnings to be a member of one of the most exclusive -- not to mention respected, educated and important -- fraternities on earth.  During the Anita Hill hearings he was subjected to horrible, scandalous attacks that were baseless to try to sabotage his nomination to the Supreme Court solely because of his conservative bent.  To his credit, Mr. Takei did take back the comment and apologize for it, but he could hardly have done otherwise.  The outcry was such that it will be a long time before Mr. Takei allows his emotions to take control again.

Here's Mr. Takei in all his indignant glory:

Although Mr. Takei is certainly entitled to his opinion, he's hardly qualified to rate Justice Thomas's credentials...unless, of course, Justice Thomas makes the mistake of appearing as a clown in blackface on an episode of Star Trek.

But even Mr. Takei's outburst didn't disturb me as much as the last example did.  Up front, I should disclose that although I'm more conservative that liberal on many things, I was never a fan of Ronald Reagan as President.  I admired some things that he accomplished, but I always saw him as playing a part more than leading the free world.  That being said, he was still President.  At the first gay pride reception held in the White House, certain gay rights activists used the opportunity to express themselves in a manner unbecoming the institution of the White House and the Presidency itself as can be seen in these images:

That they would not be pleased with Presidents Reagan and Bush is understandable.  But no matter how much I dislike Presidents Obama and Clinton, when I get the opportunity to visit the White House, I will not be acting accordingly.  I may not respect the man, but I respect the rank.  These people didn't belittle Presidents Reagan and Bush so much as they lowered their own self-respect. Perhaps they're lionized in segments of the gay community, but I can't believe that mature adults, gay or otherwise, were impressed with this immature demonstration of their displeasure.

It would be interesting to see what Matthew Shepard would say about this.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Independence Day Perspective

Admittedly, it's been awhile since I've posted.  Life has a nasty way of controlling things sometimes.

Karen and I went to the eastern seaboard at the end of May and saw our nation's capital, me for the first time.  We also saw Gettysburg, Shanksville and the Outer Banks.  But the most poignant part of our visit was Washington, D.C.

While we were traveling, the Stanley Cup playoffs were in full swing, and as it turns out, my beloved Blackhawks won their third Cup in six years, much to my happy surprise.  As is always the case in such circumstances, part of the tradition involves getting the names of players from the winning team engraved on the Cup itself.  There's a byzantine process whereby the number of games played in the regular season or the number of games played in the Finals determines whose name is engrave for posterity on the Cup.  It's a big deal.  There are plenty of great players whose names are missing from that Cup.  In terms of career honors, it's probably as big a deal, if not bigger, to have one's name on the Cup than it is to be elected to the Hall of Fame.

But the contrast with that competition hit me hard after I visited D.C.  Although it's true that the players' names will be forever memorialized on the Cup (and in the Hall of Fame, where rings are kept to make room for later generations on the Cup itself), somehow it pales by comparison by the monuments I saw -- and witnessed -- during out trip:

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

The Vietnam Wall, D.C.

The Vietnam Wall, D.C.

Arlington National Cemetery

These images of graven reminders of men's ultimate sacrifices are far more powerful than the engravings on the side of the Cup.  Sure, what the Blackhawks did this season was heroic, but only in a very, very, limited sense.  The names that are engraved in Shanksville and D.C. are heroic in a much broader sense because these memorialize lives given for freedom and for the safety of others. The people whose names appear on these marble slabs represent the unlimited best that one man can do for others.  The Blackhawks, triumphant as they were, would even admit this.

On this Independence Day, when threats to our security abound from ISIS, we should remember what those braves souls did back in the 1700's to set us on the course of the greatest human experiment ever.  They faced grave danger themselves, although the names that we frequently associate with Independence Day largely survived unscathed.  But it should not be forgotten that the names that appear on these marble and granite markers defended what the Founding Fathers set out to do.  They repelled threats to our freedom that was so dearly bought.

Sadly, not every name that died in the cause of freedom is recorded.  It's an impossible hope, of course, but a valiant effort was made to recognize those who made the ultimate sacrifice.  So as not to be remiss, we should remember those whose final end still goes unanswered:

Although their names may be known only to God, the sacrifices they made are known to a grateful nation.  A nation that still allows more freedom than any other country in the world.

May God bless the United States of America on its two hundred and thirty-ninth birthday.

(c) The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Travel Tidbits

My girl and I took a short, much needed trip out east and saw a host of wonderful things.  We also saw some curious things as well.  One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that the United States is blessed with many gorgeous, majestic, wonderful landscapes.   Sure, there are other places in this world worth seeing, but I owe it to myself and my country to see it more.

With that, then...

--  I wish there was a national speed limit on the interstate highways.  This notion of going 60 in some places, then 65, then 70, then back down to 65, then 70 and then back down to 60 is annoying.

--  The concept of a continental breakfast offered by hotels as an enticement to book rooms there is dead.  A continental breakfast is supposed to be lighter than a full breakfast, but throwing out stale cereal, fruit that's a day from being rotten and ersatz French toast that isn't remotely appealing won't cut it.

--  The state flag of North Carolina is just ugly.  Sorry.

I could have come up with something better than that in kindergarten.

--  Seeing a Muslim pray openly on his prayer mat on the National Mall in Washington D.C., was revealing and jarring.  First, no one approached him or ridiculed him in the slightest.  I doubt a Christian praying in public in Riyadh or Tehran would be left alone similarly.  But what was jarring about it to me was that the young Muslim was facing northeast off of 14th Street, directly across from the Washington Monument.  I thought they were supposed to face toward Mecca, which is southeast from D.C.

--  The Pennsylvania Turnpike isn't that bad when it isn't under construction.  The Ohio Turnpike, however, is not only boring but vile.  Apparently, only certain gas stations and food franchises are allowed on the Ohio Turnpike, which limits choices.  I'm not a fan.

--  Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is useful for one reason only:  It's close to the Great Smoky Mountains. Otherwise, it's a trashy tourist trap with a decided cornpone edge.

--  I bought MegaMillions tickets for the big lottery tomorrow night in Tennessee and Kentucky.  I think it we win it we have to go down there to collect the prize.  O' well.

--  It should be a civic duty to visit Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 went down on September 11.  It's very, very sad.

--  Being by the ocean is best in the morning.  One gets to see all sorts of fauna out at that time.

--  Speaking of Gatlinburg but not mentioning the hotel chain (Days Inn), what idiot thought a great interior design choice would be to have bathtub walls decorated with what resembled smears of fecal matter in swirls?  When we walked into the room, I thought I was in Bobby Sands' cell in the Maze.

--  I don't know how we did it, but not until the last day of the trip did we encounter any rain at all.

--  Watching the pure pathos at The Wall in D.C., was humbling.

--  For whatever reason, the Lincoln Memorial seemed smaller in real life than I thought it was.

-- Trust me:  Having a mattress that folds up on one like a hot dog bun when one is in it isn't fun.

--  No, I didn't visit the White House.  As long as Mr. Obama is the resident, it has no appeal for me.

--  Watching local newscasts is always quite interesting.

-- Listening to the fishing report on the radio in North Carolina tickled me.

--  The eastern portion of mainland North Carolina is a snoozefest.

--  Seeing the actual sites of the Gettysburg battle and the Yorktown siege was amazing.

--  So was piloting a sailboat, even if only for fifteen minutes.

--  Not knowing exactly what day it was was pleasant.

--  I've now visited twenty states.

--  Sadly, I ate an inordinate amount of junk food on this trip.  But I will never forget the wonderfully simple yet tasty meals we had at the Blue Moon restaurant in Nags Head, North Carolina.  I don't normally care for fish and chips, but this was the best prepared fish meal I've ever eaten.

--  As with universities, apparently T-shirt manufacturers haven't gotten the memo that just as alums get bigger as they age, so do tourists.  Topping out at XXL is just stupid.

--  The trip from Pennsylvania to Virginia was so quick I didn't even realize when we entered or exited Maryland.

--  The Virginia towns around D.C. are ugly in a modular sort of way.  They're clean, but they're just so built up one can hardly move.  It was like a classier version of Gatlinburg.

--  Inside joke time:  I wonder when Karen will want to go to another Ross store.

--  Driving to Newfound Gap Overlook and Cades Cove are two of the prettiest drives I've ever made.

--  There is no better traveling companion than my girl Karen.  Unfortunately for the rest of you, she's taken.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

MSM Bias

For months -- years? -- I've been beating the drum about the self-evident bias in the MSM for liberal candidates and causes.  Perhaps I'm the canary in the mineshaft along with my fellow citizens disgusted by the blatant favoritism dressed up at journalism as it's practiced at the major news outlets in this country.  Most of the time, people simply yawn and turn away.  But recent developments really call for greater scrutiny.

This past week, George Stephanopolous, the moderator of the Sunday morning political talk show This Week and one of the anchors of Good Morning America was discovered to have donated $75,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative for such endeavors as the fight againts AIDS and other noble causes.  In and of itself, there's no problem with the donations.  But the fact that he never disclosed this fact to the public and continued to act as an impartial interviewer of political themes calls into question his bias.  In fact, just before the public disclosure, Mr. Stephanopolous interviewed Peter Scheweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, an expose of the Clintons' ties to big money and usages of those connections.  Here's the interview:

Let's not forget: Not only did Mr. Stephanopolous donate money to the Clintons' foundation, he used to work for Mr. Clinton when he was President.  If nothing else, he should have recused himself from doing the interview to avoid the appearance of impropriety due to his previous position.  To ask Mr. Schweizer about his connections to the Bush White House is almost laughable, especially when the CGI donation scandal was hanging in the air.  Mr. Stephanopolous apologized publicly for his omission, and ABC later called it a simple mistake, but for a public that relies on the media to be its watchdog on the government, this is a serious breach of trust.

Earlier, Bob Schieffer, a well-known liberal commentator, announced his retirement from Face the Nation, and CBS quickly named as his successor John Dickerson, the political director for CBS.  Mr. Dickerson wrote for Slate magazine and penned this ditty:

Go for the Throat!
Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party.

... A second inaugural suggests new beginnings, but this one is being bookended by dead-end debates. Gridlock over the fiscal cliff preceded it and gridlock over the debt limit, sequester, and budget will follow. After the election, the same people are in power in all the branches of government and they don't get along. There's no indication that the president's clashes with House Republicans will end soon.

... The challenge for President Obama’s speech is the challenge of his second term: how to be great when the environment stinks. Enhancing the president’s legacy requires something more than simply the clever application of predictable stratagems. Washington’s partisan rancor, the size of the problems facing government, and the limited amount of time before Obama is a lame duck all point to a single conclusion: The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.

... Obama’s only remaining option is to pulverize. Whether he succeeds in passing legislation or not, given his ambitions, his goal should be to delegitimize his opponents. Through a series of clarifying fights over controversial issues, he can force Republicans to either side with their coalition's most extreme elements or cause a rift in the party that will leave it, at least temporarily, in disarray.

... This approach is not a path of gentle engagement. It requires confrontation and bright lines and tactics that are more aggressive than the president demonstrated in the first term. He can't turn into a snarling hack. The posture is probably one similar to his official second-term photograph: smiling, but with arms crossed.

The president already appears to be headed down this path. He has admitted he’s not going to spend much time improving his schmoozing skills; he's going to get outside of Washington to ratchet up public pressure on Republicans. He is transforming his successful political operation into a governing operation. It will have his legacy and agenda in mind—and it won’t be affiliated with the Democratic National Committee, so it will be able to accept essentially unlimited donations. The president tried to use his political arm this way after the 2008 election, but he was constrained by re-election and his early promises of bipartisanship. No more. Those days are done.

It is unthinkable that a person writing a blueprint for the destruction of a political party can in any way be unbiased when it comes to reporting or interviewing.  That anyone believes the MSM is impartial and unbiased is living in an earlier time and under a rock.

Let's not forget that CBS News' President is David Rhodes.  He only happens to be the brother of Ben Rhodes, currently the deputy national security advisor for strategic communication.  Technically, his title is Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication and Speechwriting.

Well.

Mr. Stephanopolous made a point to question Mr. Schweizer's Bush ties and whether they had anything to do with the book he wrote about the Clintons.  Isn't it only fair to question whether Mr. Stephanopolous's ties to Clintons had anything to do with the way he interviewed Mr. Schweizer?  Or how Mr. Dickerson will treat the White House during the balance of the Obama administration?  Or how CBS reports news about the Obama administration?

How is it that the media is allowed to get away with this?  The last time a MSM was this closely tied to government was when Josef Goebbels and Leni Refinstahl worked for the Nazis.

This isn't Nazi Germany.  This should not be allowed.

I would love to put any of these flacks on the witness stand under oath and ask them questions about how they conducted their work.

The answers they would give would be sad or they would be scary.

This is un-American.  The Fourth Estate, as my liberal friend once presciently noted, is letting down the country.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Liberal Idiocy

Apologists, from what I'm gleaning from various reports, are trying to suggest that the jihadi attempt in Garland, Texas, that was foiled heroically by an off-duty police officer, could have been avoided had the cartoonists not poke the Islamofascist bear by exercising their First Amendment rights.  I'm stupified.

There very same apologists try to say, at the same time from the other side of their mouths, that they support the concept of Free Speech.  Although there is a philosophical argument that can be made in a vacuum that the right to exercise one's freedom of speech includes the right to withhold said exercise, in reality the two are mutually exclusive.

To not engage in the freedom of speech intended by the cartoonists who were going to have a contest to see whose depiction of the prophet Mohammed was deemed the best would have been, necessarily, to curtail freedom of speech due to fear.  Liberals love to declare freedom of speech when the speech they support bothers conservatives, but when speech such as this contemplated in Garland, Texas, is supported by conservatives, they make excuses for why it shouldn't be exercised.

The utter hypocrisy of the situation is galling.  Where were these voices of restraint when Robert Maplethorpe was displaying his very graphic sexual photos that offended so many Christian people? Or when artwork was making the rounds involving a crucifix in a jar of urine.  Where were the apologists suggesting that this artwork shouldn't be displayed?  Nay, they were championing freedom of expression and lecturing the rest of us to restrain our impulses, the same impulses jihadis act on now.

Just because Christians don't put people to death whom they believe blaspheme what they believe doesn't make their offense any less valuable.  Muslims may well take great offense to what the cartoonists were doing, but that doesn't entitle them to silence the cartoonists by killing them.  And that the cartoonists' actions provoke howls of disagreement is beside the point; just as we Christians had to restrain ourselves when the other putative artists were poking at us, so too must Muslims behave in a civilized manner -- or leave the country.

Liberal apologists miss the point:  The First Amendment especially protects offensive speech.  The only limitations on free speech are those that time, place and manner impose because of the dangerous nature of the speech, e.g., yelling out Fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire.  Just as Christians had to endure the blasphemous works of so-called artists, so too must Muslims -- and their liberal apologists -- sit on the sidelines and seethe quietly.  As loathesome as the Westboro Baptist Church expressions have been, they are allowed -- with time, place and manner restrictions, but still allowed.  The same must hold true for cartoonists and others whose speech offends a segment of society.

Muslims are emboldened by our failure to depend the Constitution.  Their bellicose threats and transparently false grievances allow them to push an agenda that is unacceptable to the vast majority of people here.  No bacon in restaurants because it isn't halal.  Neither is it kosher for orthodox Jews, but no one sees them threatening Subway shops.  It's ludicrous that we kow-tow to their demands in the name of political correctness unaware of what it's doing to the very essence of our Constitution.

Yet, I'm not surprised by this.  The liberal mantra -- do as we say, not as we do -- underlies the liberal approach to all things constitutional in this country.   So if the majority of this country is offended by their urgings of restraint of freedom of speech, we should just sit back and say nothing.  If we're offended by someone else's free speech, we should sit back and say nothing.

Soon enough, with the imposition of sharia law, it won't be a question of choosing to remain silent.

We'll either be quiet or have our heads lopped off.

(c) 2015 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles