The Messianic Departure

So obama very graciously made one last messianic appearance to his fawning worshippers to give them his last tidbits of wisdom before ascending into the realm of former presidents. You would think we had just lived through the millennial kingdom.

His obsession with the word "I" was not surprising. He has pathetically praised himself over and over for eight years. The way he announced the killing of bin Laden, for example, you would have thought he had planned and carried out the operation himself.

What is astonishing was his admonition to revere and keep faith in the Constitution, something he hasn't done during his entire administration. He spoke of the state of our democracy, which he still doesn't understand is a republic. What is more galling is his claim that race relations are better now than they have been in thirty years. He's delusional. Things haven't been this bad since the Civil Rights movement began. What gains had been made all went south when he took office. Then in the midst of a litany of lies about his accomplishments he took a moment to praise patriotic Muslims as if they were somehow being persecuted, revealing one final time where his real religious devotion lies.

But his final "great commission" exposes the fraud that he really is. "I'm asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change - but in yours."

Think it through. This was the hope and change president. This was the man who promised a utopia: free cellphones, free education, lower healthcare costs and coverage for 30 million uninsured, no more wars. He was going to heal the racial divide. Now that none of it has happened his parting shot is to tell us it is our responsibility to make up for his failures. The presumptuous savior who came into office blaming George W. Bush for everything is essentially going out blaming all America. If only we believed! He sounds like a charismatic healer.

I have some advice for this vain, self-aggrandizing, conceited little man:

"Let another praise you and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips." Proverbs 27:2.

Anyone who feels the need to tell everybody who will listen how great they are and what great things they have accomplished isn't very great and hasn't accomplished very much of value.

Obama often compared himself to Ronald Reagan, but there is no comparison. When Reagan left the White House he very humbly spoke from the Oval Office. No fanfare, no manipulation of the record, no loud boasting. Just quiet, honest dignity.
It's a shame that obama didn't have the character to depart in the same manner.

Sessions Cabinet Hearing

I watched the Sessions session the other night until 1am here in the Philippines and then went to bed. He did very well from what I saw and the Democrats exposed their own hypocrisy in Feinstein's opening remarks. She spoke of the rule of law and I could agree with almost everything she said. What I wanted to ask her and all the rest of them on the left is where have they been for the last eight years? Rule of law went out the window with Holder and Lynch, but now suddenly it matters? Right! I didn't see it till later but I was glad to see Cruz put them in their place.

The Lesser of Two Evils

I keep hearing Christians say they plan to sit out this election because they can't choose between the lesser of two evils and they'll trust God to take care of it because He is in control. Please consider a few thoughts:

Of course God is in control and we trust Him for the end results, but Jesus said "Occupy till I come." We can't just sit back and let it happen. We must be engaged in the process. To not vote is to give away a freedom and right that most of the world never had until America came along and most of the world still doesn't have today. The reason we are in this mess is too many Christians sitting back and not getting involved.

Politics is an end result game. Sometimes you have to take the less desirable to get to the more desirable. It's a step by step process. In a democratic society you will never get one giant leap for mankind to save the country unless there is a coup d'etat led by a benevolent dictator.

I disagree that both candidates are the same. Trump is flawed no doubt, and he's hard to stand behind, but Hillary is vile godlessness personified. Trump is a sinful man. Hillary is pure evil. Trump has just picked a great Christian to run for VP, and he's been meeting with Christian leaders like James Dobson and Franklin Graham. The Republican platform is one of the most conservative we've seen in years.

Trump may not be the best choice, but he's better than the alternative. At least he's turning in the right direction. Hillary will be Obama on steroids and if she's elected we likely will not have the country we still know left in four years.

I understand Senator Cruz's frustration. It's a hard pill to swallow, but if he's the great Christian he presents himself as in comparison with the non-Christian Trump, no matter what he calls himself, there is an element called forgiveness. He needs to meditate on Matthew 5:44 for awhile. Then he needs to get a grip on the end game. He gave a great speech except that he drove a wedge through the middle of the party. He could have been magnanimous and unifying, in which case he would probably have been so popular he would have been the preferred candidate next time. Instead he may have ruined his political career and if the party can't come together to defeat hillary he has lost an opportunity to save America from absolute evil.
I say all this having voted for Cruz in the primaries. I don't personally like Trump, but I don't like Hillary even worse.

Trump may have moral problems, but so did Kings David and Solomon. There is at least hope for Trump. Hillary will lead the country to certain judgment and destruction. That's how important this election is and why every effort must be made to defeat Hillary. A divided Republican party won't do it.

Republican Implosion

It seemed that things were going good at the RNC until Cruz got his chance to speak. He gave a good speech about America, but then the crowd got angry because he failed to endorse Trump. If he was hoping somehow to lay some ground work for a future run for president he just threw it away.

The first question at the first Republican debate was whether the candidates would pledge to support whomever wins the nomination. Everyone of them said yes except for Trump. About the third debate Trump finally came on board. I think the others never thought Trump would win and Trump, for whatever self-serving reasons, didn't want to commit himself at first. But now that Trump has won, half the candidates have gone back on their pledges and it looks like the Republican Party is about to implode. It may not matter who we vote for, the Republicans are going to give the election away again.

Trump's critics keep calling him a narcissist, an excessively self-centered, self-aggrandizing individual. It looks like the same could be said for most of the Republican candidates as well. They're so concerned about their own self-imagined importance that they can't see the big picture and do what's right for the country and all Americans.

I've said it before and here it is again; politics is all about compromise. We're not voting for pastor, we're voting for president. Sure we want the most godly person there is, but if we can't get our perfect choice, we have to take what we've got so we can set ourselves up for a better choice next time. Unless it's a coup-detate, there is no giant leap for mankind in the political arena. You have to take it a step at a time. If the Republicans lose this election it is likely they'll never have a chance to win another after hillary gets through trashing the Constitution with the support of RINOs who won't have the backbone to stand up to her any more than they did to obama.

Thanks a lot Cruz. And to think I supported you! And thanks to the Bushes (all three of them), Kasich, Carly and all the rest who aren't any better at keeping their word than obama or hillary. If the Democrats win they can thank a bunch of cry-baby, sore-loser Republicans who couldn't come together for the better good to stop their reckless descent into oblivion.

Independence Day

I've seen comments from a lot of people wondering about whether we should even bother celebrating July 4th this year. The country under the muslim wannabe tyrant obama has morally declined in the last seven years faster than we could ever have imagined and we are sitting on a slimy slope about to slide off into blazes. We hear liberals piously or sacrilegiously intone, "God bless America," and we hear the song, God Bless the USA, but you have to wonder what is there left for God to bless?

Many people are discouraged, and rightfully so, about the direction of our country. It's even more discouraging when the Republican Party is so divided it can't come together behind a single candidate to oppose the Democrat road to destruction. (By the way, don't think it would be any different if Cruz were ahead. The RINOs are more inclined to hillary's politics than conservative.) So, do we, or should we, honor such a nation as this?

Well I'll tell ya Pilgrim, I got up this morning with a prayer for the land I love and my two favorite versions of the National Anthem, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the 1991 Whitney Houston at the Super Bowl, and followed them with the great American Patriot, John Wayne, in The Searchers, my all time favorite movie. I wish more than ever I could be home to celebrate this year, but Lord willing we will be there next time.

Obviously my answer is an astounding yes. We aren't celebrating king obama the maleficent, or the moral abyss the country is turning into. July 4th is a celebration of the Declaration of Independence, of our Founding Fathers, of those who have given the last full measure of devotion in creating and maintaining for us a free country. And if we are to have any hope for the future we need to excite and energize Christians and conservatives to stay involved, don't give up the fight, and hang on a little bit longer.

Franklin Graham is half way through a 50 state tour holding prayer meetings on the steps of every state capitol. Over 300,000 people have come to those meetings to pray for America. What if 3 million people in our churches, or 30 million people would bow the knee, turn from wicked ways, and seek God's face? Would the Lord answer and heal our land? God is our only hope.

Oh thus be it ever when free men shall stand
between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blessed with victory and peace may the heaven rescued land
praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must when our cause it is just,
and this be our motto In God Is Our Trust.

Happy Fourth of July

Let's Tango

A few nights ago I was sleepless and up late so I turned on the TV and came across an old movie called Cabaret on a Japanese station complete with kanji subtitles. It was I think a Broadway musical that was made into a movie about 1972. The title song was a big hit at the time and really is the only thing I knew about the film. It’s a catchy tune.

What good is sitting alone in your room, come hear the music play,
Life is a cabaret old chum, come to the cabaret.

I watched the movie but by the end I decided I wished I hadn’t bothered. It was a bawdy romp about the decadent life of burlesque in Berlin in the 1930s just as the Nazis were coming to power in Germany. The plot centers on a love triangle between a woman and two men, one of whom was very wealthy, which hints at, but doesn’t reveal until the end, its bisexual nature. Woven into their story is the cabaret where the woman works that features a chorus line led by a gay transvestite. Its performances are mixed between scenes throughout the flick. I’m not familiar with the public reaction to the movie at the time, but it would seem to me that it must have been quite risqué in 1972.

A subplot in the film revolves around a man in love with a woman who cares for him enough to reject him because she’s Jewish and knows what trouble it would cause him in the future. The nature of the times is shown with short clips interspersed throughout of Nazis harassing the woman, and breaking into Jewish shops and homes.
The one redeeming quality of the film, if there is one, is that it shows the total disregard of the wealthy elite and German society in general for the plight of the Jews and the morass that the nation was falling into under the Nazis. They debauched themselves at the Cabaret totally unaware of the world falling apart around them and the nightmare the Third Reich was leading them into. It serves as a warning to us.

There probably isn’t a better illustration anywhere of what has been going on for the last seven years in the Obama Administration. While millions of illegal immigrants come across our border with Mexico bringing drugs and crime, Obama piously says the border is secure and plays golf. While Obama leads the nation into a moral abyss with gay marriage and abortion his lapdog worshippers rush to defend the debauchery that will destroy our society. While ISIS rises to become the major terrorist threat in the world Obama brushes it off and plays more golf. When Islamic Jihadists invade Europe and blow up Belgium he goes to a baseball game with a communist dictator declaring ISIS is not an “existential threat.” Two days later with Europe falling apart he tangos in Buenos Aires with a former Playboy model.

While conservatives decry the horror of abortion and the moral decline of our culture liberals often compare us to Nazis. The truth is the left and its support for everything wicked and ungodly is the better comparison. While everything decent in society is torn down and the world crumbles Obama and his ilk, like the Cabaret in Nazi Germany, party, the blind leading the blind into oblivion. No worries, Mate, let’s tango.

BHO's Last SOTU

So Obama has given his final SOTU address. It's a good thing. I'm not much into fiction except for westerns, and Obama could never fill the role of a hero in one of those. The best part of the speech was in the beginning when he said it would be a short one. Then he proceeded to talk for 59 excruciating minutes. Short, huh?

It was the same kind of blather we've learned to expect from him over the last seven years. All fluff, no substance. An empty suit trying once again to convince us of the legacy he wants us to remember, a legacy that exists only in the fantasy minds of Obama and his most ardent worshippers.

You would think after hearing him speak that America is enjoying the greatest economy in our history, that we are strong, and have world-wide respect. You would think everything in the world is hunky dory and that the only threat to Obama's peaceful world is the Republican Party.

The speech was as incredible for Obama's chutzpa as it was for his straight faced lies. He cut the deficit by three-quarters. Yeah, after he raised it by three hundred percent. He's created 14 million jobs, more than anybody ever and cut the unemployment rate in half. Yeah, and more people are out of work and a third more are on food stamps now than when he took office. How does that work? The national debt has grown from 10 to 18.8 trillion dollars. How does that happen in the world's greatest economy?

Unbelievably he took credit for falling gasoline prices even though he has done everything possible to prevent it from happening. Remember in 2009 he told us to get ready for seven dollars a gallon. Now after canceling the XL pipeline and every effort of oil companies to drill off shore and on federal lands he's taking the credit for the oil glut.
Then he scolded all global warming skeptics with the same old worn out "everybody in the world is on his side" argument. He again bragged about great progress in green energy. Of course, he forgot to mention all the failed green energy companies like Solyndra.

He touted the great treatment our veterans get from the VA. Was he joking? Nearly 300 vets died last year in Arizona alone because they couldn't get care in time from totally inept VA hospitals, and to date not one person has been held accountable. Not one!

He rebuked the country for saying bad things about Muslims and putting bacon on the doors of mosques, but not once mentioned the persecution of Christians by Muslims all around the world. His only comment on ISIS was that they are no threat to the United States. Then he had the effrontery to extoll his nuclear deal with Iran while saying nothing of the ten American sailors they were holding hostage. Talk about hubris.

In Obama's fantasy world we would all be bowing down at his feet, the savior of the world. In the real world we need to be thinking about how we can fix the fiasco he has created, not only at home, but world wide. What is so inconceivable looking back at the last seven years is how the American people could have been so stupid to have elected him at all.

Voices of the Past

I often find myself wondering in my studies of history what the voice of someone might have sounded like. It’s easy for us now since the age of the phonograph began and recordings have been made to hear the tone of people’s voices in the last hundred years. But what about before?

They say Abraham Lincoln had a rather high-pitched squeaky voice. I would love to have heard Patrick Henry thundering, “Give me liberty or give me death.” I think the most pleasing voice of all will probably be that of Jesus, and although we can’t hear him now, I imagine someday in heaven His voice will be the sweetest music to the ear ever heard.

Last Friday, January 8, was the 60th anniversary of the death of the five martyrs in Ecuador, Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian and Pete Fleming. In their cases there are still people alive who had heard them speak and may remember their voices.

January 8 is a special date for me as it was on this day in 1967 that I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior. When I was younger I used to think I somehow had a connection with the martyrs because of the date. The story became closer to me when my cousins, Jim and Sharon Smith began to work with Nate’s sister, Rachel, in the jungle in Ecuador. I’ve seen video of Rachel in interviews and heard the dedication in her voice and the determination in her soul to carry on the work her brother had envisioned with the Waorani people in Ecuador. But I’ve never heard a recording of her brother or the other men. Until today.

Here is a recording of Jim Elliot preaching a message in 1951. I was surprised by what I heard. It seems to me his voice sounds like a much older man than 24. It is a powerful voice, tenacious and purposeful in its delivery. There is no temerity or lack of confidence in his delivery. Rather there is urgency and a quickness to pack as much into the time he had available as possible. His passion is evident as he eloquently unfolds the implications of the Gospel.

It’s a good message, forty minutes worthy of our hearing. If you can get on youtube do yourself a favor and look it up.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=aaplw&p=youtube+jim+elliot+missionary

This is the kind of preaching America needs to hear today.

The Value of a Life

I had intended to write this a couple weeks ago but the San Bernardino terrorist attack captured everybody’s attention first. The day before in Olongapo City a Filipino judge issued the sentence and verdict of US Marine Lance Corporal Jacob Scott Pemberton in the murder trial of a transgender prostitute named Jeffrey Laude, who went by the name of Jennifer. Pemberton got shafted. He’s paying for his own actions to be sure, but it’s much more than he deserved.

In October 2014 the USS Pelilieu made a port call at Subic Bay in the Philippines. Lance Corporal Pemberton and three of his shipmates went on liberty into Olongapo City to go bar hopping and look for girls. Pemberton was twenty, not even old enough to legally consume alcohol in the States, but such laws don’t matter here and the US Navy has always had a cavalier attitude about its personnel drinking and shopping for whores.

Pemberton and his friends wound up at a dingy gin joint near the end of Magsaysay Blvd. near the Rizal roundabout called the Ambyance. Several girls hit on the group and Pemberton left the bar with two calling themselves Barbi and Jennifer. Pemberton has been described by his shipmates as a nice kid who had never been in trouble. He was obviously too nice and too naive to be left alone with not one, but two women of the night, but his friends (I use the term loosely) let him go off to have a good time.

Barbi and Jennifer took Pemberton across the street to an adult’s only hotel frequented often by prostitutes. It’s a dirty, run down, classless establishment that makes one wonder why anybody would go there at all unless they were already half drunk. The three got a room while a bellboy watched the hall.

After a while Barbi left and only then as Jennifer disrobed did Pemberton find out she was in reality Jeffrey. Embarrassed and horrified Pemberton yelled at Jeffrey who then slapped him. Pemberton feared Barbi and maybe others had set him up and would be coming back, but as he tried to get dressed Jeffrey tried to slap him again. Pemberton then put him in a headlock and choked him before dragging him into the bathroom where he dropped him on the floor.

Pemberton got dressed and left, and turned himself in at the ship, but claimed Laude was still breathing when he left the hotel. The next morning Laude was found dead with his head in the toilet and a necklace and chain clasp in one hand. He had also been robbed as his wallet and jewelry he was known to be wearing was missing.

A Mexican standoff followed. Philippine officials refused to let the ship leave until Pemberton was handed over. The ship at first refused, but after several days an arrangement was made where Pemberton would remain in US custody in the brig at Camp Crame, a Philippine army base in Manila near the US embassy and the Pelilieu finally sailed.

The situation then took on soap-operatic proportions. A German man named Marc Schulbach, a fat slob of a guy with no brains, showed up claiming Laude was his fiancée. He went to the mortuary complete with a TV news team to record the event, and wept over the casket claiming the whole story was false. Jennifer would never cheat on him, he declared.

After Pemberton was transferred to Camp Crame Schulbach went to Manila, found a way to climb over the wall onto the base and was arrested by the military police. In a show of false bravado he shouted that he was going to kill Pemberton. Then he tried to rough up the MPs while they escorted him off the base. He finally apologized and offered to just go home, but his passport was confiscated by immigrations until deportation proceedings sent him home. Under the deportation law he is banned from ever returning. Nothing has been heard from him over here since, but it has come out that the TV News station had actually flown him to the Philippines and took him to the mortuary in Olongapo to manipulate the event on the stipulation that they be the only ones Schulbach would tell his story to.

As it turns out, Laude was a notorious drug addict, thief and con artist who regularly worked in tandem with Barbi and other transgenders in Olongapo. He also was the primary source of income for his mother and family. But most disgusting of all, his mother had encouraged his lifestyle because of the money he could make. She offered to drop the charges if Pemberton would pay her 100 million pesos, which amounts to over 2.17 million dollars.

The Philippine courts, however, would not, and could not in order for justice to be served, drop the charges. The trial began in March and the verdict and sentencing was announced December 1. Pemberton was found guilty of homicide, but not murder, because intent to murder could not be proven. He was sentenced to six to twelve years minus time served in a Philippine national prison, and ordered to pay the Laude family 4.6 million pesos, about 98,000 dollars, for potential lost income.

Pemberton was to be remanded to the Philippine prison system as a “national” because of a law that states any foreigner sentenced to over three years would be considered as a national and therefore incarcerated in the Philippine prison system. He was ordered to the New Bilibid prison, a deplorable facility used for political prisoners. The US embassy immediately contested the ruling and refused to turn Pemberton over. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the Philippines stipulates that in such a case where a US serviceman is involved the United States must approve of the facility where he will be held. After long discussions Pemberton was returned to Camp Crame while negotiations are made for his future imprisonment.

It is a sad story, full of contradiction and hypocrisy. The Philippine government had to take someone to trial in order to show that life is not taken for granted in the Philippines. Unfortunately an American was the pawn in a game designed to show that the Philippines respects law and order. When it comes to prostitution, however, that respect apparently goes out the window. It has always been this way. Prostitution is illegal, and regardless of all the talk about law and order and respect for life, nothing is being done to clamp down on prostitutes and transgenders or their sordid scams taking advantage of unwitting foreigners who fall into their clutches.

While the circumstantial evidence is against Pemberton, he claims he did not kill Laude, and the prosecution was unable to prove that he did. Because of that a murder charge was lowered to homicide with a lesser penalty, but the only thing the prosecution was able to prove was that Pemberton was there and Laude was dead. There was DNA evidence of an unidentified third party, and the chain in Laude’s hand did not belong to Pemberton. The defense argued that this unknown third party might have killed Laude, but the bellboy in the hallway claimed no one else had entered the room that night. Of course, the bellboy could have entered the room that night. It’s hard to imagine that he could not have heard the shouting match going on in the first floor room of this dinky, drafty hotel only a few feet from where he was sitting.

There are too many unanswered questions remaining about what happened that night for Pemberton to have received a penalty as severe as the one given. The judge ruled that the financial demand of Laude’s mother was absurd, but the amount decided on is equally absurd. Pemberton couldn’t pay it in twenty years on a lance corporal’s salary, and he’ll never be able to come up with anything languishing in prison, which in the end ensures that Laude's family will probably never receive anything.

It’s a shame on the US Navy and Marine Corps that as fine of military organizations as they are (they are hands down the world’s best) that they take no better care of their young troops as to let something like this happen. Olongapo isn’t anything near what it was like twenty-five years ago before the US Navy moved out, but wickedness still abounds, and impressionable young men still throw away their honor, character and virtue looking for it.

When the Navy was based here the only advice ever given was be sure to use condoms, which were freely provided at medical facilities. At least at that time all the known “hospitality girls” (prostitution was illegal, therefore according to the Philippine government there were no prostitutes, but there were hospitality girls) had to work in Navy approved bars, and were checked monthly for AIDS. There isn’t even that anymore. There aren’t as many bars or working girls either, but there are transgenders who usually aren’t too hard to identify if you're familiar with the culture. But then you get a half drunk naive kid who knows nothing, who should have been warned, who should have been protected by his shipmates, and Scott Pemberton has thrown away the best years of his life.

Almost already forgotten in the whole sordid affair is Jeffrey Laude, a pathetic little twenty-six year old, living not just as a woman, but a prostitute, pushed into his vice and wicked lifestyle by his own mother, whose only concern in his death was that she be given 100 million pesos, 2.17 million dollars. No, the Philippine court ruled, only 4.6 million, 98,000 dollars. The value of a life. And nobody seems to care.

Oval Office Address

Forced into a corner by his inept analysis of ISIS after a seven year failed diplomacy of nicety and a weak-kneed foreign policy of leading from behind, Obama made a very rare Oval Office address to the nation to calm America's fears about the threat of terrorism. The thirteen minute speech was remarkable for its brevity considering the gravity of the crisis America is facing. The San Bernardino shooting last week, which was clearly a terrorist attack, was the largest act of terror on the American homeland since 9/11.

Obama tried to sound forceful and militaristic, but after seven years of wimpiness he was hard to believe. He tried to sound knowledgeable by referring to his daily intel briefings, but that comment was laughable when you consider White House sources have said he has missed more than half of the briefings, and military analysts have said he puts whatever he doesn't want to hear on the shelf.

The speech actually fulfilled all of my expectations except one. Obama was lacking in anything new as far as substance, he exploited the tragedy once again as a platform for gun control, and he defended Islam. The one thing I anticipated he might have added but didn't was climate change.

He started immediately to dissect the two shooters from ISIS by saying there was no evidence of orders from ISIS or Al Qaeda directing this attack. He did identify it as an act of terror, but as always he missed the point. ISIS has openly called for "lone wolf" attacks in America. Now it is coming out from his father that Syed Farook was greatly influenced by ISIS. He didn't need specific orders, he had a general order from the Islamic terrorist group that he was following and that his wife had sworn allegiance to.

The question being asked is if he was "radicalized" by his wife or the other way around. Interesting how terminology shows up and is used. This term "radicalized" hasn't been in the common usage about terror until last week and now it's the most thrown about word all over the media. We hear about "radical Islam" all the time, but now apparently for someone to be a radical Muslim they must first become radicalized. The term itself is an attempt to draw attention away from the truth about Islam. As I've stated before, and what even the most conservative politicians and pundits don't seem to understand, is that there is no such thing as radical Islam. There is Islam by the Koran, which is what we are seeing carried out by Jihadists, and there is moderate Islam that does not live by the brutal force of the Koran. But I digress.

Obama made some striking statements. He said we have been at war with terrorists since 9/11, something he has refused to admit until now. He said that complicated events like flying into the twin towers have been reduced and the terrorist threat has evolved to simpler acts such as mass shootings. Then he referenced the Ft. Hood shooting, which up until just a few days ago had been classified as "work place violence." Remember his first comment about the San Bernardino shooting last week also suggested it may have been work place violence. I just saw, however, a comment from Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) that the government has relented and awarded the victims of Ft. Hood purple hearts and benefits. It's a great victory for our troops, but it makes me wonder since this apparently just happened, if Obama didn't approve it just so he could make the comment in his speech.

Obama called terrorism a cancer and said many people have asked if there is a cure. He answered that the threat is real and we will destroy ISIS (or ISIL as he insists on calling it). He said we will prevail by being "strong and smart." Interesting that he has finally gone beyond containing and degrading to call for terrorism's total destruction. However, his comment about being "smart" gives it away. He's told us for years that we need smart diplomacy, in other words, his plan to bring about peace by the strength of his nice personality. It hasn't worked, and considering Obama the comment "strong and smart" is contradictory.

The president then gave a four point strategy to defeat terrorism: 1, The military will continue to take out ISIS leaders, 2, We will continue to give training and equipment to Iraqi ground forces, 3, We will continue to work with allies to prevent ISIS plots, and work with Turkey to seal its border with Syria, and 4, American leadership will produce a cease fire among the Syrian forces in order to concentrate on ISIS. He once again referred to his 65 nation coalition, which at best exists only on paper, and said we need to review how we do background checks on visas.

Unless he has some plan to ratchet up the first three points, his strategy is nothing different than what he's already doing, which because of it's weak implementation is accomplishing little. It is ironic, however, that he would tell Turkey to seal their border when he refuses to do anything about our own. As for the fourth point, Putin has been thumbing his nose in Obama's face for months, and the Russians are the primary force in Syria right now. What makes Obama think he's going to have any influence on how operations in Syria are going to be conducted? Nobody is listening to him.

Obama then regurgitated his anti-gun garbage and blamed the Republican led Congress for not doing more to make it harder for people to purchase guns. He ignored the fact that many Democrats are also opposed to his attacks on the Second Amendment. He wants stronger screening for those coming into the country without a visa. Say that again? You mean like the refugees? I thought they were already being thoroughly vetted by the strictest requirements ever. And why do you have to strengthen that anyway? A foreign national without a visa can't legally purchase a gun in the United States now.

Obama took the last half of his speech to tell us what we cannot do in the War on Terror. He does not want to be drawn into another long protracted war on the ground. I think everybody agrees with that, which means go in there and bomb ISIS into oblivion. Right now 80% of all sorties we are flying are coming back with unexpended ordnance because Obama won't let them drop anything if there's the danger of one civilian being injured. You want to get serious about taking ISIS out remove the restrictions. This is another Vietnam scenario.

Further, he said, we should not turn against one another by defining this as a war of America against Islam. That's what ISIS wants, he said. No, I rather think what Obama said is what ISIS wants. If we finally wake up and realize that Islam has already declared war against the United States and we go after the terrorists wherever they are hiding including mosques and homes, we will absolutely destroy them. That's what ISIS is afraid of, and based on Muslim loving Obama's comments, he's probably afraid of it too.

He then suggested we need to enlist Muslim communities and Muslim leaders to join us in this battle. Fat chance. If he really believes that's possible he is the biggest ignoramus on earth. Actually I don't think he really believes that. He's doing all he can to defend Islam and prevent its expansion from being hindered.

He then told us that we must reject discrimination against Muslim communities, which begs the question: When and where have Americans ever discriminated on a large national or even local scale against Muslims? There is no evidence of any anti-Islamic movement or prejudice anywhere in America. In fact, we have been remarkably tolerant of Islam considering the attacks Muslims have made against America.

No, this performance was not calming or assuring. Rather, it was an insult to our intelligence. Obama has failed to understand the severity of the crisis we are in, has either failed or refused to recognize the enemy we are facing, has failed or deliberately refused to recognize the Islamic ideology we are at war with, and blindly refuses to admit that his policies have been wrong all along, and are the cause of this mess. At least he finally admitted this is a War on Terror and not just an overseas contingency problem, but he refused to link terrorism to Islam.

This address may well go down as the capstone of Obama's disastrous foreign policy.