An alarming thing has happened and the most alarming bit is that no one is alarmed. Things seem to be proceeding apace in Egypt and the intellectuals are salivating at the prospect of a new Egyptian constitution, to be drafted by around June. That doesn’t leave much time so they are soliciting advice from foreign corners and from one corner was dislodged sitting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg who used the occasion to suggest that under no circumstances should the Egyptian reformers consider the US Constitution as any sort of guide. It is, after all, laughably aged and enfeebled. Much better ore is to be had in the post-War world. Look right at 10:00 to see where she swallows the Constitution she has sworn to defend in one gulp. Most emphatically does she advise the Egyptians NOT to look at this document for guidance even as she describes the ordinary Rights of public participation and arrest that have been made real in the world, in large part, because of the attention given them in our Constitution and the spread of these, through means fair and foul, to every aspiring society.  How the Egyptian fellow did not show shock or even surprise is a bit mysterious but a larger puzzler is how this could have been on youtube for a week and only now drawing attention. Hopefully this was a clever bit of disinformation. The dimmest Cairo cabbie could not fail  to realize, Ginsburg is a Jew. Perhaps the State Department and the Justice came up with a plot of reverse-psychology. “Ruthie,” Hillary might have told her. “You go in and you tell ‘em, don’t you look at our Constitution. There is NOTHING in there for you, and they will tear into it like Bill through a Ladies’ Auxiliary!” But no, with the specifics and enthusiasm it is plain, this is Ginsburg Unplugged.

Her condemnation of our Constitution is sotto voce. She seems to only complain of its age. Glass houses, Madame Justice. Glass houses. I’m sure her objections are fleshed out in her writings from her lengthy career as head of the ACLU. What we have from this interview, however, what she has boiled down to an essential essence that might aid the new leaders of a turbulent desert nation, is a chirpy, if vapid, endorsement of the South African constitution. Certainly it exceeds our Constitution on grounds of freshness; if it were an American citizen it would just now be able to drive. But it is a prodigy, leaping past the old tatters of  parchment. The SA constitution, in contrast to our own, “was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights… ” As a Supreme Court Justice, she must indeed know her stuff.

We know what Ginsburg is on about. She mentions a couple other documents but all attempt to secure the rights in our Bill of Rights (except, always, the Second Amendment) and mostly do so in language aping the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments. So that cannot be Ginsburg’s indictment. Plainly what she desires although even she knows enough to speak only vaguely, is to have Constitutional mandates in the US promising healthcare, housing, education, food, water and “social security”, a term obviously ripped from the American fabric though not our Constitution. Who can doubt that this is also what Obama has in mind when he complains that the US Constitution is flawed and encumbering? So what lucky city is going to reap the hotel taxes and bar tabs generated by a New Constitutional Convention? Sadly there will be no such boon. Obama and his Progressives do not seek to add the South African provisions under public scrutiny. Rather they will redefine federal food aid as an Establishment of Justice, federal housing subsidies as Ensuring Domestic Tranquility. Pay-offs will Provide for the Common Defense. Tuition grants Promote the General Welfare. Government doctoring is a  Blessing of Liberty secured to Ourselves and our Posterity. These are the building blocks of A More Perfect Union. So says Obama. So says Ginsburg and Kagan; Sotomayor, Breyer and Kennedy but also Alito, Roberts, Scalia and to the least extent, Thomas. Also Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and yes, even the adamant Ron Paul. Rush Limbaugh is on board as well, as is Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, George Will, Charles Krauthammer or anyone else on the so-called Right. And quite probably YOU and everyone you know. How do we know this? Actions speak louder than words but we have BOTH and perhaps the most revealing of all are not actions but in-actions; not the words spoken or written but those unspoken. The most revealing of all are those words forbidden to speak. What is the Cow Most Sacred that to even mention her name in any but adulatory terms is to be torn out of the American ledger? You know and I know, it is that term adopted so fully and respectfully from America to South Africa. Social Security.

The professional talkers who reap bags of cash and decibels of applause for their embittered pronouncements and have no elections to lose will defend Social Security in terms both strident and dogmatic. Even the secular-saint Reagan is found to be a New Dealer at heart. All the Constitutional gyrations that are rightly denounced as subterfuge as regards Obamacare or other new iterations of wealth redistribution are swallowed whole cloth as regards Social Security. Limbaugh is as willing to explain as Hillary that, Social Security is not “socialism” in any sense and by the way, the OTHER guys are out to destroy it! The protege of Ed Meese, Levin, will calmly explain that the Commerce Clause is the foundation for Social Security and Medicare as well. This while he draws the line acerbically at the diktats of Obamacare and Romneycare that say, you will not pay us for your medicine but rather we will tell you whom to pay, how much and what you will get for it. Paul Ryan stands no further than Howard Dean from the justifying principles of these programs; he just aspires to make them actuarially sound. Ron Paul? Yes, he does denounce them in Constitutional terms but what is his solution? To continue them except with an opt-out for the young.

Both the Paul and the Ryan plans have one thing in common with ALL the other solutions out in the public realm, that is they DO NOT TOUCH current beneficiaries or those with about ten years until eligibility. This is mathematically impossible. You can’t just sever those paying in from those receiving the payments even if they stay flat (which they will not). Where do the truly mammoth amounts to make up the difference come from? Only from taxes, borrowing and printing. So just as the youthful opt-out is working in his first office job, he is neither paying into nor drawing from Social Security but somewhere, if he is not taxed into poverty, there is either an auctioneer or a high-speed press operating at high speed in his name. And in the meantime when he DOES save for his own infirmity, he has no guarantee of returns. He has no guarantee of his principle. These are the inevitable burdens you lay on a prostate America when you press your claims.

Who? Me? I’m not “pressing” any claims. I’m filing for my entitlements. And hey, didn’t I pay for ‘em?

This is the fatal rub; the deadly misconstruction and it is what separates the ten Articles in the American Bill of Rights and rights delineated under Chapter 2 of the SA constitution. The Rights in the Bill of Rights don’t require anyone to do anything for you to enjoy them. Rather the Bill of Rights is a menu of restrictions laid on the federal government and its subsidiaries. Citizens “shall not be denied due process of law…” not provided with anything except the restraint of the authorities. “…shall not be infringed.” That is plain and definitive language and as adamant as law can be. The equivalent South African codice has thirty-two sections, each with sub-sections and indexed paragraphs. Our Bill of Rights can be plainly seen in the first half though it is watered down like a cheap cocktail. It bargains away the clarity of our First Amendment for a slew of claims now dressed up as Rights. It seems the citizen is wildly empowered; he has a claim against the state for his subsistence. In South Africa this was expressly meant to atone for Apartheid. You will find the same arguments in America claiming reparations for slavery (but improperly). So there is a powerful pseudo-moral case for the claims as just compensation. Its morality is false however since government has nothing to give unless it is taken first from The People; so the claimant, if he considers himself a free, equal, sovereign citizen; one among many, holds nothing but a chit from himself which he honors with taxes (whether those levies are called “taxes” or not). This only applies while we recognize One class or sort of citizen. Once you assert that say, white people owe me. Or rich people owe me, and you write that class out of protections you reserve to yourself, we say good-bye to Equal Protection. No one has Rights but everyone will have claims, to some extent, of being ill-used. So their claims then become sacred rights while all an unconsensual debt can ever be is a license to enslave which was the problem in the first place.

Even if one still asserts a theoretical superiority for a system of common holdings based on “just” claims, it must be admitted that it does not work. Even for the Soviets there was a practical limit to printing roubles; phony money to pay any claim. If all claims, legitimate or not are honored then in short order no claims, legitimate or not, can be paid. It can’t work. It is a math based on the infinite of human wants converted to claims against human industry but painted as Civil Rights. There are only two ways out once embarked down this road; one is for large numbers of citizens to forgo their claims, just or not. Unlikely.The other is for everyone to press their claims to the maximum until the pot is drained and smashed to bits. The State based on claims will die and the claims with it. Rough freedoms will return because no one will be paid to stop them. Trade and thievery, enterprise and loot will thrive. Then by necessity genuine charity will replace the system of claims, now defunct. This happy time will persist so long as the new State is restrained, which is the function of the Constitution. One would think a Supreme Court Justice, or at least SOMEONE would know it.

2012 is looking up. The first good news in months comes from the last poll before today’s Iowa caucuses. It reflects a tectonic upset of preconceptions in its leaderboard which shows Santorum third with 18%, Romney with 19 and Ron Paul, first among statistical equals, at 20. The best of it? Newt is not only fourth but down far enough (4 points) that he is excluded from the headlines. It seems the rally of those who actually recall Gingrich from his days in office was not in vain. The Newt Boomlet is deflated, for now, and if Iowa can discourage him from continuing she will have done the nation a great service. Sadly, piling on Newt has not become the national fad it deserves to be but there is another, longer suffering target of the dogpile, a man in public office so long he has a grown son who is a Senator. Of course we refer to the Texas Houseman, alleged Republican but frequent Libertarian, Ron Paul.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way and Paul has endeared himself to many of us simply by mussing up Romney’s hair. Regardless of policy differences, no American or Republican should be content to see a coronation where an election should be, even if it is just the primaries. Write-ins and phantom candidacies, even of fictitious characters have performed this function in the past but appearances to the contrary, Ron Paul is no Donald Duck. Get beyond the wardrobe and there are clear, long articulated policy prescriptions and principled analysis of the economic political maelstrom that swirls outside your window. That Paulism has new popular appeal cannot be denied. This is why you suddenly find Romney and the other presumptives giving a Strange New Respect commensurate with his proven effect on record sales.

Miss Clarkson’s experience was double-edged though. In this she proves to be more like an Average Jolene, taking to twitter with an insight that seems pretty pedestrian… supporting a long-time local political figure for higher office, and finding herself twitslapped silly. Anyone expressing the mildest tolerance or adherence to Paulism in a public venue has had a similar experience. Don’t you know he’s a racist? Don’t you know he’s an anti-semite? Don’t you know he hates gays? Don’t you know he is a misogynist? Don’t you know he’s a nut? And as it happens, no, I do not know any of those things and having examined the charges am no closer to doing so.

Our opposite numbers go nuclear right off, playing that old race card and its relatives in the Diversity Deck. Like Social Security, these have long been the heaviest hitting of political weapons. The simple existence of the charges is dispositive, at least for anyone on the Right. Farrakhan, Wright and their numberless admirers are reflexively excused their repeated racist, sexist and gay-hostile pronouncements, not least because of their powerful associations but mostly for purposes of political solidarity. Paul enjoys no such immunity even though he inhabits a policy desert in between Right and Left. Isn’t this the kind of guy the media is always onto us about? Why is Ron Paul not a “centrist” as so many people claim to want? This we will examine but in any event Ron Paul is a man without a country, or at least a party. Those who could be counted on to defend Pat Buchanan on grounds of fairness or consistency will say not a word either in exculpation of Paul or denunciation of the gathered stoning party. The excuse before today was that Paul was irrelevant. He is a pygmy, as the polls reveal, so not a fit topic says the conservative press, such as it is. But like their colleagues, the far more numerous liberal gunslingers, these guys seem not to know what year it is. The internets are awash with original content, dug up newsletters from the ancient days of direct mail as well as video and transcripts. My not too thorough delving here reveals that Paul’s alleged racism, even if he is proven to have written the offensive matter, basically boils down to some straight talk about welfare. Paulism and Cosbyism share many tenets on the subject of entitlements and race. His antipathy to women is construed from a critique of sexual harassment law and culture that Herman Cain and Bill Clinton would boldly support from a cloak of anonymity but no need to inquire of such compromised sources as you will find similar arguments even from “feminist” writers, ie the definition of sexual harassment must be as clear as other legal precepts. Madness! Likewise his hostility to homosexuals is revealed in skepticism of the global AIDS research juggernaut; skepticism that has been born out by events. It seems that these ARE the “smoking gun” in the view of the press, as these were the beanballing questions tossed Paul by Chris Wallace on Sunday. On these matters, as regards the Conventional Wisdom, especially among Republicans, Paul’s crimes seem to be little more than being right too soon.

If the polling is being properly done (always a mystery), it should be little surprise that these mendacious attacks have fallen flat. Indeed he who hit hardest and soonest, Gingrich, has fallen the fastest. Who thought a bitter defense of racial gerrymandering would benefit them in a Republican primary? Team Newt can ill afford such blundering so here’s hoping it continues. The other Paul antagonists continue in a different vein. Until recently it was sufficient for any talking head to denounce Paul as “an extremist”. The issues and the nature of the extremity are never roundly disclosed so we must go a-dousing. The centerpiece of Paulism, as everyone knows, is strict Constitutionalism.

Strict. Constitutionalism.

If there were ever a phrase designed to light up a Republican dial group, this would be it. You will find no poor reception with any other focus group either. So the pros have a real problem on their hands. Their candidates can’t go around denouncing Strict Constitutionalism, much less Constitutionalism. Talk about tanking the meters! Yet a vast fraction if not a near totality of the projects, programs and policies put forward by EITHER party or both, lie clearly outside the Constitution’s enumerated powers. Paul does fall well short here on the matter most pressing on us today; that would be the explosion in entitlements that is happening concurrent with a collapse of their various funding schemes. Paul declares forthrightly what any Republican office holder will only whisper if he says so at all, which is that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the whole family of support payments, subsidies and open graft that pad the silken pockets on Wall Street as much as the threadbare jeans in the ‘hood are starkly Unconstitutional. Locate the article in the Constitution that allows them, if you doubt it. Strain and struggle as you will. At best the Frugal Socialists, Bachmann’s one quotable expression, will trot out a reading of the Commerce Clause that is so expansive as to make all but the structural prescriptions in the Constitution a dead letter. Yes, this is strongly related to Romney’s Fault, in that he denies the propriety of Obamacare on the same grounds that he will admit the virtues of Romneycare. But the principle is the same for all the candidates on nearly all the issues. Even Bachmann, as she den0unces, rightly, the New Deal and Great Society relics as socialism, does not say they must be abolished like segregated schools. Oh no. And neither does Paul. While denouncing the lawlessness and futility of the programs (and there is a good case that anything called a “program” is Unconstitutional) his solution is less sound and less worthy by far than even the marginally useful Ryan Plan. Paul hopes to allow youngsters of around 25 to opt out of the bigs of SS and Medicare but makes no paring of benefits to anyone else. This sets them on an easy glide path, he claims, while the shortfall can only be made up from general revenue or some other dunning that would have the same effect overall as the massive tax hikes everyone is trying to avoid, yet which are scheduled in short order. The only way this makes sense, other than just being daft, is if the plan is to collapse and destroy the entitlement state as quickly as possible. Needless to say, that doesn’t focus group well with anyone except maybe me.

On other fiscal matters the competing Republicans and even prominent Democrats claim to be eagerly on the Paul bandwagon. Spending cuts? Everyone wants spending cuts. Tax increases? No one wants tax increases. Suspicion of the Fed, an end to Venture Cronyism, a sound dollar… everyone claims to want what Paul has been selling for thirty years. So what is the beef? The generic talkers put it well, you have heard them repeat from their scripts; yeah, he’s great on domestic policy but nuts on foreign policy, so no go. And that is ever the end of it. Somehow anyone who might consider a global withdrawal of American forces to inside our own borders or at least to a limited presence is flat out insane or, the allusion goes, an anti-semite, a secret jihadi even. Now, I am among the folks who supported the Global War on Terror in nearly every particular and was neither surprised nor appalled when President Obama proved, against his campaign claims, to do likewise. But even an old warmongerer like me knows that, short of some epic reforms, in short order the entire federal budget will be taken up by debt service and entitlements. There won’t be a thin dime for even a volunteer, unpaid armed forces, much less anything we could fight a real war with. The foreign policy, you see, can only exist if the nation exists and with ANY candidate or indeed the incumbent, the nation is on a collision course with a stern brick wall. Does anyone ever say of Romney, well, I am on board for his defense policies, basically Bushbama, but his Romneycare is going to bust the budget which destroys the foreign policy anyhow? Nope, this sturdy logic is never heard in apposition to clear stupidity. Yet the supposed hazards of “isolationism” trump everything else. Or so the vested interests arrayed against Paul demand you to believe.

It hasn’t worked in Iowa. Hopefully this anticipates a denting of media/political constructs generally, an outcome every person of sound mind and good will should desire. For this we can thank Ron Paul and his supporters, among whom I do not sit, by the way. If I were participating in that barbaric practice of the caucus I would be for Santorum for reasons of comparative, not absolute, virtues. Paul has stood by his convictions and principles to an extent unparalleled in modern history, which is actually no great extent but baby steps are better than no steps at all. At the least he has prevented an early and noxious consensus that would have made our actual preferences moot. Thank you, Doctor Ron. May the best of you prove contagious.

In days of old when knights were bold the French used to call being gay, The British Disease. Of course the yobs called it The French Complaint. With today’s accusations against the Brits from the French, it amounts to a similar near stalemate. France is pushing back on the ratings agencies warning that their Triple A is about to be cut. Mes amis, cut them, not us, you know why? Blah blah. It’s the classic diverting behavior of the addict, in this case the addiction is to printing money. And that is one I can understand quite well. I’m about ten stitches away from running off a few Benjis myself at the Kinko’s. But it doesn’t “work” for me or them in that the practice, like treating anemia with leeches, makes the underlying conditions of which the downgrades and high borrowing costs are a symptom, fatally worse.

But the ratings agencies DO have it right, at least in regards to France vs Britain. Sarkozy’s peeps point to minor advantages they have over Cameron’s crew on macro numbers like debt:GDP, total size and overall growth. The margins are not impressive although some of it was surprising. I thought Britain had more growth than France even now but nothing goes with snark like a bit of cherry picking which I’m not about to try to rubbish piecemeal.

The reason France is clearly a worse credit risk than the UK is obvious. While Britain is in the Common Market they never did adopt the Euro. They are still sound as a pound. Generally this would mean that the larger currency zone, clearly the euro, has more in headcount, reserves, assets and taxing power, which they do, and is therefor a better risk. But there has been chicanery going on for decades. Sure there has been in London as well but even if the British situation IS mathematically worse than France’s, they have more control over their affairs going forward because they are NOT stuck to the Euro. France derides the British for Greek-style, if not quite level, overall debt. But Greece’s staggering and un-repayable debt is also France’s debt, at least in part. It is Britain’s and ours to some extent as well due to Credit Default Options in everyone’s hands. Not yours? Wrongo boyo. If you have a penny on deposit anywhere in any banking system of any type you ALSO have exposure to Greek debt. But Euro users have more.

What the French spokes-hommes don’t seem tu realize though is that there are an unlimited number of downgrades to go around. This is the predictable, logical conclusion of spreading the highest ratings around without limit for years. The basics of academic grade inflation and Trophies For All invaded finance long ago. This is how Greece was able to get into its famous trouble in the first place. Oh, the problem is Greece is undercapitalized because they pay 5% on their bonds. So what we will do is get rid of the drachma, have a common currency and then the Greek bonds will sell like German bonds. Because in effect that is what they will be.

The only way this buffoonery could ever have persisted is if the Greeks had altered their four thousand year old habits and become something resembling Germany or at least France in economic terms. That’s not necessarily impossible and if the world properly valued fine olive oil and knew how to use it, Greece could indeed have the wherewithal to match hard currency borrowers. The thing is they have had some twenty years to do that, counting the preliminaries to the Euro rollout, and they didn’t do it. Actually they worsened on this score dramatically. The easily borrowed money went to pad out public payrolls and entitlements, paying off cronies in limitless number. While absconding with Germany’s credit card Greece did nothing to lighten the tax burden on their own populations which would have kicked up their growth. Again, quite the reverse.

So the enterprise to make Greece more like Germany or France has instead exported Greek spending and accounting norms to the EU core. The long-ago and nearly failed escape under John Major from the euro is the one asset Britain has over all the rest. It is proving the most valuable. Admitting that fact is the one thing the Eurocrats can never do because those countries that DID adopt the Euro did so with rigged referenda served with utopian propaganda that has now crumbled under the onslaught of reality.

The whole episode is crapulent and I remark on it at length only to demonstrate the futility engaged in at the highest levels of finance and government. If you are watching stocks, they are oscillating wildly and rising overall. Remember though that nothing is better for stocks than inflation. In any case, what are these asset prices moving on? Oh, good news from Europe. Some “deal” is announced and they go up! Bad news from Europe is always the same news which is to say that the last good news we told you was bullshit. Stocks then plummet.

Just this week the DOW spikes, on what? Italy had a great bond sale. Yeah, 6.5%. Six-point-five percent! That is GOOD news! Okay, but the NEXT DAY, hmm, well turns out the Italians are NOT going to be able to cut back the way they said… And they’re back up to 7%. :-( and down goes the DOW on this pantomime when in reality, as long as there is a Euro, Italian bonds and Greek bonds and Portuguese bonds are in effect Franco-German bonds. They are all on one raft. What matter if this corner or that of it seems a bit drier for the moment?

Where does it end? and when? Simple. Somewhere someone figures out the Greek debt will never be paid and they say No to another bailout. So the Greeks go elsewhere; No, no and NO is all they hear. But their government is racking up expenses, bills, just like a household. Now they can’t borrow at a rate that does not bankrupt them. This is the point where we are now. So they hike their taxes. Guess what? that collapses their economy so they now have HIGHER tax rates and LOWER government revenue. More businesses fail, cutting tax revenues and SPIKING people on government benefits, salaries or pensions. So they have no choice. They stop redeeming bonds. Then they can’t borrow a penny, can’t send out their paychecks, much less their welfare checks. It doesn’t matter who is on strike, no one is getting paid. Not in euros anyhow.

The Greek bonds are worthless so the CDOs, the contract insurance on them (the instruments that tripped up Corzine), have to be paid from other assets, which are what? Other sovereign bonds like, say, France’s. Now France, whatever else they have done (which was not much better than Greece) is burdened with the Greek debt. Okay, big deal! What’s a little Greece? But then there is Italy. And Portugal. And Ireland; really the majority of the Eurozone. And just the ordinary debts of Germany and France are already at an absurd level. If they are a tiny bit less absurd than Britain’s, still, the euro-junkies are closer to the fire.

I hope no one is looking for advice other than the simplest; hold your babies tight. Rather this is a notice. Basically we are screwed; or the existing fiat currencies of the world are screwed. When you hear “Good News from Europe!” if it isn’t something on the order of the whole Eurozone cutting their spending in half, it is not good enough. The finger-pointing, blame shifting and plumbing theft has been going on at least five years and is now breaking out into the open. It’s hot-potato, musical chairs, blind man’s bluff, liars’ poker and russian roulette all going on simultaneously. You can’t win if you don’t play. You can’t win if you DO play and you are not invited to play in any event. We are all just sheep for the shearing; EVERY BODY! The French are desperate to escape their own encounter with the clippers. They will not. Not this time, froggie. Nor you, fritz.

Far from the land of Noah lived Moah. He also was warned of the flood but his task was simpler, rather than saving all of land fauna, Moah built his ark to accomodate all the people and livestock of his little town, most prominently his triplet sons; Bovus, Vincent and Cornelius. Before god spake to him, Moah was a skillful worker of the earth. Grains, cattle and vines he knew best of all men. Like even the ignorant he also kept chickens, sheep and gardened other crops like basil and mint. These arts he taught with perfect consistency to all three of his sons and all three became as much the master of them as their father. Came the day of rains and all the townspeople and their seed and their beasts boarded the ark and waited for the rains to end. Once they did and the waters receded the ark was wrecked on a mountaintop. Moah drowned in this disaster which saw the three sons with equal goods and equal survivors drift apart. Each finally settled on different sides of the mountain, separated by rock and ravine, thinking themselves the only party to live through the deluge.

Cornelius, his wife and children and friends, all came to rest on the eastern plain. Here there was fine earth for raising grain, good sun, just enough rain but too much for vines and there was little pasturage for the herds. Vincent’s people came to rest on the sou thern slopes where the warmth and loose soils made vines grow like well-fed sons but the plains were rocky; turning back seed and producing little grass for grazing. On the western side landed Bovus whose cattle devoured luxurious grass that stretched off far but the plain was no good for farming as the sod was so tight it could scarcely be cut with a knife, much less plowed. Vines would hardly flower given the cold mornings, brief sun and harsh soil of the permanent afternoon on the far side of the mountain.

Time passed, as it will, and each tiny, isolated community grew well. But finally the day came when the three sons, now old men, breathed their last. As they were born, so did they die. Simultaneously. All the mourners on whatever side of the mountain came to the same conclusion: our great man is dead, we should bury him with his father, or as well as we can. So they all set out for the ruined ark on the mountaintop which all could see but where none had ever set foot since that long ago day. The funeral parties, in as much finery as their hands could produce, came over the ridge and gazed at each other in amazement. The sons of Bovus came in thick clothing made of hides. They had been nursed on milk, meat and little else. They were strong and brutish; in the habit of killing whatever they ate. Alone among Moah’s people they had become hunters of game, fishers and gatherers of the few roots at the edge of their lands. Vincent’s people were fine and pale. Their clothes were of thin wool finely woven as their few sheep were coddled and treasured for their wool. Cattle they knew but could only keep a small herd on their poor grass. They had urns of wine though, and had been raised on grapes, olives, garlic and forrage. The clan of Cornelius was dressed in rude cloth made from the fibers of wheat stalks. But they had been raised on bread. Bread, bread and more bread. From farming grains on their good land they had more food than they could eat so they grew numerous. Their party was twice the other two put together. And they also knew cattle although they could not graze them. They fed their beasts grain also so there were not so many of them but they did produce milk and meat in limited quantities. Wine, they had forgotten; their old vintners died in frustration, but they had found beer while making their bread and the masters of beer and bread had discovered an amazing thing. Cheese.

All had heard the old stories, of course, and discovering that they all spoke the same language and had the same grandfather they came together, buried their fathers together and had one great mourning feast in the shadow of their once shared home. Each returned to their people with the astounding story and with the proof of it in goods the likes of which their families had never seen. The Bovines were astonished at bread, wine and most of all, cheese. In Cornova they marveled at clothes of wool and leather, having always been poorly clad. In Vineland they devoured the meat and fish that they usually had only on feast days while beer seemed a muddy miracle. Excitement boiled through all the people. It seemed like a new world had opened while an old one was re-discovered. They could rebuild everything now, re-populate and re-make all of Creation.

But in each camp there were some who did not think much of re-making. They had risen and prospered in their trades and were suspicious even if these were their long lost brothers. In Vinland the winemakers looked on beer as a horror. There was no art to this and no practical limit on its raw material of grain. Cheap beer poured into their houses producing drunkards in shocking numbers, drawing the boys from the vines and polluting even their women with daily drunkeness. In Bovus they devoured bread and drove herds over the mountain passes to trade for it but this was difficult. To even get a few beeves over they first had to get grain to feed them on the trip; grass could not be transported. But once in Cornova no one would trade for their cattle immediately for they knew that the cattle could not be grazed and therefore the price would come down over a few days time as the Bovines had to trade for grain just to feed them. In Cornova there was shock and angst over imported manners from both the Bovines and the Vintners; the one crude and violent, the other effete and superior. Wine and beef drove out beer and bread while both outsiders sought cheese above all and much desired the secret to its making to the point of spying, stealing and lying for it.

The result all around the mountain was a tranche of laws to control and finally forbid the cross border trade; laws that were subverted or ignored although great efforts were made to enforce them. The enforcers, after all, also liked beef and cheese and wine and beer which they were forbidden to get honestly. The tiny communities could only devolve into a state of near war; smuggling and hoarding led to raiding and thieving which led to kidnapping and murder. Grudges developed into feuds and feuds into battles. The most numerous Cornovans could spare the most men but the Bovines were most fierce. The Vintners, most cunning. On all slopes there were more men committed to protecting the fields and storehouses and fewer to working them. Where cooperation, a bit of patience and a bit of trust could have produced plenty for all, instead there came to be a wasteland, the mountain region returning to much what it was before the flood; before the coming of man with man himself becoming little more than a larger beast with stranger habits including an inexplicable animosity for similar beasts from the far valley. These idiosyncrasies were little noted by the outsiders who also had somehow survived the flood who one day came in numbers and with arms to take all they could find from all over the mountain leaving the sons of Moah bereft and astonished and now unable to distinguish one brother from another. So they dissappeared from the knowledge of men.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of the press and America out there in the audience, as you know I have lately and suddenly been the subject of a veritable hailstorm of accusations; very vague and unsupported accusations and I have been required to respond without full knowledge of the events being referred to and these are, as you have seen, all much more than ten years old.  I have denied them. They are unsupported and responsible members of the media have moved on. Others have not as is their prerogative. Now. There has been some improvement on that front. There is now a woman, Ms Bialek, who has come forward with lurid details and accusing me of actions that clearly are criminal and violently so. Let me set the record straight right here and right now. These are my recollections, clearly she remembers things differently. Ms Bialek did indeed contact me and arrange an appointment. I did escort Ms Bialek, at my expense, to a dinner that was principally a business dinner and I did get her accommodations upgraded, at no expense to me, to a suite. I did drive her to her hotel. Not at any time nor by anyone’s definition did I make any inappropriate physical contact with Ms Bialek meaning no more than a handshake and perhaps a friendly hug. But I did at one point grab the woman’s pussy.

Now. I see the response out there among the liberal press elites. What is this man doing going around grabbing young women’s pussies? I don’t know what has happened in this country and I think, I know there are very many Americans out there that feel the same. It is Political Correctness run amok and the liberal prudes and scolds that are doing so much to ban our salt and tax our tobacco are behind it, bringing down a black man who dares to step off, okay? of their liberal plantation. I ask you, what is wrong with grabbing a woman’s pussy? If my daddy had not grabbed my momma’s pussy when he had the opportunity I would not be here, okay? And none of you would be here either. I mean, if my daddy had not grabbed my momma’s pussy I would not be here, clearly, and therefore you all would have no reason to be here but if in their time and in their ways YOUR daddies had not grabbed your momma’s pussy you not only would not be here, in Phoenix in this Marriott or wherever the hell we are, but you would not BE! You would never have been born, think about it! So if you in the press and in the political establishments are going to create a world where a man cannot grab a woman’s pussy you are messing with your own existence! And that just is not smart. And this will be the last time I speak on these matters.

I hope in light of these new developments we can put all this behind us and tackle those real issues, as the American people want us to do, like the dire economic situation we face as a nation; the public debt, the growth of a government that is now too big to fail that is squeezing you and you and you and you and all of you down so small where you can barely keep up, much less get ahead. I am here promoting and explaining my 9-9-9 plan which, no, is not cribbed from The Sims, whatever that is. And we will discuss Healthcare Deform as well as other topics, the utter foolishness of Global Warning Hysteria and maybe abortion. I am against that.

Now.

Questions?

The sun shines. People forget. There is an eminence front for all people and therefore all candidates. For candidates it must be especially thick and durable as it is liable to come under meticulous attack, if not by the people then by the press and the other candidates. Herman Cain has learned this simple truth. Does his need to learn this lesson the hard way indict him? According to the gunslingers not on the Cain payroll, the gunslingers that are have ham-handed this one. What actually happened or was said is immaterial on this reckoning. It’s all about the optics: how it looks and Cain looks like a desperate fugitive. Not a good pick on the campaign trail. Those on the bench, always hungry for a campaign to attach, guffaw and point at Cain and his minions. They are not performing up to industry standards. Cain should really hire me, is what they would advise in all candor but that would be a bit crass. Never considered is that Cain might not be operating to some strategic form but simply responding honestly and forthrightly. If his answers are muddy and inconsistent, so are they on all subjects with THIS subject being the muddiest particularly because no one has even offered a version of events different to his. Really, this is true. The headlines are written in a dire style and the mouthpieces run their motors, fueling the talking heads but as of now, as of today, there are no documents, no names, no sources and no evidence of anything at all; not any illegality but any actions whatever. There is only one truth on the side of the crows; more than a decade ago two women got settlements, totaling $80k from the National Restaurant Association long after Cain had departed. That is it. The nature of the behavior or statements, even the actual dates (if they are even asserted) is secret. And that is no doing of the NRA. They have publicly released the complainants to speak without even their settlement money in jeopardy. As an old legal pro I can tell you, this doesn’t happen and would not happen if the NRA didn’t think they were in the clear. Mr Cain, as has now been discovered, was never a party to this agreement so his ignorance of its contents is far from surprising. These too are all truths unhelpful to the project of hammering down whomever is standing up. (Which tells you why Romney has received no hammer blows as yet.)

The Truth of their reportage is always the defense from the press room although Politico, the forge where this iron was cast, seems to be more in the mold of a partisan tip sheet than an unearther of truths. Still their cry is the same. We only print the Truth. This truth is that someone told them of a settlement and they have tried to contact the women involved, who have declined comment and instructed their attorneys to do likewise. But it is TRUE! We were told that! By whom? Well, right there the well of truths runs dry. When interviewed the pressies make splashing sounds to hide that fact but now their throats are parched. But if it is Truths these guys and dolls seek, there are plenty of other wells close at hand.

This is, as they say, a case of He said, She said (although the Shes are actually silent). But We are not all equal here, not a bit of it. The He is subject to all kinds of scrutiny. The Shes are subject to none. Not only that but any close attention aimed at the sources for the stories or the original principles in these events is treated explicitly as a witch hunt. But the greatest Truth on display from all this activity is that the rules of the game have been inverted silently in the night. The complaints from the gunslingers that Team Cain is not adhering to the well-worn strategies is based on one truth we all know; former President Bill Clinton raped and assaulted many women over his long career and walked away from it a free man and a leader on the world stage. That is a Truth. It has the added benefit that it is a Truth everyone knows. Everyone also knows exactly how such a disgraceful state of affairs came about, it was by the inversion of the template sketched above. In that He said, She said it was the accusers (and these were real people with names, on the record and often under oath) who got vivisected under a microscope and the He was doted on as if he were found weeping and bleeding in an alley. Indeed this is how Clinton postured himself. All mentions of the brutal acts by Clinton against defenseless women, who he cornered with the powers of his office, were smothered in “allegedlies” and the details kept mum as they were presumed to be the ravings of opportunistic grifters or disgruntled exes and in any case, distasteful. But we consumers of retail information were not there, were we? We were not at the scenes of these many crimes nor in the depositions or hearings where the statements were entered. With great exertions high and low there was one interview with a victim, Jane Doe #5, by the name of Juanita Broaderick. In great detail she described the attack with corroboration from contemporaries. She also describes the cover-up of her rape that included the maniacal collusion of one Hillary Clinton who holds high office today. All this was rubbished, denied in the execution of a “strategy” well-named Nuts ‘n Sluts by those who carried it out; foremost these were James Carville and Maggie Williams although an honorable mention must be made for Susan Esterich, who paraded her own assumed status as a rape victim and long time activist as she denounced Broaderick as a Nut, possibly a slut, disbelieving ostentatiously her weeping recount. The press airs these Truths evenhandedly, correct? It is for the observer to decide. Those willing to believe Clinton a deranged thug believe Broaderick. Those not so disposed simply look away. It is to be hoped that Cain did not expect such treatment but he did, perhaps, expect a tiny dash of consistency. Foolish man.

With this naked abuse the Clinton template wears a bit thin around the gaskets. Bill and Hillary view with horror the smoke and grinding sounds coming from their faithful old contraption. If the Cain Standards are ever applied to a Clinton Scrutiny there will scarcely be anything left of them. Kathleen Willey still bears Clinton’s paw prints from the day he attacked her in the Oval Office. Paula Jones is sitting on a nice fat settlement of $850k due to Clinton’s exposing his erection for her after calling her from her desk to a private room and stroking her thigh. These are the sort of specifics the Cain accusers do not provide. Likewise a history that endorses the allegations is missing in the Cain events but gaudily present with Clinton. Dolly Kyle-Browning and Elizabeth Ward-Gracen are two other subjects; derided and discarded by the pressies in the recent past who have made public statements that they were raped by Bill Clinton and at times that would have implicated Hillary in the cover-ups. These public Truths have had their wings clipped by the “strategy” Cain is supposedly a fool not to employ. In his detour and gyrations Cain is testing the mounts of the grumbling machine and threatens to unleash a torrent of Truths on the land as if from a collapsing dam.

The Clintons are the foremost beneficiaries so they will be inundated most deeply. Those Truths above are just the mildest froth on the waves. The reservoir is deep. But let’s not forget the others. John Edwards was taken down by a particularly voluminous leak although he was playing the game strictly by the rules. His problem was hard evidence, being not a stained dress but a screaming baby. In his inexpert handling of the levers he overtaxed the abilities of the machine so he is being fleeced like any Regular Joe. We can leave him to justice.

Another interesting figure is one Jesse Jackson. We know that the attacks on Cain are not racially motivated largely because of Jackson’s treatment. Like Edwards, Jackson also fathered a child outside his marriage. Yes, this has come to light but only after decades. If that is not freshie-fresh enough for you, Jackson has his own sexual harassment case pending today only this one is being pursued in open court. A fellow by the name of Tommy Burnett was Jackson’s travel assistant. He was called to Jackson’s hotel room one night where an engorged Reverend told him tales of youthful homosexual activities in football locker rooms and invited Barnett (openly gay) to do likewise. He declined and further asserts that this is just one incident in many, some of which have corroborating witnesses. Is this of no interest because Jackson is no politician? Except that he has run for President and if he holds no office now he is still a power broker at the national level. This also is a Truth that cannot forever be employed opportunistically.

If Jackson is too peripheral a player, well, who else might benefit from the Cain Scrutiny? As the press ever more wanly calls for Cain’s Janes to come forward no one is encouraging Larry Sinclair to do so. And who is this, then? Larry Sinclair is the fellow who had gay sex in a limo with a young candidate (for Senate) Obama, shared cocaine with him and then repeated the whole thing again. Mr. Sinclair has no judgement to defend but instead is defending his very life, right? That is what he says. Like Cain, let Obama fill in the details. Larry’s statement was made publicly to the press. As he became acquainted with Barack Obama Larry was contacted by a Donald Young, an openly gay man directing the choir at Trinity United Methodist. It is little secret that Trinity United, the home and workplace of Rev Jeremiah Wright was a mecca (ooops) in the Chicago black gay scene. Larry says Donald feared for his life because of his sexual relationship with the rising Presidential Candidate. As Cain could tell you, things like this can trip you up. But we know no such thing happened to President Obama because there he sits. We do know what became of Donald Young. He was shot to death in his home. This is a Truth and one with a mighty splash, or one would think; but no. Only Donald Young’s mother speaks for him and many a Truth spills from her mouth and heart. No one is interested. Such a truth is outside the realm. Donald Young was just robbed, it’s all a coincidence you see. Is that the Cain Standard? No, it is the threadbare Clinton Method which requires close press support. The thin, sturdy barrier of revulsion has held because those who claim their job is to rupture it are up there with duct tape and spackle. Can they release a torrent on Cain and still protect Obama? Probably. History implies they may. If only Donald Young were alone in his grave, but he is not. Two other fellows, Larry Bland and Nate Spencer, gay members of Trinity United, were likewise murdered; shot repeatedly with no witnesses and no obvious motive and all three within a month of each other (and Spencer’s cause of death was ruled HIV). These are Truths far more worthy of exposure and investigation than anything the maddest hater can concoct about Cain. And that is why you will see the Cain Scrutiny fizzle, smolder and flop.

Where there is suspicion there is hope. Anything less than defiantly blind credulity must be taken as something of a triumph, especially amongst the young. If you want to see suspicion in all its varied glory make this a habit: whenever you meet a young jew (and it comes up) ask, are you a Zionist Jew or an Anti-Zionist Jew? If immediate suspicion is in the jewish character it seems to have been mostly boiled out of the semite undergrad. Mostly, as with all questions these days, you will receive the quizzical expression of a kitten nursing a cigarette. They are not used to new questions, these pupae, without getting the answers in advance, and presume you have begun speaking a foreign language. Possibly fictional. For some reason the usual method of fence straddling is likewise not employed. It is that expression, Zionist. They know they have heard it and it is not good. “But it does seem to have something to do with jews, which I am,” so they are at least hesitant to join in the hoots, the damnation of the bankers, the presumption of their jewishness, the denunciation of Israel and the perpetual explanations of how the jews are at the root of it all.

Given the givens of our day, as I said, this is triumphal and all opportunities must be explored. Exploration will reveal great ignorance in our undergrad regarding the history of modern Israel, current events there and the conditions under which the Isreali, jewish or otherwise, lives. But any attempt to remedy this situation, at least at the first go, will be met with the grumpy refusal of a toddler to visualize whirled peas. “What do you care?” they will say in more or less frank language. Somehow they never wonder if I am a jew myself. It seems the black fellow can more easily pass for non-black than any jew can be confused with non-jew. Must be pheromones. In any case, it is a good question. Why should any non-jew care what happens to Israel?

Funny how this is the only issue on which concern is suspect. Why do you care about the whales? one might ask though the response would only be a gaping disdain. Why do you care about the ozone hole? Or the Aborigines? Or the delta smelt? Or indeed, poor urban blacks with which you have engaged in little voluntary contact except in your music downloads? Concern for the so-called Palestinians likewise is suspect only in absence and again ignorance does what enmity would fail to do; present the unbreachable barrier of the guffaw. Why, everyone is for the Palestinians as everyone is for polar bears however unfamiliar they may be with them. Chip away at this if you need a lifelong project with no hope of completion. Instead, let the brats have their assumptions because there is much to say for the Zionist Goyim that is unsentimental and indeed, nakedly Machiavellian.

Of what objective worth is Israel? It is a sandy spit. Cosmic humor has made it a perverted reflection of the state of New Jersey though with less water and poorer beaches. New Jersey is surrounded by belligerent but dependent neighbors; is the last safe target for bullying in a hostile crowd and is narrow at the waist. New Jersey I would defend from attack and slander selfishly. As New Jersey sinks so does a bit of me. And if Israel were to slip? None of my relatives are there and there is plenty to concern us here at home. But those concerns are not separable and the alchemy of dividing one strand of our maladies from another is a vain project, not impossible necessarily but far too time consuming and productive of toxic waste. The struggle of Israel to draw her daily breath is not conducted on a distant front in our collective war. Israel is the farthest forward outpost on one, vast encircling theater the center of which is right where you are sitting now, presuming that is a safe chair by an open window over a placid American street.

By this counting we here in safety and plenty occupy the First Ditch. Or more accurately, we lounge in cabana chairs just behind it, confident that we will hear the bullet or the click of the detonator in time to throw ourselves in and boot up our weapons. A good few of our countrymen stroll far beyond it, touring the Second Ditch, which is in the weaker but still civilized nations of Europe or the orient.These are subject to attack but it is infrequent. Still further there is the invisible array of the Third Ditch, more a tangle of deep tracks that are filled with hostile rats and driving sand when they are not filled with lead. Iraq and Afghanistan are here, obsessed with hostility to civilization and rapidly being drained of American soldiers. Whether the project of explaining decency and tolerance to this crowd was ever plausible is still unanswered but mostly because we do not care to take No for an answer. The fact that we contemplate a full retreat without serious consequences demonstrates that even the jagged edge of daily combat is not, truly, the final front. No. It is not where our people are dropped in, lifted out and make sure to cover their tracks. It is where the free, bawdy, roilsome West comes up against medievalism forthrightly; where the bikini meets the burkha and that, friends, is Israel.

Israel is the unscrambled porno channel on Al-Jazeera. Israel is a middle-finger to the mullahs, why don’t the Occupiers (and when did that become cool?) grasp this? If they think the Bachman Conformity would be an uncomfortable place for them, how does sharia smell? To ask the question is to mark oneself out as a loony. Why, these modest goatherders mean us no harm and their quaint beliefs are far less offensive than the 700 Club. But of course they don’t watch the 700 Club. Nor do they consume its equivalent; a constant stream of jihad videos supported in principle from the BBC to USAToday with breezy equivalences that take the jihadists’ every english statement of conciliation as gospel, and ignore their domestic incitements in arabic as gibberish. This sort of thing the Occupiers devour with alacrity, at least those who are lately and prominently turning the OWS movement into an ululating denunciation of The Great Satan . International Jihad and secular jew hatred would be ripe for a Wikileak assault but for one problem; they are open in their recruitment, open in their goals and open in their methods. While bloody vitriol is ignored if its source is a protected group, dramatic slanders are concocted and promulgated cheerily through the press “exposing” targets for tactical benefit. This is the eternal role of the jew; Target. Scapegoat. Lamb. The Koch brothers have become honorary jews with their new celebrity. Murdoch as well. But even actual jewishness is no bar to an unscrutinized political career if those politics are the right flavor. George Soros, who could not more fully embody antisemitic stereotypes if he were a Bond villain, is revered and left to his machinations. The jewishness of this precocious nazi becomes a shield of corruption. Like Medusa he is so foul no one dare look too closely.

Soros as demon is much for our weary undergrad but perhaps their native suspicion is aroused. So, jew=bad is not the full equation? Ah, now as they are asking why anyone would object to Israel’s obliteration they are also wondering why anyone outside the principle parties would seek it? Hmm. No one doubts the existence of devious special interests out to line their pockets or drive on your lawn but they aren’t just jews are they? No, clearly not. The simple numbers make that impossible. So why is there so much agitation against the jews? Simple, those doing the agitating are muddying up the waters because clarity would expose THEM, with justice, to the public pillory they attempt to keep filled. Antisemitism is a tool of the tyrant since Greece. One needs not a single warm feeling towards a jew or even towards humanity to understand your self interest is at stake, if you consider liberty and truth to be in your self-interest. All this Hitler stuff is an inflammatory diversion; so it was, so it is and so it shall ever be. Diversion from what? Simple truths that our Occupiers were not denied but never sought. First, neither government nor any spacey alternative you might concoct to government can give you anything they don’t first take from someone else. And YOU are often that Someone Else. It seems the internal conflicts within the Occupiers reflect some hard lessons only lately learned. But even simpler and more basic lessons like the value of innate skepticism have been written out. That is a nearly universal diagnosis: the Occupiers at large are terminally naive. So even if you have no love for Israel, even if you have an active hostility it is STILL in your best interests to be dubious of anti-Zionism, antisemitism or any quick and dirty assignment of metaphysical blame. And this is really the first hurdle of civilization (after pooping discipline, which we will also have to work on), to forbear from simply blaming the drought or your rejection for tenure on the guy next door with the big nose. That is helpful to him, certainly, but it is even more helpful to YOU especially as The Last Ditch and The First Ditch have intersected unexpectedly in the tent cities of America.

Gilad Schalit is a free man today and he became a man in the custody and care of Hamas. Schalit was a nineteen-year old jew from a nation of jews, stolen like a comely goat from his post, as he was a soldier; a jewish soldier from a nation of jewish sodiers. As far as can be divined, the raid that claimed him was conceived and launched, involving months of tunneling by many hands, for the very purpose of capturing a jewish soldier and ransoming prisoners from the jewish jail. Schalit was of no consequence personally. He was just a jew.

For five years Schalit has paid the price for that crime. As yet we have no word from him as to what conditions he was kept. Almost certainly those were far better than exist in Palestinian jails in Gaza and the West Bank, which are filled mostly with “collaborators”, either with jews (and just the allegation of this can get one killed in the street) or the other entity. In Gaza, Hamas jails those with sympathy to Fatah. In the West Bank, Fatah jails those favorable to Hamas but in either case a five year sentence would be grueling and would show a mark or two. Schalit seems to have been kept in marketable condition as befits his status, not as prisoner of war or justice, but as a commodity.

I thought the jews were supposed to be stiff traders? Netanyahu has not wandered into an arab souk ignorantly, he has been drawn there by violence and even more by menace. His position and the true, international position of Israel is the same as it has ever been for the jew; he is despised and surrounded. So he has made a deal; for the whole and breathing Gilad Schilat weighing in at eight stone Bibi releases a few tons of Palestinian cell-stuffing on the hoof. The ratio? One-thousand to one. And the head-to-head ratio is, of course, only part of the equation for Gilad Schilat has never been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime and although they held him for five years Hamas never made even the pretense of doing so. Couldn’t they have had a secret though publicized trial? Certainly they claim that Israel as a nation and the jew as a people are guilty of daily, horrendous crimes. Those claims have not proven too viable however. The “death” of Mohammed al-Dura, the Jenin Massacre as well as many lesser Massacres, the death of American Rachel Cory…. all have been floated as their day’s Original Sin of Zionism. Each has proven to be fraudulent as do the claims of indiscriminate killing always prove to be, on the odd occasion when Israel is driven by bomb attacks to go into the hostile arab marketplace and shoot back at those they can be confident are doing the shooting. And this figures only the military account. Israel feeds Gaza and the West Bank. They water them. They provide electrical power and other commodities. They make direct cash payments to the supposed “governments” of these spits of sand and direct cash payments to many ordinary people there for various reasons. So on all aspects, it is the Palestinian account that is overdrawn but that is unmentionable. The Schalit bargain was a naked one and a poor one; an eye for a thousand eyes, rounded UP. Netenyahu can be derided as many things but rarely a fool and never a coward. Clearly he feels this to have been the best outcome one could hope for, factoring in all the lessons learned and unlearned by all sides. He has earned the trust of his nation and his supporters outside his nation but also are we responsible to look, unblinking, at the facts.

The arabs’ bounty is as culpable as Schalit is innocent. Yes, some of these prisoners have been held, not as criminal defendants or even prisoners of war but rather as national security detainees, much as the Obama Administration holds our enemies overseas and at Guantanamo Bay. Mostly they have been convicted in military tribunals much like we employ ourselves but their guilt is not at issue. They boast of their murders or aid to murderers and pledge to continue. In many cases it is all in the family. On the arab street nothing is more laudable or more salable than martyrdom and we are not talking necessarily about death. The arab prisoner swap contains many, many fellows and ladies who came to die with the jews but somehow failed. Not that they didn’t kill jews and israeli arabs; some did and some didn’t. We have in this group some with fizzled bomb-belts, some who committed gunfire attacks, some who constructed or trafficked in bombs and other weapons. We have knife-attackers from bus raids. We have bomb-mules and designers. Nearly every swapped prisoner was serving a life sentence and many, like those involved in the Sbarro bombing, were serving a dozen or more life sentences; one for each victim. That is some tough sentencing there, isn’t it? But whether the jews order their prisoners incarcerated for life or for sixteen lives is quaintly Quixotic. The arab killers have but one life to give and it is pledged either to allah or the arab people for the secularists. They laugh at the jewish state that pretends to take what only god can give. For the jew it is all the same though because each pledge demands jew murder and each will be satisfied with jew murder. And as we see today, a life sentence is nothing to get too upset about. If one is not, dozens are not either. There is life after a life sentence. Be certain that on the outside your brothers are working to free you; to reward your families in your absence and above all, know that your status, the fame of your name, the fortunes of your sons and daughters only rise with each hour you spend in the belly of the Zionist Entity. Such are the appeals of even botched jihad.

The prisoners return to their hero’s welcome. There is dancing in the streets as there always is after a big victory, as we saw at 911. In Israel Schalit returns quietly to his home. Even the simplest child knows this is not the end. What have the arabs learned? They have learned that taking hostages; the oldest of trade between civilization and its lack, is not only profitable but nearly risk free. Hamas did this deed openly. Yet was Hamas wiped from the streets of Gaza as Israel seems to have the ability to do? That would be a no. Did Israel cut off their explicit aid to precincts under Hamas control? No. Did Israel at least after this bundling-run begin to reply in kind and proportion to the daily attacks launched at her from Hamas-controlled Gaza? No. While Netanyahu negotiated through a deteriorating Egypt trying to get some of the worst nasties off of Hamas’ Chrismas List the Schalit family Occupied Tel Aviv, agitating AT BIBI! Well, occupying Gaza would have been impractical. One can only marvel at the unseriousness on display. Is Netanyahu an exponent or a victim of this meme? Hopefully it is the later and that old biblical cunning allied with the marvels of electronic society (which the jews excel at) are keeping these once and future killers under tight scrutiny. We trust that this deal in which the wily jew seems to have been so outmaneuvered will prove to have hidden codicils and consequences that redound to Israel’s longer-term benefit. Or it could well be that Netanyahu sees that the old order, to the extent it existed, is crumbling no matter what. A starving Egypt is about to overflow her borders and that flow will find the greenest pastures which it will lay waste instantly. The neighboring tyrants, once a pish-pash of the islamist and the secular are quick becoming solely the former and far less reasonable on the matter of jewish babies drawing breath. The Arab Spring has sprung and all the scare stories from the Kissingers are coming true at a brisk pace. Mubarak and Assad and even Khaddaffy were, after all, doing what they said; keeping the lid on a devastating chaos. But cozying with Khaddaffy, even if it were palatable is of no benefit now. The only way this deal with the arab flesh market reveals Bibi to be neither dunce nor coward is if the infusion of a thousand screaming, proven murderers back into the stalls and mosques surrounding Israel is no more than a drop in a slopping bucket that will inevitably (and quickly) tip over. Getting rid of the actual prisoners and gaining the modest, transitory diplomatic benefits make sense only if even worse, even larger events are on the horizon and visibly approaching. Bibi may yet get to wink at the arab traders, showing them that finally, yes, they did get the worst of the deal. But that can only happen from the middle of one hell of a mess.

Duck Season couldn’t last forever, now it is Wabbit Season. We are on the hunt following the scent of money. Of course if we really COULD sniff out greenbacks we wouldn’t have to be out hunting but we are, searching for, as the plaintiff chants have it, our cars, our homes, our money, our jobs. They have been stolen. Well, if they haven’t been stolen at least they are not where we left them. Or where we want them. Good enough. If there has been a theft there must be a thief. The roving two-headed momba troll, Cornell Smiley is turfing over the land looking for someone to cuff up. Now, they can’t say what crime might have been committed and if they are asked just who did the committing, again, they cannot respond with a name or two but just a vague description of C. Montgomery Byrnes. It so happens that their tormentor does have at least one particular fellow in the stocks but Tavis and West are having none of that. Their response is instant and unequivocal…. Now, why you wanna hassle a brother?

The fellow chased down the street by the devil’s own flunky is one Stan O’Neal, not a famous name in most circles but still a man of great wealth and accomplishment who happened to be the biggest bundler of mortgage backed credit default swaps in that lurid business. His prominence in his game got him a solid mid-field position among the most culpable blokes, just after W. Who comes right after Clinton. But we can’t mention that, can we? No. Why? Because he is black.

I know that is not a very black name, Stan O’Neal, but he claims two black parents and a slave grandfather. Reportedly he took diction lessons to correct his southern accent which distinguishes him from our President, who takes lessons to contrive one. By any measure (except the name) Stan is at least as Black as Barack so if any gripes aimed at Obama are racist then clearly Stan enjoys the same assumption. And it’s working out well, for Stan at any rate. Merrill Lynch saw him off with the customary golden parachute and although he oversaw massive losses for Merrill and inseparably infected their balance sheet with some seriously troubled assets, he sits today on some $200m in dirty, dirty. Well gee, I’m not the one calling for scapegoats but if you were looking for one, old Stan sure fits the bill. Except of course for the casting. Not only was Stan an ordinary high corporate flier of the type Forbes likes to have on its cover, he was also a walking, talking human interest story. On a much smaller scale he was, much like Obama, proof for those who sought it that America is NOT the racist, repressive stinkhole that so many of our citizens seem to believe it is. No doubt this was at times an unfair and unwanted burden on Mr. O’Neal but it has also confered benefits that, if they are unwanted, are still exploited.

It is the rare and lucky fellow indeed who can walk away wordlessly from a harrying reporter. For most public figures that is the one sure way to turn that single crow into a swirling murder. That has not happened to Mr. O’Neal. It seems no one wants to peer too closely at what was yesterday’s parable of racial uplift. In addition to his legal and possibly proper golden parachute he deploys a chocolate parachute which is certainly legal but still wrong, wrong, wrong.

Mr. O’Neal is not the only beneficiary of the chocolate parachute. Herman Cain has been dangling from one for many a year. He also was and sometimes still is an example of improved racial circumstances due to his rise to the highest levels of business, society and politics. Even some sour Republicans have gotten the swoon of electing either our Third Black President or our First All-Black President, depending on how you count, but that is a foolish indulgence. If the nation at large elected one fellow to prove the nation is not racist, and that has not been availing, is it then wise for a party to IMMEDIATELY elect a certain fellow to prove their PARTY is not racist? It’s tempting but shallow if not hostile to the principles we claim to promote. Still Mr. Cain is held from the muddy earth by his chocolate parachute. What other candidate has been so hash-mouthed as Cain? Who else could nationally denounce the hysteria behind “global warnin’!” and not be hooted back to their car? Who else could assert that his opponents are “brainwashed” and double down without saying it was metaphorical, a figure of speach or a hasty overstatement? He can hector away questions or confusions like Aunt Esther denouncing Fred Sanford as a fish-eyed foo’ and no one dares say, what the hell?

And the chocolate parachute is not simply an aid to safety; it is also a weapon of entanglement and diversion. Poor Rick Perry finds himself trapped in the silky brown folds. He should never have gone to Crackerhead Shoals. Or if he did he should have burned the cabin to the ground like Jermiah Johnson. Of course that would still leave the offending rock. Well, leave it to that heir of one of the inventors of the chocolate parachute to help out Governor Scarecrow. Jesse Jackson Junior, the senior of many juniors, introduced instructions for Perry as a Bill in the House. All he needs is a time machine, a means to destroy 400 pounds of gneiss and someone impartial to document the deed. The resolution further states that Perry should “condemn the use of this word as being totally offensive and inappropriate at anytime and anyplace in United States history,” which Jackson surely does whenever he hobnobs with Jay-Z, Chris Rock or Whoopi. But that is the chocolate parachute for you, it only works when open, and not for everyone.

The skies are filled with chocolate parachutes. Another prominent paratrooper is Franklin Raines. He was not the only malefactor there, perhaps not even the chief one but the other plausible candidate has deployed a pink parachute, modeled on the chocolate one and it is holding up so far. Raines is a pretty good prospect for burning at the stake though, if you are building a pyre on your public square. If only he were the right color. Locally we have an expert chocolate parachutist in the person of one Beverly Hall. The Georgia schools cheating scandal may not have bruised your little ears but you can bet it is emblematic of what is going on in many a school district in the land, and if it isn’t yet it will be because the person most responsible WHILE the decades of cheating were going on has been wildly rewarded with accumulated bonuses near $600k. It was a shock to black talk show hosts Frank and Wanda that their callers defended Ms Hall in the bitterest terms and denounced bonafide sister, Monica Kaufman for tracking Hall to Hawaii to answer some questions!

So there is some unequal coverage beneath the chocolate parachute. Trusted newsy Monica gets some of the black slapped off of her when she is messing with a sister’s loot. Even though the issue; the crimes really, were against thousands and thousands of children. Children. Mostly black. Yeah, like the golden parachutes on which their design is based, the chocolate parachute is a fickle and uncertain shelter. It is somewhat less useful in intra-race disputes like this one. It provided some coverage but got entangled when Barack Obama and Maxine Waters butted heads over just who was wearing bedroom slippers and who marching boots. But a favorable breeze puffed the canopy back up when people wondered, where shall we march? and the answer came, anywhere but the White House. Who could forget Jesse Jackson Classic’s threat to castrate the President on a national open mic? Anyone without a chocolate parachute would have hit the dirt hard from that one. Prof West and Mr Smiley seem to rend at the fabric of the chocolate parachute when they denounce that the Justice Department has not investigated the crimes of the financial meltdown but we see that they are just slapfighting when we recall the identity (and hue) of both the Attorney General and the President.

Besides, who are they going to find? If they pass on O’Neal and Raines anyone else that could be strung up is going to point back at those hucksters, claim unjust prosecution and be dead-bang right so the protection of the chocolate parachute devolves to the protection of everyone under the fellows under the fluttering silk. Even the damned Republicans! There are only two solutions; one is parachutes for everyone, not practical. The other is parachutes for none. Follow the facts where they lead and let the chips fall where they may, to neither harry nor protect anyone based on the color of their skin; their personal biography or who they are sleeping with. Is this possible? Because if it is not, those who pack and rely on chocolate parachutes will see ivory parachutes in answer and if you think that has already happened, well friends, just you wait.

And here, a bonus video that cropped up in my research.

An embarrassing story has erupted around the President who now, more than any President in memory, must conduct himself as a candidate if he wishes at all for another term, or perhaps even to fulfill the balance of one. Indeed, he declares himself the underdog and the outsider, an astonishing gambit for an incumbent three-fourths through his mandate. It implies that not only did Mr Obama “inherit” nothing but disaster, he also has not yet gotten the dustpan out. Through no fault of his own. That strategy may thrive or perish on its own merits but a sticky bit of a distant past threatens to stain the Executive Threads. By now everyone has heard the story. Obama’s grandparents, the Dunhams, for many years rented a remote patch of land off of Lake Verret, Louisianna, just north of New Orleans. Here they retired many autumns to camp, fish and sometimes shoot fowl as a family. The name of this vacant place on the map, as you have all heard, is Cr@#&$%head Shoals.

The poll-dancers explain that this is a dreadful time for such a thing to come to light. As the President struggles to hold on to the African-American vote and the explicitly Liberal vote at the same time, even more is he losing support from the White demographic. Fairly or not, the Cr@#&$%head controversy feeds previously held suspicion that perhaps the First Half-White President was, after all, not that into them. The details of the story seem exculpatory though. For decades this flat patch by a fresh stream had been marked with a large wooden sign. Cr@#&$%head Shoals, it said in blaring letters. It seems at one point the young Barack, perhaps encouraged in his habit of race-blindness by his studies at Columbia, asked if the sign could not be gotten rid of. Grandpa Dunham compromised, painting over the offensive characters but that old paint proved stubborn as it wore through over a couple seasons. So the close reader or forensic examiner could still make out Cr@#&$%head. In any case no alternate name was ever decided on. Years later still the sign blew down on its own, face up. The President says that when he saw this, he turned it face down. No corroboration has been found but fair Americans will probably take him at his word.

Actually there is ONE corroborating fact to the President’s story. The sign was indeed found to be face down and to have been so for years. We know because the Washington Post detailed a crew to go out to Cr@#&$%head Shoals to investigate. They found the sign, painted over and face down but were able to discern the word Cr@#&$%head, probably because the original racist used oil based paint with lead. Tough stuff. We take all this from the reportage though since photos were deemed, like Osama’s last pics, to be too inflammatory for public consumption. Even a faint and ruined spelling of Cr@#&$%head is far too much for our sensibilities.

Simply brushing the story and its implications off has not proven practical though the President’s press allies have tried their best. Cr@#&$%headgate lives almost solely on Fox and other purveyors of anti-Obamunism. The bigs like the big city papers and the alphabet networks have not covered it but there is only so much not covering one can do. And the alternative topics of Fast and Furious or Solyndra or Israel and the Middle East or the economy or nearly anything but sports; these are also detrimental to the President’s image so the benefit is muted. It has likewise proven inadequate to say, first, that neither the President nor his family had anything to do with naming the place. Any local could tell you that Cr@#&$%head Shoals was named quite simply; where the cow ranchers came to sell their herds was this intersection of trails by the lake, this was the Head. Once sold to transporters the cows were driven off with whips by fellows known as whipcr@#&$%s as commonly as the western herd riders were known as cowboys. The Shoals were above this place where the lake was good for watering livestock at a place where it was good for catching fish. Simple facts though are no defense when the game is Race Card, as the President is sadly learning.

Whatever the origin of the name, it is still Cr@#&$%head. And anyone alive in the modern world knows this is a low, racial slur. The question is, why was it that a young man who is now President thought so little of this casual racism as to let it go on for years without complaint? Only he did complain. The papers reflect that. What he failed to do, evidently, is organize a candle-light vigil and boycott against his grandfather, or perhaps their landlord. Some civil disobedience might have been called for but somehow it seems unlikely that the Rainbow/PUSH coalition of 1988 would have been up for that struggle. Local Rotary Clubs and 4-Hs likewise would have been deaf to Obama’s righteous outrage, though he is, as everyone admits, substantially white. None of that occurred or was even attempted. Instead there were decades of malign indifference wherein the Dunham clan descended on Cr@#&$%head Shoals several times a year, devouring all the fish they could catch and no doubt repeating the location of their frontier cabin in sly tones of innuendo.

That is how the President’s opponents frame things, certainly. And that is their prerogative. This seems to be a stunning event for the President and his people, however. These pros and cons have enjoyed an amazing power among the press and the population to dispose of race, crime and competence scandals by the bucketload which has only just failed. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers might as well have been fictional characters for all that their odium has tainted the President. Black Panthers in full regalia whapping batons into their hands at the very entrance to the polls, this was also of no matter though the President embraced them warmly once. Or twice. ACORN, which the Obama of yesteryear declared was his very political soul, also has been dis-embraced and no mark of their convictions for vote fraud or exposure as pimp-doctors is anywhere on the White House carpet. Now a worm-eaten bit of plywood from the silent movie era is the flea that chokes the elephant. Or donkey in this case. It is a baffling state of affairs but in politics the breach is exploited no matter why it appears. None know this better than former President Bill Clinton. No doubt the most painful element of this for Obama is Bill’s opportunistic lip biting denunciation; “No, I don’t believe that the President is racist. Not at all, although he did play the race card on me in South Carolina. But this sort of insensitivity is harmful to the office, harmful to our party and harmful to the nation. I really wish he would take that sign down. He took it down? Okay, well I wish he had done it sooner and further wish that he had publicized the event as a ‘teachable moment’ on race. Because that is really what we need, more moments and more teaching and less racism.”

At this point Team O is in a hunker. No other course seems wise. Perhaps this will blow over, driven from the news by a global debt explosion, war out east or down south or the collapse of our domestic currency. You never know. But in the meantime the controversy swells and the buzzards circle. Republican frontrunner and Texas Governor Rick Perry says of Cr@#&$%headgate, “It’s a dang disgrace.”