You Don't Know...Anything...

I think it's safe to say this has been the worst week in Obama's presidency. I'm sure he didn't expect anyone else besides Fox News to care about Benghazi, and the DOJ isn't doing him any favors. But the IRS. For several years, they've been targeting conservative and Tea Party organizations by making the process to obtain 501(c)(3) and (4) status hell. Yesterday, the Ways and Means Committee held a hearing where the Outgoing IRS Commissioner, Steven Miller, and the Inspector General, J. Russell George, gave testimony. Well...Mr. George gave testimony to the best of his ability. Miller had a case of Obamanesia. I don't know. I can't recall. I can't speak to. I don't remember.

Earlier this week Obama expressed his "outrage" after he caught himself up on the situation because, as he and his people claim, he found out about it from news reports like everyone else. He accepted Steven Miller's resignation and senators and congress people called it a "good first step." The only problem is he was the ACTING commissioner and he was leaving that post in a few week anyway. Plus, he's keeping his benefits and his pension. Another guy who is resigning had only been at his post for eight days. It's not a first step at all, it's a stall. Obama is a creature of habit. When shit hits the fan, he doesn't think it through, he just does something quick to calm the storm. He lets an schmuck "fall on the sword." He blames a video. He lets someone whose "I don't know" answers are almost reasonable take the fall. "Almost" being the keyword. When asked if he knew who was responsible, he said he was told but didn't remember. Most of what he said were lies or carefully worded answers to avoid perjury. He was the wrong person to question. The best person to ask is the low-level employee with nothing to lose or fear. He exists, he just needs to be found.

And I question Obama's outrage. Not because I'm republican or conservative or I have slight Tea Party tendencies, but because I'm an American. It is my job to be skeptical. Obama's focus seems to be restoring the IRS's reputation. He hasn't expressed any remorse or sympathy for the organizations who were discriminated against or the individuals who were targeted by the IRS and other government agencies because they gave money to Mitt Romney and other Republicans. I'm also supposed to believe the that he didn't know about this until last Friday when the rest of the country found out. The IRS confessed to the scandal at an ABA conference after someone asked a question. We later learned fromt Mr. Miller that the question was planted. Are you telling me that the IRS planned to confess to something that could damage the President and they didn't tell him first? We learned from Mr. George that he informed the Deputy Treasury Secretary, Neal S. Wolin, last June, five months before the election. One can assume the Deputy told the Treasury Secretary. But no one told the President the IRS was being audited? In an election year? No one told him that the Republicans could potentially use it against him if it came out? According to Jay Carney, the White House Counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, found out the week of April 22nd. She didn't tell the President? It's her JOB to inform him of legal issues. Why does she still have a job? It's not like this came out of the blue, Tea Party Patriots have been complaining about this since 2010. If he gets his info from the news, he must have known about the complaints. It never occurred to him to look into it?

This extends beyond conservatives. Billy and Franklin Graham were targeted. A pro-life organization was asked about the contents of their prayers and what kind of signs they hold outside Planned Parenthood. The IRS gave the Human Rights Campaign confidential tax info from the Organization for Marriage. The IRS was used as a weapon. A low-level employee can't do that. Let's be frank: you have to be outside your damn mind to honestly believe Obama didn't know about this. If he didn't know, then what is he good for? Hillary Clinton didn't know what was going on in the State Department. Eric Holder doesn't know what's going on at the DOJ. Steven Miller didn't know what was going on at the IRS. Unless Fox News reports it, Obama doesn't know what's going on anywhere. But I don't believe that. I don't know what connection Obama had to this, but he's not innocent. The IRS isn't an independent organization or quasi-independent. It's a part of the Treasury, which is a part of the Executive Branch. Who is the boss of the Executive Branch? Barack Obama. Mr. Wolin wasn't hired by the Treasury Secretary. He was appointed by the President. Doug Shulman, who preceded Steven Miller, was appointed by George W. Bush, but that is irrelevant. Bush isn't his boss anymore. Obama campaigned to be responsible for Shulman. Who appointed his successor, Steven Miller? Obama. Obama claiming ignorance is his way to avoid responsibility, but it makes him every more responsible because it means he wasn't doing his job. Ultimately, Obama encouraged and inspired this behavior. He set a tone of division and envy and fear. He turned the Tea Party into the big bad wolf, making it acceptable for them to be treated this way.

If he was outraged and honest, Ruemmler would be out of the job and he would be calling on Sarah Hall Ingram, whoever she is, to testify before Congress. Instead, he's biding his time. Why? Hearings will resume Monday, which is good because we have more questions than answers.

Lights, Camera, Action!

I work at a book store, and yesterday I was setting the top shelves for Black History Month for adults and kids. Top shelves are the one or two top shelves in a section that might have buyer or company recommended books or a publisher may purchase that space to highlight their stuff. I'm not a big fan of Black History Month, if I'm being honest. It's not that I think it's pointless or unfair. Americans, black children in particular, need to know the impact blacks have had on this country because I don't think black kids know they're worth. I don't like Black History month because it's the same old boring stuff every year: MLK, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, or Harriet Tubman. These are important people and we should continue learning about them, but there are more black people in our history than these four. There's more to black people than slavery or the civil rights movement.

If you ever take a film class, whether it's history or appreciation, there are three films you are guaranteed to watch in part or in whole: Citizen Kane, Stagecoach, and Birth of a Nation. Directed by D.W. Griffith in 1915, Birth of a Nation is as three-hour black and white silent controversy that portrays black men as sexual deviants and the KKK as heroes on horseback. I'm lucky; I had to watch the entire thing my freshman year. While the subject is deplorably hilarious and offensive, I loved it. I'm a film nerd; the progression of film over the last 100 years, which isn't very long for any industry, blows my mind, and Birth of a Nation was not only ahead of it's time, but it set the basis for the modern feature film. What does this have to with Black History? Naturally, the film spawned outrage. Cities banned it and the NAACP, just a few years old at this point, protested. One man responded in a different way.

Though he denied it, many believe Oscar Devereaux Micheaux's Within Our Gates is a response to D.W. Griffith's film. Released in 1920, it centers around a woman who travels to the North to raise money for a southern school for poor black kids. She falls in love with a black doctor, naturally causing problems, but it's later discovered she is of mixed race. Born in Illinois and one of thirteen, he wrote seven novels and directed at least forty-four films between 1919 and 1948. Though he never received an Academy Award, he did receive a special award from the Directors Guild of America in 1989 and the Producers Guild of America named an award after him. His films and novels centered around blacks wanting to better themselves and racial tension in America. He had a hard time getting past censors because of his portrayal of lynching in his films and they feared it would spark riots.

Did I mention he was black? Yes, black people were making films in 1919 before Gordon Parks, before Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing and Tyler Perry's mediocre box office boom. Black people were making what were called "race films" starting around 1910 to counter Jim Crow and negative stereotypes, but it was Within our Gates that set it off. D.W. Griffith used white men in black face in Birth of a Nation. Micheaux employed black actors and black crew memebers - he created stars. He was a fearless director using themes and subject matters he knew would make his audience, black and white, uncomfortable. His goal was to educate the masses and empower black Amereicans.

I had never heard of Oscar Micheaux until my freshman year of college when we watched a documentary about Birth of a Nation. Why is that? Before Rosa Parks sat down, before Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, Oscar Micheaux was telling black people, "Yes you can." While Gordon Parks holds title of "First Black Director of a Major Hollywood Studio Film", Oscar Micheaux paved the way as the first black feature film director.

Slavery vs. Illegal Immigration

I don't know if this is the new liberal thing, a way to guilt people into supporting and justifying illegal immigration, but it's a little scary. This guy is the first to say this to me, and I can guarantee you he won't be the last. Just a day or so ago, Democratic Representative Steve Horsford had this to say on the house floor before the Congressional Black Caucus:



February is Black History Month and I can only assume the significance black history plays in our country isn't being taught anymore. The gravity of slavery to the bravery of the civil rights movement, ignorance is spread like wildfire. Slavery, Civil Rights Movement, and Illegal Immigration. What do these three things have in common? A massive amount of ethnic people suffering from one thing or another. That's the extent of their similarities. It's the differences that makes the difference and what makes them different is this tiny little thing called "the law."

As horrible as slavery was, it was legal. It was the law of the land. Men, women, and children were kidnapped by slavers from the Colonies and Europe, enemies from other tribes, and friends. Many were lured with false promises and lies. They were transported like cargo across the Atlantic ocean; many died from disease or at the hands of the crew. A common practice was to chain the slaves together in a line with something heavy in front. They would drop that heavy something in the water and one by one the chained slaves would slide into the ocean. Those who survived the trip were brought to the islands and to the states as slaves. Three hundred years later, Abraham Lincoln and the war happened, and they were granted their freedom. That's American Slavery.

An illegal immigrant is someone who chooses to come here whether by boat smugglers, forged papers, crossing the border, or staying once their VISA expires. Children who are also illegal, brought here as kids by no fault of their own, have schooling and college issues, and many of them don't know why until they're older. Many illegal immigrants come here while their pregnant and give birth to American citizens, anchor babies.

The keyword here is choice. Africans were BROUGHT here, stolen from their home, under an evil, legal system. Illegal aliens chopse to commit a crime and their children suffer the consequences of their actions. Congressman Horsford compared immigration reform to the civil rights movement, which doesn't make any sense. Being an American is either a "birth right" or a privilege. It is not a human right or a civil right. The Civil Rights Movement was blacks and whites fighting for equal treatment under the law, not special treatment and a pardon.

You don't have to be a child to be ignorant, you can be a young adult on twitter or a congressman from Nevada. Using slavery and the Civil Rights Movement to evoke sympathy for or to justify a crime is disturbing. It's ignorance at it's best. The congressman is right, many illegal aliens are waiting to start jobs, start businesses, go to college, or use the college degrees they legally shouldn't have gotten. Who's fault is that? It's not the Africans fault for being slaves, but any struggle or fear the illegal alien experiences is because of choices he made, and it's not the American government's job to bail him out.

This guy, DESH, said "OUR ANCESTORS" as if we come from the same people. As far as I know my ancestor on my mother's mother's side, James Butler, was a slave from Barbados who escaped to Georgia. Where he came from before Barbados, we don't know. My mother's father's father is a Native American from Georgia. My father's grandfather immigrated from St. Thomas to New York City, legally. I have sickle cell trait, so someone came from West, Southwest, or Central Africa, Northern Sudan, South America, Saudi Arabia, India, or the Mediterranean. Like many black people, I don't really know where I come from, but I can guarantee you no one on my family tree came to this nation illegally.

Puff and Fluff

Obama revealed today his beginning plans to curb gun violence in our country. To start, he pleaded with congress to pass an "assault weapons" ban and universal background checks. An assault weapons ban didn't work the first time and I don't know any criminals who get guns in a way that forces them to undergo a background check. The guns used in Columbine were illegally obtained and Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, shot his mom then stole her guns and her car. These laws Obama is proposing infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens and make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to practice their constitutional right. Then came the executive orders. Myself and other conservatives were worried about the executive orders and what King Obama would do, but I have to say I was a little relieved...and angry. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it was nothing at all at the same time. You can read all 23 executive orders here, but you should notice what they all have in common: They're pointless.

Obama wants to "launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign," which is what the NRA does. He wants to "clarify" things in Obamacare that are already law, and push federal agents and agencies to push local law enforcement to do things that are already law. He wants to "develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education" which is not a federal problem and never should be, and stuff like this has already been in place since Columbine and Virginia Tech. My favorite is the last one which says, "Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health." I laughed. He wants the CDC to stuff gun violence and prevention, but he didn't mention video games and film.
I have no problem calling people idiots and if you think anything Obama said today would prevent a Columbine, Virginia Tech, or Sandy Hook then you're an idiot. Obama was more intent on blaming Congress for something they haven't done yet than he was on keeping our children safe, but he did use children to get the American people on board with his nonexistent plan. Hitler used children to convince people to give up their rights, too. Obama talked today like he had voters to please, as if he's expecting a third term. Today was a joke and it's a waste of money. Something should be done to stop gun violence, but doing something for the sake of doing something is dangerous.

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! What a year 2012 was and I'm glad it's over. On to bigger and better things and leaving the past behind. The traditional part of moving on with a new year is making New Years Resolutions. The typical is losing weight, praying more, eating better, and all the boring stuff. I don't want to make promises to myself I can't keep or afford, but I love this game. The last time I made a New Years Resolution was a few years ago when I wanted to see 50 movies in theaters, not counting repeats. I believe I saw 75 movies that year. Working at a movie theater helps, so it's not like it was hard. This time I around, I'm working at a bookstore, and I do need to read more. So my New Years Resolution is....drum roll....to read FIFTY BOOKS by December 31, 2013. That's a little over a book a week and about 13 books every three months. It's almost impossible, but I can make it happen. I get 20% off on regular days, 30% off on paydays, plus I can check out books from the store like a library and I have a library card that I actually use. All I need is the motivation. This isn't about the number of books I read or the reading level, it's about discipline and building my confidence. I need to teach myself to stick to things. Picking 50 random books is chaos, so I made a fun little plan:

Three Nicholas Sparks Books

Three Karen Kingsbury Books

Three John Grisham Books

Three James Patterson Books

Two Ann Coulter Book

Three Stephen King Books

The Last Three "A Series of Unfortunate Events" Books

The Mortal Instruments (5 Books)

Three Classics

Three African-American Fiction Books

One Biography/Autobiography
One Shakespeare Play

One Graphic Novel

Three Books that have been adapted into a film

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Ten Books of My Choice

It's a goofy list, but it's not an entirely odd selection. Like I said, this is about discipline. I love Stephen King, but I could care less about Nicholas Sparks. I need to read more Christian Fiction and I don't think I've ever read an African-American fiction novel all the way through, not since I was in middle school. I've been trying to finish ASOUE for years and I need to finish the Millennium and Hunger Games Trilogies. I won an Ann Coulter book through GOProud and I'm excited about it, but Poli-Sci and Social Science books...not my forte. I chose the Mortal Instruments because the movie is coming out this year and I love YA Fiction (don't ask me why). As much as I read, there's no reason for me to have never read a John Grisham or James Patterson novel. I tried to read a comic book when I was seven or eight and it made me sick, so the Graphic Novel is probably going to be the biggest challenge. Overall, it's going to be several steps outside my comfort zone throughout the year, but I'm excited. I've got two Ann Coulter books and the first two Mortal Instruments books ready to go.

Every month on the 13th I'll post an update on my progress. If you're interested in keeping track, I made an account on Goodreads.com. Just go to the "new years resolution" link to see what I've read so far. I hope you take this exciting and nerdy journey with me. Now tell me, what are your New Years Resolutions.

Hypocritical Hollywood Demands a Plan

Unless celebrities are talking about cancer or AIDS, I usually don't listen to a word they say. My first thought is: How can you with your private tutors, private planes, personal chauffeurs, personal stylist, kids you don't raise, and endless bank accounts know what it's like to be an average American? This time they're speaking out against gun violence and for gun control. They don't say gun control in this video, but we know where this is going. Only an out of touch faction of society would say something out of touch. And what ground do these Hollywood celebrities have to speak against violence? Let's look at a few of the people in this video.

• Beyonce is married to a man who thinks he's king of "Gangsta Rap" and she starred in that awful version of Swimfan a few years ago where she fights and kills Ali Larter in the end.
• Michelle Williams' breakout performance was Halloween: H20 and one of her more recent roles was playing Leonardo DiCaprio's wife in Shutter Island where she killed her three kids.
• Jamie Foxx was in Collateral with Tom Cruise and his new film set to release in a few days is Django Unchained in which he kills a bunch of white people. He was also in The Player's Club and Law Abiding Citizen.
• The opening scene of Hannibal, starring Julianne Moore, was a mini-massacre at a fish market. She was also in Children of Men, Eagle Eye, Chloe, and she'll star in the Carrie remake this spring with Chloe Grace Moretz.
• If you've never seen Chris Rock in New Jack City, then you're missing out.
• Jeremy Renner was most recently in Bourne Legacy and Marvel's The Avengers. He was also in Ben Affleck's The Town, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, and the latest installment of the Mission: Impossible movies.
• One of Reece Witherspoon's earliest films was a hilarious number called Freeway where she shoots a man with a gun and bangs a girl's head into the concrete. She also had a small part in American Psycho.
• Do not let Selena Gomez's doe eyes fool you. Her Disney Channel tenure is over and she's set to star in Spring Breakers this coming spring where she and three of her bombshell friends commit armed robbery to fund their spring break trip. At some point she'll start production on 13 Reasons Why, one of the most realistic novels on teen depression/suicide I've ever read.
• While that lame 90s TV show is what made Courtney Cox famous, I'll always love her for her role as the annoying reporter in the Scream films.
• Kate Hudson's resume is mostly adorable, but she was in Skeleton Key and The Killer Inside Me.
• Gwyneth Paltrow played a drunk who commits suicide in Country Strong. She was also in Seven and The Talented Mr. Ripley.
• Brooke Shields was also in Freeway with Reese Witherspoon. If we want to talk about exploitation, she was also in Pretty Baby and Blue Lagoon.
• No matter what Paul Rudd does, he'll always be Creepy Tommy Doyle from Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers to me.

and the stand out, in my opinion:

• Elizabeth Banks. She won the coveted role of Effie Trinket in the The Hunger Games, an adaptation about kids killing kids for sport.

Am I against any of these films? No. Many of them happen to be my favorites and a few I'm looking forward to. One of the first movies I remember seeing in theaters was one of the Child's Play movies. My favorite film since I was seven-years-old is a crappy sci-fi flick about alien kids who kill most of their town. Violent and scary films are apart of my childhood. My point is how can you advocate for an end to gun violence when you profit off of violence and you depend on the public finding their joy in artificial bloodshed. It's hypocritical. I don't believe there is a link between mass killings and violent films, but I do believe that violent films fuel our culture's obsession with violence. Movies are bloodier, the body count is higher, and the acting still sucks. I do believe there should be a plan to address violence in our culture, but I'm not following the advice of Selena Gomez who is set to a wield a gun in her next film, or Elizabeth Banks who will be walking the red carpet next November for Catching Fire. We can't fix these problems when we refuse to take responsibility for whatever impact we may have, and Hollywood is the next to the last resort if we run out of options. Tell me: How can Jamie Foxx complain about guns and violence in our culture and promote his soon to be Oscar-nominated bloodbath at the same time?

Stigmas and Rifles and Evil, Oh My!

Five days have passed since twenty children and six adults were gunned down in Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. We probably haven't had enough time to wrap our heads around it and grieve, but the conversations have begun and we have to engage. What can we do to prevent this from happening again? I stressed already the importance of the second amendment and why a repeal is not up for discussion, now let's talk about prevention. I've been watching the news, reading blogs and twitter conversations and I see us making the same mistakes we make every time this happens.

First off, we need to stop blaming everything but the killer. The guns didn't make him do it, video games didn't make him do it, what ever mental illness he may or may not have had didn't make him do it, and his mother didn't make him do it. Yes, video games and movies have an impact on impressionable minds, but people make choices. Autism isn't a mental illness and it's not linked to this kind of violence, and while he had issues, we don't know what kind of issues. They didn't find any prescription drugs and we don't know if he was seeing a therapist. He may not have had a mental disorder, for all we know. He shot his mother in the face four times while she was sleeping. The question isn't what was wrong with him, but what was he angry about? While the last few mass murderers had depression or schizophrenia, we need to stop assuming mental illness is the problem because as a society we're very ignorant when it comes to mental illness. Sean Hannity on his Fox News show asked Joel Osteen if there was a difference between mental illness and evil. What kind of question is that?

We need to stop blaming other people for this young man's actions. We obviously didn't learn from Tucson when dumb liberals blamed Sarah Palin for the actions of an apolitical unmedicated schizophrenic. The NRA didn't tell Adam Lanza to shoot those kids, they didn't give him the guns to do it, nor do they advocate for this kind of behavior. Personal responsibility is an endangered species in our culture. It's almost like it's painful for us to admit that Adam Lanza made a choice, which brings me to my next point. We need to stop refusing to talk about the killer. Calling him a freak or any name or refusing to say his name is stupid. He's not Voldemort. It is important to memorialize the ones who died, but remembering the victims won't prevent this from happening again. The next Adam Lanza, and there will be a next one, doesn't care about his victims like we do. We need to remember Adam Lanza. It's always the same kind of kid: loner, socially awkward, angry, withdrawn, sad. In life we dismiss them and we do the same in death and the cycle just continues. We need to get know him, get to know his struggle, and only then can we recognize those characteristics in someone else or ourselves.

We need to stop acting with our emotions and think with logic. Adam Lanza acted with his emotions and people died. Calling for gun control or a ban on guns is done so out of emotion. Logical people know that gun control is not a logical option because it doesn't work. The kind of gun control liberals want would take guns away from law abiding citizens leaving them vulnerable to criminals who don't care about the law. James Holmes could have gone to any movie theater in Aurora, but he chose the only theater that was a gun free zone. What else constitutes a gun free zone? High schools, elementary schools, college campuses, post offices. It's no coincidence mass murderers pick gun free zones. We've done an assault weapons ban before in 1994. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris got the guns they used for Columbine illegally, and that was 1999. Adam Lanza tried to purchase a gun legally, but didn't want to do the waiting period so he took his mother's guns and killed her. Timothy McVeigh didn't use a gun when he bombed that building in Oklahoma City. He used fertilizer. The point I'm making is that where there's a will there's a way, and there's no law in existence or waiting in a congressman's brain that can stop that kind of determination.

We need to accept the existence of evil. I believe that our blaming video games and the NRA is our way, consciously or subconsciously, to keep from acknowledging that Adam Lanza is human and he made a conscious choice, despite whatever disabilities he may have had, to kill children. No one wants to believe that kind of evil exists, but it does. Acknowledging the existence of evil would force us to admit our own helplessness because, truthfully, there's very little we can do to prevent something like this from happening. All we can do is recognize the signs before people snap and put measures in place to prevent as much damage as possible. It is ignorant to think the President's signature on a bill would stop something like this from happening again, so we need to prepare for it.

We have got to educate people and ourselves on mental illness. What I have been hearing from liberals and conservatives alike the last few days is scary. Disarming the mentally ill is a bad idea. Do I need to explain the significance of the second amendment again? People with mental problems want to live normal lives, not be controlled by bureaucrats.  There are plenty of people who suffer from depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia and they own guns and they're not shooting people or themselves. This stigma and stereotype that mentally ill people are off kilter and waiting to explode needs to stop and it's only going to lead to harmful policies against the mentally ill.

Lastly, our culture has to change, and I'm not talking about video games and movies. We need to stop supporting organizations that push our kids to keep secrets from their parents (I'm looking at you, Planned Parenthood). We need to promote the importance of fatherhood and a two-parent home. Anti-bully movements are pointless if we don't teach our kids to show compassion for potential victims of bullying. We talk way too damn much and we need to start listening. A lot of these kids just want to be heard and feel like their problems matter. We need to support parents who have children with anti-social mental disorders and developmental disorders. We need to do more than educate our kids, we need to give them hope for a future. Most importantly, we can't fight evil if we push God to the side.

We make these same mistakes every single time, and then we scream, "Why does this keep happening!?" What can be done can't be done through our government; our communities and churches have to step up. These are our schools, our children, and our family members. Our responsibility. Looking to government to take care of us when we can do it ourselves will cause more harm than good. No one is going to care about your personal safety, or your mental health, more than you do. Writing and debating legislation that isn't going to do any good is a waste of time and money. If we want to avoid these situations, we have to educate ourselves and avoid stigmas and stereotypes, and act with our brains. Most importantly we need to remember God and remember the evil that causes this in the first place.

Our God-Given Rights in the Second

This past Friday, a young man named Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother while she was still in her pajamas. He stole her car and her guns and drove to an elementary school and killed twenty children and six adults. Words cannot describe it and there are too many questions to answer. The first question is, "Why?" We may never know why, and that's something we'll have to accept. It's human nature to think about the what ifs and the could have beens and what could we have dones. We can't change the past, and we can't bring those children back. We can only move forward and try to prevent this from happening again. As always, whenever there's a mass shooting you hear two things, mainly from liberals: gun control and the second amendment. Who needs an AR-15? Guns are just designed to kill people. Those kids wouldn't have died if guns were banned. Repeal the 2nd Amendment! I've had a lot to think about over the last few days and I think I'm ready to put my thoughts into paragraphs instead of tweets. I want to talk about gun control and mental health and what we can do to prevent this from happening, but we need to cover the basics. Why do have a second amendment, and why is it so important? Yes, let's start there.

The Second Amendment of the Constitution says:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The courts have long decided that this means we as individuals, states, and municipalities have the right to bear arms. Our government is not some free for all where they can do whatever they want without consequence. They have boundaries. The Constitution is the government's cage and the second amendment is the key. Many people will say the first amendment is the most essential and what makes us unique, and they may be right, but without the second amendment, we don't have a nation. Coming up with our government wasn't an overnight job, it took days and countless debate and for good reason. Our founding fathers wanted a free nation not subject to a tyrannical monarchy. In layman's terms, the first two amendments read like this:

1. We the people can say and believe whatever we want,
2. and I dare you to do something about it.

The Constitution is not for us. We have a God-given right to defend ourselves and our families, and the Constitution reminds the government they cannot infringe on these God-given rights...or there will be consequences. The second amendment is that consequence. An armed public is a scary public no government will touch. Why not repeal the second amendment, take away all guns in an attempt to make us safer. Let's look at the history of gun control:

• The Soviet Union banned guns in 1929, and 20 million people who opposed were executed over the next twenty-four years.
• China banned guns in 1935. 20 million people died between 1948 and 1953.
• The Ugandan dictator banned guns in 1970, and then had 300,000 Christians killed between then and 1979.
• In 1938, the German dictator Adolf Hitler established gun control, banning Jews from owning guns. Do I need to tell you what happened next?

The keyword in "gun control" is control. Gun control is about controlling the masses, not public safety. If it happened in Europe, Asia, and Africa then it can most definitely happen here. Bad things happen to the people when the people are unable to defend themselves from government. That's a historical fact. Taking away the right to bear arms is the first step of any dictatorship. No guns means the people can't rise up and overthrow them. That's why we have a second amendment, to remind our government that the people have the God-given right to rise up and raise hell. The second amendment is a deterrence to keep the government from becoming the King we left behind. We lose the second amendment, then we lose our freedom and this great nation.

In times of tragedy, it's natural to say rash things but when they're repeated over and over again it just sounds stupid. An honest debate needs to be had, but touching the second amendment in any way is out of the question. Police, firefighters, and the military are as far as the government should ever go in protecting the people. Anything else is our problem. It is our job to protect our families, our children. It is our job to teach our children compassion, empathy, and love. God gives us our right and we take them for granted and we need to start taking personal responsibility. And when it comes to our schools, public and private, that push needs to come from us so that we're in control. The last thing we need to do is give the government more power than what is guaranteed in the Constitution.

Obama and the Lying Liar

Unfortunately, my job kept me from watching Obama's first press conference in eight months, but I heard it was the same old duck and dodge. The media threw him softball questions and no follow ups. Their love affair with Obama is sickening and a betrayal. What really upset me was no one called Obama out after he said this:




"As I said before," he says. The problem with that is he never said before. One of the biggest questions regarding the cover-up is why did Susan Rice go on five Sunday talk shows and lie. Obama sticking his foot in his mouth was the first time ANYONE answered that question. Now we know: Susan Rice was sent by the White House. He says this as if he's been so forthcoming about Benghazi, but he clams up and dodges the question (or lies) whenever someone brings up the subject. Senators and Congressmen have been trying to get the truth out of Obama since it happened and he's been hiding.

Later he says, "But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous." If Susan Rice had nothing to do with Benghazi then why the hell did they send her? She's the ambassador to the United Nations, not Libya. We don't need to see her face, ever. She doesn't have anything to do with the security failures, or anything Benghazi related, but they threw her into the middle of the situation anyway. Why? "Based on intelligence that she had received," he says, but we know that's bullshit. We know that they knew from the jump that it was an organized terrorist attack and not a spontaneous demonstration. We know that they knew within 48 hours that it was Al Qaeda related. And if the CIA told her it was because of the video despite what they knew the day of and the day after, then they lied to her because....? So we have new questions:

1. Why did the Barack Obama send her to lie to the American people?
2. How many people said "No!" before they got to her?

He then accuses the GOP of "going after" Rice because she's an easy target and they should go after him instead. What a manipulative douchebag. Is Susan Rice so incompetent or so desperate for a cabinet position she can't think for herself or ask her own questions? Is she a robot? An invalid who can't speak for herself but needs Big Daddy Obama to throw weak punches for her? I understand accountability is a hard concept for him to grasp, since he doesn't know how to take responsibility for his own actions, but let's get serious. The GOP has been blaming Obama for this since he started pushing the video, so I'm not sure what Jupiter-sized rock he's been living under. Either way, Susan Rice lied. She went on FIVE Sunday talk shows and lied to the American people; she doesn't get a pass for that. Truthfully, I want her head for it. I don't appreciate her trying to play me for a fool. If she knocked on my front door, I would call her a liar to her face. Any criticism she gets is not only well-deserved, but it's all Obama's fault. He did this to her, not Senator Graham and not Senator McCain. He sent her out into the world to deliver a lie hoping the American people would buy it. He put a target on her back and she wants to represent him as Secretary of State? What kind of backwards battered wife syndrome hot mess is this?

In the middle of his ducking and dodging, Obama says this:

"And you know, we’re after an election now. I think it is important for us to find out exactly what happened in Benghazi, and I’m happy to cooperate in any ways that Congress wants."

Everything you need to know about Obama is in those two sentences, and you're a lost cause if you don't get it. We have been talking about Susan Rice for months, asking the hard questions and Democrats wanted to pretend the situation didn't exist. All of sudden, Democrats want to stand up for her, pull the race card in her defense? A few months ago they were telling us to stop blaming Obama and blame everyone else, now he's leading the call the take it out on him. They can't have it both ways. Here's the truth: Our media is crap. Fox News is the only news organization brave enough to touch the Benghazi monster, and we know the closest Obama will ever get to Fox News is Ed Henry of the White House Press Corps. No one will go after Obama except congress and he's too busy blaming all of his problems on them. He says he'll be happy to have the Benghazi discussion, and he's lying. Congress has been trying to have that conversation and he's been tight lipped. The media will do whatever he wants. Congress isn't scared of him.

The Election Hangover

It's finally over and the results suck. Another four years of Obama is not what we wanted, but that's what we got. We can cry, grieve, get angry, or scream. When we're done with all of that we need to figure out how to keep moving. Elections are a strange two-sided coin. On one side it's all about us, the voters. It's our chance to control what happens in Washington, control our own destiny as Americans. On the other side is our powerlessness. It's the one time every four years where we feel like our voice doesn't matter and we don't know what to do. It's agonizing and stressful, and personally, despite the results, I'm glad it's over. I'm not mad about Obama winning, I'm over that. I'm mad about people's conservative post-election blues.

You can't give up on America and love America at the same time. Every empire is destined to end, and our time might be coming sooner than we had hoped, but that's not reason enough to give up. Our founding fathers didn't think we'd last fifty years, but we've been going strong for over two hundred. Our country was started with a heart-felt fight and if it must end, then it shouldn't end any other way. Mark my words, I will keep fighting for this country until that trumpet calls and even then I won't give up hope.

So how do we keep moving? First, we must recognize that Barack Obama doesn't get a third term. As much as he enjoys walking all over our Constitution nobody in their right mind is going to let him change it. On January 20, 2017, Barack Obama is done and I will throw a party. Cynical the thought may be, but we need something to look forward to. Second, we have got to learn from our mistakes. I love Mitt Romney and I am grateful to him and I stand behind him 100%, but when are we going to learn that picking a moderate gets us nowhere? We picked Mitt Romney not because he was the best man for the job, though I believe he was. We picked him because we believed he had the best chance to beat Obama. That's not enough. The Tea Party owned the 2010 midterm election and it's time to embrace them. Third, the excuses need to stop. Our Republican Party was founded out of the abolition movement. We need to go back to our roots and we need to invade the Democrat plantation because sitting back and watching the liberals destroy the black and Hispanic communities is STUPID. Fourth, we need to own our message. We need to find a better way to present our message and make it stick. Last but not least, we need to destroy the mainstream media. They have betrayed us and betrayed the men and women who died so we could have freedom of the press, and I'll be damned if I'll allow them to cover Obama's ass for another four years. We need to have our Andrew Breitbart moment and declare WAR.

In two years, we're going to go through this all over again with the 2014 midterm elections. We took our eyes off the Senate prize this time, but that's not happening again. Twenty Democrat seats are up for grabs and we need to make them ours. While we're thinking about 2014 we need to think about our prospects for 2016, if only to keep our heads up. More than likely, we're going to hit another recession. Obama has nothing to lose and his agenda is more of the same and Obamacare inevitably will kill jobs. It's going to be a rough four years, and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that and being fearful of the future, but we're Americans damnit. We will get through it. If we allow ourselves to be defeated then we may as well surrender our country and all we've worked hard to build. Relinquishing our rights, values, and strengths as Americans will destroy this country before Obama will.

My message to my fellow conservatives is this: Grieve if you must, but don't give up! Never give up.