Speaking ill of a departed Reagan

It's ironic.  While The Washington Post sterilizes the exploits of current Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton—a former first lady—they simultaneously besmirch the stellar reputation of recently deceased Nancy Reagan, 94. Indeed, who is criticized by them, the woman with the well known reputation as a “liar” (under potentially 3 federal indictments for influence-peddling and corruption) or the person instrumental both to the personal happiness of beloved conservative icon Ronald Reagan, and a pivotal, but indirect reason for the success of his presidency?

In a typical classless move of smearing the voiceless dead for the political expediency of criticizing Republicans, the Post disregards the ancient wisdom in the Latin phrase De mortuis nihil nisi bonum: “of the dead [say] nothing but good.” Given perfect 20/20 hindsight, hatchet man “reporter” Dan Zak infers a fictitious deficiency of character in Mrs. Reagan while his employing newspaper summarily ignores the shrieking 300 pound gorilla throwing Samsonite luggage: the mountainous political baggage of Hillary Clinton's real life scandals.

What was Mrs. Reagan's “wrongdoing?” Per scribbler Zak, she was not an “outspoken advocate” for AIDS and HIV prevention in the 1980s. (This also-ran criticism was similarly used against her highly popular husband for divisive political reasons.) Despite the fact that this was a tumultuous time (when little was medically understood regarding this disease or its transmission), AIDS research funding exploded in the '80s. In 1983, Margaret Heckler, Mr. Reagan's secretary of Health and Human Services, had the foresight to declare AIDS her department's “number one priority.” Meanwhile, as the MSM hit the panic button (and not incidentally blamed the president for his and Nancy's “silence”) committed resources virtually doubled each year from 44 million in 1983 to $1.6 billion in 1988. Unfortunately, an effective preventative treatment was decades in the future, but all of these substantial, seedling efforts are irrelevant to Mr. Zak's unfair and misleading characterization of Mrs. Reagan, who is like her husband—by all legitimate accounts—a great American.

As first ladies are traditionally wont to do, her use of the visibility of the Reagan name was a straight forward “Just Say No” prevention campaign against illicit drug usage. Perfectly sensible advice, easy for the young and impetuous to understand: if one doesn't use drugs one avoids the inherent risks of addiction, unstable mood swings, serious health problems and financial hardship. A legitimate issue, once again, paradoxically more relevant today than the medical scourge that is now treatable HIV. (Compare that good fortune to today's travesty, America's penal system. It is chock-full of Joe Biden's legislative 3rd strike drug offenders. Per the Federal Bureau of Prisons, almost half or 48.7 percent are in prison for life for drug offenses versus 2.9 percent for homicide, aggravated assault and kidnapping; and 7 percent for sex offenses.)

This actuality makes Mrs. Reagan a bit of a visionary rather than Mr. Zak's manicured, elitist caricature of 'glistening hazel eyes, hair a perfectly feathery helmet, ears pinned with gold.' Couple that with his clinical description of her so-called “frosty” personality: 'And Nancy — what of Nancy? She was steel. She was cashmere. She was cold. She was class. And after a couple years of bad press, she was in need of a cause.' All of this rubbish implies a ruthless perfectionism, a person removed from the woes of average citizens, someone his spurious piece further claims “did not do enough.” As usual, the Post's “coverage” has everything simultaneously upside down, backwards and inside out.

For objective context, let us revisit 1982, something that is apparently beyond self-depreciating Dan Zak's journalistic powers. Historically, HIV had been misidentified as a “gay cancer”—thought to be a plague—and labeled with a different acronym GRID (“Gay Related Immune Deficiency”). Specifically, when infected actor Rock Hudson kissed “Dynasty's” Linda Evans, it caused a public uproar—and a wrongheaded fear that the actress might have been exposed. (Thankfully, HIV is not transmitted via saliva exchange, but that fact, like many others, was far from a medical certainty then.) To make matters worse, this issue was further veiled by private sexual behavior. Therefore, realistically given these fact-based dynamics—and the innate lack of clarity—what precisely does this leftist sycophant think the Reagans should have said or done differently? My point: his heavily biased retrospective is a completely subjective “what if” judgment. Therefore, any rear view 21^st century condemnation is unworthy fodder when equating Mrs. Reagan's legacy. A pox on Dan Zak's reputation for defaming a defenseless great lady.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
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WaPo: Never met a criminal-alien they didn't like

Heaven forbid The Washington Post show a smidgen of the same bleeding-heart compassion to the victims of convicted felons instead of criminal perpetrators.

Profiled subject Rodolfo Padilla's first lawlessness from age 10 permitted him the enjoyment of the stolen hospitality of the United States. In the ensuing 37 years, in gratitude, Mr. Padilla chose to become a cocaine-peddling scourge, no doubt ruining countless lives.  One again, our society has generously granted him the boon of an early release from prison after a 7 year stint.  Apparently, America, "the land of opportunity," was not sufficient for this economic parasite to make a positive contribution.

Why this uninvited squatter living in the shadows should suddenly be thrust from obscurity into the pages of The Washington Post is no mystery.  It seems their reporters have never met anyone truly worthy of being deported.

Where is the journalistic balance of the truly victimized?  Ignored, the nameless sufferers of Mr. Padilla's actions don't even warrant a mention, let alone receive this criminal-alien's gentle and sympathetic treatment in the press.

Now, because Mr. Padilla is not an American citizen, he faces the fate of possible deportation to his birth country, Mexico, where he has no familial ties. And unlike The Washington Post's frankly tenuous connection with the truth on these matters, Mr. Padilla has a moment of clarity before bemoaning the reality of his circumstances: “I know I messed up. I know I have to face facts.” In this, he could teach the powers-that-be in the MSM a thing or two.

As Miss Manners would agree: no matter how well behaved, any guest overstaying his welcome ultimately becomes a pest to his hosts. (With the holidays upon us, observant Democrats should litmus test their in-laws.)  In any case, it is the height of hypocrisy that illegal alien “advocates” would be quoted hollering about the rights of people who, by definition, don't respect American laws in the first place. This is doubly true of Mr. Padilla who is both an illegal alien (none of this vague politically correct “undocumented migrant” nonsense) and a convicted jailbird.

It's long overdue for this birdy, like his 43,479 incarcerated fellows, to fly south (of the border) for winter. Per U.S. Sentencing Commission data, men of Mr. Padilla's caliber make up 3.5 percent of the U.S. population, but account for 16.8 percent of drug trafficking cases and 36.7 percent of all federal sentences for criminal convictions in FY 2014. And the damage this group has done to society at large is unknown. 

What is clear is that The Washington Post promotes the false and irresponsible notion that this country should be left wide open to persons impossible to track in the case of illegals; impossible to vet, as in the Syrians; and anyone else with the desire and the gumption to make the trip. To these dystopian ideologues, Mr. Padilla's newly found clean living, high school equivalency and mastery of the guitar are more than sufficient reasons to allow any perpetual law-breaker second chances to remain.

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
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Blowing dollars: Obama's, politicians' choicest drug

Will the schizophrenic man who has theoretically been “in charge” as president (but is apparently not responsible for anything, ever) please step forward for his psychotropic medication?  Once again, Mr. Obama single-mindedly pontificates about race and income inequality.  This time at a West Virginia town hall meeting, poverty was cited as the primary casual factor of that region's skyrocketing drug epidemic, highest and double the national average: 33.5 fatalities per 100,000 people.  His also-ran Democratic non-solution response that always compounds every problem—a hallmark for Mr. Obama's dytopian administration: more government spending, this time on treatment centers and “training” for doctors.  As if our beleaguered, highly educated physicians don't have enough to deal with already related to Obamacare: socialized, costly medical bureaucracy that has gutted the best medical system in the world.  Likewise, spending a record 8 trillion under Mr. Obama's oblivious watch which threatens to sink America into a permanent Greek economic morass.  (In concrete terms that's more debt than every president combined over 227 years from George Washington and the inception of the republic to Bill Clinton.)  Is this what Mr. Obama meant by his cryptic reference to the “fundamental transformation of America?”  Who knows?  7 years in to this total debacle, the powers-that-be in the MSM have yet to questioned him about it.

Indeed, with Biden's exit stage left from a White House bid (and Hillary circling the presidency with the inevitability of a vulture) what difference at this point does it make, right?  None to Mr. Obama who is content to kick-the-can down the road to the next undoubtedly headache-prone occupant of the Oval Office.  In truth, his denial—a complete, deep-seeded almost pathological disconnect from his actions and their real world consequences—an unwillingness to acknowledge the obvious connection between his extreme environmental policies that have dismantled the coal industry and with it any hope of American energy independence (read: the Keystone XL Pipeline).  Better to monetarily submit to Islam by funneling U.S. resources into that Middle East powder keg borrowed at interest by our Communist banking masters in China.  As bad as the drug epidemic may be in West Virginia it pales in comparison to politicians in Washington of both parties who treat the American dollar like an endless supply of crack cocaine.

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“Fix” border jumping illegals: Vote Trump

Beware modern, anti-American progressive Democrats who claim to operate in good faith to solve society’s problems.  Specifically, the insipid Mr. Obama is taking on the federal prison system now that he's fresh off his latest “fix”  (to which a grousing ally Israel strenuously objects and those that publicly proclaim “Death to America” celebrate): a flaccid, toothless Middle East “agreement” with virtually no oversight which guarantees an unregulated Iran—the world's largest state-sponsor of terrorism—quick access to nuclear bombs and the permanent lifting of economic sanctions to further reward them in their perpetual Jihadist religious war against the West.

Like a monopoly game figure stopping by between million-dollar tax-payer travel subsidized Hawaiian vacations and jaunts to the world's best golf courses while partying with millionaires and billionaires, Mr. Obama is “just visiting” prison.  His stated purpose, an overhaul of the criminal justice system: “This huge spike in incarcerations is also driven by non-violent drug offenses where the sentencing is completely out of proportion with the crime.”  Historically, the “spike” in the prison population to which Mr. Obama refers (and objects to) is the direct consequence of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 otherwise known colloquially as the Federal “three strikes” law.  This statute, essentially adopted by states like California and Washington, mandates life imprisonment if a criminal has been convicted in federal court of a “serious violent felony” (defined as murder, manslaughter, sex offenses, kidnapping, robbery and any offense punishable by 10 years or more with a specific element of use of force or significant risk of force).  This sounds good except for the last element: because serious drug offenses—even wholly non-violent ones—have inherently high mandatory minimum sentences they are often cobbled together.  As a direct consequence per the Federal Bureau of Prisons, almost half or 48.7 percent are in prison for life for drug offenses versus 2.9 percent for homicide, aggravated assault and kidnapping; and 7 percent for sex offenses.

Ironically, in this we have come full circle: the original writer of this train-wreck of a bill was then Delaware senator Joe Biden, Mr. Obama's hapless vice president.  To add insult to injury is Mr. Obama’s Orwellian de facto catch-and-release program: per ALIPAC as of April 2014, of the 68,000 violent criminals (many convicted of murder and rape) have been released into the wild by Obama’s lawless policies.  One telling example from today in Lubbock, Texas: a briefly detained illegal alien by U.S. Border Patrol, Pedro Alberto Monterroso-Navas from Honduras, was arrested after his initial release for the murder of his girlfriend and kidnapping of children on U.S. soil.  More to the point: how many more 32-year-old Kate Steinles cut down in the prime of life do there have to be by the activities of this underclass of invaders like Mexico's Francisco Sanchez (deported by the U.S. five times, convicted of seven felonies and shielded by San Francisco, a sanctuary city, where federal immigration laws are not enforced by the locals) before the American people finally wake up to the incalculable human cost of this outrage?

How many American citizens have been killed or injured in similar circumstances is unknown.  Is there any doubt that the deafening silence coming out of the White House and Mr. Obama’s Justice Department (which maintains crime statistics) know this information and refuse to release it to the public?   Indeed, how can an ultra-Constitutional president in clear and repeated violation of his twice taken oath of office to ‘preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States’ be trusted to do anything that doesn't harm America further?  As apparently no one is accountable on the federal or state level related to the illegal alien problem.  America's only viable option is to elect border law enforcer, and  promised Mexican wall builder Donald Trump. 

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog
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