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Vladimir Putin Caesar and Our Great Geo-political Turning Point

By Selwyn Duke

We are witnessing, I believe, a turning point in geopolitical history, one future historians may analyze as we have the Roman Empire’s fall. Vladimir Putin is making a move — and it’s not just against Ukraine. It may not be just a move against Eastern Europe. It’s not even, perhaps, just a move against US world dominance.

There was a time when the USSR was the “evil empire, a godless Golgotha. But that was then. Now, in 2013-14, Putin has seen fit to say, in his December State of the Nation speech, “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. …Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation.”

Suing Americans under International Law — in American Courts

By Selwyn Duke

Imagine you go overseas and give a speech advocating a cause, only to come home and find you’re being sued for “crimes against humanity.” No, what you did wasn’t illegal under American law or under the laws of the nation in which you expressed your words.

You’re being sued under international law.

And here’s the kicker: Your case will be adjudicated by an American court.

Foreign law in a U.S. court?

Treasonous Obama Strikes Again

By Selwyn Duke

The world is laughing at us. It has come to light that the Obama administration has allowed hundreds of Chinese nationals — who are closely associated with the Chinese Liberation Army — to work in a sensitive area of NASA's Langley Research Center. What could possibly go wrong?

Here’s what: one of these nationals, Bo Jiang, was arrested on Monday at Dulles International Airport for apparently attempting to take sensitive information out of the US. Don’t give our security apparatus too much of a slap on the back for apprehending him, though, as Jiang had previously succeeded in leaving the country with a laptop containing sensitive information.

Barack Obama: Anatomy of an Ideologue

By Selwyn Duke

As with G.W. Bush before him, much time is spent arguing about Barack Obama’s character. Does he mean well and just not govern well, or is it something else? What can be missed during this debate, however, is that most damage is done in the name of doing good.

Consider, for instance, a Muslim parent teaching his child to engage in violent jihad. Like any parent, he almost surely wants his child healthy and successful. Like any wise parent, though, he also may believe that if he had to choose between his child being healthy and successful, and being good, he’d have to choose goodness. After all, what does it profit a man to gain the world but to lose his soul? Only, he defines “good” differently than you do.

Similarly, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a leader who expressed willingness to sacrifice half Iran’s population to wipe Israel off the map. Does this mean he doesn’t care if his nation is healthy and successful? More likely, he considers those priorities secondary to what is good, which he defines much, much differently than you do.

Read the rest here.

Petulant, Perturbed Obama Just Can’t Help Himself

By Selwyn Duke

As with the vice-presidential debate and Joe Biden, Barack Obama’s attitude in Monday night’s debate spoke more clearly than anything he said. No, he didn’t laugh like Bozo the Clown, giggle like a schoolgirl, shake his head, and roll his eyes like Jokin’ Joe did. But he looked petulant, perturbed, and on edge (and was occasionally rude) throughout much of the night, despite three days of debate preparation at Camp David. It seems Barack Obama just can’t help himself.

Debating the Debate and Immoderate Moderation

By Selwyn Duke

Despite all the scrutiny placed on debate moderation, Candy Crowley nonetheless managed to stoop to the occasion Tuesday night at Hofstra University. Yet, although she gave it her best effort, the 2012 debate record is still Democrats and the media 0 for 3. Unfortunately, the truth has been a casualty as well.

“‘Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool….” You know the rest. When Crowley “corrected” Mitt Romney after he rightly said that Barack Obama didn’t declare the Benghazi attack an “act of terror” in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12, she sounded like a mother defending her little son’s lie in deference to emotional attachment. And while she would have to admit her error post debate, she had a rationalization at the ready: Romney used the wrong word. Yes, that’s right up there with her son Barry’s copout that gas prices were far lower four years ago because the economy was collapsing. But the problem wasn’t the wrong word — it was the wrong moderator.

Even with Crowley’s thoroughly modern mea culpa, however, much of the damage was done. What about the viewers who didn’t watch the post-debate coverage and are only as informed as Crowley herself?  

The truth is that Crowley’s meddling was as inappropriate as was her presence itself. It was much as if Angelo Dundee had been the referee for the first Ali/Frazier fight and jumped on Smokin’ Joe’s back because Ali couldn’t hack it that night.

Read the rest.

The Link between the Contraception Issue and Islam

By Selwyn Duke

While I’m sure Barack Obama loves to stick it to traditional religious institutions any way he can, he certainly doesn’t want to stick it to himself in the process. This is why I’m fairly sure he and his advisors didn’t anticipate that his contraception mandate would result in a knock-down, drag-out fight with the most powerful religious institution in the world. I think they miscalculated, and the reason why brings me to a link between the contraception issue and Islam.

What is it? Simply this: The modern, secular-environment-weaned man is largely incapable of grasping the devoutly religious mindset.

This is especially true of the atheistic, as the relativistic man is incapable of grasping an absolutist mindset.

To the relativistic liberal, and please forgive the redundancy, situational values reign supreme; that is, until they’re deposed by the next week’s values. Everything is negotiable, and there is nothing worth dying for because there’s nothing larger than themselves, nothing more enduring than this life, nothing transcending taste. And a mentality that truly believes otherwise seems fantastical to them.

Read the rest here.

President Downgrade

By Selwyn Duke

When Barack Obama promised change that would transform America, most never suspected that he would make history by presiding over the nation’s first-ever credit downgrade.  But, well, yes – he can.

And he did.

Of course, the blame cannot be laid entirely at Obama’s feet.  Since Congress controls the purse strings, it allocates the money (the president does have a veto pen, however).  And, if in light of this we can still say that a president “spends,” for two terms Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, spent like a drunken sailor. 

Yet the reality is that Obama has spent like three drunken sailors and a tipsy cabin boy.  And this isn’t just rhetoric.  According to a Weekly Standard piece featured at the very liberal NPR’s website, deficit spending under Obama is three and one half times what it was under Bush, as he has signed budget increases amounting to a whopping one trillion a year more in deficit spending.   So the reality is that, in a great measure, the president owns our economic woes. 

Up from Mexico Way: A Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Manufacturers

By Selwyn Duke

In the early days it was Pancho Villa, then it was undocumented Democrats and drug runners, and now we have the latest incursion across our southern border: The Mexican government is poised to file a lawsuit against our domestic firearms manufacturers over U.S.-made guns that are finding their way into Mexico. Writes CBS News:

"Sources say Mexico's frustration with U.S. efforts to stop the flow of weapons has pushed them into this novel approach. The law firm [that has been retained] is looking at charges that may include civil RICO. The contract was signed on November 2, 2010 by a representative of Mexico's Attorney General, at their Washington embassy.

"On November 5, 2010 President Felipe Calderon expressed his frustration to CBS News correspondent Peter Greenberg: 'We seized more than 90,000 weapons.... I am talking like 50,000 assault weapons, AR-15 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets. Amazing figures and according to all those cases, the ones we are able to track, most of these are American weapons.'"

Frustration with efforts to stop a cross-border flow....

Wow, we wouldn’t know anything about that.

Read the rest here.

Review of "Trickle Up Poverty"

By Selwyn Duke

As I was listening to Michael Savage’s radio show no more than a year ago, I heard something that might have caused his faithful listeners to scurry for the anti-depressants. (That is, if the host weren’t so steadfast in counseling against their use.) Dejected over his unfair inclusion on a list of individuals banned from travel to Britain, Savage expressed an intention to leave the airwaves in the not-too-distant future. Since then, however, certain events have changed his mind. Not the least of these, I believe, is his desire to fight the good fight against the statist advance under the Obama administration. And the result of this patriotic motivation is his latest book Trickle Up Poverty (TUP).

While TUP is Dr. Savage’s latest book, it is no more the first than radio is his first career. The many-hatted host — who holds a doctorate in epidemiology and nutritional science — actually spent a good part of his life as a botanical Indiana Jones, traveling the South Pacific in search of plants with medicinal qualities. Considered a pioneer in the field, he wrote 17 books on health and herbal medicine and, upon transitioning to nutrition for the mind, wrote numerous best-sellers on politics and social issues.

Read the rest here.