Archives for March 2014

On March 28, United States Navy Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton (Ret). died of heart failure at the age of 89.  In late 2009, Denton released an updated version of his autobiography, “When Hell Was In Session”, which detailed his nearly eight years of imprisonment, torture, solitary confinement and other atrocities suffered at the hands of the North Vietnamese in the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

In a wide ranging interview, Denton, who also served as a U.S. senator from Alabama, talked about the barbaric treatment he suffered, how an anti-war Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam for purely political reasons and his disdain for the commanders-in-chief both then and now.

In July 1965, Denton’s A-6A Intruder was shot down over North Vietnam.  While he expected his Communist captors to be tough customers, he was shocked at the extent of their brutality.

“I was aware that I was the captive of a totalitarian, communist, atheistic government and the brutality of the Russian communists,” said Denton.  So I expected that we would have some rough treatment but there had been no torture.  When I was shot down, I was the thirteenth captive they got out of the air and I became the senior officer.  After I was shot down, I didn’t even get to communicate with anybody for weeks.”

Denton soon joined his fellow prisoners in communicating through tapping Morse Code into the wall with a nail, a practice that carried severe punishment if they were caught.

“Then pretty soon they started torturing for confessions, biographies or to get you to make a propaganda statement in their favor.  Every time you were caught communicating, you were tortured.  That went on from October ’65 ’til October ’69, when they changed the treatment thinking they were going to be tried with war crimes trials.  With Nixon in, they thought he was going to be more aggressive about ending the war and that they might best change the treatment, which they did,” said Denton.

While strong leadership and fierce patriotism played roles in Denton’s enduring of the torture and his refusal to become a propaganda tool of a communist regime, Denton says his greatest strength clearly came from God.

“The greatest and the ultimate strength can come through God’s intervention, His answers to your beseeching Him for help.  That happens with ladies having babies with difficulty in the delivery, people in the hospital with cancer, people injured in automobile wrecks.  Anybody about to die, no matter what he lived or what he thought before then, if he’s got five minutes or five seconds to recollect what’s confronting now, he will say, ‘God, help me,'” said Denton.

Denton and his fellow prisoners were not released until 1973, following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords.  Denton says he was shocked to learn we hadn’t won the war when he was released.  But to his final days, he insists the U.S. had it won until liberals in Congress abandoned South Vietnam out of a political calculation.

“We had won the war at that point.  The armistice struck and signed by Vietnam and the United States entailed the freedom being granted to the South Vietnamese and our country coming through to give them the aid to develop some resources, particularly in the Mekong Valley and along that river,” said Denton.

“I thought things were great when I came back home.  Then I found out a couple years later that Congress abrogated that unilaterally and passed legislation saying that we could not, in any event at all, send any more military aid to [South] Vietnam,” said Denton.

“I know from personal experience and personal conferences with them that when we finished the bombings and the blockades…that we destroyed their capability to wage war.  We destroyed all of their logistic bases, all of their (surface-to-air missile) sites, all of their airplanes, all of their warehouses with ammunition, a lot of their troops.  They had a conference with me just before I came home, begging me not to let prisoners exaggerate so that Nixon wouldn’t come through on his promise to them,” said Denton.

“But Congress, anti-war and influenced by the media and the academics, the elite liberals, were able to defeat Nixon.  If we’d won that war, they were anti-war all the way through.  They thought Nixon would be re-elected and they’d be villains.  So that was what was tied up in that,” he said.

Denton says America and the world endured a painful lesson through the U.S. abruptly ending support for South Vietnam.  And he believes it’s an episode that continues to make us vulnerable today.

“We still suffer from not comprehending the overall picture with respect to our national security.  We are in worse shape now, in my opinion, in terms of the percentage of certainty we have about the fact that we’re nationally secure than we’ve had in our history, since about Washington’s time,” said Denton in that 2009 interview.

“Yet, President Obama, while campaigning and in office, says that he’s going to cut appropriations for armed services by 25 percent.  President Obama is an intelligent man.  He could be earnest.  He could be honest with himself, but he doesn’t know diddly squat.  He knows even less than President Johnson did when he came into office about war and peace and what it takes to maintain it,” said Denton, noting that Lyndon Johnson’s defense secretary, Robert S. McNamara, only had the experience of running Ford Motor Company before coming to the Pentagon.

“Some of the czars and advisers that President Obama has hired are even more dubious in terms of what their backgrounds are,” said Denton.  “The jury is still out on whether we can survive if we have a president that unaware and not willing to listen to those who are more aware and knowledgeable.”

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review enjoy the Obamacare enrollment period ending with technical glitches as procrastinators try to sign up.  They also shudder as more and more employers say they will not be adding new jobs and the increased cost of health care will be passed along to employees and customers.  And Maine Sen. Angus King contends Obamacare doesn’t actually exist.

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The vast majority of Colorado sheriffs are refusing to enforce new gun control laws they consider unenforceable, saying they refuse to treat every citizen like a felon and won’t change their plans even if a federal judge rules against them.

Fifty-five of Colorado’s 62 sheriffs are in agreement on refusing to enforce the law.  Weld County Sheriff John Cooke says the new rules on magazine capacity and other issues make it impossible for authorities to make arrests even if they wanted to.

“They’ve turned law-abiding citizens into criminals.  They banned magazines that hold more than 15 rounds and what they’ve said is that any magazine that can be readily converted to hold more than 15 rounds is illegal.  Well, that’s 99.999 percent of all magazines.  They have a base plate and a spring that you can remove to repair or clean.  If you can do that, then that magazine is illegal to possess after January 1 and you can’t buy any.  How do we enforce that?,” said Cooke.

“There’s a grandfather clause in the law that says if you own a magazine before July 1, 2013, that’s more than 15 rounds, you’re allowed to keep it.  How are my deputies going to know bought that magazine before or after July 1?  So we’re not putting any resources into it or making it a priority,” he said.

Given how easy it is to work around the 15-round magazine limit, does Cooke believe lawmakers are looking for a de facto ban on magazines or that they just have no idea what they’re talking about?

“They don’t understand how it works because the legislator that introduced this bill, she didn’t come to the sheriffs and say, ‘Explain to me what a magazine is’ because she didn’t even know.  Then after the bill gets passed she was confronted on how a magazine could be converted and she said, ‘Oh, people will just have to live with it,'” said Cooke.

He says gun control advocates at the federal level are not any more knowledgeable, and cited Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette as a prime example.

“At a debate that we had here last year, she was talking about how these 30-round magazines, once people are done shooting, they’re no good anymore because you just throw them away.  She has no clue about what a gun is or a magazine is and yet she’s trying to outlaw them federally,” said Cooke.

The enforcement battle is now headed to federal court thanks to a suit filed by the sheriffs on behalf of law enforcement and the public.

“Most law enforcement agencies in this state don’t really understand how to enforce this and the people don’t know how to comply with this.  So we actually filed a lawsuit.  Fifty-five out of the 62 elected sheriffs filed a lawsuit in federal district court against these laws because we’re saying it violates people’s due process.  If somebody doesn’t know that they’re violating the law, how can they be held accountable?  And that’s a violation of due process,” said Cooke.

The sheriff says his attorney is confident of a win in court, but Cooke insists he isn’t planning to change anything if the verdict goes against him.

“Even the federal courts can’t make me enforce the laws.  So if we lose and the judge says, ‘No, these laws are constitutional,’ I still set the priorities and the resources for my agency.  There’s no law in the state of Colorado that says I have to enforce the law, so I still won’t enforce them because in my belief and my opinion, it’s not my job to turn law-abiding gun owners into criminals,” said Cooke.

From Columbine to the Aurora movie theater shooting, Colorado has seen more than its share of tragedies, but Cooke says gun control groups are learning the wrong lessons.

“They’re addressing the wrong issue.  It’s the gun that’s being used, but that’s an inanimate object.  The problem is not the guns, it’s the hearts of man and that’s where the issue is,” said Cooke, who advocated a collaborative approach to making sure the mentally ill don’t get access to guns.

Sheriff Cooke also rejects the argument that gun use is best left to law enforcement professionals like him.

“An armed society is a polite society.  if you ask a majority of cops on the street, they’ll you the way to reduce the number of victims of these mass shootings is to have a well-armed public that can shot back and kill these people and neutralize them before they kill too many,” he said.

Cooke says an armed society was a great help to him and other sheriffs who invoked posse comitatus just months ago to maintain order while officials dealt with devastating floods.

“We had a lot of floods and fires this year and the sheriffs said we need an armed populous to help guard their communities and their neighbors.  They could be a benefit to us to stop looting and to stop any riots or that sort of thing,” said Cooke.

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Pro-life activists are horrified by reports of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies being burned to provide green energy in Great Britain, but point out that lax standards in the United States don’t really prevent the same thing from happening here.

Reports out of Britain went viral this week, following the revelation that more than 15,000 aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated by some 27 different National Health Service trusts.  Some facilities burned them as rubbish and others did so as part of a ‘waste-to-energy’ program that generates power for heat.

Americans United for Life attorney Jeanneane Maxon says the discoveries are revolting and reveal some disturbing facts about our culture.

“It is just appalling to see where society has come to that we have disregarded human life, so that even after children are born and you have the bodies of these dead babies, which is tragic in and of themselves, that they would be disposed of in such a callous manner.  It really hearkens back to the images that you you think of in the Nazi holocaust,” said Maxon.

Maxon called the practice ‘barbaric’ and said she’s surprised this happened in Great Britain, which has more restrictive laws on abortion than the U.S.  In fact, Maxon says the United States is one of only four nations worldwide that allow abortion throughout a pregnancy.  The others are Canada, China and North Korea.

“So if a country that has more progressive laws regarding life on their books can do this, what is at stake for our country?  What will we continue to see unless we as Americans speak up and say that life is valuableand precious and it deserves more than being disregarded and used by others for things even such as energy.  It’s really just appalling,” said Maxon, who shudders at the idea of energy policy being championed above the preservation of human life.

“Isn’t that just a horrifying example of misplaced priorities in our society that we would value conserving energy over the lives of children.  You often hear the phrase that any country’s most valuable resource is it’s children.  I believe that, and wow, aren’t priorities just so out of whack,” said Maxon.

“When you have devalued children in the womb to be some type of sub-class, to where we don’t give them the same rights we give any other children even though they are living children, this is the natural reality of where you’re going to come to.  It really speaks to the condition our society has come to when you devalue life from conception,” said Maxon.

So could the horrors uncovered in Britain play out here as well?  Maxon says a lack of clear regulations for abortion providers leads her to believe the bodies of aborted babies can and do meet despicable treatment here as well.

“There are no regulations that really discuss and deal with how to dispose of bodies properly.  There’s only five states in the United States that currently have regulations of abortion clinics in the same manner that you would see of any other ambulatory surgical center.  You’re going to be better protected going in for a knee surgery than you are for a surgical abortion,” said Maxon.

She says the methods some abortion providers use for disposing of babies’ bodies are just as alarming as what was revealed in Britain.

“Many abortion clinics have incinerators so babies would be burned after they are aborted.  There are examples of where babies have been born alive and then killed or of course burned.  In the case of the late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell up in Philadelphia, who was convicted of murder of three children born alive, he was cutting off body parts and storing them and flushing them down toilets to the degree where they had to call in plumbers to unplug their plumbing because it was full of aborted baby body parts.  So there are horrifying example in our country of how the bodies of these little babies are mistreated and disregarded,” said Maxon.

Despite the horrific examples mentioned, Maxon is proud of the pro-life movement for its relentless fight for the rights of the unborn.

“I’m really proud of pro-life America that has warned the greater community and the countries in the world that this is the slippery slope that we go down when it happens and it’s just tragic  that we’re seeing these predictions come true.  But, I do have faith that the voice of pro-life Americans will shine through and people will start to stand up and say that this is too far and that it’s a reflection of the natural reality of where you come to when you devalue life to that degree,” sad Maxon.

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Charlie Cooke of National Review cheer the arrest of a California state senator who pushed for gun control but was busted for arms trafficking.  They also explain why the effort of Senate Democrats to pass a media shield law is actually an effort to limit free speech.  And they react to Harry Reid’s assertion that people aren’t signing up for Obamacare because they don’t know how to use the internet.

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Just days after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress there would be no extension of the Obamacare enrollment deadline, the administration is offering an additional two weeks to anyone who begins the enrollment process by the end of the month.

“This is really one of the most audacious changes so far because several committees in Congress have been looking at all these delays and all these changes.  Secretary Sebelius was asked point blank, ‘Will you extend the deadline past the March 31 enrollment date?’  And she said, ‘No, we will not,'” said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner.

“In a separate hearing she said, ‘We don’t believe we have legal authority to do that.’  But that’s what they’ve done anyway.  So they’re basically going before Congress that people have until March 31.  Clearly, they’re not getting the enrollment they wanted.  Therefore, they’re going to ask people, ‘Well, did you try to enroll?  Did you have any trouble?  If so, then we’ll extend the deadline for you.  Rules mean nothing to this administration,” said Turner.

After initially stating that seven million sign-ups were needed, the administration has lowered the target goal to six million and stated that over five million have signed up.  However, neither Sebelius nor any other administration official will confirm how many Americans have actually paid their first month’s premium.  Sebelius says she doesn’t know because private insurance firms have that data.  Turner isn’t buying it.

“I don’t believe that she doesn’t know.  She hides behind the fact that they don’t have any way of knowing that.  Part of it is because the website is still not built as far as being able to allow people to pay.  But I think if they knew and that were a big number, we would hear about it,” said Turner, who says House Republicans are now going directly to the insurance companies to determine how many enrollees have actually paid their premiums.

So will a short extension of the enrollment deadline to mid-April give the administration enough time to attract the number of people they need to meet their target?

“I don’t think it’s going to make that big of a difference because most of the people who are uninsured, which is the whole reason we passed this all, are saying, ‘I don’t want this insurance.  It’s too expensive, high deductibles, it’s too much of a hassle.’  So they’re not going to be insured and I think that’s going to be a big problem for them,” said Turner, who says the administration also refuses to disclose how many people are enrolling for the first time and how many are enrolling because they lost their existing coverage due to Obamacare.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postulated on Wednesday that many people are failing to sign up due to their lack of internet savvy.

“There are some people who are not like my grandchildren who can handle everything so easily on the Internet, and these people need a little extra time,” said Reid.  “We have a lot of people just like this through no fault of the Internet, but because people are not educated on how to use the Internet.”

“That’s not quite as bad as calling the American people liars when they say that they’ve been harmed by Obamacare, but it shows how completely out of touch Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is with the real world and what real people are dealing with in trying to figure out how to deal with these exchanges,” said Turner.

Turner noted there are many other avenues by which people could sign up than through healthcare.gov but Americans just don’t like the product.

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review react to the Democrat favored to win a U.S. Senate seat in Iowa telling donors in Texas that a vote for him can prevent an Iowa farmer from becoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  They also have a lot of fun with the new ad of a Republican Senate candidate in Iowa proudly announcing she castrated hogs when she was young.  And they shake their heads as the Obama administration arbitrarily extends another Obamacare deadline.

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The Supreme Court may be more inclined to defend the religious freedom of employers against the government’s contraception mandate after Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told justices that business owners would have no freedom to reject mandates to cover abortions.

Justices and lawyers also sparred over whether businesses actually have religious freedom and whether striking down the mandate makes women second-class citizens.

The notable abortion exchange between Verrilli and Justice Anthony Kennedy came during oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius, two cases linked by the companies’ owners objecting to the Department of Health and Human Services requirement that businesses fully cover the contraception costs for their employees.  That mandate includes coverage of abortafacient drugs, also known as the “morning after pill.”

Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Legal Studies Cathy Ruse was in the gallery during oral arguments and said that was the most remarkable moment in the court session today.

“This was actually the most exciting part of the oral argument this morning, when Justice Kennedy asked the government’s lawyer, ‘So under your argument, corporations could be forced to pay for abortions, that there would be no religious claim against that on the part of the corporation.  Is that right?’  And the government’s attorney said yes,” said Ruse.

“You could hear a pin drop and I think that stunned Justice Kennedy.  Since he’s always the swing vote, you want to stun him in a way that pushes him over to your side of the column,” she said.

Before the arguments reached that stage, a robust debate took place over whether businesses actually have religious freedom or whether those are only enjoyed by individuals.  Ruse says she believes the majority of justices are sympathetic to the companies and their owners on that question.

“Chief Justice Roberts raised the point that corporations can actually file racial discrimination claims.  So he said if a corporation can have a race why can’t it have a religious claim?  The government’s attorney didn’t really have an answer for that,” said Ruse.

“I think a majority of justices believe that families who incorporate do not have to give up their religious freedom rights when they incorporate to do business,” she said.

The more liberal justices made two arguments in defense of the mandate.  First, they contend that striking down the mandate would allow employers to weed out any medical provision they want, leading to health care chaos as every company would have their own plans.  Hobby Lobby attorney Paul Clement rejected that fear, noting that every case filed under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has to go to court and not every claim will survive.

Second, Verrilli and the liberal justices posited women would essentially be second-class citizens if employers could single out contraception coverage for removal from their health plans.

“Paul Clement’s reaction was brilliant so I’d like to adopt it as my own.  If in fact the government has a compelling interest in providing free abortion-inducing drugs to all women in America.  That’s their goal and that’s what they’re doing with this.  There are other ways to accomplish that goal without religious companies who have a religious objection to that,” said Ruse.

“For instance, the government could simply provide insurance for these abortafacient drugs themselves.  The government could do it through Title X clinics or another way.  The government could provide subsidies or fund the providers of these items so that the women could get them for free from the provider, so he pointed out several ways the government could accomplish their goals without having to dragoon religious family-based companies into doing something that violates their religion,” said Ruse.

While Ruse is “cautiously optimistic” about the court’s ruling, she does fear the liberal wing of the court will try to cobble together a majority that would just tell religious employers to drop their health coverage altogether and let their employees navigate the heath care exchanges.  A decision is expected in June.

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Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review see a lot of political upside in Bill Maher encouraging Democrats to stand up and oppose the Second Amendment.  They also react to news that General Motors covered up a fatal defect in Chevrolet Cobalts for years while receiving taxpayer bailout dollars.  And they have fun discussing the items for sale in the Democrats’ online store.

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