Sandy Hook & James Foley

Supposedly there is now a link between the "bogus" Sandy Hook shooting spree and the "bogus" beheading of James Foley.  Referred to as "the smoking gun" by conspiracy nuts, the former classmate of deranged mass murderer Adam Lanza known as Alex Israel is actually played by the same actress who pretended to be James Foley's sister Katie. 

 

 

 

The fact that family members can still manage a smile or chuckle doesn't prove anything.  In fact, if these were all actors you would think they would go out of their way to stick to the script and portray nothing but grief.  The fact is people deal with grief in different ways.  Sometimes laughter helps you to cope with the pain. 

 

As one who has done his share of debunking, I think it might behoove this putz to dig a little deeper.  You can't just take a bunch of goofy theories and slap two still frames alongside of each other and claim that you proved anything.  Let's see some documentation.  How about a profile and a name for this "actress"?  How about a link to a Facebook or Twitter page where the actress admits taking part in this hoax?  How about an actor profile for the alleged brother?  Or maybe a bio on James Foley that shows no sister named Katie or a photo of Katie that doesn't match?   

 

I think a better comparison of the two might be this video. 

 

 



The hair is not the same, knucklehead.  Alex has hers parted slightly to the right and Katie has hers parted on the left side.  And the noses are different, too.  And then there's the teeth.

Look at the slightly crooked and gapped teeth on Alex vs. the big, straight chompers on Katie.  They are obviously two different people.

Besides that, the Sandy Hook shooting wasn't faked.  How hard would it be to cover up the fake killing of 26 people?  You would think that somebody would have slipped up somewhere and got caught alive and well since 2012 but no, they're all still dead.  Snopes did a pretty thorough investigation into it and dispelled the conspiracy BS point by point.  But even if you reject Snopes' findings you still have to explain the reason our government would fake the murder of 26 people?  To confiscate our guns?  Okay, that was two years ago folks.  How many of your guns have been taken away?

By the way, there are death certificates of the Sandy Hook victims.  That's another lie. 

And finally, the murder of James Foley wasn't faked either. 

You have to understand that whatever biases members of the mainstream media may have, they still have to maintain a certain amount of credibility.  They still have accountability to their respective news organizations.  The same is true for politicians.  In fact some people believe that Al Gore's embellishments cost him the presidency.  Whatever you think of the mainstream media and the US government they still have more credibility and accountability than these anonymous news sources and conspiracy theory pimps on the internet. 

It's fine to question your government.  It's great to look for answers.  It's even okay to say that there are bad people in powerful positions in our government, military, and business communities.  But it's not okay to fabricate and lock yourself into one viewpoint to the point that facts and the truth are no longer of any interest to you.  The truth matters.  And the truth here is that over two dozen people were gunned down at an elementary school in Connecticut two years ago.  The familes were devastated, and now they have to deal with conspiracy nuts saying it didn't happen.  Shame on you!  Whatever your position on gun control you have no right to spread these lies.

And ISIS is real, folks.  They might be engaging in a bit of propaganda and PR but they are a true terrorist organization, and the sooner we realize that we have an enemy to face and stop spreading these idiotic conspiracy theories the better.  There's too much at stake.  

http://www.sandyhookfacts.com/

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-foleys-alleged-sister-katie-foley-vs-lanzas-alleged-friend-alex-israel.4348/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories

The Legacy of Robin Williams

Like most people I was troubled over the recent suicide of the legendary comedian and movie star Robin Willians.  When his publicist said that he had been struggling with depression recently I immediately thought of Williams' idol Jonathon Winters, who admittedly was committed to a psychiatric hospital in 1959 and 1961 and also struggled with alcoholism and depression.  When Winters died last year Robin Williams wrote a tribute to him in the NY Times.  Nobody could have imagined at the time that a little over a year later similar eulogies would be delivered for Williams.     

A lot of pundits have offered their thoughts on what was responsible for a rich and famous celebrity ending his own life.  Some say it was due to financial problems.  Other say it was chronic depression.  Still others claim that it was brought on by the medication he was taking after being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.  Whatever the cause, it was a tragic ending to a brilliant career. 

 

 

Most people would list "Dead Poet's Society", "Good Will Hunting", "Good Morning Vietnam", or "Mrs. Doubtfire" as their favorite Robin Williams movie, but I think my favorite was "Awakenings".  This movie showed you the depth of two great actors.  Robin Williams playing a character who wasn't funny and Robert DeNiro playing a character who wasn't dangerous in a mostly true story that was completely fascinating.



High School photo

Williams claimed that he was a fat child who was bullied and turned to humor to ward off the bad guys, but his mother denies that he was ever fat.  He apparently also claimed to be from Scotland earlier in his career, and David Letterman made reference to this recently in recalling the first time he saw Williams doing stand-up in the 70s.  Williams was actually from Chicago and also lived in Detroit and northern California as a child.  His father was an automobile executive and was gone for much of his childhood, and since his mother also worked he was raised with the help of a maid.  Interestingly enough Williams' second wife was his former nanny during his first marriage.  At the risk of sounding like an armchair psychologist I have to ask if perhaps there wasn't some transference in play here?

Another interesting thing I discovered was a quote from Bob Zmuda, a friend of Williams, comedic partner of Andy Kaufman, and the founder of Comic Relief. 

“There had to be two people in the room with him", his friend Bob Zmuda told CNN’s “New Day.” “Then you were an audience, and then he came alive.”  But one-on-one, Zmuda said, Williams “had no social skills. He couldn’t handle it… I knew this man for 35 years and yet it was like I was in an elevator with a stranger.”

No social skills, but when there was an audience he "came alive".  For somebody like that it had to be difficult to function the majority of the time with no audience around.  And as the reports came in we learned that he died alone, having spent the night in a separate room from his wife.  His body wasn't discovered for an estimated ten hours.  So tragic!

Williams' untimely death serves as yet another example of the old saying "money can't buy hapiness".  The simple truth is that many celebrities are driven to stardom by the same demons that eventually destroy them.  The emptiness and need for approval that is missing in their lives seems to subside when in front of a crowd, but when the crowds are gone they have to face the demons again.  That's why so many are beset by drugs, alcohol, and depression.  What they sought and eventually found in the entertainment business was only a temporary high that eventually wore off.  The drugs and alcohol are really just a substitute for the entertainment high which in itself was a substitute for a breakdown in their social and familial environments.  John Belushi, Chris Farley, Freddie Prinze, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Heath Ledger, Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Curt Kobain, Anna Nicole Smith, Judy Garland, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin ... etc.  The list goes on and on of celebrities who self-destructed.  And many who didn't self-destruct like Rodney Dangerfield, Mike Wallace, Ashley Judd, and Owen Wilson have battled depression throughout their lves.  It's always good to be reminded that the glitz and glamour of fame while alluring, may be nothing more than a facade or a bandaid on a mortally wounded soul.     

The Guardian did an incredibly insightful piece on Williams a few years ago.  Reading it now you have to wonder how those closest to him could have been caught off guard by his sudden decline?  Despite the incredible volume of work he left over the past 35 years, it may be that Robin Williams' true legacy will be a reminder that all is not as it appears in Hollywood. 

http://www.newsweek.com/king-comedy-newsweeks-1986-profile-robin-williams-264094

Michael Brown Shooting in Ferguson, Missouri

Michael Brown

I have been waiting to write about this until the facts are available, but I think there's been enough brought out so far to form some valid opinions and conclusions.  As you probably already know an 18 year old black man (I hesitate to call anybody 6'4" and nearly 300 lbs. in this situation a boy even though it could very well be appropriate regarding his maturity level) was shot and killed by a 28 yeard old white police officer on Saturday, August 9.  The timeline according to USA Today includes:

Saturday Aug. 9

11:48 a.m. to noon – An officer responds to a call of a sick person.
11:51 a.m. – Another call comes in about a robbery at a convenience store. The dispatcher gives a description of the robber and says the suspect is walking toward the Quick Trip convenience store.
12:01 p.m. – The officer encounters Michael Brown and a friend as they walk down a street. Brown is shot to death as a result of the encounter.
12:04 p.m. – A second officer arrives on the scene followed by a supervisor one minute later. An ambulance responding to the earlier sick person call drives by and responds to assess Brown.

Sunday Aug. 10

10 a.m. – Michael Brown, 18, was unarmed, St. Louis County Police Chief Joe Belmar says in a news conference. Belmar says Brown physically assaulted the officer, and during a struggle between the two, Brown reached for the officer's gun. One shot was fired in the car followed by other gunshots outside of the car.

 
I'm going to leave out a lot of the rhetoric and talking points that you get from the talking heads and focus instead on facts and logical conclusions based on those facts.  First of all, let's deal with the word that makes this story so compelling ..... "unarmed".  Here's a video of a policeman who was shot and killed with his own gun by an "unarmed" suspect.     

Here's another video of an unarmed suspect rushing a police officer with nearly the same results.  Fortunately for him there was another officer nearby who came to his aid. 

This is not to say that this is what happened in the Michael Brown shooting.  It's just a reminder of what cops face on a regular basis.  Policemen have a second or two to make the decision .... "do I shoot an unarmed man or do I allow him the opportunity to overpower me, take my gun, and shoot me with it?"
 

Surveillance camera still frame from the
strongarm cigar box theft

The initial media reports on the shooting in Ferguson had the narrative of "unarmed black teenage boy shot by white policeman ... riots ensue".  When it was revealed that Brown was 6'4" and weighed 290 lbs. the talking points became "he was a gentle giant".  When the police released a video of the "strongarm robbery" of a box of cigars, it was obvious that not only was this no little boy, but he was not exactly gentle either as he tossed aside the convenience store clerk like a rag doll.  At that point the talking points became "they're attacking his character". 

Brown's friend Dorian Johnson initially claimed that Brown was shot once in the back.

Johnson says he was within arm’s reach of both Brown and the officer. He looked over at Brown and saw blood pooling through his shirt on the right side of the body.

“The whole time [the officer] was holding my friend until the gun went off,” Johnson noted.


Brown's friend and accomplice Dorian Johnson

Brown and Johnson took off running together. There were three cars lined up along the side of the street.
Johnson says he ducked behind the first car, whose two passengers were screaming. Crouching down a bit, he watched Brown run past.
“Keep running, bro!,” he said Brown yelled. Then Brown yelled it a second time. Those would be the last words Johnson’s friend, “Big Mike,” would ever say to him.
Brown made it past the third car. Then, “blam!” the officer took his second shot, striking Brown in the back. At that point, Johnson says Brown stopped, turned with his hands up and said “I don’t have a gun, stop shooting!” 

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/eyewitness-michael-brown-fatal-shooting-missouri


When the autopsy was released a few days later it showed that all of the shots were fired from in front of Brown, and he was not shot from behind as Johnson claimed.

At this point the narrative changed once again from "he was shot in the back" to "the autopsy proves that he was surrendering."  A few days later it was revealed that the policeman suffered a swollen face (some say he had an injury to his eye socket) in the struggle.  It should come as no surprise that Dorian Johnson lied about what happened, as he has previously been charged with filing a false report.  Additionally Johnson changed his original story to include the previously omitted admission of stealing the cigars.

Now for those of you who are wondering what would motivate somebody to steal a box of cigars, these weren't just any cigars.  They were Swisher Sweets, which are known for  being used by weed smokers who replace the tobacco with marijuana. 
 
"Cheap cigars that most people use to roll blunts with. Very easy to split and dump out the tobacco to replace with weed. Popular among rappers."

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=swisher+sweets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d9Uxq2iTfM


The New York Times reported that Brown had "no adult arrest record, according to the police, who said they could not speak to whether he had been arrested as a juvenile."  They can't speak to it because juvenile criminal records are usually sealed.  And since he was only 18 years old his adult record would have only gone back a year or so.  It remains to be seen whether his death will allow for his record (if any) to be made public, but it does seem curious to me that they would make a point of using the caveat "adult" in their statement. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/us/ferguson-mo-michael-brown-and-darren-wilson-2-paths-to-a-fatal-encounter.html?_r=0

Officer Darren Wilson

The officer who fired the fatal shot was Darren Wilson, a six year veteran policeman who had served four years at Ferguson and two with another St. Louis area police department in Jennings.  By all accounts Wilson had an excellent record with no complaints and at least one commendation.

I think we can all agree that a police officer shooting and killing an unarmed man who has his hands raised in surrender would be guilty of murder. Likewise we can all agree that an officer who is being attacked in an effort to take his gun away would be justified in using deadly force.  I think we can also agree that much of what we're hearing from the parties involved in this story is just meaningless chatter. The race of the officer and the racial composition of the Ferguson community aren't really the issue here. The only thing that matters is what happened, and to determine what happened we have to look at verifiable facts, such as the ones I've listed here.

So to sum up, a 6'4" 290 lb. young man stole a box of cigars that are known for being used to create blunts for smoking weed.  A few minutes later an officer with an admirable record of service confronted him and an altercation followed, resulting in an injury to the face of the officer who ended up firing six shots from the front with the last one striking the subject in the head as the fatal wound.  The key witness who claims that Brown was surrendering at the time that he was shot was with Brown during the theft and has a previous charge of filing a false report, and the subsequent riots in Ferguson are based largely on his account of the events.

We'll be waiting awhile for the toxicology report and any news on Michael Brown's possible juvenile arrest record to add further illumination on the events, but for now these are verifiable facts.  Based on the facts, what do you think is more likely to have occurred?  A racist, white cop shot an unarmed black teenager "execution style" in broad daylight just for jaywalking, or a 6'4" 290 lb. thief was fatally shot by a police officer when a confrontation ended in a violent struggle?


 

Jesse Ventura's Defamation Suit Victory

In July a jury awarded Jesse Ventura $1.8 million in his defamation case against the estate of Chris Kyle, a heralded military sniper who won several commendations and claimed to be the most lethal sniper in US military history.  Kyle stated in his book American Sniper that he had an altercation in a San Diego area bar with a man he referred to as "Scruff Face" who was making deragatory remarks about President Bush and said that the navy seals "deserve to lose a few".  In interviews promoting the book he identified "Scruff Face" as Jesse Ventura.  As a result Ventura was shunned by many.

Ventura claimed that the incident never happened and that he had never met or even heard of Chris Kyle before the book was written.  He filed a lawsuit against Kyle for defamation in 2012, but Kyle died tragically in an incident at a shooting range in Texas in February of 2013 before the suit began.  At that point Ventura made Kyle's estate the subject of the lawsuit. 

Kyle's widow was on FOX News with Bill O'Reilly last year when O'Reilly said that Ventura should drop the case if he wants to restore his reputation.  In fact it was getting a jury to award him $1.8 million that restored his reputation, because now people are forced to conclude that the evidence backed Ventura's story.  That's why we have civil litigation and defamation lawsuits.  It's how we as a society choose to settle these disputes rather than resort to a duel as occurred 200 years ago when Vice President Aaron Burr fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton. 

I want to make it clear that I have no use for Jesse "The Body" Ventura.  I consider him a loudmouth, arrogant jerk.  I think it's admirable that he served our country as a navy seal, but I have no interest in wrasslin' and never was a fan of his political career or conspiracy nut theory show.  On top of that he is an avowed atheist and I am a devout Christian. 

However, the reaction to his defamation suit victory really hit me the wrong way.  Aren't people interested in facts?  Doesn't the truth mean anything anymore?  Defamation is notoriously hard to prove, especially for celebrities like Jesse Ventura.  The case was won because the jury looked at the evidence and concluded that Chris Kyle made up the whole story, and profited an estimated $6 million from the sale of 1.5 million copies of the book in question.  The promotion for the book included the story of the alleged altercation, so one could assume that the profits from the book came in large part from the fabrication. 

Sarah Palin called him a jackass and said that suing Kyle's widow wouldn't help his reputation.  Again, you might not like the fact that Ventura sued the estate, but had he dropped the lawsuit Kyle's claims about Ventura would have gone forever unaddressed.  On Twitter CNN's Anderson Cooper said "has he no shame?", but apparently he never tweeted that Kyle's lies which were now confirmed by a jury were shameless.  The fact is Kyle's story about Ventura makes many of the other claims he has made about himself questionable.

This is not to say that Kyle didn't deserve the many commendations he received, nor does it mean that his service to our country shouldn't be applauded.  But like it or not, Jesse Ventura also served as a navy seal and nobody has the right to destroy his reputation with lies to generate book sales.  

The famous attorney Alan Dershowitz defended Claus von Bulow who was one of the most unlikeable men in America, simply because he felt like the system was railroading the guy.  Our justice system is supposed to work for people we don't like as well as for people we do. What is supposed to matter is the law and the facts.         

I felt the same way when Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton for sexual harrassment while he was governor of Arkansas.  I didn't like her, and I felt that her suit was frivolous and politically motivated.  However, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in her favor which gave her the right to pursue it.  At that point Clinton was obligated to either go through the process and tell the truth or settle out of court.  Instead he chose door #3 - lie and risk impeachment.  Some people thought that lying about such a trivial thing as sex was no big deal, but the point is the president of the United States was denying an American citizen due process by obstructing justice.  Whether you liked Paula Jones or not she had the right to sue by virtue of a Supreme Court ruling.  

Now that this matter is resolved Ventura can now go back to his delusional plan to run for president in 2016 or to his goofy TV show or whatever else he decides to do, knowing that he has forever settled this issue of publicly disrespecting his fellow navy seals.  That's how our system works, and that's how it should work. 

Tony Stewart/Kevin Ward Tragedy

Saturday night (8/9/14) a terrible thing happened on a race track in upstate New York. A sprint car racer lost his life, but he didn't lose it crashing into a wall or flipping end over end as many drivers have in the past. No, he lost his life after getting out of his wrecked car and attempting to confront the driver he deemed responsible for his early departure from the race.

Here is a video of the incident.

Let me say at the beginning that I am not a fan of racing. I don't really know anything about it, so maybe I'm not the best person to comment on what happened in this situation but I have watched the video several times and these are my conclusions.

First, the initial contact that sent Ward into the wall and out of the race doesn't appear to me to be Stewart's fault. I don't see any action on his part aside from rounding the curve and drifing a bit like every other racer. If he purposely bumped Ward I didn't see it. It looks to me like Ward was trying to make up some ground that he lost when there really wasn't any room to do so, and he ended up catching his front left wheel on Stewart's car and spun out.

Second, Ward got out of his car in an obvious state of rage while cars were still circling the track. True, they weren't going at race speeds but even 40 mph can be deadly as we unfortunately have seen. Ward wasn't the first driver to do this, but he may very well have been the last one. Had he stayed in his car until the wreck crew arrived he would still be alive today. I don't think anybody would dispute that point.

Having said all of that, when I first watched the video it did appear that Stewart's car went to the right in order to hit Ward so I can understand why some people are so upset. The car before Stewart slowed down and moved to the left to avoid Ward, so I was wondering why Stewart didn't do the same? However, I watched the video several times after that and froze the video in an attempt to go frame by frame to figure out what the heck happened. This was an amateur video and you can't really see the impact that well, but it looked like Stewart's car was trying to maneuver around Ward and only veered to the right after the right rear tire caught Ward.

Then I got an idea and went to YouTube to see if there was a slow motion video of the incident and lo and behold .....

If you watch the following video closely it appears that Ward had to step out of the way of the preceeding car, and then tried to step out of the way of Stewart's car.

It then looks like he was actually trying to grab onto the right wing of the car and hang on. That is probably what caused the car to pull to the right. When he wasn't able to hold on he went flying onto the dirt track practically head first. You have to wonder what was going through his head that brought him to do what he did?

As for Stewart not slowing down as much as the car ahead of him, he obviously slowed down some because of the caution flag. As you watch the video you'll notice that different cars were going at different speeds, presumably based on what they were seeing as they passed Ward and his car. When Ward got out of his car he had to wait for several cars to pass before walking out on the track. He then waited for one last car to pass him so that he could confront Stewart. In other words, Stewart was behind another driver and may not have seen Ward until a second or two before "hitting" him.

If somebody walks down a railroad track and then jumps off right before the train gets there, and then attempts to jump on to the train only to lose their grip and fall to the ground below, would you blame the engineer or the person who tried to grab onto the train for their injuries or death?

Now, apparently Tony Stewart has a reputation for being a hothead, so I can understand why some people tend to suspect the worst here. Like I said before, I don't know anything about racing and I never heard of Tony Stewart before this story. Stewart's history will probably be something that is considered in the investigation.

The investigators are also reportedly looking at other photos and videos of the incident so we'll have to wait and see if they disagree, but based on what I saw I don't see how any objective person could say that this video incriminates Stewart in any way. If anything it reinforces the opinion that the majority of commenters have, that Ward brought this upon himself. It's very sad and obviously devastating for his loved ones, but to ruin another man's life because of the poor judgment of this young man is wrong IMO.

Impeach Obama?

Nixon waving goodbye after resigning

In my several decades of observing the American political process I have heard calls for impeachment of every president. Nixon of course was facing impeachment when he resigned in 1974. His successor Gerald Ford only served for two years, and yet some of the same people who had demanded Nixon’s impeachment were outraged that he pardoned Nixon and called for his impeachment as well. Carter was accused of selling us out when he “gave away” the Panama Canal, and a few on the far right saw that as a high crime against US interests. The “Iran-Contra” scandal prompted some in congress to mention articles of impeachment of Ronald Reagan when some of his underlings diverted funds from the sale of weapons to the contras in Nicaragua in violation of congressional authority and constitutional guidelines. His vice president George Bush Sr. followed him into the Oval Office where he faced articles of impeachment for starting the Gulf War. After his administration president Bill Clinton was impeached for allegations related to the Paula Jones lawsuit and the Monica Lewinski affair. George W. Bush was accused of lying about the intelligence on Iraq and WMD, and many on the left were calling for articles of impeachment to be introduced against him. And now we are hearing the “I” word being used regarding (among other things) Barack Obama’s defiance of the 30 day notification requirement for transferring terrorists.


Clinton denying allegations

The founding fathers included the articles of impeachment component in the constitution to ensure accountability. Congress must have the means at their disposal to remove any president who breaks the law and violates the constitution that he or she has sworn to uphold. This important mechanism loses its power unfortunately, when it is either flippantly flung about by political partisans or when congress lacks the will to utilize it.

In the case of Obama both are true. Since he took office he has been accused of being a Muslim, a communist, a foreigner, and a dictator. None of these accusations brought any serious consideration from anybody in congress who actually had the power to act on the constitutional provision of impeachment. Now however, we actually have a case where a law appears to have been violated. “High crimes and misdemeanors” suddenly seems applicable.

Since he was elected calls for Obama's impeachment have come in response to the cover-up in the attack on Benghazi, the lax enforcement of immigration laws, excessive use of executive orders, the Gitmo prisoner transfer/exchange for an accused traitor, and for abuse of power in using the IRS to gain an advantage over his political opponents. IMO the first three are pretty much baseless and are nothing more than partisan rhetoric, but the last two might have some merit. And unlike the case with Clinton, the Republicans might actually come out ahead by removing Obama and making Biden the president, because he would be a much less formidable opponent in the 2016 election than Hillary Clinton. But if you think that this congress has the backbone to actually do anything about any of Obama's actions, think again.

You have to pick your battles in life, and that is especially true in politics. Like the boy who cried “wolf”, some voices on the right have called for Obama’s impeachement from the day he took office. And now when we are presented with a legitimate impeachable offense, the option of impeachment lacks teeth in part because of their short-sightedness.


Obama facing talk of impeachment 

On the other hand I have to say that the historical role that Obama plays in being the first African-American president has virtually given him a pass when it comes to the law. In my opinion this congress wouldn’t impeach Obama if they saw a video of him snorting coke and taking million dollar bribes, wearing a Karl Marx t-shirt in a room full of hookers. Because to attempt the removal of the first black president would automatically label those involved as nothing more than racists, and in modern American culture few things are deemed as offensive as racism.

Dr. King dreamed of the day when we would not judge a man on the color of his skin but on the content of his character. President Obama’s skin color didn’t keep him from being elected. That’s a good thing. At the same time however, his skin color should not prevent his removal. That would be a bad thing.

I recall the day in 1998 when the Monica Lewinski story broke. Newsweek had planned on publishing it but decided that it was too hot to print and spiked the story. It then ran on the Drudge Report and the rest is history. The day the story broke the talking heads were pretty much in agreement that if the story was true, Clinton had committed an impeachable offense. Once the allegations proved true most of them backed off and started talking about keeping things in proportion, and pontificated about how it didn't "rise to the level" of impeachment, but the fact is federal judges have been impeached for lying under oath in a civil suit as Clinton did.

My contention then and now is that a president must be held accountable for such behaviour. He can't be allowed to show such contempt for the law and the judicial process. What many people never realized is that the Democrats would have loved nothing more than to throw Bill Clinton under the bus and make Al Gore the president. They were embarrassed and appalled at his conduct and strategically they would have been in a much better position for the 2000 presidential election running an incumbent President Gore against any Republican challenger. Off the record they would tell reporters that, but on the record they all toed the party line and supported Clinton. The Republicans on the other hand, didn't want to remove Clinton from office because they didn't want to run against an incumbent in the 2000 election, and in fact many Republicans in the Senate resented their fellow Republicans in the House for throwing this hot potato into their laps. Off the record they told reporters that they didn't want to deal with this issue, but on the record of course they all expressed outrage over Clinton's blatant disregard for the law and agreed that it did "rise to the level". In the end of course, Clinton was impeached but remained in office as there wasn't enough support in the Senate for convicting him.

There was sufficient evidence to convict Clinton on the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice IMO, but there wasn't sufficient backbone on either side of the aisle to do the right thing. The Democrats put politics ahead of principle and supported Clinton, and the Republicans put politics ahead of principle and feigned supporting impeachment. The right thing to do was for both parties to remove the man from office and set a precedent for future presidents who might be tempted to commit a similar offense. That would have meant that Democrats would have to face some angry constituents and that Republicans would have had to face an uphill battle for the White House in 2000, but sometimes you just have to do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may.

Should Obama be impeached? I wouldn’t venture to say one way or the other. But the option needs to be on the table for this president just like any other president. The well-being of our political system requires nothing less.

My First Post

Well, here it is. My first post on my new blog. I'm sure you're all wondering "Snow Monkey? Really? Why did you name it that?" Well the simple answer is that everything I tried was already taken, so I had to use my imagination. Snow Monkeys to me represent a counterintuitive concept. We usually expect monkeys to live in tropical climates, so the idea of them living in snowy regions is contrary to the natural way of thinking. I find that my views are often contrary to conventional thinking or the herd mentality, so I felt that it was a fitting title.

For those of you who are new to my writing, I began my blogging career with a site called Dinar Douchebags, where I wrote about a so-called investment in the Iraqi dinar. It turned out to be a scam and unfortunately I was one of the scammed. When I realized my mistake I started a blog to expose the fraud and the fraudsters. I enjoyed blogging so much that I felt I should start a new blog where I could write about other topics. Thus, The Snow Monkey.

In this blog it's pretty much "anything goes". One week I might write about Justin Beiber and the next I might write about Vladimir Putin. One week a movie review, the next week breakthroughs in science and technology. One week the Super Bowl, the next my views on the latest Supreme Court ruling.

I don't pretend to be an expert on all of these things or even any of these things. What I am is a guy who has opinions and enjoys sharing those opinions in this format. I enjoy discussion and debate, and I've found that I learn a lot from exchanges with other informed people who also have strong opinions that they want to share. Hopefully I've also provoked others to open their minds and consider a different viewpoint as well. Cheers!