The Patriot Post® · A Few Odds & Ends

Some people continue to assert that Richard Nixon was a very good president. Even if you overlook Watergate, which I am willing to do because I regarded it as an act of political stupidity, not really a threat to America, I don’t see that he scored any great accomplishments. Some point out that he opened the door to China, a door he had helped slam shut in the first place. But four decades later, China remains an enemy to us and a threat to our allies in Southeast Asia. In the meantime, we boost their economy enormously by buying their shoddy goods and their toxic dog food.

One lasting legacy of Nixon is the Endangered Species Act, a piece of legislation that provides the government absolute power over land use. The law is less about saving endangered animals and insects and more about the feds doing the dirty work on behalf of outfits like the Sierra Club. The fact is that 99% of all the species that have ever existed on earth are now extinct, thanks to Mother Nature performing very late-term abortions on millions of her offspring. And I, for one, will frankly admit that I’m overjoyed that dinosaurs, pterodactyls and sabre-tooth tigers, aren’t hanging around outside, just waiting to pick us off as we race down the driveway to get our newspaper.

According to the arrogant elitists, the only species that should be made extinct are landowners, developers, loggers, miners, farmers and any other good-for-nothing trying to make a living in this country, except, of course, for forest rangers, ecology professors, Al Gore and beekeepers.

When it comes to someone like Michael Brown, who was 6'4,“ weighed 300 pounds and felt entitled to rob a convenience store and manhandle the clerk, referring to him as unarmed is stretching the truth beyond the breaking point.

Moreover, one should never criticize cops for donning helmets and flak jackets when thugs are firing guns and tossing Molotov cocktails at them. A war zone is a war zone, whether it’s in Fallujah, Iraq, or Ferguson, Missouri.

Everyone in the Middle East – and by everyone I’m including Syria, Iran and the Islamic State – regards Israel and the United States to be friends and allies. Too bad that Barack Obama and John Kerry don’t appear to see it that way.

Even when it comes to the Muslims who are beheading their enemies and abducting women to serve as sex slaves in Iraq, Obama says he wants a solution "that has no victors and no vanquished.” Has anyone considered giving this namby-pamby regular injections of testosterone?

It goes without saying that when people say that Obama throws like a girl, they’re not talking about 13-year-old Mo'ne Davis. Not only did she pitch a shutout in the Little League World Series, but showed real class when, embarrassed that so much attention was being focused on her, pointed out that baseball is a team sport and that she doesn’t play all nine positions and bat in all nine slots in the lineup. Too bad that the guy in the White House who took the lion’s share of the credit for executing Osama bin Laden lacks her maturity and graciousness.

As you may have heard, Hillary Clinton ridiculed Obama’s foreign policy. She pointed out that “Don’t do stupid stuff” is a slogan, not a strategy. And in Obama’s case, it doesn’t even come close to being true. All he has done since taking the reins as the commander-in-chief has been stupid stuff; stuff that has included, but is unfortunately not limited to, going back on our promise to provide Poland and the Czech Republic with missile defense systems; pushing the re-set button with Putin; refusing to promote the revolt against Assad in Syria; limiting our support of Ukraine to sending them MREs (meals ready to eat); and failing to arm the Kurds.

The problem for Mrs. Clinton is that all of those things happened under her watch as secretary of state. She can claim in her defense that she disagreed with many of Obama’s decisions, but that would mean that she hung on to the job because she felt a greater loyalty to him than she did to America. That, I would suggest, is an even worse campaign motto than “Hope and Change.”

On the other hand, Obama, who once gave Brazil two billion dollars in order to help that nation conduct off-shore oil drilling, just gave Ukraine $400,000 to erect a border fence between it and Crimea. If you’re a liberal, it seems you must never question why your president does things on behalf of foreign nations that he’d never do for America.

The administration keeps talking about having restored nearly all the jobs that went missing six years ago. What they fail to mention is that the jobs that were lost paid an average of $61,000-a-year; the new ones pay on average $47,000.

A recent poll asked people with which royal couple they would prefer to spend their summer vacation. The Clintons received 42% of the vote; the Obamas garnered 25%; while 27% voted for Neither. What the poll failed to disclose, as Edward Klein makes clear in his book, “Blood Feud,” is that neither Bill and Hillary nor Barack and Michelle, really care to spend their vacations together And I, for one, don’t blame any of them.

Speaking of Bill Clinton, in another poll, one seeking to determine the Most Popular World Figure, he wound up in a dead heat with Pope Francis. It’s one of those times when I think both men are equally entitled to feel insulted.

Finally, when you realize what the IRS, the FBI, the Patent Office and the Justice Department have been up to, and then factor in the trumped-up cases against Scott Walker and Rick Perry, it appears that America is turning into one big Chicago.

Sad to say, but we are well on our way to becoming a banana republic in every respect except, of course, that we don’t grow bananas.