Tag Archives: free state patriot

Mark Caserta: Leadership can make the US strong again

20 Jul

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor

Apr. 10, 2014 @ 12:00 AM

Liberals are strikingly one-dimensional in their thinking about how other nations perceive America’s strength.

There are many ways the U.S. can become stronger domestically and internationally, non-militarily.

Progressives fail to understand that perception is reality in foreign affairs, and that “reality” can be the premise from which wars begin.

There is no doubt in the world theater that the United States is a dominating military power capable of monumental destruction. But, understand it isn’t what the U.S. is capable of doing that dictates the actions of world leaders; it’s what other countries perceive our government is “willing” to do that bridles international activity.

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Given the potential impact of the United States on various international fronts, every nation of consequence is constantly monitoring the most current level of fortitude and “forthrightness” displayed by our leadership. And for liberals not to incorporate this reality into our political cogitation is extremely reckless and naïve.

Currently, the United States has been accurately assessed by friend and foe as being passive, indecisive, appeasing and less than deliberate in protecting its distinction as the beacon of democracy for the world.

Words without a disposition of determination are meaningless and, indeed, harmful to the safety of a nation. When the president of the United States openly draws a “red line” as Obama did for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons and then fails to keep his word, the entire world takes note.

And this administration is clueless in the rudimentary technique of negotiating from a position of strength — not good intentions. They seemingly have no concept of the conservative principle that the best military is one you “never have to use.”

Of the many U.S. contingencies assessed by foreign countries, beyond the plausibility of our leadership, are our assets and resources required to engage and sustain actions militarily or by sanction if necessary. Wars begin over land determined strategically important not only for military viability but also based on its available energy resources.

International perception of America’s strength has not only been compromised by inept leadership, but also by other nation’s discernment of America’s willingness to forego energy independence simply to protect the liberal ideology of man-made climate change.

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America should immediately pursue an “all of the above” energy strategy rather than an “anything but fossil fuels” approach. The Keystone Pipeline is a no-brainer. Progressives have placed our nation on an unlevel energy playing field based upon a liberal ideology to which other nations are unwilling to conform.

Other strengthening measures must include tearing down the wall of government overreach preventing entrepreneurs from building businesses, hiring people and turning a profit.

This administration must also eliminate its divide-and-conquer class-warfare strategy and pursue policies that unite — not divide — Americans.

Obamacare must be repealed and replaced so America can begin to repair its healthcare system and economy.

And finally, our country needs a commander-in-chief who will patriotically work to protect the sovereignty of the United States and defend democracy.

America can become strong once again. All we need is leadership.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Obama collecting personal data for a secret race database

19 Jul

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  By Paul Sperry – New York Post

Published: July 18, 2015 | 4:00pm

A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”

Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.

This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.

Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.

So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of “racial disparities” and “segregation,” even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.

Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history.

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Housing database

The granddaddy of them all is the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing database, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development rolled out earlier this month to racially balance the nation, ZIP code by ZIP code. It will map every US neighborhood by four racial groups — white, Asian, black or African-American, and Hispanic/Latino — and publish “geospatial data” pinpointing racial imbalances.

The agency proposes using nonwhite populations of 50% or higher as the threshold for classifying segregated areas.

Federally funded cities deemed overly segregated will be pressured to change their zoning laws to allow construction of more subsidized housing in affluent areas in the suburbs, and relocate inner-city minorities to those predominantly white areas. HUD’s maps, which use dots to show the racial distribution or density in residential areas, will be used to select affordable-housing sites.

HUD plans to drill down to an even more granular level, detailing the proximity of black residents to transportation sites, good schools, parks and even supermarkets. If the agency’s social engineers rule the distance between blacks and these suburban “amenities” is too far, municipalities must find ways to close the gap or forfeit federal grant money and face possible lawsuits for housing discrimination.

Civil-rights groups will have access to the agency’s sophisticated mapping software, and will participate in city plans to re-engineer neighborhoods under new community outreach requirements.

“By opening this data to everybody, everyone in a community can weigh in,” Obama said. “If you want affordable housing nearby, now you’ll have the data you need to make your case.”

Mortgage database

Meanwhile, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, headed by former Congressional Black Caucus leader Mel Watt, is building its own database for racially balancing home loans. The so-called National Mortgage Database Project will compile 16 years of lending data, broken down by race, and hold everything from individual credit scores and employment records.

Mortgage contracts won’t be the only financial records vacuumed up by the database. According to federal documents, the repository will include “all credit lines,” from credit cards to student loans to car loans — anything reported to credit bureaus. This is even more information than the IRS collects.

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The FHFA will also pry into your personal assets and debts and whether you have any bankruptcies. The agency even wants to know the square footage and lot size of your home, as well as your interest rate.

FHFA will share the info with Obama’s brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which acts more like a civil-rights agency, aggressively investigating lenders for racial bias.

The FHFA has offered no clear explanation as to why the government wants to sweep up so much sensitive information on Americans, other than stating it’s for “research” and “policymaking.”

However, CFPB Director Richard Cordray was more forthcoming, explaining in a recent talk to the radical California-based Greenlining Institute: “We will be better able to identify possible discriminatory lending patterns.”

Credit database

CFPB is separately amassing a database to monitor ordinary citizens’ credit-card transactions. It hopes to vacuum up some 900 million credit-card accounts — all sorted by race — representing roughly 85% of the US credit-card market. Why? To sniff out “disparities” in interest rates, charge-offs and collections.

Employment database

CFPB also just finalized a rule requiring all regulated banks to report data on minority hiring to an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. It will collect reams of employment data, broken down by race, to police diversity on Wall Street as part of yet another fishing expedition.

School database

Through its mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection project, the Education Department is gathering information on student suspensions and expulsions, by race, from every public school district in the country. Districts that show disparities in discipline will be targeted for reform.

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Those that don’t comply will be punished. Several already have been forced to revise their discipline policies, which has led to violent disruptions in classrooms.

Obama’s educrats want to know how many blacks versus whites are enrolled in gifted-and-talented and advanced placement classes.

Schools that show blacks and Latinos under-enrolled in such curricula, to an undefined “statistically significant degree,” could open themselves up to investigation and lawsuits by the department’s Civil Rights Office.

Count on a flood of private lawsuits to piggyback federal discrimination claims, as civil-rights lawyers use the new federal discipline data in their legal strategies against the supposedly racist US school system.

Even if no one has complained about discrimination, even if there is no other evidence of racism, the numbers themselves will “prove” that things are unfair.

Such databases have never before existed. Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history. He is creating a diversity police state where government race cops and civil-rights lawyers will micromanage demographic outcomes in virtually every aspect of society.

The first black president, quite brilliantly, has built a quasi-reparations infrastructure perpetually fed by racial data that will outlast his administration.

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “The Great American Bank Robbery,” which exposes the racial politics behind the mortgage bust.

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Mark Caserta: Sanctuary cities aren’t above the law

16 Jul

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor

Jul. 16, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

Why would our government permit any U.S. city to knowingly and willingly harbor illegal aliens?

Cities around the country, known as “sanctuary cities,” are literally incentivizing illegal immigration by adopting policies which essentially nullify federal immigration law. And it’s no surprise that these are some of the most liberal cities in the United States.

So are these cities within their right to circumvent federal law and endanger the sovereignty of our nation, aid in crippling our economy, and put innocent lives at risk? How does one justify such an abominable progressive policy?

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Liberals justify the need for creating sanctuary policies under the guise of “protecting immigrant rights.” But clearly these are not immigrants, but illegal aliens who should be subject to deportation under federal law.

Sanctuary policies are generally passed by a local governing body in the form of a resolution, ordinance or administrative action. They usually instruct city employees not to notify the federal government of the presence of illegal aliens living in their communities. Since there is vague distinction between legal and illegal aliens, these individuals typically benefit from taxpayer-funded government services and programs.

In protecting these illegals, many with criminal backgrounds are allowed to remain in the country. While policies differ, if an illegal is arrested for a crime in a sanctuary city, they may serve jail time, but will not be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation. Many are repeat offenders and when released, lurk as an ongoing danger to a community.

According to a July column written by Jessica Vaughn for the Center for Immigration Studies, 276 jurisdictions, both state and local, have caused the release of more than 8,000 criminal alien offenders across the country over an eight-month period. Vaughn cites ICE records obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request.

According to the records, 63 percent of the individuals freed by local authorities had prior criminal histories or were labeled a “public safety concern.” Nearly 1,900 of the released offenders subsequently were arrested for another crime within the eight-month period.

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One such offender was Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal alien who had been deported five times and had racked up seven felony convictions. While in the midst of yet another deportation, the city of San Francisco asked for custody of Sanchez to pursue prior drug charges. Unremarkably, these charges were dropped, but in accordance to the city’s long standing sanctuary policies, Sanchez was not returned to ICE for deportation. Less than three months later, Sanchez was accused of shooting and killing Kathryn Steinle, a 32-year-old out for an evening stroll with her father along the waterfront.

Progressive policies like this are destroying our nation, not flags, guns or otherwise. But while liberal Democrats continue down this debilitating road, the GOP continues to lack the intestinal fortitude to address politically volatile issues.

It’s time for impotent politicians to make way for patriots willing to stand up and be heard.

When it comes to illegal immigration, no city is above the law.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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OBAMA WRITES TO FELONS; IGNORES FAMILY OF KATE STEINLE

15 Jul

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Nearly two weeks after 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was murdered on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by an illegal alien and convicted felon who was released from prison earlier this year, President Barack Obama has failed to contact the victim’s family or mention her in public. Yet Obama took the time to write (and release) 46 personal letters this month to felons imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses whose sentences he has commuted.

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Like the 46 felons to whom Obama wrote, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez had served time for non-violent offenses, some of them drug-related. After his arrest, Lopez-Sanchez, who had been deported five times to Mexico, confessed to shooting Steinle as she walked with her family at the popular tourist spot.

Steinle’s murder quickly became an iconic example of violent crime by illegal aliens released from custody under the “sanctuary city” policies embraced by San Francisco and other liberal cities that decline to work with federal immigration officials.

Critics have noted that Obama was quick to reach out to the family of Michael Brown, who was killed while charging a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri last year, enhancing Brown’s heroic status to drive a political narrative. He has done the same in other, similar cases.

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Doug Smith: Admiral Rickover helped shape his century

8 Jul

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Doug Smith: Author, historian and regular contributor to Free State Patriot.

“The more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war”

Admiral Hymen G Rickover

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In 1904, half a century before my birth, Abraham the Tailor sent for his family in the Russian Empire, to join him in New York. I would owe Abraham a debt someday.  For he brought with him his son, Hymen.  Hymen was a very driven, scholarly, and hardworking boy. Demanding, and a loner, Hymen did not endear himself to people.  He was educated at the Naval Academy and at Columbia.

He did little to endear himself to the Navy brass either; ignoring rank in favor of ability, working hard and demanding the same of others. His standards were simple: Excellence. By 1948, he was head of the Naval Reactors brand of the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1954 he presided over the launch of the USS Nautilus, SSN 571, and the world’s first nuclear powered submarine.

My debt, and yours, to Admiral Hymen G Rickover, increased markedly that year. I was quite unaware of it, having not yet reached the level of a “twinkle in my Daddy’s eye.”  By the time I would make my entrance, late the following year, Nautilus would have signaled “Underway on Nuclear Power”, and would be on the way to circumnavigating the world, sailing to the North Pole, and steaming 250,000 miles under the oceans.

Under Rickover’s direction, the world’s first nuclear power plant would be built, around the time I turned 2.

A strong proponent for excellence in education and safety in Engineering, Hymen Rickover was the force behind a United States Nuclear force with a 60 year record of Zero serious accidents or deaths. Our Russian counterparts cannot make that claim.  That Naval Submarine Force was silently, secretly, but integrally involved in pressing back the Soviets during the Cold War, and behind us all, there was Rickover.

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Yes, my more direct debt to Admiral Rickover.  As I grew up, so too, did the Submarine Force. On 4 July, 1976, I reported for duty to the USS Gato, SSN 615; a hard charging Permit class Attack Submarine, a sleek, silent, and deadly predator; a shark. I became a “steely eyed killer of the deep”; ready to do incredible violence on your behalf, to protect you, or perhaps your parents, from enemies on or beneath the seas. What did we do? Well, I could tell you, but then…  No. Much of what we did will never be told. But we were out there, between our homes and our enemy, and behind us was Hymen Rickover. His name and his spirit and his presence were felt on every boat in the fleet, and by every sailor calling them home.

He helped to shape his century. On this date, July 8th, in 1986, Admiral Hymen G Rickover died, and was laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery. So today I will remember my debt to the tailor, and the engineer and leader.  Thanks, Abraham, for bringing him. And thanks, Admiral

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Perry Stone Ministries: Based on prophecy; Is Greece just the first?

7 Jul
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Perry Stone Ministries

ALERT: It has finally occurred. Debt, borrowing from the IMF is crashing some economies within the E.U. For those who believe the 10 kings in Revelation could be a 7th Empire of prophecy – then at least 5 E.U. nations must eventually exit – Greece may be the first (we’ll see). Some nations cannot pay back the debt. Circumstances with America’s DEBTS his has led to an “October Surprise” according to “inside economists.” The IMF is expecting to add China’s currency on the level of the dollar, as a global reserve currency.

China has fudged its numbers and their Stock Market could experience a 1929 correction. However, they have tons of gold they have purchased to back their currency – and the U.S. MAY BE in a serious bind (with the dollar as a reserve) in the next 6 months, as owe not just 18 trillion in debt (that’s the Federal number) but the states, cities, retirements plans etc. are in debt over 150 trillion!! Rumor has it there is a new currency planned called the North America Republic currency, for Canada, Mexico and the U.S. on the drawing board. This is why most politicians don’t care about the border as we will eventually not have dollars, but a new currency (I have seen pro-types-sent to me by an insider). Be WISE with Stock investments and diversify NOW buying silver and gold while the prices are lower if you are an investor. 

Most of all, know we are the generation seeing prophecy fulfilled, God is behind the scenes working His plan and for believers, the best is still awaiting us!! Never fear – be excited for OUR future as believers! Repost to others if you wish. More will follow in a few days.

Disclaimer: This information is not intended as financial or investment advice.

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Doug Smith: Cautionary Tale from a Curmudgeon

2 Jul

DOUG SMITH

Doug Smith: Author, Historian and regular contributor to Free State Patriot

“The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number.

The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”

Robert Heinlein

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Some of our idealists and are enthusiastically celebrating SCOTUS’ ruling on Obamacare. So, for them: a Cautionary Tale.

Our vaunted Brethren (and Sisterns? ) reversed their own positions and found, because they wanted it to be so, that the words of a law did not say what they said, but rather what the Brethren thought they ought to have said, if the Congress intended what the Brethren thought the Congress ought to have intended.

The court, in very nearly the same breath, has said Government may NOT control your decisions, yet Government May control your decisions, depending 9 people’s whim of the moment. The Court, has, then, gathered to itself the role of Grand Arbiter, final word on all decisions of law or politics regarding what Government may do TO you.

How’s that again?

Our Constitution was enacted to protect citizens from what Government could do to its citizens, by people who had been subjects of a Government which could, and did, exercise arbitrary power at the whim of King or Noble. People who live under a monarch thought to rule by divine Right, unquestionable, are the Subjects of his will, and the whim of his lesser nobles. Or 9 Robed Arbiters.

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Citizens are protected by laws and rights that may not be infringed under those laws. Altering those laws, under the Constitution is, by design, possible, but difficult. We ought not to alter our laws on the whims of a few or a passing fashion, but by a dawning and sustained consensus that a change ought to take place, and carries popular support. Because what is so easily gained, “just like that”, can just as easily be taken away.

As part of this cautionary tale, consider that we fought a war to get the 13th Amendment, and how enduring it is. Whereas the 18th Amendment, which, like Obamacare, involved a Progressive Government controlling businesses and personal financial choices, lasted barely 10 years.

Prohibition, like Obamacare, was touted as “the law of the land”. But it quickly became unpopular, and was repealed. Why? Because it didn’t work, and was a financial disaster. Obamacare has been, and remains, hugely unpopular. Why? Because it doesn’t work, and is a financial disaster.

Our cautionary tale, then, suggests the Idealists might want to temper their celebrations. Or, perhaps, elect politicians who will vote and work to make it workable. To make it survivable, it would be necessary to change it to earn support.

Idealists don’t want to do that. They prefer that you accept their will since acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number.

But their neighbors are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. And we are comfortable with that.

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Mark Caserta: Progressive victories are but short term

2 Jul

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor

Jul. 02, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

As we look at the world around us, many of us are wondering if things could get much worse. In my lifetime, I can’t recall America ever being in such disarray. Indeed, the progressive movement is having its share of victories.

In such times of distress, it’s often valuable to step back and analyze exactly what’s happening and to what purpose it’s meant to serve. In doing so, those of us who are faith-based in our daily walk are able to see that progressives are desperately seeking to make Christianity irrelevant in their “new world order.”

Bringing God’s Word into question is prerequisite to redirect man’s thinking. Liberals would have you believe that having a steadfast faith in God is for “non-thinkers” and those unwilling to adapt to our changing times. After all, God couldn’t have possibly known how his children could evolve into such “intellectual” beings, able to think and surmise for themselves. He couldn’t possibly have known that we could develop such “god-like” characteristics and be able to live our lives free from the constraints and principles of His Word.

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“For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” 2 Timothy 4:3.

None of this is a surprise to our Heavenly Father, who knew us “before the foundation of the world.” He sent His only Son to experience the passions and weaknesses of this earth and was in all points tempted as we are. But in His vast love for His children, he provided His Word that we might be able to “overcome the world” through the teachings of Jesus Christ. But even then, God knew few would be willing to accept life on His terms.

“But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it,” Matthew 7:14.

Sadly, some of the valued spokespersons of the progressive movement are those professing Christianity while espousing any and all methods of circumventing God’s statutes. These are modern day “theologians” who essentially seek to redefine Christianity and are, in fact, enablers of a new “progressive” form of narcissistic salvation where man is God and without boundaries in his passions.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.” Matthew 7:15.

Stone by stone, these individuals are tearing down America’s foundation. Stitch by stitch they’re destroying the very fabric of our society. Redefining the family unit, designed by God, is paramount to their endeavor. It includes removing barriers preventing men and women from pleasuring themselves with any earthly abomination and offering an entrancing, alternative lifestyle – all in the name of love.

These progressive successes are very temporary and offer gratification only for a season. At some point, every individual will reap from the choices they’ve made in life.

And poor choices always have consequences.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Supreme Court has become too political

25 Jun

Do these nine individuals deserve our trust for a lifetime?

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot Editor

Jun. 25, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

As the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of the United States has the responsibility of interpreting the law as it applies to all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution. Unfortunately, through the years, the court has succumbed to being government’s ultimate political apparatus.

Article III, Section I of the U.S. Constitution states that “The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme Court and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” As the guardian and interpreter of the Constitution, the court is charged with ensuring “equal justice under the law” for all Americans.

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A Supreme Court ruling is final and cannot be overturned by any single entity, including the president of the United States. Rulings may be nullified only if a decision is based on a law that Congress has passed, and Congress decides to change the law. Or if the decision is based on the Constitution, and the Constitution is amended. And of course, a later court may overturn a ruling if they deem it unconstitutional.

So what makes these nine Supreme Court justices so wise that we grant them vast power and control over our lives? In this writer’s opinion, not much.

While both the executive and the legislative branch have a say in the court’s composition, little consideration is given to the “constitutional caliber” of this ruling entity.

As a matter of fact, the entire process of vetting individuals nominated for court vacancies has become shallow and conspiring to the point of absurdity. The Constitution doesn’t specify qualifications for justices such as age, education, profession or native-born citizenship. A justice doesn’t even have to be a lawyer or a law school graduate! Sadly, it seems more consideration is given to the ideological balance of the court than to the justices’ qualifications.

Frankly, the polarization that’s enveloped the nomination and confirmation of a justice of the Supreme Court has rendered it dangerously political. Remember, an appointment to the Supreme Court is a lifetime commission! The potential ramifications of an ineffective, perhaps partisan court could impact generations!

Currently, the Supreme Court is about as balanced as it’s ever been. It’s popularly accepted that Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito (appointed by Republican presidents) comprise the court’s conservative wing. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan (appointed by Democrat presidents) make up the court’s liberal wing, with Anthony Kennedy (appointed by a Republican president) as the court’s moderate and often “swing vote” justice.

Over the years, Supreme Court rulings have literally changed the way we live our lives. Controversial decisions have, at times, been rulings with life or death consequences. Should we really place so much trust in so few individuals?

I’m concerned the Supreme Court has surrendered its noble calling to becoming the pinnacle of political activism. With its escalating impact on Americans, it’s time we protect our nation’s interest by imposing term limits and clearly defined standards qualifying someone to be a justice on our nation’s highest court.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: US must ramp up campaign against ISIS

20 Jun

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Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor

Jun. 18, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

The world has now sustained months of unrelenting atrocities by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). We’ve witnessed barbaric beheadings, victims burned alive and a strategic cleansing of Christians refusing to embrace the Muslim religion. Yet, the president of the United States still lacks a strategy to defeat them.

Last week, in a news conference following the Group of 7 summit meeting in Germany, Obama admitted to the world that “we don’t have, yet, a complete strategy” for addressing the threat posed by ISIS. He claims that after nearly a year and a half of the United States and its allies grappling with this group of Islamic terrorists, “the details are not worked out.”

The president’s failure to recognize ISIS as a grave threat early on certainly hampered strategies to squelch their advances. Some may recall that in January 2014 Obama compared ISIS to a “junior varsity basketball team,” playing down the strengths of ISIS, compared with Al Qaeda.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a J.V. team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Mr. Obama told David Remnick of The New Yorker. That same month, ISIS seized Fallujah, a city in Anbar Province, Iraq, and parts of Ramadi, the province’s capital.

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A few months later, as the military prowess of the group became known, the president was questioned about his strategy for addressing the threat that he dramatically understated. Yet he still lacked urgency.

The president has been clear as to what his strategy won’t be!

“I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq,” Obama told reporters. “American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s no military solution to the larger crisis there.”

So, the president claims he can defeat ISIS with coalition air power. But a recent Wall Street Journal article reveals the Obama coalition’s air campaign against ISIS pales in comparison to strategic air campaigns waged by presidents since the end of the Cold War, which were deemed successful.

During the 43-day Desert Storm air campaign against Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1991, coalition planes flew 48,224 strike sorties, or roughly 1,100 a day. 12 years later, the 31-day Iraqi Freedom campaign averaged more than 800 sorties a day. But the Obama “campaign” against ISIS, now approaching nine months, has only averaged about seven sorties a day! With ISIS now in control of an area around 50,000 square miles, it’s easy to see why these efforts haven’t been effective.

If indeed, Obama plans to decimate ISIS with coalition air power, he should take the lead in increasing the number of strikes commensurate with prior successful air campaigns.

And despite how much we dislike the thought, we must have sufficient ground troops to facilitate coordinated surgical strikes against the enemy.

Protecting America must take precedent over protecting Obama’s legacy.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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