Nothing Wise, Safe about What Clinton Calls 'Smart Power'

On December 3, 2014, Hillary Clinton spoke at Georgetown University, saying:

“This is what we call smart power. Using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view. Helping to define the problems, determine the solutions. That is what we believe in the 21st century will change -- change the prospects for peace.”

When I first heard this speech, my first reaction was, this is inane; did she really say those things?

Twenty months later, I feel the same.

What she said was inane. Banal blather.

In the 20 months that have passed, America has seen its enemies in action.

We have watched North Korea develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

We have been trying to “empathize” with the North Korean dictators since the days of Bill Clinton to convince North Korea to give up its goal of having nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. We have provided them with bribes galore in the form of food and energy. In return, they have covertly built their WMDs and missiles, and most recently have fired three off -- sticking them up the noses of President Obama and the other gathered world leaders.

Has empathizing with their point of view induced them to forego their weapon’s programs? Has showing respect for the pot-bellied dictator advanced peace and security? Provided solutions?

Just this last week we have seen an Afghan immigrant who we brought to America and gave citizenship to, plant a number of bombs designed to kill and maim innocent American men, women and children. Earlier we saw two brothers plant pressure-cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon which killed and tore of the legs off nearby children.

How did we fail to show respect for them?

How does one understand the perspective and point of view of someone who sneaks around and plants bombs on street corners designed to slaughter women and children? Why would anyone in their right mind empathize with such miscreants?

In Africa, Boko Haran kidnaps 300 young teenage girls, and either forces them into marriages or sells them off as slaves. Do you really feel showing respect for these barbarians will advance 21st century peace?

Change the prospects for peace?

Would you empathize with someone who did this to your 11-year-old daughter?

Do you really believe we should try, so far as possible, to empathize with Boko Haran’s perspective and point of view?


In recent months we have employed “smart power” in our negotiations with Iran.

We have ended sanctions, paid them billions of dollars and paid ransom. And to what effect?

They make mock runs at our naval vessels, threaten to shoot down our airplanes, take more hostages, and provide support to terrorist groups around the world.

Negotiations make sense.

Real peace is better than war. But when your enemy uses negotiations to prepare for war, or to take steps that make America far less secure (such as N. Korea building WMDs and ballistic missile), then Mrs. Clinton’s “smart power” is delusion.

Or do you really believe that negotiating with ISIS will deter them from beheading captives, burning captured pilots in cages, or inducing ISIS wannabees in our country from killing Americans in our shopping malls?

We are told that Mrs. Clinton is the most qualified person ever to run for president.

That is not what her “smart power speech” indicates to me.

By John Donald O'Shea
Sep 23, 2016

It’s Killers, not Jurors who Inflict Cruel, Unusual Punishment

An op-ed writer, unlike a sitting judge, can assume that a defendant will be found guilty.

I am doing precisely that to make my points.

Two nurse practitioners, Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, “the sweetest, most gentle women you can imagine” were found knifed to death in their rural Holmes County Mississippi home on Aug. 25.

Their life’s work was to provide flu shots, insulin and other medical care for children and adults who couldn’t afford it. Sister Paula had served the poor of the county for 30 years. Their Lexington clinic provided about 25 percent of all the medical care in the county of 18,000. “They’d help anybody they could help. They’d give you the shirt off their backs.”

The stark reality is this: These two nuns were deprived of life and liberty without due process of law. Their murderer arrogated unto himself the offices of prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. The nuns were provided no attorneys. They were not allowed to confront nor cross-examine their accuser in open court. They received no trial consistent with the law of the land. They were executed in a summary fashion. For them: no fair trial; no appeal; no constitutional rights.

Now Rodney Earl Sanders has been arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder. It appears Sanders was released from prison in December 2015 after serving nine months for a felony driving under the influence conviction -- as per the Mississippi DOC. Their records are said to show that he also did prison time from the mid 1980s to early 1990s for armed robbery.

If Sanders is indeed prosecuted, all the rights he denied to Sisters Margaret and Paula will be lavished upon him. And if the prosecutor seeks the death penalty, and if Sanders is convicted and sentenced to death, a phalanx of lawyers and other “enlightened individuals” will trip over themselves to ensure that Sanders escapes the death penalty.

They’ll argue the death penalty is “too random.” That one murderer escapes the death sentence while the next murderer gets it. They will call any method of execution, “cruel and unusual punishment!”

When his case gets to the U.S. Supreme Court, it would be heard by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonja Sotomayer and Elana Kagen -- “progressive” judges who are certain that their own notions of “cruel and unusual punishment” are superior to those of the men who wrote and adopted our Constitution.

Sander’s appeal would afford them one more opportunity to abolish the death penalty -- not withstanding the fact that the men who wrote the Constitution specifically acknowledged that the state could impose the death penalty, as long as trial was pursuant to indictment, and due process was accorded the defendant.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not believe that the death penalty is appropriate in every murder case, or even in this case. But in some cases, the FACTS of the case justify imposition of the death penalty.

And because whether the death penalty should be imposed is preeminently a “fact question,” and since juries (not judges) determine questions of fact under our Constitution, the question of whether the death penalty is appropriate in light of all the facts of the case is a question for ordinary citizens and not judges (government functionaries).

A 12-man jury brings 12 different judgments to all the great issues: Can the murderer be rehabilitated? Will imprisonment adequately protect the public? Is death proportionate to defendant’s offense? Will life deprecate the enormity of the murder? Considering the facts, Is death deserved?

The people of the U.S., of course, can amend the Constitution to abolish the death penalty. But the notion that judges can effectively declare two express provisions of the Constitution unconstitutional, is nothing more than judicial fiat, judicial usurpation, and judicial misconduct.

If the facts are as alleged, it seems to me Sanders is an excellent candidate for any usual form of execution. His sentence will be far less “random” than the death penalties he imposed upon his victims. And perhaps because I presided over so many jury trials, I’ve come to trust juries more than I trust judges.


Posted: QCOline.com September 9, 2016

Copyright 2016, John Donald O'Shea

It’s Killers, not Jurors who Inflict Cruel, Unusual Punishment

An op-ed writer, unlike a sitting judge, can assume that a defendant will be found guilty.

I am doing precisely that to make my points.

Two nurse practitioners, Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, “the sweetest, most gentle women you can imagine” were found knifed to death in their rural Holmes County Mississippi home on Aug. 25.

Their life’s work was to provide flu shots, insulin and other medical care for children and adults who couldn’t afford it. Sister Paula had served the poor of the county for 30 years. Their Lexington clinic provided about 25 percent of all the medical care in the county of 18,000. “They’d help anybody they could help. They’d give you the shirt off their backs.”

The stark reality is this: These two nuns were deprived of life and liberty without due process of law. Their murderer arrogated unto himself the offices of prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. The nuns were provided no attorneys. They were not allowed to confront nor cross-examine their accuser in open court. They received no trial consistent with the law of the land. They were executed in a summary fashion. For them: no fair trial; no appeal; no constitutional rights.

Now Rodney Earl Sanders has been arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder. It appears Sanders was released from prison in December 2015 after serving nine months for a felony driving under the influence conviction -- as per the Mississippi DOC. Their records are said to show that he also did prison time from the mid 1980s to early 1990s for armed robbery.

If Sanders is indeed prosecuted, all the rights he denied to Sisters Margaret and Paula will be lavished upon him. And if the prosecutor seeks the death penalty, and if Sanders is convicted and sentenced to death, a phalanx of lawyers and other “enlightened individuals” will trip over themselves to ensure that Sanders escapes the death penalty.

They’ll argue the death penalty is “too random.” That one murderer escapes the death sentence while the next murderer gets it. They will call any method of execution, “cruel and unusual punishment!”

When his case gets to the U.S. Supreme Court, it would be heard by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonja Sotomayer and Elana Kagen -- “progressive” judges who are certain that their own notions of “cruel and unusual punishment” are superior to those of the men who wrote and adopted our Constitution.

Sander’s appeal would afford them one more opportunity to abolish the death penalty -- not withstanding the fact that the men who wrote the Constitution specifically acknowledged that the state could impose the death penalty, as long as trial was pursuant to indictment, and due process was accorded the defendant.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not believe that the death penalty is appropriate in every murder case, or even in this case. But in some cases, the FACTS of the case justify imposition of the death penalty.

And because whether the death penalty should be imposed is preeminently a “fact question,” and since juries (not judges) determine questions of fact under our Constitution, the question of whether the death penalty is appropriate in light of all the facts of the case is a question for ordinary citizens and not judges (government functionaries).

A 12-man jury brings 12 different judgments to all the great issues: Can the murderer be rehabilitated? Will imprisonment adequately protect the public? Is death proportionate to defendant’s offense? Will life deprecate the enormity of the murder? Considering the facts, Is death deserved?

The people of the U.S., of course, can amend the Constitution to abolish the death penalty. But the notion that judges can effectively declare two express provisions of the Constitution unconstitutional, is nothing more than judicial fiat, judicial usurpation, and judicial misconduct.

If the facts are as alleged, it seems to me Sanders is an excellent candidate for any usual form of execution. His sentence will be far less “random” than the death penalties he imposed upon his victims. And perhaps because I presided over so many jury trials, I’ve come to trust juries more than I trust judges.


QCOline.com September 9, 2016

Copyright, John Donald O'Shea

Lessons for US in Venezuelan Socialist "Utopia"

In 1999, the Venezuelan people elected socialist/Marxist Hugo Chavez as president. He promised a socialist paradise. Chavez clung to office until his death in 2013.

During his "term," Chavez expropriated property from the rich and redistributed it to the poor, giving them new homes and appliances. Chavez was succeeded by hand-picked Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

Now, three years later, 1.85 million Venezuelans signed petitions to remove Maduro from office. (Nine times the number needed to begin the process!) Maduro's electoral commission refuses to hold the election, claiming fraud! Maduro's approval rating stands at 24.3 percent.

So, what went wrong with the Venezuelan socialist experiment? Its Marxist economy? In short, the money ran out.

The problems did not begin with Maduro. Even in the halcyon Chavez days, when Venezuelan oil sold for $100 a barrel, the nation's debt was rising, and there were food shortages.

Oil accounts for 98 percent of the country's exports; 59 percent of its revenues. When oil dropped to $30 a barrel (it's now about $49), the country's economy tanked.

In 2016, government spending is expected to exceed revenues by 25 percent. The International Monetary Fund projects inflation will reach 4,505 percent by 2021.

The nation's capital, Caracas, has become the world's most violent city. In socialist utopian Venezuela, equality has been achieved; everybody's without hope!

Recently, a plastic bag stuffed with toilet paper rolls sold for 9,000 Bolivars. A bag of fruit and vegetables that could be purchased for 430 Bolivars in April of 2015, now costs 14,000 Bolivars. A Venezuela worker's average monthly salary is 15,000 Bolivars.

To offset the plunge in oil revenues, the government drastically cut imports to 2004 levels.

The result? Across-the-board shortages of milk, razors, cough syrup, toothpaste, toilet paper and baby wipes -- things you now get only on the black market. Hospitals and pharmacies are desperately short of even the most basic medicines, such as amoxycillin. In markets where prices are government controlled, shelves are half-empty.

To make things worse, a prolonged drought has reduced to oversized puddles the Venezuelan lakes which provide water to the country's hydroelectric dams. Less water means less electricity. The government's response? Rolling blackouts, two-day work weeks for public sector workers, and Friday school closings.

Venezuela nationalized profitable private businesses. Managers were replaced to provide jobs for the poor. But because appointees lacked management skills, once-profitable businesses went bankrupt.

-- On Jan. 15, President Maduro declared a 60-day state of economic emergency, allowing the government to seize assets of private companies to obtain essential food and goods.

-- On Feb. 18, Maduro raised the price of gasoline -- frozen for the past 20 years at $0.01 per liter, to $0.60 -- while devaluing the Bolivar and increasing the minimum wage.

-- On April 21, Maduro imposed electricity blackouts to last four hours per day for 40 days in several states.

-- On April 27, Maduro cut the working week for public-sector employees to two days to save electricity.

-- On May 15, the government said their will be no recall vote due to "fraud."

-- On May 18, Venezuelans took to the street, and Maduro responded that he is prepared to escalate the state of emergency.

-- On July 22, President Maduro, issued a presidential decree: "people working in public and private companies can be called upon to join state-sponsored organizations specialized in the production of food. They will be made to work in the new companies temporarily for a minimum of 60 days after which their 'contracts' will be automatically renewed for an extra 60-day period or they will be allowed to go back to their original jobs."
Amnesty International said that "new decree establishing that any employee in Venezuela can be effectively made to work in the country’s fields as a way to fight the current food crisis is unlawful, and effectively amounts to forced labour -- even if paid their old wages."

Forced labor equals slavery.

It has taken Chavez and Maduro 17 years to transition from capitalism to socialism to slavery. President Obama has started a similar process here. Hillary proposes to serve his "third term."


Posted: Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2016 - QCOline.com

Copyright 2016

John Donald O'Shea