This Guy Gets It…Period

Worth Dying For: A Navy SEAL’s Call to a Nation – Rorke Denver (Howard Books)

If you come to this book looking for heroic stories of Navy SEALs in action doing what Navy SEALs do, then you may end up disappointed. If that is what you seek, there are plenty of other books out there that will more than fill the need.

If however you are seeking not only leadership, but life insight from the perspective of a retired Navy SEAL commander who clearly views things through a prism created by his training and hard fought and battle tested decision making process, then this just might be the book you are looking for.

In Worth Dying For: A Navy SEAL’s Call to a Nation, Rorke Denver a Navy SEAL commander and NY Times bestselling author (Damn Few) serves up his well-honed perspective on being a leader and a better person. Denver brings more to the table than just military training and experience; he holds a BA from Syracuse and a master’s degree in Global Business Leadership from the University of San Diego.

Based on his first-hand experience, Denver clearly gets the what and the how of this equation. Where he really steps up and stands out is when he takes his opinions down to a more granular level and gives us the why. Lots of people have opinions or thoughts on a subject, but when pressed on why they believe what they believe, that’s when the wheels on the bus come flying off. Not the case with Denver; he can deliver the strong a opinion, but also make the case for why he believes what he believes.

That steadfastness is bound to drive liberals and mushy middle of the road moderates who stand for nothing over the edge, but that also makes this one required reading.

In Search of Unicorns

The Killing of Osama Bin Laden – Seymour M. Hersh (Verso Books)

Merriam-Webster define journalist as: “a writer or editor for a news medium”. I would tend toward including the fact that a journalist is a dogged pursuer of the truth

Aside from Watergate duo Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, perhaps no man alive has been lauded more for being a journalist than Seymour Hersh, Sy to his friends. While so many praise Hersh for being a dogged seeker of the truth, I hate to burst the bubble and break the news that this guy is at best a liberal opinion-ist and at worst out right delusional.

 

The Killing of Osama Bin Laden is so larded down with un-named “sources” and so chock full of convoluted conspiracy theories it will make your head spin. Hersh goes so far as to create a mythical unicorn;  “moderate Taliban” members who are apparently on the side of the United States. Show of hands…anyone buying that one?

Early in the book Hersh lays claim to quoting a former Navy SEAL commander as saying, “let’s face it, we’re going to commit murder.” Sorry, but NO, and I mean NO Navy SEAL commander would have said, that in battle they are committing murder!

The problem with this, and most conspiracy theories is they fall apart, collapse under the sheer weight of the number of people involved standing up to any level of scrutiny.

See…It’s Really Not That Hard

Government Gone Wild: How D.C. Politicians Are Taking You for a Ride – and What You Can Do About It – Kristin Tate (Center Street Books)

In a world over run with political correctness, micro-aggressions (?!), over-regulation and general government intrusions into every level of our existence, I find it both surprising and somehow heartening that there are young up and coming conservatives who really seem to get it. You know those younger folks who don’t buy into the Feel the Bern hucksterism of a politician/sugar granddaddy offering up “free” stuff.

One such person comes in the form of self-described Libertarian Chick, Kristin Tate, a conservative author, columnist and commentator who is out with her debut book, Government Gone Wild: How D.C. Politicians Are Taking You for a Ride – and What You Can Do About It. Tate busts out her take on some of the major issues facing the country and along the serves up so not so common sense in her on unique fashion.

 

Tate is about a subtle as a claw hammer when it comes to delivering her opinion. As an old school conservative I throw some people for a loop when I talk about the so-called war on drugs. I am right there with Tate’s take on things…the war is a failed effort and any true free market conservative knows that we could solve a whole boatload of money issues if moved away from incarcerating personal users and in the process started taxing the crap out of people’s habits. There’s a reason that tax stamp is wrapped over the cap of your favorite adult beverage at the liquor store.

While Tate is shy about telling you what she thinks and she at times comes off as a little too hip for me, I clearly get that her just leave me alone and let me do my thing attitude is what that country truly needs. Like her, I don’t care who you sleep with, I don’t care what you ingest, if you leave me alone, I will return the favor. Now is that too hard to understand? Oh and let’s not forget, I take care of me and mine, and I’ll expect you to do the same.

All Politics is Local

Going Red: The Two Million Voters Who Will Elect the Next President – and How Conservatives Can Win Them – Ed Morrissey (Crown Forum)

Comedian Darrel Hammond used to do a bit on Saturday Night Live playing former President Bill Clinton, usually in a bar, trying to come to grips with something and uttering the line “what the hell happened?!” It was that familiar refrain that sadly became the catch phrase of Republicans following the 2012 Presidential election as they tried to understand exactly what the hell happened!

Conservative blogger, writer and radio host Ed Morrissey reminds us of the painful details of what was clearly a White House ripe for the taking following a 2010 Republican mid-term blowout, President Barack Obama mired in the controversy of Benghazi, and the mess that is Obamacare. And yet it didn’t take long to see the Election Day handwriting on the wall for Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with his lack of testicular fortitude and inability to close the deal to send Obama packing.

 

Well now Morrissey not only dissects what went wrong, but how serves up a roadmap for how to fix the problem in 2016 and take politics down to a granular level in his new book, Going Red: The Two Million Voters Who Will Elect the Next President – and How Conservatives Can Win Them. Morrissey spent time on the ground researching and investigating not only the so-called battleground states, but those pivotal counties within those all-important states.

There are a handful of political prognosticators that have the ability to drill down into the ground game that has become part and parcel of winning national elections and in many cases even statewide races. Morrissey is one of those folks. His deep dive into politics at the micro-level really proves that all politics is local and that successful candidates will have to custom craft their messaging to target these microcosms of voters. This is truly an intriguing proposal for victory, it will interesting to see if the Republicans are will to take up the mantle.

 

Still Buying the Democrat Bullshit

Listen, Liberal: or What ever Happened to the Party of the People – Thomas Frank (Metropolitan Books)

Author and opinionist, Thomas Frank is out with a new political tome that has him turning his gun sites away from his traditional targets on the right and focusing his ire on the Democrat party in Listen, Liberal: or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People.

Sure to outrage lefties, anyone with an ounce of brains and common sense, aka Conservatives will see through Frank’s canard because he continues to delude himself by thinking that the Democrat party was ever “the party of the people.” I laughed out loud when I read that Frank was the founding editor of something called The Baffler (whatever that is/was) because he seems utterly baffled by reality.

Frank can’t quite resist the urge to play the smart ass liberal card when he comments on President Obama and the Clinton’s proclivities to vacation on Martha’s Vineyard claiming that “people in many parts of the country have never even heard of it.” Really?! Does this guy really buy into the liberal belief that the people in so-called “flyover country” are just a bunch of dumb clucks without the worldliness to know about Martha’s Vineyard? Now who’s the dumb ass?

Here’s a dose of reality for Mr. Frank; liberals/Democrats are not the party of the people, they are merely willing to play the class warfare card of rich versus poor, and the only reason why the rich guy is rich is because you are poor, not because he worked harder and achieved. Liberals are willing to give handouts, lie about taking Grandma’s Social Security, tell big government can solve all your problems and pretty much whatever else it takes to get elected or remain in office. In short, the Democrats are the party of bullshit and Frank is buying what they are selling. 

 

Losers Unite

United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists – Peter Bergen (Crown Books)

Peter Bergen is the go to guy when it comes to understanding the mindset of Jihadist terrorists. Bergen has authored or co-authored a shelf full of must read books on the subject; his latest, United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists, tries to delve into the minds and actions of terrorist actors who have signed on to the Islamic Jihad either on our shores our exported themselves to take part in terror overseas.

Bergen tries to help us understand what makes these people tick, what motivates them act out as lone wolves or to travel to far flung places to plan and or participate in mass murder or suicide attacks. Along the Bergen is careful to examine what actions law enforcement and homeland security have taken to try to identify these budding Jihadis and prevent them from taking action.

Bergen makes the case that the multi-billion dollar National Security Agency program undertaken by the Obama administration, of spying on our phone calls and e-mail in an effort to sweep up Jihadist planning has been an abject failure and despite the administrations claims that the program derailed many terrorist attacks before they started, that simply doesn’t match the reality.

Bergen lays out the threads of commonality that many of these angry, losers who sign on to the Jihad share. His chapter on the Boston Marathon bombing Tsarnaev brothers had me concluding that they were the participation trophy winners of the terrorist world; two losers who had everything handed to them when they relocated to the U.S. and yet always managed to come up short—then blame everybody but themselves for their failures.

As with Bergen’s prior books, United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists, is a thoroughly research and well crafted examination of not only the history of these homegrown Jihadis, but also the current and future state of what will be an important focus for the war on terror.

Hillary in Beast Mode to Keep Bill off Britney Spears

Pop tart Britney Spears was in full back pedal mode after sending Instagram photos of her meeting with Hillary Clinton prior to the Nevada caucus, quickly downplaying the meeting and subsequent posts as "in no way endorsing" Clinton.

The funniest thing about the whole affair was Mrs. Clinton in full beast mode, Hildebeast if you will, in one photo practically pinning Bill to one end of the couch to keep his wandering hands away from Spears.