THE MOUNTAIN OBSERVER ON-LINE       

                                    ISSUES, PEOPLE, OBJECTS & POLICIES- CLOSE UP                           

                            Vol. 05                                      Issue 02                               Start March 01, 2005

A FREEWHEELING CONSERVATIVE COMMENTARY DEDICATED TO THE DEFENSE OF FREEDOM, THE NEXT GENERATION, AND THE WAY THINGS OUGHT TO BE.   TO UNDERSTAND THIS NEWSLETTER, IT IS NECESSARY THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO READ AND TO THINK.

This website is updated occasionally when I decide to do it.                               

 J. E. Sohmer   Jefferson, CO  Flyover country, where the air is thin, the heavens bright, and the hunting and fishing are good.

Serious Considerations:

03/31/05  During the course of last year's election campaign Congress, and the press, engaged in much political showboating over intelligence failures, which had less to do with discovery and more to do with invention in support of narrow political agendas.    I pointed out at the time that the President had appointed an Independent Intelligence Commission to report  in March 2005, after the election and allowing more time for a more professional investigation.   It has been apparent for some time that there were failures, but we really need to understand what happed, which is what this Commission was really all about.   That report was released this morning.  JES

03/31/05  Terri's gone; go to  FMOWEB 140-006 TERRI SCHINDLER AND THE REPUBLIC

03/30/05  Terri Schindler alert; go to  FMOWEB 140-006 TERRI SCHINDLER AND THE REPUBLIC  

03/29/05   In the Judeo-Christian understanding of truth, adultery is a serious offence, and with reason.   With no evidence that Terri Schindler Schiavo) was ever unfaithful to her "husband", and with her passing, her obligations discharged, sensibility suggests that henceforth we will know her as  Terri Schindler.    I would suggest that an understanding of what has happened here is not possible without a recognition of the fact that Michael Schiavo had an affair going on alongside the headlined events, including children out of wedlock (little bastards).   My point is not salacious, but rather has to do with motives, and an understanding of the timeline of events, including the possibility of physical spousal abuse.

Perhaps I have missed something, or somehow have it wrong, but to quote myself from 03/13/05, "------  I suspect that Michael Schiavo's greatest fear in life is the possibility that Terri might not only continue to live, but that she might also recover sufficiently to tell her side of the story.  I think those who wonder at his refusal to entertain huge bribes for his release of Terri are naive in their understanding of this whole case."---- .            www.terrisfight.org        www.LifeNews.com 

This is not a case that is about to go away; there is the matter of government response, and responsibility.  To further quote myself from 03/13/05, "-------I also think there may be constitutional grounds for Jeb Bush, as Governor, to step in and  physically remove Terri from the jurisdiction of the court if, at the end, that is the only option left.  That gets into another matter discussed elsewhere on this website, and perhaps weighs on Jeb's fitness for higher office.   You see, the Mountain Observer does not accept the proposition that any Court necessarily has the final say.   It goes back to 1803.    Stay tuned. "----------.

So many issues have been opened for discussion, with implications relevant to the future of the country.    So it is that I am opening a new web page to deal with the entire matter. 

Go to   FMOWEB 140-006 TERRI SCHINDLER AND THE REPUBLIC                                            JES

03/27/05   Notice that in the matter of Terri Schiavo, most Democrats, prominently including Hillary Rodham, have run for the tall grass, neither to be seen or heard from.   Situational ethics and moral relativism on display in full flower.   You see, leadership and political opportunism don't mix.   It is Easter, perhaps not without coincidence.   The Pope is demonstrating dignity with his situation, as did the Lord,  a lesson to which we should pay attention.  We beg the Lord His mercy, and forgiveness, for Terri, the Pope, and for ourselves, as our Government casually murders an innocent and defenseless citizen.   JES

03/24/05   So it has come to pass that on this date the US Courts have thrown down the gauntlet with respect to their relationship with the Congress and the President, and incidentally ordering the death of Terri Schiavo in the process.  The recent Schiavo legislation, passed by Congress and signed by the President, did not require or demand a specific result in the Schiavo case, but rather directed a review of matters of due process, with good cause, and incidentally implied the need to stabilize Schiavo's medical condition until such time as a proper review had been completed.  There were, and are, compelling reasons for such a review, no doubt to be conducted now by private sector investigators.

There is not a general awareness yet of the historical significance of what is going on here.   There are those who have thought my rhetoric in the Mission Statement for this website was a "bit over the top".    Go read it again.   The Mountain Observer has been right on target for years.  I care not a wit about congratulations; I care about thoughtful Americans starting to get really thoughtful.  I would suggest to you that this country is hurtling headlong toward a major rendezvous with destiny.  The ghosts of 1803, and the Federal income tax, are hurtling straight at you.  JES

03/24/05   After the Iraqi elections in January, the Mountain Observer has noticed a disturbing trend in the literature by neo-conservatives in their analysis of the American political scene.  While it is obvious to objective observers that Democrats have their problems, it is apparently less obvious to neo-cons that they do not own the discussion on the Right.  I have written before on a number of occasions concerning the fractures to be found just below the surface of the American Right.  At this point in time, a number of policy issues are on the table and unfolding that contain the ingredients of a "perfect storm" and collapse of GOP/Conservative "unity".   Neo-cons need to cool their jets and back off an implied assumption that they are completely in charge of anything.

The Bush foreign policy program is generally moving ahead in the right direction, except for Mexico.   The domestic situation is a very different story.    The heart and soul of the country is torn, at the bottom, by the secularist vision of man's self-directed "reason" vs. those who recognize the existence of a Higher Authority, and neo-cons are not always on the right side of that discussion, or the discussion about our borders.   JES

03/24/05   Congress, and successive Administrations, continue to wish away the problems surrounding the flight of manufacturing to overseas economies, often hostile toward our own interests.   Often stated in these letters, much of it has to do with wrongheaded tax policy, unnecessary regulatory interference, and Federal spending programs run amok.    Looking to the Federal Reserve and Alan Greenspan to fix with monetary maneuvers, what is, in fact, a basically fiscal (over spending) problem is rapidly wearing out as a political explanation for our balance of payments problem.  An integrated and comprehensive analysis of all these issues is long overdue, as is hard corrective action.  Actual risk taking leadership on these matters is in short supply.   Talk is cheap, and the GOP needs to wake up.    JES

03/22/05   The Federal Court of Appeals in Atlanta is now complicit in the Court ordered murder of Terri Schiavo.   I do not expect the Supreme Court to touch it .   Years of accumulated due process problems appear to be concluding with a defeat for American jurisprudence.    However, in the Catholic understanding of these matters, Terri  still wins, and her "husband", marital vows long since broken, will need to someday report in to Higher Authority.   Meanwhile, the US Congress has lots of work to do.   Stay tuned.    www.terrisfight.org        www.LifeNews.com 

03/22/05   Most everyone on the right side of the discussion concerning Social Security reform is aware of the success of retirees in Galveston, Brazoria and Matagorda Counties, Texas, where the municipal employees opted out of the Social Security System beginning in 1980 when it was still legal for them, and for munees anywhere, for that matter, to do so.  (Find the details on the web).  Congress, catching on to an incipient national rebellion, slammed the door shut in 1983.  So the question is posed: Might there not be another avenue to pursue, or model to follow, in fixing the system as it exists today?    Why not simply "pull the plug" on the 1983 ban, and convert the language of "loophole" to "opportunity" by extending the original option to everyone?   Let nature take its course.  The demonstration model, the pilot program, if you will, has a documented history of success and performance.  I would suggest that the President, and his colleagues in the current effort should continue with that effort, which clearly has Liberals distracted.   Meanwhile, might I not find some adventurous Senator to slip my suggestion innocently into an obscure appropriations bill?   The language need not be long or difficult.   JES

03/21/05  Almost forgot.   Arthur Miller, generic lefty playwright, significant only as a reminder of a fellow traveling culture which will never miss a chance to complain about tailgunner Joe.   The other Joe, who was really mean, did real damage during the purges of the 1930's.   As it turns out, our Joe was close to the mark.  JES

03/20/05  The Mountain Observer is a Nationalist because he believes that at some point we are all nationalists, a natural and normal symptom of humanity, and that to deny such realities politically is to ultimately invite disaster.  That is not to be blind or ignorant of the potential negatives, or to run contrary to the Christian command of God, but rather that a realistic sense of nationalism is simply a recognition of the normal human limits of association and the dangers of attempting to push those limits too far.

So it is that for several years I have watched with interest, and skepticism, the unfolding drama of the attempt to create (impose) an European Union on the assembled national identities of Europe.  My skepticism arises from the top down statist format of the effort, at the absence and expense of initiative from the "peasants".     In recent years there have been growing signs that "the natives are getting restless" with the whole idea.  As the concrete manifestation of the idea, in the form of a Constitution, approaches approval time with various national electorates, it will be interesting to see what happens.  Rejection of currency conversion by some "member" nationalities has already occurred.  Americans should understand that these various votes set before the "peasants" are not intended to create piecemeal a republican structure similar to our own (or what used to be), but rather are one time referenda to cede power and decision making to an otherwise unaccountable decision making bureaucracy in Brussels Belgium.    The template more resembles the United Nations, that is to say, a United Nations of Europe.  As national economies are torn asunder and Muslim cultures encroach, the European "peasants" are beginning to have second thoughts.

So it is that in about 10 weeks the constitutional question will be offered to the attention of French voters with the appeal that approval will advance the causes of anti-Americanism, or so it is alleged.   Real French voters will be asked to choose between venting their anger toward America or documenting their fears of loosing their jobs and national identities to an invasion from the east, and the regulatory meddling of unelected bureaucrats.  Even a close victory for the Statists will be a defeat.   In the land of Jocko Shearock, the current polls show the outcome to be a "toss up".  JES

03/20/05  George W. Bush, in addition to whatever else he may accomplish, has already earned his place in history as a great statesman.  That landmark was accomplished on January 30, 2005, in a place once known as Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.  It has come to pass that the idea of the vote, with purple fingers held aloft, and freedom, has ignited a firestorm in the Middle East, and elsewhere, possibly including France.   The President would be the first to deflect the praise rather to the American people, and our Founding Fathers.    JES

03/17/05   We're going to go drilling for oil in Alaska,  thanks to the US Senate and the new Caribou Wildlife Protection and Development Act just passed by the Senate.  JES

03/17/05   I really like Antonin Scalia's distinction between Constitutional "orIginalism" vs. Constitutional "strict construction"; both important and intelligent.    JES

03/17/05  Actor Robert Blake is off the hook with respect to the charge of murdering his wife.  Apparently there was a lack of sufficient evidence, like, for example, a murder weapon.   I have no reason to doubt that the jury properly did its job given the evidence presented, but it needs to be pointed out again that in a case like this it is important to recognize that a disposition of "not guilty" does not equate to "innocent".   We have no way of knowing the man's actual guilt or innocence, but Robert Blake and the Lord does, with the case finally to be decided at a time, point future.   JES

03/13/05   Rumor has it that the Ayatollah Sistani, who has proven himself, so far, to be a key figure in a Free Iraq, has taken up a serious interest in the American Constitution, especially the various provisions that allow us to change it, with difficulty.    Yes, for some, it is difficult to admit that that stupid cowboy from Texas might have had a good idea.   JES 

PS: Of course, this old goat roper is anxious to understand the Ayatollah's thoughts concerning the 1st Amendment.

03/13/05   In considering the issue of the size of the federal government and reining in federal spending we inevitably get around to the subject of agriculture.   American agriculture has a fundamental problem, and that is its own huge success.  The productivity gains in American agriculture over the last 150 years have been stunning, and have lead to a situation where, at least until fairly recently, America has fed the world.  However, over the course of the last 70 years, or so, certain trends have developed that spell trouble down on the farm. 

The tax laws , and regulatory burdens of all sorts, have conspired against the family farm and worked in favor of larger corporate arrangements.

The culture of the FDR 30's  has encouraged a knee-jerk sense of dependency on government that continues to this day, especially with and for the corporations.

The dependency on foreign markets that has developed since WWII is heading for a crash landing as foreign agriculture continues to build capacity and productivity, while at the same time demographic projections of population growth in many world areas begin to taper off.    American ranchers have much more to fear than corned beef from Brazil, and tractor production in China is growing.

In the long haul, mid-western dreams of ethanol (corn) production saving America from the evils of oil run up against the continuing depletion of underground water reserves.

What all these items have in common is a clash between top down mega "wisdom", government or corporate, attempting to manage markets, and bottom up free market initiative left to individual farmers assessing local, regional and national reality and opportunity.   While, as a consumer, I may choose to select grapes from Chili over California, I may also to prefer to buy meat, corn and potatoes from actual producers  with whom I can deal possibly face to face.  70 years of distant statist "wisdom" has nearly destroyed the ability of small local producers to function.

Federal budgets, as with any budget, are statements of policy.  Codling well healed special interests may reflect near term political reality, and under-the-table opportunity, but may also be undermining longer term national interests.   JES

               A Current Reading Recommendation:      

                CRITICS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT: READINGS IN THE FRENCH COUNTER-

                REVOLUTIONARY TRADITION        or, FOR WANT OF A BETTER QUICK LABEL, THE FRENCH

                                                                                             BURKEANS WHISTLING IN THE DARK          

                 CHRISTOPHER OLAF BLUM                                                       

                 ISI                                                          367 PGS                              $18.00

03/13/05   Returning to Terri Schiavo.   There are those who wonder about Michael Schiavo and his stubborn refusal to surrender legal jurisdiction of his wife to her parents.   Some have speculated that he is engaged in a principled defense of what he considers  Terri's  wish to not live under such circumstances, shared only between the two of them, without documentation.  Perhaps, but I think a preponderance of hard evidence points in another direction.  I suspect that Michael Schiavo's greatest fear in life is the possibility that Terri might not only continue to live, but that she might also recover sufficiently to tell her side of the story.  I think those who wonder at his refusal to entertain huge bribes for his release of Terri are naive in their understanding of this whole case.  The court battle continues in Terri Schiavo's battle for life.  We watch intently to see if there is a judge in Florida willing to order her murder.  I also think there may be constitutional grounds for Jeb Bush, as Governor, to step in and  physically remove Terri from the jurisdiction of the court if, at the end, that is the only option left.  That gets into another matter discussed elsewhere on this website, and perhaps weighs on Jeb's fitness for higher office.   You see, the Mountain Observer does not accept the proposition that any Court necessarily has the final say.   It goes back to 1803.    Stay tuned.    www.terrisfight.org        www.LifeNews.com      JES

03/12/05  Part of the reason lifetime New Yorkers don't understand Conservatives or the GOP of the red state variety is that they have as a model a governor by the name of George Pataki, a complete political chameleon.   When the folks in Massachusetts vote for Ted Kennedy, The Swimmer and Senate expert on water-boarding, D-MA, at least there is no confusion, or pretension, about the choice.  In case you haven't noticed, George W. Bush is from Texas, and Zell Miller is from Georgia.  Nor is it a coincidence that the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads no longer exist; the remaining rails in the northeast are now owned by southern based carriers CSX and NS (Norfolk Southern).  JES

03/12/05  For the purposes of full disclosure, I suppose that it is proper of me to make clear the I am a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, the only civil rights organization that matters.  JES

03/12/05  The age of decent television passed on about the time of Johnny Carson's retirement.  From that point on it has been largely muck, and I have had better things to do with my time.   JES

03/12/05  Like Brier Rabbit and the Tar Baby, Harvard University President Larry Summers finds himself entangled in a conflict between his duties to Harvard as a serious academic and the frothing demands of militant feminism long since lost in the wastelands of political correctness.  In another version of the same malady, the University of Colorado, publicly owned, is in a similar process of self immolation over a series of self inflicted issues, including the matter of one Ward Churchill, pretender to academic qualification.  If you are not at least vaguely familiar with some of the specifics of both of these matters, then it might be argued that you too, are part of the problem.   The problem is that, as a nation of personally self absorbed individuals, we have allowed a vital component of our national character and definition, the American academy, to invert itself into an extreme Left Wing tool of statist indoctrination, totally at odds with the premises of a Liberal education, which is what it ought to be about.   Tenure, the 1st Amendment, and "academic freedom" have been subverted by the moles of statist totalitarianism using the twisted logic of deconstructionist relativism, a self consuming cancer.  It is time for brave people within the Academy, and the taxpayers, to stand up and fight back.  JES

03/10/05  The proposed Law of the Sea treaty.  Mr. President, Sir, don't go there.  It is worse than Kyoto.  JES

03/10/05  There are few public policy decisions that do not include some level of compromise or political calculation.  It has been almost perpetually confusing to Democrats, and the broader American Left, that the Bush Administration tends to be pretty honest and straight forward about its acts and intentions, tending to function on principle rather than the polls, a mindset not common in Washington or the Coastal States.  Real Americans in the heartland can wheel and deal better than anybody else, but generally with a sense of fundamental integrity rooted in a moral base.  So it is that, in addition to the substantive content of any issue at hand, that the Mountain Observer assesses Administration policy initiatives, choices and decisions for quality and lasting soundness.  An almost perfect current example of my point lies with the intellectual and moral integrity of the Bolton appointment (see 03/09/05 previous).  It occurs to me that it is time to establish a Mountain Observer (MO) certification of 100% compliance and agreement with MO policy and moral standards, which will be hereafter known as the Bristlecone Award (BA).  Accordingly, the first such declaration goes to Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice for promoting John Bolton as our next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.  JES

03/09/05  The President has made an excellent selection in his choice of John Bolton as our next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.   Bolton is a hardnosed no-nonsense guy concerning the U.N., as has been for years.   Perfect timing.  Watch Democrats continue to self destruct on this item too.  JES

03/09/05  Pending the completion of further investigations, it appears as though Italian communist journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, who was wounded, and intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, who was killed, were running a check point near Baghdad.  Europeans can hate George W. Bush, and our military, all they want, but this is the real world and not James Bond.  No apologies from the Mountain Observer.   JES

               A Current Reading Recommendation:      

                    UNGUARDED GATES: A HISTORY OF AMERICA'S IMMIGRATION CRISES

                               OTIS L. GRAHAM, JR.    

                               ROWAN & LITTLEFIELD                             240 PGS                               $26.95

03/02/05   On the matter of Social Security, the President's general initiatives toward privatization are absolutely correct and necessary for the survival of the program, and, I would argue, even the Republic.  There is a detail, however, that needs to be addressed, and worked out, if it is going to work.  I have in mind the costs involved to the financial services industry itself of processing and servicing $1000.00 accounts.  If one goes in and honestly studies the mechanics involved, compared to what has been proposed to date by the Administration in the way of detail, it is hard to imagine enthusiasm or support on the part of Wall Street.  Little public comment has so far been forthcoming from insiders on this issue for fear of Leftist demagoguery, which has already started anyway, but the problems here are real.  If the Administration, and its supporters, are serious about actual progress on the overall issue of reform then they should take the point I am making here very seriously.  As things currently stand, Wall Street is largely mute with respect to "getting on board".  The fear is of the erection of a huge Federal mandate directed this time against the private sector that effectively relocates FDR's welfare state onto the backs of the financial services industry.  Any successful reform has to accommodate genuine market incentives throughout the trap line lest we create instead another plank on the road to fascist economics. 

The history of "reform" of government practices in this country is not encouraging.   Take, for example, the recent, and apparently ongoing effort, toward campaign finance reform intended to get "big money" out of politics.  The most recent effort failed completely, even as it directly assailed the 1st Amendment with the blessing of all three primary branches of government.  Thankfully, in 2004, in spite of "Republican" John McCain's best efforts to further enable George Soros and the Left, the voters saw through it all, generally pulled the right levers, and dodged the bullet at least this time.  The political demagoguery of unchecked democracy continues its relentless assault on the Republic.  That fact is primal in consideration of the disassembly of the welfare state that history will one day force upon us, peacefully or otherwise.  JES

03/01/05   Our Supreme Court has done it again.  Five of nine Justices (the usual Suspects) have flipped the bird at the Constitution and the American people by declaring that it is they, not you or I, who own the Government, and that if you are a day less than eighteen years old, your youthful innocence must be protected from the cruel and unusual treachery of all those 18 years and older.  Nowhere in the the Constitution is this matter discussed.   What is discussed is that such things are rightfully under the jurisdiction of the States, and that within the context of the 8th Amendment at the time of adoption, capital punishment was entirely within its scope.    What is important here, you see, is not so much the determination of the American people through a proper American Constitutional process, but rather the moral sensibilities of these five Justices, endorsed. of course, by foreign courts and perceived modern international opinion.  We await to see if Senator Bill Frist and his Republican colleagues can muster the testosterone necessary to invoke the "nuclear option" required to put Bush court nominees to the test of the full Senate.  And after 202 years (1803) we are still waiting for Congress to come out from hiding under the Court's skirts and reassert Congressional responsibilities over Court jurisdiction as required by the Constitution.  I am warning you Republicans right now that this issue is one of about three that seriously threaten to break up the current Conservative base of your party.  Republicans: WISE UP!   JES

             A Current Reading Recommendation:

                 BLOOD FROM STONES: THE SECRET FINANCIAL NETWORK OF TERROR

                        DOUGLAS FARAH      

                        BROADWAY BOOKS                           225 PGS                              $24.95

03/01/05  Iraqi Sunni leaders are having 2nd thoughts about participating in the new representative processes that are unfolding; they want in.  But that was the whole idea to begin with.  The future of the Baathist Party is bleak indeed.   Hungry horses head for the barn.   JES

03/01/05  Notice that Free Iraq now faces violent opposition whose tactics bear an uncanny resemblance to that faced for years by Israel.  Suicide bombers in an attempt to intimidate, harass, extort and displace.  So it is that Palestinian apologists should, perhaps, re-examine their embedded anti-semantic premise of Zionist illegitimacy.   There are few Jews in Iraq; there is emergent freedom.   Tough to admit for some, but consider the possibility that the terrorists are the ones who are actually guilty of the terror.  It seems that Free Iraq and Israel share another thing in common: elected government.    Free Iraq and Israel share 2 other problems: Syria and Iran, enemies of both.  However, with both, there enters another component to the equation: raw American military power.  Syria is beginning to cough up truant Baathists and retreat into eastern Lebanon.  The story in Lebanon is actively unfolding.   Iran faces increasing internal political opposition, encouraged by the words and actions of a re-elected American President who they all know is equipped with bunker buster bombs.  And you know, American "cowboys" have this habit of following through on what they say, unimpressed by the tantrums of mullahs.   What the American Left does not understand is that diplomats, and diplomacy, are ineffective and useless in the absence of credible military power just over the horizon, which is why France, Germany and the UN are a joke.  Nations, and stateless powers, do not respond to calls for tea, crumpets and kumbaya.   There is evidence that Russia's Putin, and the Chinese, understand this.  Freedom is a fragile commodity, dependant on the credible deployment of popular military muscle, and the Grace of God.  Do we dare foresee the possibility that someday a Free Iraq and Israel may get to know each other?   The underlying premise of the "War on Terror" is that our actions and purpose in this regard are to extend and protect our own national security.  Otherwise, we would be meddling.    JES

                                                                   God Bless America

                                                                   Jim                           

                                                                    American Nationalist Conservative

                                                                    Jefferson, CO 80456