Chicken-foot, anyone?

Following the armistice in the Korean 'police action' in 1953, military strategists and geopolitikal analysts raised the notion of the 'Domino Theory' - that the fall of a nation to communism would cause others in the region to do likewise. The argument was not without merit.

But this post is not about Southeast Asia, where today communism's advance appears to have stopped at Laos - it's about the Western Hemisphere, where the 20th century world's foremost enemy of communism is rapidly devolving into a second-tier socialist state. Having read Robert J. Ringer's Restoring the American Dream, I had surmised in the early '80s that the United States with it's burgeoning entitlement mentality, would pass, in opposite direction (like the escalators at Penney's), former staunchly communist nations, as the latter gradually liberalized into varying degrees of market economics. 

So, of what dominoes do I speak? Well, from recent headlines, let's start with Stockton, CA, which on June 28 filed for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy, the largest U.S. city ever to do so. Alliteratively, looming not far behind, are Sans Diego, Francisco, y José, and at the state level, Sacramento. And don't forget the City of Angels.

And it goes on.

But not to pick on California, as Honolulu, Reno, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Chicago, Detroit, Harrisburg, Baltimore, Norfolk, Yonkers, and the Big Apple are teetering as well. From my zero gravity chair atop my van down by the river, and channeling my inner Matt Foley, I can't help rhetorically asking: "Dad, I don't see so good with these glasses - are those cities in red or blue states?"

Finally, let's not overlook Scranton, PA, whose mayor, in defiance of a court order, froze all municipal salaries, including his own, to minimum wage, and cut all overtime - hoping to ward off bankruptcy for his city.  As it was against a judge's order, it likely won't stand, but it should make for some interesting theater.

Elsewhere in the news, the Capitulator-in-Chief and SecState are poised to sign a United Nations arms treaty on July 27 that, if ratified by the Senate, would ostensibly give the U.N. dominion over U.S. gun policy.  If you've ever attended a Renaissance Festival and wondered what it would be like to live as a medieval peasant, just watch and see what happens this fall.

A not unpleasant peasant...

...but this is more what I pictured.

Oh, and don't forget to vote 'D'!