INSIGHT on Freedom

There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See

2012-01-30T03:05:00.000-05:00

There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

I received the article below recently by e-mail as I expect many of you did. I have no clue as to the author. The message it contains is profound.

Many of my generation remember Castro -- even before he proclaimed he was a communist by his words and deeds. By that time, the people of Cuba were enslaved. The nearest freedom lay ninety miles away -- across a watery divide. The “five and ten cents” stores sold Castro hats and Castro beards to America’s children. Castro’s façade was THAT complete and THAT effective.

Many conservative commentators have been warning America for four years that unmistakable signs of communism are emanating from the leader of our nation. The warning flags went up long before he was elected. They were ignored.

Those issuing the warnings have been scoffed at, belittled, and made the butt of jokes. It matters not that those warning America to beware were, and are, men and women of experience. Their words of caution have come from a lifetime of defending America in and out of uniform.

See, we recognize the philosophy of America’s leader. Why? The answer is simple … because we have seen it all before. If fact, we saw it in our neighboring country … Cuba. We watched as Cuba embraced a charismatic savior with flowing oratory who quickly became their slave master.

“There are none so blind as those who WILL NOT SEE.” John Heywood is credited with having said this way back in 1546. It is as true today as it was then … and even before Heywood made the remark.

In 2008, America underwent a period of willful blindness during which voters elected America’s current leader. Over the past three years, the scales have been slowly falling from our eyes as we survey the damage that mistake has caused the United States of America … and the world.

Whoever the author of the piece below, he/she has also seen the many disguises communism uses to successfully attract those who do not have the benefit of experience. Like moths to a flame, they flock to the warmth of the bright light that will consume them.

To those of us with a lifetime of experience, the Obama Regime is all too familiar and utterly frightening.

Please read the article below. The author is unknown to us.

J. D. Longstreet

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What others see plainly, we often ignore.

*Here's something to think about. *

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I remember asking dad about Castro when I was about 9 years old. I asked, "Is Castro a good guy or bad?"

Dad said...he couldn't tell!! This was about 1955. We were living in Louisiana ...at the time. Dad was in the Army there.

Cuba was fairly close and in the news a lot. The Cubans were asking the same question!

Ike was President.

This past July, we had the pleasure of sharing a summer barbecue with a refugee from Cuba. Our dinner conversation was starkly different than most.

This refugee came to the United States as a young boy in the early 1960's. His family was more fortunate than most, as they were able to bring a suitcase...and $100 when they fled Castro's newly formed revolutionary paradise.

Our dinner consisted of all-American fare: hamburgers, potato salad, watermelon, and fresh ears of sweet corn. This is a menu shared with family and friends nationwide...while celebrating the birth of our beloved America ...on the Fourth of July.

We began with a simple discussion about our country, and the direction it has taken since Barack Obama came to power. We shared the usual complaints about the sour economy and liberal social engineering emanating from the rulers in Washington.

But then he said it. The sentence came naturally. I assume it was unplanned. But it carried the weight of a freight train. "You know, when Castro took power, none of us knew he was a Communist.”

We sat stunned. He continued, "Yes, we all thought he was a patriot, a nationalist. Before the revolution he didn't sound like a radical."

The comparison at this point was easy, and I interjected, "You mean just like Barack Obama?"

He responded; "Yes, just like Barack Obama."

He continued, "We were all shocked as the government just continued to grab more power. First they said the revolution is over, so please turn in your guns. We all complied."

I remember my uncle saying after it started; “Castro will only nationalize some of the big industries. He will never come and take our family hardware store!!” But that is exactly what happened. Castro started with the sugar mills and the large industries, but they eventually came and knocked on the door of our family hardware store. My family had run this store for generations. They said we now own the hardware store. You work for us. And that nice, large four-bedroom home you own...it is now our property also, and ... you can move yourself and five children into two rooms of the house, because others are moving in with you."

The lesson learned from this discussion, is a lesson most Americans refuse to hear. Political leaders can lie about their agenda and once in office...they can take totally unexpected turns.

If you had asked us three years ago if we thought General Motors would be nationalized, we would have never believed it. We could never contemplate a country where the rule of law, the most fundamental building block of a just society...would be evaporating, just like it did in Castro's Cuba in the early 1960's.

But the news of injustice keeps increasing. Black Panthers are not charged with wrong doing by the U.S. Department of Justice...because their crimes are against whites. The bondholders of GM are stripped of their assets...without due process by the government! Governmental leaders are bribed in full daylight...only to have all investigation of the crimes stifled...by the Attorney General.

The U.S. borders are over run with crime and illegal activity, and the leaders in D.C. act as if it is important to protect the lawbreakers.... while the innocent are killed and over run. When local communities attempt to enforce the law, they are ridiculed...and threatened as racists and bigots. They are sued by the very administration...entrusted with enforcing the law.

Without the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution is a sham!! Without the rule of law, our beloved America is swiftly becoming a country where only the well connected and politically powerful will be safe. As Michelle Malkin has so eloquently explained in her recent book...a culture of corruption has replaced honest government.

The only way this problem will be fixed is by massive citizen action. All honest citizens that want to be treated equally, must come together...and demand that the favoritism, the bribes, the uneven enforcement of law...end now!!

And yes, IT CAN HAPPEN HERE!!

A Republican Perspective On Black History Month ... Frances Rice

2012-01-29T03:10:00.000-05:00

A Republican Perspective On Black History Month

By Frances Rice

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(LINK TO THIS ARTICLE)

Black History Month affords us an opportunity to pause and reflect on why it is important for black Americans to know the true history of civil rights.

Democrats have been running black communities for the past 40+ years, and the socialist policies of the Democrats have turned those communities into economic and social wastelands. Buildings are dilapidated, teen pregnancy is at an all time high, school drop out rate is 50% and 70% of black babies are born out of wedlock. In his book “Dreams from My Father,” President Barack Obama described what he and other Democrats do to poor blacks as “plantation politics”.

Democratic Party leaders foster dependency on government handouts that result in generational poverty. Yet, black Americans continue to vote monolithically for Democrats. Why? Blacks have been wrongly convinced that the Republican Party is a racist party.
Democrats have spent the last 40 years re-writing the history of civil rights and put on the shoulders of Republicans the racist past of the Democratic Party.

As author Michael Scheuer stated, the Democratic Party is the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation, and now socialism. From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, the Republican Party has always been the party of freedom and equality for blacks. After winning the Civil War, Republicans amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote. Republicans then passed civil rights laws in the 1800′s that were overturned by Democrats with the Repeal Act of 1894 after Democrats took over Congress in 1892. Democrats also enacted the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. It took Republicans nearly six decades to finally achieve passage of civil rights legislation in the 1950’s and 1960s.

Even though Democrat President Harry Truman’s issued an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military, it was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military and subsequently pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Further, it was Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt who began dependency on government handouts during the Great Depression with his “New Deal” that turned out to be a bad deal for blacks.

During the civil rights era of the 1960′s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. fought against the Democrats, including Democrat Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor in Birmingham who let loose vicious dogs and turned skin-burning fire hoses on black civil rights demonstrators. Democrat Georgia Governor Lester Maddox famously brandished ax handles to prevent blacks from patronizing his restaurant, and Democrat Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the entrance of two black students at the University of Alabama in 1963. All of these racist Democrats did not become Republicans.

The so-called “Dixiecrats” were a group of Southern Democrats who, in the 1948 national election, formed a third party – the State’s Rights Democratic Party – but continued to be Democrats for all local and state elections, as well as for all future national elections.
It defies logic for Democrats today to claim that the racist Democrats suddenly joined the Republican Party after Republicans finally won the civil rights battle against the racist Democrats. Notably, Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois pushed through the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. In fact, Dirksen was instrumental in the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965 and 1968. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. hailed Senator Dirksen’s “able and courageous Leadership” in obtaining passage of civil rights legislation.

Democrat Presidents Lyndon Johnson and John F. Kennedy are heralded as civil rights advocates. However, both Johnson and Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act. In his 4,500-word 1965 State of the Union Address, Johnson addressed numerous federal actions, but devoted only thirty five words to civil rights and none to voting rights.

Johnson’s anemic civil rights record can be found in his presidential papers. Kennedy opposed the 1963 March on Washington and authorized his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to investigate Dr, King on suspicion of being a Communist.
Democrats condemn President Richard Nixon for his “Southern Strategy” that was an effort to get fair-minded people in the South to stop voting for racist Democrats. Pat Buchanan, the architect of the “Southern Strategy,” wrote in a 2002 article that Nixon said the Republican Party would leave it to the Democratic Party, the “party of Maddox, Mahoney and Wallace to squeeze the last ounce of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.”

A key feature of National Black Republican Association’s educational campaign is publicizing the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican and remained a Republican until the day he was killed.

If we are successful with our educational campaign, black Americans can seize control over their own destiny, stop having their vote taken for granted, and vote for politicians based on the content of their policies, and not merely the label of their party.

Frances Rice, Esquire – Lieutenant Colonel, US Army (Retired)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Frances Rice’s great-great-grandparents were slaves. She spent her formative years in poverty in the segregated South during the 1940′s, 1950′s and 1960′s. She suffered personally from discrimination in the Democrat-controlled South and while in High School participated in civil rights protests.

Frances was born in Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, the same hospital where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born. She occasionally attended Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. was the pastor. She knew that Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. was a Republican, as was the rest of the King family.

Over the years, using her Republican Party principles of hard work, getting a good education and personal responsibility, Frances pulled herself out of poverty. She joined the Army in 1964 as a Private and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after 20 years of active service. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Drury College in 1973, a Master of Business Administration from Golden Gate University in 1976, and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1977 – all while serving in the US Army.

During twenty years of active duty in the US Army, Frances served in a variety of positions, including commander of a WAC company, adjutant of a basic combat training brigade, a prosecuting attorney, and chief of the administrative law division. She also served as a special assistant to the Army Judge Advocate General and an adviser to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Equal Opportunity.

Subsequent to her military career, Frances worked for the McDonnell Douglas Corporation, serving first as a member of that company’s “think tank,” and then as a government contract advisor. She later taught Business Law for the European Division of the University of Maryland in Brussels, Belgium.

Frances became politically active in 1982 and served as a member of President Ronald Reagan’s Private Sector Initiatives Task Force. She worked as a volunteer in the campaigns of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as well as Governor Jeb Bush and Governor Charlie Crist.

Frances is active in the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Sarasota County. In 2005, she became a co-founder and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association, an organization that is committed to returning African Americans to their Republican Party roots. Recently she was honored as the Volunteer of the Year by the Republican Party of Sarasota County.

Among the awards she received during her military career is the Legion of Merit, the second highest honor that can be bestowed upon a non-combatant. In 1987, she was accorded the distinction of being one of America’s top 100 Black Business and Professional Women by the editorial board of Dollars and Sense magazine.

Does Obama Want to Lose? Yes! ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-28T03:15:00.000-05:00

Does Obama Want to Lose? Yes!

By Alan Caruba

It seems like a bizarre notion, but does Barack Obama want to lose the election in November?

I think he does!

One is struck by the way Obama has visibly aged in the job. He may well have grown weary being POTUS.

By any rational standard, one would say he wants a second term, but Obama has always operated in a fantasy world where mere words are supposed to translate into reality. And he has repeatedly talked about being a one-term president.

He is, after all, his own invention; the author of two memoirs of a life that had little achievement to point to other than getting elected first to the Illinois legislature and then to the Senate where he lingered a bare two years before running for president.

I raise the question because Obama seems to be deliberately irritating the very people who are supposed to be his “base”; the hard core liberals, the Hollywood crowd, youth, and unions, among others. His partisanship has put Congress into total gridlock.

When members of the Occupy movement showed up in Washington, D.C., one of them threw a smoke bomb onto the White House lawn. Others who have been camped out in a park there are likely to be tossed out if for no other reason than the place is overrun with rats and has become a public health hazard.

The decision to stop the Keystone pipeline is a deliberate offense to the unions that have contributed millions to his campaign. Why? It pleased the environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth. Americans, however, understand the pipeline represented both jobs and oil, two things they deem worth having.

Then there are all the vacations Obama and his family takes. They have one thing in common. They are ostentatiously expensive. Obama or Michelle always seem to be going on vacation or returning from one. The characterization may be unfair, but perception is everything.

Americans are very keen on their military and, of all the government programs Obama could have chosen to trim, he’s had the knives out for the Pentagon since he took office. While a war-weary public was likely pleased when he withdrew troops from Iraq (neither Bush, nor Obama had a choice as the Iraqis made it clear they wanted U.S. troops out), the fact remains that the main news out of Iraq these days are bombings as the Sunni versus Shiite conflict has returned. Afghanistan remains a millstone.

Even in the face of a clear threat, it is unlikely that Obama would respond militarily between now and Election Day. The most likely scenario, however, would be an Israeli decision to strike at Iran before it becomes a full-fledged nuclear threat. It must be said, however, that Obama and other NATO nations have positioned some military assets in the Persian Gulf, but would he pull the trigger? It’s doubtful.

The most obvious problem Obama faces is unemployment. It’s variously set at anywhere from 11% to 20% depending on the part of the nation you’re discussing. It still is far too high everywhere and he gives every impression of being, if not indifferent to it, at least in no hurry to address it. Most certainly none of his programs have reduced it. His alleged “stimulus” was little more than a political slush fund that added billions to the national debt and failed.

Every President is subject to “events” and the likely default of Greece and financial troubles of several European nations are likely to impact the national election as Americans try to sort out what effect it will have here. Obama has already presided over the first downgrade of America’s debt rating and we shall surely be reminded of that in the months ahead.

The other event will be the Supreme Court hearing of the case against Obamacare in March. They may not issue a decision right away or they might issue one just before November 6th.

There are two lines of thought about the forthcoming national election. Past Presidents were relieved to leave office despite its power and prestige. (1) Obama may not like being President and (2) he has concluded that he will be defeated. He gives the impression of not caring about public opinion anymore.

The only people publicly defending him seem to have Attention Deficit Disorder. Either they haven’t paid attention to what a disaster his term has been thus far or they just don’t think it’s his fault.

I think he will go through the motions, but I also think a majority of voters no longer believe a word he says anymore.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

2012-01-27T03:08:00.000-05:00

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Recently I wrote:

“America is at a point in world history when we need a strong leader -- a leader not afraid to assert America’s leadership. Obama is NOT that person.

I am very afraid there is no one vying for America’s leadership today any stronger as a national or world leader.

In a recent column, Thomas Sowell said: “The 2012 Republican primaries may be a rerun of the 2008 primaries, where the various conservative candidates split the conservative vote so many ways that the candidate of the mushy middle got the nomination – and then lost the election.” I think he pegged it.” (SOURCE)

I have watched intently as the GOP goes all out to lose the 2012 election to Obama and the democrats. I continue to be puzzled, or as we used to say in the south – “bumfuzzled” – by what MUST be a concerted effort to lose the next election.

Pardon me, if I show my befuddlement … because I just don’t get it.

A sense of “doom” has already set in among the legions of conservative voters in the south. Their sense that the hierarchy of the Republican Party is so completely detached from the reality on the ground (at least here in states of the old south) has been, (they feel) proved absolutely true.

There is a growing sense of “why bother” to go to the polls and vote when the election is already lost to Obama.

Look. I am no more intelligent that the average guy. And I have seen the great wave of exhilaration and expectation of victory crash against a shoreline of mediocre candidates that have proved more an embarrassment than anything else. That great wave has been diminished to a mere ripple in an isolated tide pool.

If you want to know what’s going on in your community – go to the community barbershop. I did that yesterday. Turns out, my barber has been taking a very unscientific poll on who his patrons would vote for in the GOP Primary here in North Carolina (currently scheduled for May). He has been polling since the South Carolina Primary. The results are interesting and informative.

My barber told me that, to a man, every single patron stated they would vote for Gingrich in May.

My community is heavily Democratic and heavily conservative.

I pressed to learn who those would-be primary voters thought would win the election in November. The answer, to a man, was … Obama.

For months now we have warned that if the GOP is counting on conservative voters to vote for the nominee, whomever the nominee turns out to be, then – the GOP is very wrong. Sure, there will be SOME conservative voters who would cast a vote for, well, anybody, just to vote against Obama. But I am not hearing that sentiment expressed here.

Here’s what I THINK is happening:

Southern voters have concluded that Romney cannot win. Southern voters just don’t like the man. They are satisfied that Gingrich will not win the nomination, so they feel it is safe to support and vote for Gingrich if for no other reason than Gingrich brings a little fire, fervor, passion, and a little excitement to an otherwise hum-drum campaign that is already a lost cause.

The more debates, the more infighting, the more defecation is tossed into the fan blades, the more damage will be done the eventual republican nominee. It is already bad enough, but it is sure to get worse.

So, I wonder if it is time to turn our attention to the candidates for the US Senate and House of Representatives and redouble our efforts to claim more governorships for conservatives and stop wasting our time and effort on a predetermined race for the GOP nominee for President.

I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a realist. With me the glass is neither half full nor half empty. It is simply the wrong size glass.

J. D. Longstreet

Democrat Code Words for Socialism

2012-01-26T03:08:00.000-05:00

Democrat Code Words for Socialism

Fairness, Fair Share, income inequality, etc

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Democrats would simply drop their façade and admit they have morphed into some sort of American breed of a socialist political party?

In the past few months, even years, my teeth have been set on edge when I have listened to their rhetoric about “fairness,” in this or that, and their use of the words “fair share” to drive a wedge between the American classes, and especially the words, or phrase, “income inequality” which seals the deal.

When a nation seeks income equality it is assuming socialism as its core philosophy. Income inequality is the clarion call for redistribution of a nation’s wealth. It is as simple and as basic as that.

In the past two decades I have slowly come to the realization that the dumbing down of Americans is near completion. It has taken approximately 50 years to realize, but the leftist movement in America successfully infiltrated and gained control of America’s public education system. Now we have a full generation and most of a second generation who have no clue what America is about. They don’t have a clue what their freedom cost. They don’t have a clue that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states as an agent. They have been taught -- and they believe -- that the people of the states are subservient to the federal government. They do not understand that the Bill of Rights is a protection for the American people from their federal government. Those ten amendments restrain the federal government in the interest of the people.

Most of our young Americans today don’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Don’t believe me? Ask ‘em!

I have mentioned in previous articles that as a solider in the US military I was trained to meet and combat socialism on the battlefield. It was rightly recognized as an enemy of freedom. It was recognized as a form of government that was destined to fail, but before its demise, it would enslave the people of any nation that was so utterly stupid as to even try it. No nation has yet survived socialism.

Europe is teetering on the edge of complete disaster simply because they have run out of other people’s money with which to pacify their populace after decades of coddling and teaching them to depend on their government for their very existence.

The USSR is now a footnote in history.

Yet, despite the fact that America was nearly crushed under the weight of a mere sampling of socialism, the left persists in their socialist agenda for America.

In 2008, they managed to elect a socialist as President of the United States. In 2010 the people of the political right in America successfully blunted the socialist left’s endeavor to shove America deeper into socialism. Conservatives were successful in retaking a majority of the Congress.

Now we have a chance to solidify conservative control of the American government by refusing to reelect the socialist in the White House this November.

It was clear after the President’s State of the Union address that their next step is to incite a class war in America. The great-unwashed masses in America must be taught to hate the “patricians” and the “plutocrats” – the very people who financed -- and continue to finance -- America’s success as the greatest nation in the history of mankind.

The wealthy Americans must be brought low and their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the – ahem – less fortunate among us. That is what I like to refer to as: BOVINE SCATOLOGY!

Nevertheless, their efforts to incite class warfare has been more successful than most think. It ought to be. It has been an underground movement for at least nine decades now. With the left’s capture of the Oval Office the socialist were emboldened to rise to the surface and ram their agenda through the national legislature.

But the right stopped them in 2010. That, dear reader, is why we now see the President’s abuse of the power of the Executive Order. Obama is intent on diluting democratic freedom in America by infusing socialism into every agency and administration under the control of the executive branch of the government.

Americans must retake control of their government in November and free it from the clutches of the socialist elite who have dipped their fangs into America’s bloodstream and are sucking her dry.

America needs a champion who will lead from the front. A leader who take a stand on the deck of our sinking ship of state, much as the Father of the US Navy, Captain John Paul Jones, when his ship was blown to bits and sinking from enemy fire. When asked if he was prepared to surrender Jones famously replied: “I have not yet BEGUN to fight!” Against all odds, Jones won the battle and took the enemy ship.

THAT is the spirit we need, indeed, the spirit it will take to lead America out of the muck and mire of socialism, put her back on course, trim her sails, and stir for the safe harbor of capitalism and freedom.

It is a life or death decision we Americans will make in November -- the life or death of America.

J. D. Longstreet

Stupid Voters ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-25T02:58:00.000-05:00

Stupid Voters

By Alan Caruba
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It’s a comment I hear all the time these days. “The voters are stupid.”

I am not sure that those saying it mean literally that the voters have a low level of intellect or academic achievement, but rather that they mean voters seem prone to making their choices based more on emotion than on a serious examination of the candidate’s qualifications and character.

The best example of this was the 2008 campaign in which a candidate was presented in much the same way companies seek to “brand” their product or service, repeating the same message (Obama’s was hope and change) until it becomes part of the consumers’ decision-making process. It’s why we buy a particular brand of cereal or car. We have come to associate values with it that go beyond the taste or the look.

Barack Obama had served barely two years in the U.S. Senate before he made an unprecedented leap from there to the White House. He was, for all intents and purposes, an unknown quantity with a legislative record—if anyone bothered to check—that was a straight Democratic Party line vote.

In his earlier incarnation as an Illinois legislator, he had voted “present” so many times it was clear he was avoiding taking any position he regarded as politically dangerous; a vote that would come back to haunt him and very few did. The media cooperated in this, avoiding calling attention to anything that might be deemed controversial.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton, whether you liked her or not, was a candidate with a full cart of baggage from her years as the former governor’s and president’s wife, and her years as a U.S. Senator who served, not from Arkansas where she first came to notice, but from New York where liberals thrive. The process of campaigning wore her out and, being the first women to seriously contend to be president, she had even more of a challenge to overcome. Her raw ambition tended to make people afraid of her.

What elected Obama had nothing to do with the slim qualifications he put forth. Few candidates had less to offer. He had never met a payroll. All information regarding his academic records was sealed from view. The press made no effort to ask what passport he had traveled on to Pakistan at one time and did not raise any question about his Social Security number, issued in Connecticut where he had never lived or worked. Famously, he released a “birth certificate” that anyone in Hawaii could attain for the asking, not the “long form” which is deemed credible.

The voters have paid a fearful price for electing Obama; increased unemployment, a huge national debt, a hollowed-out military, billions wasted on “Green” energy, unprotected borders, a Congress in near total gridlock, and a world beyond our shores that perceives an America made weaker by Obama’s three years in office.

I have worked as a public relations counselor for most of my life with earlier years spent as a journalist. I know something about how a product, a service, or an individual is “packaged” to present a positive “image.” What we have all learned since 2008 was that Obama was superbly “packaged” and that the image of an articulate, highly intelligent, well informed candidate was without substance. His inability to speak publicly without a TelePrompter swiftly became a joke.

So, to say that those who voted for him were “stupid” is to misread the new era of politics, one that has more to do with “American Idol” and “Dancing With the Stars” than with the serious selection of the leader of the nation and the free world.

As they say in advertising, voters bought the sizzle, not the steak.

We are seeing this process continue as the Republican candidates vie for votes. The Gingrich “surge” in South Carolina came after he had two successful debates. It is true that Gingrich is a good debater, but the real question is whether he would be a good president. Questions about his character remain.

Gingrich has been comfortable sharing a couch with Nancy Pelosi to advocate the bogus global warming “theory” or taking money from Freddie Mac.. Now he is trying to appear to be a “real” conservative as opposed to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and the quixotic Ron Paul.

While his judgment on issues has been called into question, Romney’s character never has. There has never been a hint of scandal in his life. In terms of policy, he was the Governor of one of the most liberal states and he did support Romneycare there. Politics is rarely pretty and even New Jersey’s fire-breathing Governor, Chris Christie, has taken some extraordinarily liberal positions and made some questionable appointments.

There might have been a time when Gingrich was, indeed, a bona fide conservative, but his long years in Washington, D.C., have taught him that “to get along you have to go along” In the end, even his colleagues in the House, for reasons of policy and personality, could no longer support him as Speaker.

From the days of Bush41 until the 2010 elections the Republican Party looked so much like the Democratic Party, voters had an increasingly hard time telling them apart. The Tea Party movement changed that. They and the “independents” are going to decide the 2012 elections that are currently making history with endless debates.

The debates are proving to be a succession of sound bites and vitriol between the candidates. They increasingly demonstrate how the mainstream media, the debate sponsors, are visibly seeking to influence the outcome of the election and they demonstrate that many voters are easily swayed by matters that have little to do with actual policies and issues.

There has been less and less substance with each debate.

I fear that too many Republican voters are having too many mood swings, relying on a moment or two from the most recent debate than on a serious examination—I repeat myself—of the candidate’s qualifications and character. Romney is carefully scripted and a tad robotic, but Gingrich could become the GOP nominee simply because he is entertaining.

Without doubt, President Obama and the Democrats are enjoying the Republican free-for-all and, without doubt, they have concluded that the voters are stupid.

© Alan Caruba, 2012
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Obama Regime Continues To Shred US Constitution

2012-01-24T03:08:00.001-05:00

Obama Regime Continues To Shred US Constitution

US Senator Unconstitutionally “Detained” by TSA

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

If the US Constitution was still in effect, was still an operational document, was still the law of the land, then the Transportation Security Administration would be in very deep trouble today. However, as we have all come to know all too well, the constitution is all but totally ignored today, especially under the administration of the Obama Regime.

When Obama was sworn in, the constitution was considered, found to be inconvenient for his socialist agenda, and ignored.

The latest blatant violation of the US Constitution was the much-publicized “detainment” of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky -- while he was enroute to Washington, DC to exercise his duties in the US Senate. That “detainment” was totally unconstitutional … period.

You see, Senators and Representatives cannot be arrested for a crime, except for treason, felony, or breach of peace, while meeting in Congress or while traveling to or from a meeting of Congress.

If Senator Paul was detained, then he was arrested. Consider this: “(v) Arrest is the action by which a person is stopped from his normal activities by virtue of a legal authority or sanction, either by detaining him or by stopping his external accesses.” (SOURCE)

Don’t believe me?

Read it for yourself:

Article 1, Section 6 … US Constitution:

1: The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.⁶ They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Now, THAT’S the wording from the text of the US Constitution … the law of the land.

I do not particularly agree with that portion of the US law, but it DOESN’T MATTER. It is THE LAW! Until such time as there is an amendment to the constitution affecting Article one, Section six to change or remove those few words, it remains the law of the United States.

There has been much bloviating in the press and in the blogosphere since the incident happened. So I don’t expect my opinion to make much difference, at all.

However, on the outside chance that you might care, allow me, please, to point out, once again, that our government, as it is currently constituted, is NOT following the law of the land. We have, in my opinion, a rogue government in place in Washington, DC.

The Transportation Security Administration is just another government agency out of control. It is a power hungry bully; full of itself, and -- in the real world -- it does more to restrict freedom of movement in this country than it does to ensure it.

On the TSA’s website they say: “We are 50,000 security officers, inspectors, directors, air marshals and managers who protect the nation's transportation systems so you and your family can travel safely.” (SOURCE) I dare say the “volk” of the Gestapo, in 1930’s Germany, thought of themselves in much the same manner.

I have been offering commentaries for decades and there has been a common thread running through the millions of words of opinion I have shared. It is this: We Americans are voluntarily giving up our freedom.

Have you noticed how we whine and complain when the Congress is tied up in knots and unable to legislate? We seem to have forgotten that to legislate is to pass laws.

Every time a law is passed some of us lose a little bit more of our freedom. Eventually, ALL of us lose small portions of our freedom, until one day, we finally stop and take stock of our current liberties -- and we find we are in deficit. Our freedom is gone and we are in hock to the government.

It seems to me that pretty much sums up our current situation.

Freedom, once lost, is almost impossible to reclaim. Much like an ocean liner, it takes a very long time to stop a government with the momentum of the US government.

Back in 2010 we sent a new batch of conservatives Senators and Congresspersons to Congress with a clear mission to bring the Congress to a halt and keep it static until the Obama Regime could be ended in November -- and we could gain control of enough of the national legislature to begin the process of returning sanity to our government.

Both the left and right wings of the American political spectrum have reviled them. Even so, they have done a fair job at slowing the Congress down.

Somehow, we Americans have lost our love of the freedom and liberty for which our forefathers gave their lives and fortunes.

Now, if you think I am being overly dramatic here, I ask you to look again at what a government agency did to a US Senator and ask yourself, if they can do that to one of the most powerful men in the country, WHAT can they do to me?

J. D. Longstreet

Was South Carolina A Fluke?

2012-01-23T03:05:00.000-05:00

Was South Carolina A Fluke?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Within mere moments after South Carolina’s primary win by Newt Gingrich members of the mainstream media began referring to Newt’s win as a fluke. I beg to differ.

You’d think the “experts” would have had time to discern exactly what the conservative voters of SC would do. We told you -- weeks ago -- they would not vote for Romney.

If Newt is able to assemble an organization and pull in the necessary funds, SC is not the only state in the south he will win.

Look. Newt is not all that popular in the south. Referred to often as a “carpetbagger” having been born in Pennsylvania in 1943 and partially reared in Georgia. Newt’s stepfather was a career solider so Newt actually grew up in several states but finally took root in Georgia.

According to Wikipedia, he attended high school in Columbus, Georgia. Gingrich attended Emory University and received his Ph.D. from Tulane University. In the 1970s he taught history and geography at West Georgia College. (SOURCE)

Just as Romney is seen as a “northeastern elitist,” Newt is often spoken of as a “carpetbagger.” Southerners do not easily accept either.

So why did the quintessential southerners, in my native state of South Carolina, hand the primary election to Newt on a silver platter? For several reasons.

Primarily, Newt is not Romney. That was the number one reason Newt won in SC. Secondly, Newt demonstrated that “fire” in the belly we mentioned in an earlier commentary. THAT is what southerners like to see in a leader -- a leader who will actually, in fact, lead.

Southerners are desperately seeking a leader who is not afraid to confront his detractors, head-on, with a withering counter attack. Newt demonstrated he could do that with devastating efficiency. And thirdly, Newt was exactly the candidate conservatives needed to send a message to the GOP. That message, sent loud and clear, was -- we do not want Romney as our nominee.

One could also add that Romney’s conversion from moderate to conservative simply is not believed in the south, especially in South Carolina, as we have just seen.

Then there is the belief in the south that Gingrich could, and would, slice and dice Obama in a debate. A friend told me recently that he would pay good money just to see a Gingrich/Obama debate.

I stand by my earlier prognostications that the southern states will not support Romney in the primaries. Having said that, allow me to hastily add that I expect Romney to win the Florida primary. Is it a contradiction? No, it is not. Depending upon the region in Florida, Newt will deliver a very good account of himself in the votes cast.

Understand, we southerners do not really consider Florida a “southern” state, even though it is, next to Texas, the southernmost state in the Union – geographically. Culturally, it is about as southern as New York City. Northern Florida could just as easily be southern Georgia. The panhandle of Florida is a mix with a huge military presence. Central to southern Florida is a mix of “snowbirds,” refugees from the colder climes of the northern states, Hispanics, and a few native Floridians. It is a melting pot of all races and cultures. It is, some would say, cosmopolitan and sophisticated. Some would say that. I would not.

Romney has a huge, well-financed, well-oiled political machine in Florida, which has been hard at work for at least five months. More votes have already been cast in early voting in Florida than the total number of votes cast in the Iowa caucus. Romney has a huge jump on Newt as the battle for the GOP nominee steams into Florida.

But what about the primaries after Florida?

I expect Romney to continue to do well in the northern states. As in New Hampshire -- he is one of “theirs.” However, he will continue to have problems in the southern states – until – the republican establishment destroys Newt.

The attacks have already begun. The Mainstream Media, the Democrats, and the Republican Establishment will bring their collective firepower to bear on Newt in a combined effort to assure that he is removed as an impediment in the anointee’s parade to the presidency.

Problem is, many conservatives do not believe Romney can beat Obama. (I count myself among them.) And, what’s worse for the GOP, those conservatives are not going to vote for Romney, because they do not believe he is a conservative. Without the conservative vote in November, Romney hasn’t a prayer of a chance against Obama.

The GOP establishment made another significant error in South Carolina. Sandlappers were offended by the Romney camp’s assumption that they would win SC. There was, about the Romney camp, an air of a prince awaiting his crowning as king. That attitude is especially repugnant to South Carolinians and to the people of the so-called “Deep-South” states.

Conservatives have been seeking an anti-Romney candidate they could coalesce around and exercise their considerable power at the ballot box.

Conservatives realize a battle has been won – but the war still lies ahead.

The prevailing attitude among southern conservatives today seems to be: Newt ain’t perfect, but he ain’t Romney, either.

J. D. Longstreet

MLK FOUGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND AGAINST DEMOCRATS ... Frances Rice

2012-01-22T03:07:00.000-05:00

MLK FOUGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND AGAINST DEMOCRATS

By Frances Rice

As we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us pause to reflect on who he was and why his struggle to obtain civil rights for black Americans was necessary.

First, Dr. King was a Republican until the day he died because he knew that the Republican Party, from its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. For details on the history of civil rights, see the NBRA Civil Rights Newsletter posted on the NBRA's website.

Second, the nemesis of Dr. King's valiant and historic campaign to end discrimination and gain equality for blacks was the Democratic Party, the party of slavery, segregation and the Ku Klux Klan. Led by the former Senator and Klansman Robert Byrd, Democrats launched a despicable crusade to smear and undermine Dr. King. This relentless disparagement of Dr. King resulted in his being physically assaulted and ultimately to his tragic death.

When Dr. King left Memphis, Tennessee in March of 1968 after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Byrd called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Prior to his death, Democrats bombed Dr. King's home several times. The scurrilous efforts by the Democrats to harm Dr. King included spreading rumors that he was a Communist and accusing him of being a womanizer and a plagiarist.

An egregious act against Dr. King occurred on October 10, 1963. Democrat President John F. Kennedy authorized his brother, Democrat Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, to wiretap Dr. King's telephone using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Wiretaps were placed by the FBI on Dr. King's telephones in his home and office. The FBI also bugged Dr. King's hotel rooms when he traveled around the country.

The trigger for this unsavory wiretapping was apparently Dr. Kings' criticism of President Kennedy for ignoring civil rights issues, according to the author David Garrow in his book, "Bearing the Cross".   As was pointed out in the book by Wayne Perryman "Whites, Blacks and Racist Democrats", Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act while he was a senator. After Kennedy became president, he was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King.

The justification given by the Kennedy Administration publicly for wiretapping Dr. King was that two of Dr. King's associates, including David Levinson, had ended their association with the Communist Party in order to work undercover and influence Dr. King.   However, after years of continuous and extensive wiretapping, the FBI found no direct links of Dr. King to the Communist Party.

Kennedy's disdain for blacks further manifested itself when the King family sought help with getting Dr. King out of a Birmingham jail. Kennedy's civil rights advisor, Harris Wofford who was a personal friend of Dr. King, made a telephone call on behalf of Kennedy without Kennedy's knowledge. That call resulted in Dr. King's release. Kennedy was angry about the call because he feared he would lose the Southern vote. History shows, though, that the call by Wofford eventually worked in Kennedy's favor and is the primary reason so many blacks today wrongly venerate Kennedy.

The unrelenting efforts by Democrats to tarnish Dr. King's reputation continued for years after his death. To his credit, Republican President Ronald Reagan ignored the Democrats' smear campaign and made Dr. King's birthday a holiday.

Today, while professing to revere Dr. King, Democrats are still attempting to sully his image by claiming that he was a socialist. In reality, Dr. King was a Christian, guided by his faith and Republican Party principles as he struggled to gain equality for blacks. He did not embrace the type of socialist agenda that is promoted by the Democratic Party today, which includes fostering dependency on government handouts that trap blacks in generational poverty.

Frances Rice is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, a lawyer and chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She may be contacted at: www.NBRA.Info
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About the author: Lieutenant Colonel Frances Rice, United States Army, Retired is a native of Atlanta, Georgia and retired from the Army in 1984 after 20 years of active service. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Drury College in 1973, a Masters of Business Administration from Golden Gate University in 1976, and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1977. In 2005, she became a co-founder and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association, an organization that is committed to returning African Americans to their Republican Party roots.

Whatever Happened to...? ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-21T17:35:00.000-05:00

Whatever Happened to...?

By Alan Caruba

In the run-up to the South Carolina primary election on Saturday, it strikes me that the overwhelming coverage of the campaign process has shoved some important stories to the sidelines.

There is noticeably little coverage of the nation’s obscene unemployment problem; one that is comparable to the Great Depression.

With ample good reason, we no longer hear anything about (a) global warming or (b) climate change. We don’t hear “renewable energy” stories in the wake of the Solyndra scandal or the demise of comparable “Green” companies, but Obama’s decision to refuse to permit the XL Keystone pipeline was a reminder that all his talk about job creation is just that—talk.

The rising price of a gallon of gasoline is never mentioned in the news, up from $1.86 when Obama took office to $3.40 now. That sort of thing used to get incumbent presidents defeated in the past.

Events beyond our shores continue whether we are in a primary season or not.

The future of the European Union is still somewhat precarious. Whether the Euro continues as the currency of the EU is an important issue affecting America’s trading partners. The U.S. Sovereign debt rating has already been reduced but now nine EU nations have been put on notice as well.

The Obama/Clinton foreign policy in the Middle East continues to erode. Egypt, a major player, is moving into Islamist—anti-American, anti-Israeli—control. For decades, the Muslim Brotherhood was suppressed as a political force in Egypt and today they have emerged as the biggest player. Egypt is moving out of our orbit of influence.

Iran continues inexorably toward acquiring the capacity to make its own nuclear weapons. Its growing desperation regarding the sanctions is generating a lot of bellicose threats. The entire Middle East is silently praying that Israel attacks and disables its nuclear capabilities. Anything else is morally indefensible.

Following the withdrawal of U.S. troops, Iraq is in shambles once again with bombs going off in its cities and little likelihood it will be able to function as a nation despite its vast oil riches. Libya has lots of oil, too, but it is still struggling to create a functioning government in the wake of Gaddafi’s overthrow. Syria has everyone in the Middle East on edge watching to see if Assad can avoid what appears to be his inevitable overthrow. His late father, though, did just that by slaughtering thousands.

The seemingly endless political debates continue minus Jon Huntsman who is backing Mitt Romney and Rick Perry who has endorsed Newt Gingrich. Pretty soon we shall be calling Romney “Teflon Mitt” because the voters appear to be bored with all the sniping from his opponents regarding his success in the private sector. Newt Gingrich seems to have no idea what capitalism is or does.

Even the calumnies heaped on the Tea Party movement don’t get much attention these days. We have learned, however, that the current Congress has been the least productive, accomplishing less in 2011 than any other year in recent history. Records have been kept since 1947. In light of the disaster called Obamacare, that is probably a good thing.

One trend is noticeable. With the exception of the Keystone decision, any news that might harm the reelection of President Obama is hard to find in the mainstream media.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Charles Manson energy ... Paul Driessen

2012-01-20T07:12:00.000-05:00

Charles Manson energy

It’s time to apply endangered species, wildlife and economic laws fairly and equitably

Paul Driessen

“… gleaming white wind turbines generating carbon-free electricity carpet chaparral-covered ridges and march down into valleys of Joshua trees.” This is “the future” of American energy – not “the oil rigs planted helter-skelter in [nearby] citrus groves,” nor the “smoggy San Joaquin Valley” a few miles away.

The Forbes article’s poetic paean to Aeolian energy nevertheless voiced consternation that a 300-megawatt “green” turbine project might kill some of the magnificent California condors that are just coming back from the edge of extinction – and the project might be cancelled as a result.

Indeed, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has asked Kern County to “exercise extreme caution” in approving projects in the Tehapachi area, because of potential threats to condors. The “conundrum will force some hard choices about the balance we are willing to strike between obtaining clean energy and preserving wild things,” the article suggested. Hopefully, it concluded, new “avian radar units” will be able to detect condors and automatically shut down turbines when one approaches.

All Americans hope condors will not be sliced and diced by giant Cuisinarts. But most of us are puzzled that so few “environmentalists” and FWS “caretakers” express concern about the countless bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats and other rare, threatened, endangered and common flying creatures imperiled by turbine blades.

And many of us get downright angry at the selective, indeed hypocritical ways in which endangered species and other wildlife laws are applied – leaving wind turbine operators free to exact their carnage, while harassing and punishing oil companies and citizens.

In 2011, following an intensive million-dollar, 45-day helicopter search for dead birds in North Dakota oil fields by FWS officials, US Attorney Timothy Purdon prosecuted seven oil and gas companies for inadvertently killing 28 mallard ducks, flycatchers and other common birds that were found dead in or near uncovered waste pits. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the companies and their executive officers faced fines of up to $15,000 per bird, plus six months in prison. (They eventually agreed to plead guilty and pay $1,000 per bird.)

Also in 2011, an FWS agent charged an 11-year-old Virginia girl with illegally “taking” a baby woodpecker that the girl had rescued from a housecat, even though she intended to release the bird after ensuring it was OK. The threatened $535 fine was finally dropped, after the FWS was deservedly ridiculed in the media.

The mere possession of an eagle feather by a non-Indian can result in fines and imprisonment, even if the feather came from a bird butchered by a wind turbine: up to $100,000, a year in prison or both for a first offense. Poisoning or otherwise killing common bats that have nested in one’s attic can cost homeowners thousands of dollars in fines.

Wind turbine companies, officers and employees, however, are immune from prosecution, fines or imprisonment, regardless of how many rare, threatened, endangered or migratory birds and bats they kill. In fact, FWS data show that wind turbines slaughter some 400,000 birds every year. If “helter-skelter” applies to any energy source, it is wind turbines, reflecting their Charles Manson effect on birds.

The hypocritical Obama-Purdon-FWS policy certainly protects, promotes and advances an anti-hydrocarbon, catastrophic global warming agenda that is increasingly at odds with environmental, scientific, economic, job-creation and public opinion reality. It also safeguards wind turbines that survive solely because of government mandates, taxpayer subsidies … and exemptions from laws that penalize and terrorize the rest of us.

It may be true that housecats and reflective windows kill more songbirds than turbines do. However, that oft-cited defense of wind energy Cuisinarts is irrelevant to the birds and bats discussed here.

Even if avian radar and turbine shutdown systems do eventually work, and can actually and abruptly stop turbine blades before they butcher an approaching bird, should they be limited to condors? Shouldn’t they be required for eagles and falcons – and for hawks, ducks, flycatchers, bats and other protected species? Geese, for example, to prevent a repeat of the December 7, 2011 massacre of numerous snow geese by wind turbines along upstate New York Route 190, as reported by a motorist?

Why aren’t wind developers and permitting authorities required to consider the lost economic benefits of butchered birds and bats, which do so much to control rats and insects that carry diseases and destroy crops? Shouldn’t that analysis be made mandatory, as more wind projects are proposed, thereby posing an ever-increasing threat to numerous species – and even to the survival of some?

Of course, even condor protection alone could reduce affected turbine electricity output to 20 or even 10% of rated capacity, instead of their current 30% average. Adding other protected species would drive nearly all actual wind turbine electricity output down below 5% – making the turbines virtually worthless, and driving the exorbitant cost of wind energy even higher.

But why should wind turbines be above the law? In fact, why should we even worry about reducing their electricity output?

America’s environmentalists, legislators, judges and bureaucrats have already made hundreds of millions of acres of resource-rich land off limits – and rendered centuries of oil, gas, coal, uranium, geothermal and other energy unavailable. The Environmental Protection Agency’s anti-coal zero-pollution rules, intense opposition to the Keystone pipeline, and looming restrictions on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are already further impairing electricity and other energy availability and reliability.

This government-imposed energy deprivation is already driving families into energy poverty and sending more jobs overseas.

Put bluntly, wind energy is unsustainable. It kills unconscionable numbers of bats, raptors and other birds. It requires billions in perpetual subsidies – and billions more for (mostly) gas-fired backup generators. It impacts millions of acres of scenic, wildlife and agricultural land – and depends on vast amounts of raw materials, whose extraction and processing further impairs global land, air and water quality. Its expensive, unreliable electricity kills two jobs for every one supposedly created.

A far more rational public policy would cut out the costly, unreliable middleman. It would forget about wind turbines, simply build more gas, coal and nuclear generators, to generate reliable, affordable, sustainable electricity – and apply the same laws fairly and equitably to all energy sources.

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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

GOP Counting On The “ABO” Vote

2012-01-19T03:10:00.000-05:00

GOP Counting On The “ABO” Vote

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

To those of us in the Carolinas, it has become clear that the Republican Party is counting on the “ABO” Vote in November. The ABO vote is: “Anybody But Obama” meaning, of course, that the GOP expects republicans will vote for anyone they nominate in order to defeat Obama.

Frankly, it’s the only explanation that makes any sense. Even the candidates, themselves, tell us that any one of the GOP candidates would make a better president than Obama. (Like that was really difficult to discern!)

I spoke to a politically astute friend recently who told me he is very afraid that Romney will win the nomination and lose the election to Obama. (I share that opinion.) But, my friend went on to say, I will vote for whoever is on the ticket against Obama.

See, the problem with an Obama vs Romney ballot is – one of them will win!

Maybe it is just yours truly, but I am more than a little tired of the milquetoast candidates the GOP continues to put forward for President. I mean, look at Dole and McCain. And, frankly, I was not impressed with George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism, which was nothing more that another way to say “moderate” or “RINO” (Republican In Name Only).

I’m past ready for a candidate with fire in his or her belly. In my less than humble opinion, the GOP needs a candidate who will get into the gutter where the democrats seem always to take their campaigns. We need a candidate who will trade blow for blow with the Democratic Party candidate -- a candidate who will go for the jugular, grasp the throat of the opposition and hang on ‘til the election is won.

Politics is a dirty game. If a candidate is not willing to get dirty to win, then how in the world am I to trust that when he is up against the world’s meanest, toughest, “low-downest” scoundrels, he will be able to trade blow for blow – and – do whatever it takes to destroy America’s enemies.

Nice guys are, well, NICE. I’m tired of nice! It is past time to get mean and throw our weight around.

Look. We have enemies who are in our face proclaiming loudly, and with vigor, that they intend to destroy us, to kill every American they can -- at the very first opportunity. Uh-uh. Nope. This is not the time for a nice guy in the White House.

Our current President seems to think that his flowery oratory will placate our enemies and we can have a global group hug, sing a few verses of Cum Ba Ya, and it will be all better. I’ve seen this movie -- and it does not end well for the nice guy.

No. We desperately need a leader tough enough that when he speaks, the world stops what it’s doing to listen. We’ve had enough of a President who runs off at the mouth like a broken facet. Nobody’s listening anymore – if they ever were.

We also need a leader who leads from the front. Leading from the rear doesn’t happen. Leading from the rear is NOT leading – period. It should be clear by now that when America does not lead -- the world goes to hell in a hand basket.

I am frustrated, and more than a little angry, that the GOP is holding to their practice of nominating the “next in line.” I am tired of limp wrists in the White House. I am tired of my President bowing and scraping to every tin horn tyrant he comes across, asking “permission” of the UN, and sucking up to our sworn enemies. It is embarrassing and deeply humiliating.

Sadly, when I see Romney – I see Al Gore with a GOP bumper sticker on his butt. I get the same uneasy feeling I got when Al Gore was running for President. It’s that feeling that something isn’t right, that something is out of place here. Plainly – it’s the feeing that I am looking at a hypocrite. I feel that I am being sold a bill of goods and that he is reading from a well-prepared script, which he has memorized down to the last dot and tittle.

I once interrupted a very young salesman at my door when he was about 30 seconds into his canned spiel. I asked him a question, which he could not answer. He apologized, and asked my forgiveness as he began his spiel all over again -- from the very beginning -- because that was the way he had memorized it. Back in the day we called that a “canned pitch.” THAT is the feeling I get when I listen to Romney in a debate or delivering a speech. There is no THERE there.

Barring an act of God, Romney will be the GOP nominee. I have to ask: If Romney wins the election and defeats Obama, short of being rid of Obama, what will America have gained? To me, it is comparable to the cancer patient placing his entire faith in a new miracle cure for cancer only to learn, after weeks of treatment, that it does not work, either.

I do not agree that beating Obama will be a walk in the park, as some of my fellow conservatives have postulated. I continue to have great respect for their opinions – BUT -- I am convinced the “ABO” vote will be absolutely necessary in November to evict America’s would-be King, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama.

J. D. Longstreet

The U.S. is on a Suicide Watch ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-18T03:15:00.000-05:00

The U.S. is on a Suicide Watch

By Alan Caruba

In 1991, the Soviet Union, arguably the greatest experiment in Communism, collapsed. After Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors moved to shift its Communist economy to one that embraced Capitalism while retaining centralized government control.

Following World War Two, the recovering nations of Europe were rescued from Communism by the Marshall Plan, but adopted Communism-Light in the form of Socialism. The U.S. was already headed in that direction, creating programs that we now call “entitlements.” For most of the nation’s history, such “entitlements” did not exist.

What binds together the financial problems of the West is the common thread of infantile behavior and thought. One might call it wishful thinking. Instead of encouraging people to provide for old age and possible illness, politicians decided to turn government into Big Daddy, the eternal source of money for everything.

Need to go to college, start a business, or plan for retirement? Government would be there to help. All this ignored the need to actually pay for these programs. In the case of Social Security Congress began to dip into its funding to pay for other programs! This is what children do.

One can look around the world and see what a failure both Communism and Socialism have been. Governments spending more than their tax and other revenues have suffered grievously from this path to default and that includes the United States of America. It can be argued that, with few exceptions--the Reagan years come to mind—Presidents have been poorly served by their economic advisors.

Politicians make poor economists because, in America, members of the House must think of getting reelected every two years and Senators every six. Moreover, being politicians, they believe that the more federal largess they can bring back to their State and then brag about is the one true path to reelection.

At the very beginning of the nation, Thomas Jefferson said it best. “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

How many commissions and special committees have earnestly produced reports intended to deal with a government grown too large? At the federal level, some two million or more Americans are employed promulgating a deluge of regulations and pushing paper.

Now President Obama says he wants to streamline the federal government.

The real issue is not “streamlining” government agencies by gathering them together under one roof and one administrator, but the failure to end government departments and agencies that no longer serve a useful purpose and whose removal would also remove countless obstacles to economic growth.

In April 2011, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute warned that “the federal government is on track to spend more than $3.5 trillion this year. What most people don’t know is that government actually costs about 50% more than what it spends. That’s because complying with federal regulations costs an additional $1.75 trillion—nearly an eighth of GDP. And almost none of that cost appears on the budget.”

The United States of America, the greatest engine of wealth the world has ever seen, is bankrupt. The national debt exceeds the Gross Domestic Product, the sum total of all revenue generated by goods and services.

The President has asked that the debt ceiling be raised another trillion or so and Congress will comply. That, I submit, is insane.

I also submit that, since Barack Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009, the nation has been witness to the economic insanity personified in the man and in the Democrat-controlled Congress that was his partner until 2010 when the control of the House of Representatives was wrested away by the Tea Party movement and its support for Republican candidates.

The only constant in life is change. America’s demography has changed. We have, thanks to medical care and other advantages, a much older segment of the population than ever before, but the nation from the 1930s to the 1960s had committed itself to ensure they would have Medicare and Medicaid at a time when people more often than not died in their 50’s and 60’s. We now have an average life expectancy of 78 years. My parents lived into their 90s.

Politics, not economics, continues to make it impossible to revise and restructure both Medicare and Social Security to reflect this reality. Instead, we had Obamacare foisted upon us which took trillions from Medicare and imposes rules that will let elderly heart attack or stroke victims die rather than pay for a level of care to which they contributed during their working years.

If the Supreme Court declares Obamacare unconstitutional it will go away. If we elect a Republican Senate, the repeal already passed in the House will be passed and it will go away.

But America’s economic problems will not go away until Americans insist that the shackles of Big Government be cut loose to enable the growth of an energy industry that can not only make the nation energy independent, but produce billions in revenue as far as the eye can see into the future.

The tax system with its thousands of pages must be revised to a simpler, fairer program. It makes no sense that forty percent of Americans pay no taxes at all.

It’s not that we don’t know what must be done. Conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, The Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and others have spelled out programs that can and will save America, but the nation must be led by a president who understands that Capitalism involves budgeting, planning, hard work, and—yes—risk.

The federal government is running on “continuing resolutions.” It has not had a formal budget since Obama arrived. This is no way to run the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. America is on a suicide watch and we are just an election away from saving it.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

The Hyphen that Destroyed a Nation

2012-01-17T03:11:00.000-05:00

The Hyphen that Destroyed a Nation

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic.

There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American is to be a traitor to American Institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of foreign votes are engaged with treason to the American Republic.” … (Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, in a speech before the Knight’s of Columbus, October 12^th, 1915.) (SOURCE)

As we see today, Teddy was absolutely right. We have become the very thing he warned we would become if we did not drop the hyphen – both mentally and physically. Indeed, we have “become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

Even President Woodrow Wilson regarded "hyphenated Americans" with suspicion, saying, "Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready.” (SOURCE)

At no time is it more obvious than during an election cycle when the politicians begin their pathetic pandering to every hyphenated group of so-called Americans in the country… both legal and illegal.

Since Teddy made his remarks we have embraced the hyphen ad infinitum. Now we have: African American, Arab American, Asian American, European American, Latino American, Native American, Chinese American, English American, Filipino American, Greek American, German American, Irish American, Indian American, Italian American, Japanese American, Jewish American, Korean American, Mexican American, Norwegian American, Azerbaijani American, Polish American, Russian American, Spanish American, Swedish American, Ukrainian American, Vietnamese American, and the list just continues to grow.

America is more divided today that she was during The War Between the States. We each seem to have our own little tribe to which we belong. The once famed “American culture” no longer exists. We have submerged it in a sea of multiculturalism and it has become the victim of something called “diversity.” Both Multiculturalism and Diversity were begat by Political Correctness, which has its roots in Marxism. Yes, I am saying America is becoming a Marxist country. The evidence is overwhelming. For exhibit number one, look no farther than the current occupant of the Oval Office of the President of the United States.

We are drowning in a sea of hyphens!

Whatever happened to plain ole Americans? Only a cursory investigation will reveal that they have been relegated to the dusty corners of our society where they can speak of such things as loyalty to one’s nation, honor, patriotism, and worse, GOD! … and not offend the purveyors of political correctness -- the practitioners of Marxism.

The past few generations of Americans have been indoctrinated in our government schools so that they believe that multiculturalism and diversity are GOOD. These are the same government schools that replaced prayer with policeman, psychologists, chain link fences, and metal detectors.

What did we expect?

America is in such hopeless shape that we cannot manage to convince anyone capable of leadership to even stand for election. Instead, we republicans have this gaggle of second and third stringers who have done nothing but embarrass half of the GOP while the other half is praying to God that he provide a miracle and produce a leader (quickly) we can have, at least, SOME confidence in.

America has lost its identity. We no longer know who we are. This is the result of hyphens, multiculturalism, and diversity. Until we can reclaim our real identify -- and coalesce around that identity as one people -- we cannot hope to heal our nation.

J. D. Longstreet

A Short Primer On The South

2012-01-16T03:06:00.000-05:00

A Short Primer On The South

An Introduction to the South for the Media and Politicians

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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With eyes of the world focused on South Carolina this last week before the primary election on Saturday, January 21^st, we felt now would be a good time to offer some insight into the people of my home state and the “Southern People” as a whole.

Every four years, I offer my little primer as an introduction and a navigation aid to those who suddenly find themselves about to be immersed in southern culture for the first time.

If you are representing the mainstream media, and this is your first visit to my country, prepare for a culture shock.

The southern people are distinctively different from the folks “up north.” The South was settled primarily by Scott-Irish with a smattering of Germans in the Mid-Atlantic area, as well as French Huguenots, and some Spanish along our coast. Our heritage IS very different.

You don’t hear it spoken of much anymore, but there still exists a “Code of the South.” No, it is NOT a myth.

You can sum it up in one word. “HONOR”. We cherish honor above everything else. Without honor, all that remains has no value.

Southerners believe each man and woman has a duty, a responsibility, to seek nobility in life and in purpose. No matter his, or her, station in life, or the social strata he, or she, was born into. There is nobility in fighting the good fight, on your job, on the field of battle, at anything you turn your hand to do.

Southerners believe we were, indeed, created in the image of God. We have a duty to uphold that image as best we can. It is a continuous battle against the trials of life, but to shirk one’s duty, in this respect, is unforgivable. It is dishonorable.

We are a culture apart. We like it that way. We have no intention of changing. To do so would be to dishonor all those who have gone before us as well as their creation of this sanctified, set apart, land. “The South” is to Southerners what the Holy Land is to the Jewish people.

Never question the honor of a Southerner. It is considered a challenge and your challenge WILL be answered.

A Southerner will go to the wall to defend honor. No matter the size of the opponent, no matter the place, or the time. Honor will be defended.

There is an inviolate line, which must never be crossed. Where does that line lie? Everywhere. For instance, you do not disparage our women. That is at the top of the list of inviolate things. Others include: our homes, our friends, our religion, our military abilities, and you surely do not speak disparagingly about our ancestors. To violate any of these will bring the wrath of the South down on your head in an instant.

You may have noticed Southerners do not back down. We refuse to accept defeat.

We are accused, often, of still fighting the War Between the States. That is true. We consider this era of forced quietude only half time between us and the North. We have never laid the war down. To quit, to surrender, is not acceptable in our code of honor. So, we fight on. Understand… we will win. It may take another hundred, or even two hundred, years, but we will prevail. We never forget, and we never quit.

It has been said that Southerners are America’s true “Warrior Class.” Consider the great warriors of America. For the most part, they were/are Southerners.

War comes naturally to Southerners. The Scot-Irish-German blood flowing in our veins and the Southern Code of Chivalry we learn from birth creates the most fearsome warrior on the face of the earth.

The true Southerner is a gentleman, or lady, always. Well, right up ‘til he takes your head off. He will knock you down then offer his hand to lift you back to your feet. If you make the same mistake again, you will find yourself in need of that helping hand to get you off your backside … again.

Southerners are deeply religious people. We unashamedly believe in God. We believe the Bible is His Holy Word. At the same time we know one cannot be perfect, but we believe every Southerner is born into this world with the obligation to strive for perfection. Anything less is totally unacceptable. It has been said this is the Southern interpretation of the European “Noblise Oblige.” Southerners know in the depths of their being they have an obligation to strive for nobility.

The Southern society is not a classless society. We acknowledge our society has an upper, middle, and a lower class. But we believe the obligation to nobility crosses those boundaries and emboldens even the least of us to carry the honor of his name, and his family’s heritage, without stain. Anything less is unacceptable.

Yes, you WILL see the Confederate Battle Flag snapping in the pine-scented southern breeze. Get used to it. It is flown in honor of our heritage – and—as a warning that the people of The South will not suffer tyranny from ANY quarter.

There exists a divide between the Northern People and the Southern People in this nation. The divide is vast and unnavigable. We are two different peoples held together by law. The bayonet enforced the bondage of the Southern peoples. We have not forgotten. Nor will we. We know these bonds are only temporary. We work tirelessly for the day we will once again be ruled only by God and voice of the Southern people.

Tis honor, above all else. It is our code. It is written on our hearts.

So -- I hope this little primer on “The South” is helpful to you media types and political apparatchiks. Remember, always: You are visitors in our home and we expect you respect our hospitality and generosity and do not besmirch what you most certainly do not understand.

And finally, if we like you, you will be sent on your way with the now world-famous: “Y’all come back – ya hear?”

J. D. Longstreet

Did You Know Homeland Security is Monitoring the Internet? ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-14T03:06:00.000-05:00

Did You Know Homeland Security is Monitoring the Internet?

By Alan Caruba

One of the lessons one learns in military basic training is “situational awareness”, a term that reflects the importance of watchfulness in combat. It can mean the difference between life and death. Police practice this as well, looking for people who seem out of place in a neighborhood.

The average citizen blithely ignores this when shopping or just going about their life, though many purchase private monitoring services to protect their homes against fire or theft or put up video surveillance systems to protect their businesses. I doubt there is any public place that does not have television cameras watching.

When it comes to protecting the nation, situational awareness is an essential element to spot a potential individual or group that might pose a danger. There is, of course, the potential for misuse or abuse, but that applies to everything government does.

The upside of such monitoring is contained in a short item from the Heritage Foundation’s January 12 Morning Line dispatch. “His plan was to rip apart nightclubs with explosives, unleash a wave of destruction on bridges, and open fire on police officers—all in sunny Florida. This was the murderous intent of Sami Osmakac, 25, an American citizen from the former Yugoslavia who was determined to spill blood, foment destruction, and bring terror to the United States all in the name of Allah. Fortunately, undercover FBI agents thwarted his efforts, making this the 44th foiled terrorist plot against America."

I am a regular contributor to Harold Wylie’s excellent website, BorderfireReport.net. On a daily basis he gathers news about the effects of illegal immigration and related topics. He recently wrote to say that “my website has been placed on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Operations Center Media Monitoring Initiative.” He learned about this during a visit to World Net Daily.com.

Is this a good or bad thing? Candidly, I thought it was a good thing because it suggests that someone at DHS recognized what an excellent “open source” of information Wylie’s site provides.

A government agency that’s “snooping” on Americans is not likely to issue such a notice and the sites listed represent, in government-speak, the opportunity “to collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture.”

When one considers the billions the government spends on covert intelligence gathering, this is a far cry from “Big Brother.” Simply stated, DHS thinks that Wylie’s his site is performing a valuable service for their own Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement operation.

The cliché is that “being paranoid does not mean someone is not watching you.” There are so many sources of information available to individuals and groups regarding everything about your life that it bodes well to conduct oneself in conformance with common sense and the law. Meanwhile, your credit rating and other data are easily accessible.

Like millions of others I am on Facebook and DHS monitors both it and Spacebook. The occasional nutcase uses these social networks to announce to the world that he or she has bad intentions. Ironically, even DHS is monitored by a site called Cryptome that, according to a Reuters’ news story “periodically posts leaked documents and was one of the first websites to post information related to the Homeland Security monitoring program.”

DHS monitors Jihad Watch and Informed Comment “that cover issues related to Islam through sharp political prisms, which have sometimes led critics to accuse the sites of political bias.” You and I visit sites daily that have a sharp political bias. It’s called freedom of speech and the press.

Ostensibly, the DHS monitors dozens of websites, forums, blogs, and message boards, for the purpose of managing “government responses to such events as the 2010 earthquake and aftermath in Haiti and security and border control related to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.”

This is not to say that government responses are effective, but I am not disturbed by the fact that it wants the “situational awareness” necessary. The fact remains that our nation’s borders are astonishingly—frightenly—porous and in need of far greater enforcement efforts to stem illegal immigration and the potential for threats to public safety. Then there are the Islamic jihadists that want to kill all of us.

It is very American to be suspicious of government monitoring. Ours is an open society and we want to keep it that way. It is also encouraging to know that the Department of Homeland Security is doing what it can to protect us.

© Alan Caruba, 2012
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

The Smell Test ... J. D. Longstreet

2012-01-13T03:09:00.000-05:00

The Smell Test

SC GOP Voters Must Hold Their Noses Again

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

As a native South Carolinian, who hasn’t lived in the state in over fifty years, it has become necessary to tap into the well of information presented by my friends and family who still reside there to get a feel for what SC will do come their GOP primary on January 21^st.

South Carolina politics (North Carolina’s, too) is a blood sport. It is rough and tumble all the way.

“The State” newspaper, SC’s leading Newspaper, suggest those seeking to knock Romney off his catbird seat should take a lesson from SC history and – “play dirty.” (SOURCE)

The article by Gina Smith goes on to say: “In South Carolina – with its tradition of whisper campaigns, automated phone calls that no one takes credit for and possibly illegal efforts to sway voters – politics is a blood sport, supported by a cottage-industry of political strategists.”

Ms. Smith is spot-on.

When South Carolina forsook the Democratic Party it embraced the GOP’s conservative wing -- and never looked back.

I’d like to recommend that you take the time to read Ms. Smith’s article. It presents a well-rounded explanation of how politics works in my home state. You may read Ms. Smith’s article here at (The State)

If you have been laboring under the impression that northern political machines have all the tactical wars in modern day politics down to a fine edge, then you really ought to learn how things are down south – especially in my home state of South Carolina. Even the famed Chicago political machine could learn a few tricks from the Sandlappers.

As the GOP candidates converge on South Carolina the anger is thick enough to cut with a knife. The gloves are off and the bare-knuckle beatings are about to begin. It’s going to get down and dirty in the next week before the primary.

No longer does Iowa or New Hampshire decide the GOP nomination – South Carolina does. For the past thirty-two years the candidate winning the SC Primary has gone on to become the Republican Party nominee for President. For that reason, money has been flowing into the state to support candidates -- and to destroy others. The state is awash in political cash.

It will not be fun and games for Romney over the next week. It will be a slog. Romney is not well liked in South Carolina. In “up-state” SC Romney is held responsible for closing a plant there and rendering a slew of people jobless. That wound is still very sensitive and Romney’s opponents continue to pick at the scab to remind folks that it was Romney who sent them packing without employment. We’ve already heard Romney compared to the fictional character from the movie “Wall Street” Gordon Gekko.

Gingrich comes to the Palmetto State loaded for bear. Well, maybe that should be “loaded for Romney.” Gingrich is seething with anger for the negative ads Romney’s supporters ran against Gingrich in Iowa knocking him out of first place and consigning him to the basement of the GOOP candidate field.

Ron Paul is plodding into the Iodine State safe in the knowledge that he will never be President of the United States. Paul is intent now on racking up enough support that he can demand concessions from whomever the GOP nominee turns out to be. For Paul, it’s not about winning the nomination – it’s about winning concessions… that’s all.

Perry has been ruining around the state for nearly a week not creating much more than a dust cloud. Mr. Perry’s stand on illegal immigration shut him out in South Carolina.

Huntsman? Well, anyone having worked for Obama is lucky to be allowed a drink of water in South Carolina. Any time huntsman spends in South Carolina is wasted time. The same goes for any money he might spend on his campaign there.

Santorum? Nah. A nice family man but hasn’t a prayer of a chance against the Obama machine.

Any way it goes in South Carolina next week will be fun for those of us who enjoy the sport of politics. The candidates themselves will not share in that fun, however. For them, it will be all work.

Expect no surprises from South Carolina, though. Unless something terribly unforeseen happens, Romany will win the primary and be out of the sandhills like a flash on his way to Florida, which is seen by many southerners as a “Yankee colony.” He should receive a warmer (no pun intended) welcome there.

J. D. Longstreet

War Clouds Continue to Gather

2012-01-12T03:10:00.000-05:00

War Clouds Continue to Gather

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

First, allow me to explain that, yes, I know it is not popular, today, to point out the obvious. Ok. Maybe I should have phrased that this way: “…to point out what SHOULD be obvious.”

Before I proceed, I’d like to encourage my readers to browse the websites of foreign news services. If I have learned anything at all (since Al Gore invented the Internet) it is this: The US mainstream media cannot be trusted. They have an agenda and that agenda does not necessarily include dissemination of the truth. As a card-carrying member of the press for many years, I have always been aware of the left-leaning bias of the US media. That is not to say the same leftist bias does not exist in overseas media because it most certainly does.

Having said that – were you aware that right at the moment the Obama Administration is announcing plans to cut the US defense budget the US is preparing for another war in the Middle East? Did you know that we have been quietly building an armada of naval assets in the Gulf of Oman just off the shores of Iran? Did you know this naval armada consists of warships from the US, the UK, France, Israel, and others?

Looking west a bit we see US, French, and British warships, standing off the Syrian coast, facing off with Russian warships including a Russian aircraft carrier task force.

My regional newspaper is printed in a military town, home to one of the largest military bases in the US, and yet, I see very little information in it’s pages concerning this build-up of military might in the waters of the Middle East. Why?

I’ll make the answer as straight forward and simple as I possibly can. There re two parts to the complete answer: 1) Obama is seeking reelection. 2) Obama is seeking to reduce the military budget to gain more money to spend on his leftist agenda for America.

At the risk of being called an “alarmist” allow be to make it plain: I AM alarmed.

So when will this war begin. Well, let me put it this way: The Iranians should carefully watch Obama’s poll numbers. If those numbers continue their slide downwards, the Iranians are going get the heck bombed out of them.

Americans are extremely reluctant to change Presidents in the middle of a war. Obama knows this and is expected to act accordingly.

Some conservative writers and commentators expect that war in the Middle East is currently scheduled for October 2012. That would be the famed “October Surprise.”

On the other hand, those in my camp believe the Iranians, in all their hyped-up passion, will do something stupid like firing on a tanker or a US warship or aircraft, or even worse, make an attempt to close the Straits of Hormuz by sewing it with mines and other hazards to maritime traffic. That would be the spark that would bring down the considerable wrath of that naval armada lying off their shores.

Then there are the Israelis. They have had enough of Iran’s threats and Iran’s war on Israel by proxy. Israel’s secret war of sabotage in Iran can only deliver limited success at delaying and derailing Iran’s race to build or acquire a nuclear bomb. Israel could decide, at any moment, that enough is enough and launch their fighter-bombers and cruise missiles at Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if it only buys a few months or a couple of years of breathing space for Israel, it is becoming clear there is no other way to effectively deter Iran from building their coveted Islam Bomb.

The situation in the Middle East today is far, far, more dangerous than the US media is reporting. A single spark will ignite a devastating war that will affect practically every nation on earth to some degree or other.

Those of us who continue to sound the warning bell of a huge war in the Middle East are being compared to the boy Peter in the story of “Peter and the Wolf.” An article at Haaretz.com noted that those who make such public comparisons seem always to leave out the end of Aesop’s famous tale of the boy who called wolf too much. In the end, the wolf actually DID come -- and the sheep were slaughtered. (SOURCE)

So, with that ending in mind, I have no concern about continually pointing to those dark, foreboding, clouds gathering in the east. Since the mainstream media seems to be ignoring a certain war to protect Obama’s prospects in the coming election, someone must stand as a watchman on the ramparts and sound the alarm when clouds of dust from the approaching armies of the enemy is sighted and when the sound of distant war drums is heard.

Today those dust clouds are clearly seen over the horizon and the pounding of the drums can be heard in the distance -- and we are sounding the alarm.

J. D. Longstreet

Ice Age "News" is Wrong--It's Coming Sooner Than Later ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-11T03:08:00.000-05:00

Ice Age "News" is Wrong--It's Coming Sooner Than Later

By Alan Caruba

When you consider the millions of words published as “news” about global warming, a massive hoax based on the theory that an increase in the Earth’s levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), a minor atmospheric gas (0.0380%), it boggles the mind that reporters for a respected newswire, Reuters, would still be writing utter rubbish about it.

Just as the “news” about global warming was demolished in 2009 and again in 2011 with the leaked emails of the conspirators behind the fictions of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the main agency behind the hoax, on January 9, Nina Chesney of Reuters London Bureau, reported about a paper in the journal, Nature Geoscience, that the “Next Ice Age not likely before 1,500 years: study.”

The paper claimed that “Concentrations of the main gases blamed for global warming reached record levels in 2010 and will linger in the atmosphere for decades even if the world stopped pumping out emissions today, according to the U.N.’s weather agency.”

The U.N. does not have a “weather agency.” It has a propaganda agency devoted in its own words to “climate.” The two are not the same. Weather is what is occurring right now and climate is the measurement of trends over centuries.

The authors of the paper based their ice age predictions on “variations in the earth’s orbit and rock samples” and was “conducted by academics at Cambridge University, University College London, the University of Florida, and Norway’s University of Bergen.

These people have to justify their salaries and, just like all the other academics who jumped on board the global warming wagon, they are likely among the last holdouts making claims about CO2. Their conclusions are absurd. This isn’t science. It’s the dying gasp of those trying desperately to keep the global warming hoax alive.

The science—the known facts—aren’t that difficult to understand. Climatologists have established that, over the 4.5 billion years of the Earth’s existence, ice ages have occurred on the average ever 11,500 years. Then the Earth lapses into a period of extreme cold. The Earth is 11,500 years since the end of the last major ice age.

We are due the onset of the next ice age any day now and when it begins, it will come on so fast that all the manmade CO2 will have no effect whatever. Moreover, CO2 shows up in the atmosphere in a greater quantity AFTER a major climatic event, not before.

There have been periods when there was much more CO2 in the atmosphere; the age of the dinosaurs comes to mind. Indeed, when the last big ice age struck, mammoths were literally frozen in place, waiting to be discovered and dug up centuries later, so intact scientists were able to determine what their last meal was!

I count myself fortunate to have Robert W. Felix, perhaps the world’s leading authority on ice ages, as my friend. I recommend you visit www.iceagenow.info and benefit from the facts. You can also read “Not by Fire, but by Ice”, his book on the topic of ice ages.

In a post on his website regarding the latest nonsense about a distant ice age, Felix cites the fact that Argentina’s Perito Moreno is growing and it is in the southern hemisphere. In addition, glaciers are growing in India, in the Rockies, in California and Washington State. Do you believe that CO2 will stop this growth or have the slightest affect on it?

The assertion that “an increase in ice-sheet volume would not be possible” is a lie. Just like all the other lies published about global warming by the IPCC and all the others that sought to profit from the hoax.

Do not believe these claims. The Earth has been in a perfectly natural cooling trend since 1998. We are at the end of the most recent interglacial period and could tip into a new ice age tomorrow.

© Alan Caruba, 2012
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

A Hollow US Military

2012-01-10T03:08:00.000-05:00

A Hollow US Military

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

If the President and the Congress are able to realize their plans for the US military, it will leave American with, as the title to this piece suggests, a hollow force. It will also place America in a great deal of danger because our military will be a great deal smaller in numbers of troops.

Think about that for a moment. Not only will our military lose so much of its war fighting materiel, it will lose many thousands of troops. That’s bad enough but there is something else -- and no one seems concerned about it.

You see, when the military cutbacks come, we will lose the experience of troops who have actually been on the battlefield, who have actually looked the enemy in the eye, who have dealt with the pain of taking another human being’s life, and the deep abiding pain of losing a friend or companion in battle, who have fought the fight and lived to tell about it. BUT – they will not be available to train the raw recruits that will always be necessary to keep the much smaller fighting force flush with young, robust, well-trained fighting men.

Everything, these days, seems to have a price in dollars and cents. Not experience. The value of experienced combat soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines is inestimable. It also holds true, not just for enlistees, but for officers as well -- mustangs and academy graduates, alike. Experienced officers are a must for a military to even consider executing a victorious military campaign. Book knowledge is absolutely necessary but it can’t hold a candle to experience on the battlefield.

We are looking at the creation of a hollow force IF congress does not apply the brakes, one way, or the other, to stop what will amount to decimation of the US military.

You may recall that “decimation” is a word derived from the Latin word “decimatio.” It means, literally: “removal of a tenth.” You see, the Romans would punish troops for cowardice by placing them in formation and then executing every tenth man. Of course, the practice of decimation did not last long before some Roman commanders began to notice their troop strength was suffering badly from their own actions as well as that of the enemy.

In my opinion, the word “decimation” is applicable to what our government is about to do to our military.

Those who have been paying attention to the encroaching chaos in the world, especially in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, are extremely concerned that only a spark is needed to bring on a global conflict far worse than we experienced in the 1930’s and 1940’s. We are, of course, referencing multiple tactical and strategic use(s) of nuclear weapons. Everyone on the face of our planet will be involved, one-way, or the other.

If the US were blessed with forward-thinking leaders, we would be building up our armed forces in preparation for the coming conflagration, which, experts seem to agree, is expected in the very near future. Unfortunately, we are NOT blessed with leaders who understand that history did not begin on the day they were born.

Rather than cutting the US military, the US “standing Army” should be doubled. Our Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corp also need to be doubled in strength… and as quickly as possible. When the next war comes, it won’t be fought from 15,000 feet with smart bombs, as we did in the Balkans. It will be a slugfest in the air, on the sea, and on the land. It will not be contained in a particular geographical region. There is a strong likelihood that the continental US will be hit. It is fairly easy for missiles launched from ships, lying off shore in international waters, to burst through our radar defenses and strike targets before we can react to stop them. That is an uneasy reality.

Unfortunately for what we used to call “the free world,” Mr. Obama’s penchant for leading from behind, simply opened the door for any and all mischief makers, anywhere on the globe, to come out and play. Many have and many more will

It seems to this scribe, the US needs a crash program, right now; to build our military might to that state of readiness that we reached in the midst of the Second World War. It is unrealistic today (with nuclear armed rogue nations) to allow one of them to get in the first punch. No nation can absorb many nuclear first strikes.

It is more than a little worrisome that the Congress and the President do not seem to share the concern of our military that we will not be prepared when the next attack on the US comes.

If history has taught us anything it is that when the world becomes so stressed-out, especially over the imminent collapse of the global financial system, war is next to inevitable. Yet, the current leadership in Washington is seriously preparing to reduce our military, substantially.

This is no time for a hollow military. Reliance on super electronic weapons is no longer a guarantee of victory. A single electro-magnetic pulse weapons can make them all totally useless in the blink of an eye and pull the teeth of the tiger instantaneously. But those powerful EMP weapons cannot stop the ultimate weapon – a determined American military man. And THAT is the very weapon of which, we will be in dire need when the first shots are fired in a future war.

We have seen the US military gutted many times in the past only to find we have to pay for that mistake in the blood of our under-trained and under-equipped soldiers in the first stages of the very next war. Understand: there will always be a “next war.”

The US government has done some dumb things. But decimating our military, with the world in the mess it is today, ranks among the dumbest.

J. D. Longstreet

Is It Already Too Late For America?

2012-01-09T03:08:00.001-05:00

Is It Already Too Late For America?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Back in August of 2008 I wrote the following:

“When is America going to wake up? WILL she wake up? Will she wake up in time? Or, will time run out? We have been sliding down that slippery slope at an every increasing velocity since the 1960’s. We’re not losing our freedom. We’re not losing our country. No. We’re giving it all away.

We have compromised and compromised until we have little left TO compromise. Yet, we have two presidential candidates, right now, who are BOTH believers in compromise. They make a big deal of their willingness to compromise. What is needed is the testosterone to stand up on our two feet, like men, and shake our fist in the face of our enemies and say, NO MORE! This is it! We are done giving you what you want just to be left alone in our comfortable little cocoons.

The wolves have been gathering in an ever-tightening circle. They are closing in one step at a time. And we Americans don’t see it. Instead we continue to feed them while telling ourselves if we give them what they want they will be our friends. We have chosen to forget one of the laws of Nature. Wolves are what wolves are. They do what wolves do. Even a wolf, thought to be domesticated, is liable to turn and leap for the throat of the person who supposes he is the wolf’s master. Yes, wolves do as wolves have always done… because they ARE wolves.

America’s enemies are gathered against us. They are tightening the circle. Even now they are among us. Sadly, a look in the mirror will reveal the identity of America’s worst enemies.” (SOURCE)

At the time I wrote that dire prospective, America was nearing a Presidential Election … an election that would fundamentally change our country for the worst. It was an election, as it turned out, that has nearly destroyed, especially, America’s Middle Class.

As we had warned, many times, neither of the men on the ballot would be good for America. One would continue the (then) agenda of the current administration and the other would, most certainly, take the country into socialism and set America up to become a communist dictatorship.

Many thought I could not be more wrong – and said so. Today, however, many of those people who derided my dark prognostications then, will not communicate with me today for their embarrassment. They need not be embarrassed. Being wrong is a part of the human condition. But one of the traits that sets us above the other animals inhabiting the earth is our ability to learn from our mistakes -- and not repeat them.

Now we have the chance to put what we have learned in the past years of Obama’s Administration into practice. We have a chance to right the wrong and to begin an American recovery. I say “begin” because I am still not convinced Mr. Romney has the heft to do what is going to be necessary to reverse Americans deep plunge into Obama’s sewer of socialism and communism. But he WOULD be a start. And let’s not kid ourselves: The scars of the Obama regime are deep and ugly and they will last forever.

Look. Let’s be clear about this: The mess we are in, as a nation, is going to take generations to neutralize. I use the word “neutralize,” because first -- we must stop the slide into that sewer I mentioned above. Then, and only then, can we begin to reverse ourselves and begin to claw our way upwards into the sunshine again.

I asked the question in the title: Is it already too late for America? I titled this piece that way because I think each of us, as Americans, must look in the mirror and ask the same question of ourselves. For it is WE who will decide the answer.

I cannot tell you have often I have had friends, in recent years, remark to me: “I don’t recognize this country, anymore. This is not the America I knew.” That is true. But the thing I find most interesting about their depressed musing -- is the lack of bitterness and anger. There was remorse in their words and tone, but none of that famed American determination aimed at correcting whatever had thrown America off course. It is as if they have simply thrown in the towel, given up, and admitted defeat to themselves -- if not quite to others yet. I am terribly afraid that the fire, for many, has gone out.

Understand: The primary tool of the political left, all over the world, against those who do not hew to the leftist line, is to denigrate, degrade, rebuff, mock, and hold up to public ridicule all those who do not think the way they do. And when rhetoric fails, as we learned from the 1930’s, they quickly resort to physical abuse by leftist thugs. We saw some of that in the 2010 political cycle right here in America. Look for physical abuse to be more wide spread this year as we draw nearer to the Presidential Election.

To answer my own question -- whether or not it is already too late for America – we will all know the answer to that in November. If Obama wins – yes, it IS all over for America. If his opponent wins, well, we have a chance, a small one at best -- but a chance, nevertheless, to save our country.

J. D. Longstreet

Barack Machiavelli ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-08T03:27:00.000-05:00

Barack Machiavelli

By Alan Caruba

The Founding Fathers, authors of the Constitution, were obsessed with any form of government that could become too powerful, too willing to use force to oppress citizens. They had cause. They had fought a long war against the greatest power of their age, ruled by a king with nearly absolute power. They fashioned an instrument designed to ensure that the President could not rule by edict and defused power among three branches of government.

We have a President currently running for reelection against Congress, Wall Street, Republicans, and the right of citizens to be free of an overly intrusive government.

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution says: All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

All appointments of the President must be approved by the Senate while it is in session and the Senate, even over the Christmas and New Year’s vacation has remained in session, if only in a pro forma, technical manner. Every three days it has been convened to assert its powers.

Even so, President Obama has announced several “recess” appointments, all clearly a challenge to the Senate and all clearly a tyrannical power grab. He appointed Richard Cordray as the first director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new function that puts government between the lender and the citizen. In theory, all loans in the future will be subject to government approval. This is Communism, not Capitalism.

In addition, he appointed three members to the National Labor Relations Board, intended to arbitrate disputes between unions and corporations. None of them have appeared before a Senate committee for vetting. It was this board that demanded Boeing shut down its new factory in South Carolina, one of many “right to work” states that empower workers with the right to determine whether they want to join a union or not.

Neither Obama, nor any president who preceded him can make appointments without the “advice and consent” of the Senate. (Article II, Section 2). As recently as the first week of the year, referring to the Senate, Obama asserted that “I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them.” He has no such obligation. Those are the words of an incipient tyrant.

These actions put me in mind of Niccolo Machiavelli, famed as the author of “The Prince”, a book of advice to Lorenzo de Medici who was the ruler of the former republic of Florence, one of many city states in Italy. Born in 1469 and died in 1527, Machiavelli living during the early years of the Renaissance, a period that saw the flowering of literature, science, art, religion and politics. Historians consider it a bridge between the Middle Ages and the modern era.

The renaissance was a period of social and political upheaval, one in which the various princes ruled so long as they could protect their principalities against wars by others seeking to expand their powers. “The Prince” is largely seen as advice on how a prince may have to resort to the methodical use of brute force and deceit to hold onto power, but it was more than that. It was a guide to ruling people with a minimum of oppression.

“It should be borne in mind,” Machiavelli wrote, “that there is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes in a state’s constitution.” Obama is engaged in an attack on the U.S. Constitution.

Of princely power, Machiavelli wrote, “The people are everywhere anxious not be dominated or oppressed by the nobles, and the nobles are out to dominate and oppress the people. These opposed ambitions bring about one of three results; a principality, a free city, or anarchy.” The Constitution ensures a free nation with limited federal powers and is a guard against anarchy.

Evidence of Obama’s narcissism and drive for complete power is ample. He is on record as saying the Constitution is composed of “negative” limits on power. Others regard the Constitution as the ultimate protection against the unlawful use of power. This is particularly evident in the Bill of Rights which was appended to the Constitution because several of the first States would not ratify without it.

In his advice to Lorenzo de Medici, Machiavelli raised the question of “whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. Within the context of the time, he said, “it is far better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.” In the run up to Christmas, Americans bought guns in record numbers which suggests there is considerable fear of Obama and the results of his policies over the past three years.

We have witnessed and been victimized by a Democrat-controlled Congress that forced Obamacare on an unwilling public. We have seen the rise of Islamic fanaticism as the result of his failed policies toward Iran and the Middle East. We have had record breaking debt imposed on us by his failed “stimulus” policies. We have seen continued efforts to reduce our military power and to thwart access to our ample energy resources of oil, natural gas, and coal.

It is a long list of usurpations of power that endanger the nation domestically and internationally. Whether it was done out of stupidity or a deliberate effort to harm the nation can be debated, but the most outstanding attribute of Obama has been his continual lying and Machiavelli notes that “the deceiver will always find someone ready to be deceived.”

In this effort, Obama has been greatly aided by the mainstream media with a few notable exceptions. The trust that once reposed in the nation’s print and broadcast media has been eroded and will be hard to regain. The trust given Obama is long gone by all but a few ignorant and lazy citizens content to have their lives ruled by an over-reaching executive branch of government.

The election process will rid us of Obama and likely many of those Democrat legislators who have supported his policies. The House is controlled by the Republicans and the Senate is likely to follow.

Meanwhile, we must guard against the present occupant of the White House. Americans waged a war against oppression in the past and will, if necessary, do so again.

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EPA’s Killer MACT ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-07T03:21:00.000-05:00

EPA’s Killer MACT

By Alan Caruba

To understand how the Environmental Protection Agency operates, one must first understand that it lies all the time. Its “estimates” are bogus. Its claims of lives saved are bogus.

It thrives on scare-mongering to a public that is science-challenged, but the science remains and the EPA must be challenged to save the nation from the loss of the energy it needs to function. It must be challenged to unleash the huge economic benefits of energy resources—coal, oil, and natural gas—that can reverse our present economic decline.

The latest outrage is the MACT rule—an acronym for “maximum achievable control technology” intended to reduce mercury emissions and other trace gases. The rule is 1,117 pages long. Its purpose is to shut down coal-fired power plants that generate over fifty percent of all the electricity used daily in the United States of America.

The value of the total benefits asserted by the EPA is alleged to be $6 million. Not billion, but million. The MACT rule would force 14.7 gigawatts—enough power for more than eleven million households—to be “retired” from the power grip in the 2014-15 period when the rules take effect.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works says, “The economic analysis of the Obama EPA’s MACT paints a bleak picture for economic recovery as it will cost $11 billion to implement, increase electricity rates for every American, and, along with the Cross-State rule, destroy nearly 1.4 million jobs.”

MACT is all about mercury in the environment of the nation. On May 25, 2011, the Wall Street Journal published a brief opinion piece by Willie Soon, a natural scientist at Harvard, co-authored by Paul Driessen, a senior policy advisor for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. It was titled “The Myth of Killer Mercury.”

Here are a few of the facts it offered.

“Mercury has always existed naturally in the Earth’s environment. A 2009 study found mercury deposits in Antarctic ice across 650,000 years.”

“Mercury is found in air, water, rocks, soil and trees, which absorb it from the environment.”

There is “200,000,000 tons of mercury naturally present in seawater” that “has never posed a danger to any living thing.”

“U.S. forest fires emit at least 44 tons (of mercury) per year; cremation of human remains discharges 26 tons; Chinese power plants eject 400 tons; and volcanoes, subsea vents, geysers and other sources spew out 9,000-10,000 additional tons per year.”

“Since our power plants account for less than 0.5% of all the mercury in the air we breathe, eliminating every milligram of it will do nothing about the other 99.5% in our atmosphere.”

This is the same EPA “logic” that insists on reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere when all life on Earth depends on it as plant food for all vegetation. More CO2 mean more crops for humans and livestock, healthier forests and jungles, and food for the Earth’s wildlife population.

In a foreword to “Regulators Gone Wild: How the EPA is Ruining American Industry”, Dr. Jay Lehr, the Science Director of The Heartland Institute, wrote, “This administration is pushing an unprecedented radical environmental agenda.”

The EPA, along with major environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and others, have engaged for decades in a massive propaganda effort to convince Americans they are imperiled by the nation’s air and water. It is a lie. As the author of “Regulators Gone Wild”, Rich Trzupeck notes, “Though our world is actually cleaner than ever, most Americans are convinced it is dirtier.”

“Toxicity,” wrote Trzupeck, “is a matter of dose, as sober scientists have observed since ancient times. A particular compound may kill you if you drink it, but a few parts per billion of the same compound can have no effect at all…one can find toxic air pollutants in the parts-per-billion level in human breath.”

The EPA’s latest rule, which will no doubt be subject to lawsuits, is a killer MACT. It is not about mercury or other trace gases. It is about deliberately depriving the nation of energy which in turn means less jobs, less growth, and a third world lifestyle being imposed on Americans by the radical environmentalists inside the Obama administration.

Remember that when you are in the election booth on November 6, 2012.

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Obama And Romney Tied

2012-01-06T03:17:00.000-05:00

Obama And Romney Tied

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Rasmussen reported yesterday (January 5^th, 2011) that Obama and Romney are tied in their polls.

“The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Obama and Romney each earning 42% of the vote. Eight percent (8%) prefer some other candidate, and another eight percent (8%) are undecided.” (SOURCE)

However, Rasmussen goes on to say, “Last week, Romney held a 45% to 39% advantage over the president, his biggest lead yet and the largest lead a named Republican candidate has held over Obama to date. However, the two candidates have been essentially tied in regular surveys since January 2011. The report continues: “A generic Republican candidate now holds a narrow lead over Obama as has been the case in all but three weekly surveys since late May.” (SOURCE)

The same report also says: “Voters identify all of the leading Republican presidential contenders as ideological conservatives but see Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul as the least conservative of the group.”

(SOURCE)

Ok. So what to make of all this? The truth? I haven’t a clue!

You have heard the old saw that polls are only a snapshot in time -- and that is true – but they certainly help to identify trends. Even so, those trends are, too, snapshots in time.

I remain deeply concerned that Obama will win a second term. I fear for my country.

Some months ago, I warned that the Mainstream Media would soon begin to make “upbeat” reports on the nations economic situation. It has already begun. Frankly, it is mostly Bovine Scatology. They would have us believe the unemployment rate is 8.6% when, in reality, it is closer to 12%.

The MsM would also have us believe that the economy has begun to improve when; in fact, if there is any improvement it is miniscule. Just yesterday we learned that Boeing is planning to lay off 2,100 workers from a Wichita Plant -- and Obama is reported to be preparing to cut tens of thousands of US military troops from our ground forces. All these people will some be looking for jobs that simply do not exist.

I mentioned the two instances of coming lay-offs above because they are linked. Boeing says they are closing the Wichita plant due to “defense budget reductions.” (SOURCE)

Look: My crystal ball is extremely cloudy these days – but even without it -- it is plain to see that the US is staring down the barrel of a regional war in the Middle East -- and soon. When the balloon goes up, we are going to need those ground troops. Is Obama planning on reinstating the draft? I would not be the least bit surprised.

According to the Jerusalem Post, thousands of US troops will be deployed to Israel this spring for Israel’s largest ever missile defense exercise. The J-Post says: “Last week, Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel.” (SOURCE)

Now here’s the really interesting part of this story: “The drill, which is unprecedented in its size, will include the establishment of US command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at EUCOM headquarters in Germany – with the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.” (SOURCE)

It appears to this scribe that the world is edging ever closer to a conflagration in the Middle East that will affect the entire world. It all seems eerily familiar to the conditions prior to the Second World War.

This is what happens, dear reader, when America withdraws from its role in world leadership. Obama’s “Leading from behind” simply does not work -- and it is dangerous.

America is at a point in world history when we need a strong leader -- a leader not afraid to assert America’s leadership. Obama is NOT that person.

I am very afraid there is no one vying for America’s leadership today any stronger as a national or world leader.

I will be genuinely surprised if America is not involved in what passes for a world war these days -- within the next four years. I plan to vote accordingly.

J. D. Longstreet

ABUSE OF POWER

2012-01-05T03:07:00.000-05:00

ABUSE OF POWER

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

We have said many times that Obama envisages Congress as an inconvenient impediment to his agenda to create a strong socialist central government in the United States of America. If there was ever a single iota of doubt in the minds of Americans that Obama is seeking to assume all US government power unto himself, then his recent actions in naming a head for the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members to the National Labor Relations Board and totally by-passing Congress to make those appointments – while the Senate was still in session – should remove all doubt.

What we have here, dear reader, is a full-out raw power grab by the Executive Branch of the US government. This move by Obama is an abuse of power. It is arguably unconstitutional -- and should be grounds for impeachment.

If the US Congress does not take immediate steps to stop the power hungry mob in the White House then the US will, very soon, find itself the newest tin-pot dictatorship with a petty tyrant in total control of the government.

(A reminder: Only days ago the media was asking why Americans were buying so many guns. You have just seen the answer to that question.)

Look: We have a would-be emperor on our hands right here in America, the world’s last hope for democracy.

Obama’s disrespect for the US Constitution is breathtaking. Not only does he disrespect it – he defies it!

As we continue to see Obama’s tentacles spread through the government with his new agencies, Czars, and a myriad of additional rules and regulations handed down by his henchmen – is it too far a stretch to predict that by next fall the Obama Administration will declare a national emergency and suspend the election set for next November? No, I am not kidding -- and I fear it is NOT an exaggeration.

Americans are in serious trouble and I don’t mean with out national economy. We are in critical danger of losing our freedom and liberty as a country. I would not be surprised, any day, to see the news channels suddenly break in with a bulletin that Obama has dissolved the Congress and placed the country under martial law until a date uncertain, far in the future, when our economy has been, er, stabilized.

Farfetched? Really? I mean – REALLY? We have a branch of our government out of control, people.

This in-your-face move by Obama demands action by Congress to stop his abuse of power in its tracks.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said: “Although the Senate is not in recess, President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people,” (SOURCE)

Senator McConnell is absolutely right.

John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said Obama’s action was: “an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab by President Obama that defies centuries of practice and the legal advice of his own Justice Department”

“The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution,” (SOURCE)

The fact is – Obama has spat upon those constitutional checks and balances referenced by Speaker Boehner. The longer Obama stays in office the more America resembles a banana republic, with a tin pot dictator holding the reins of power. Move over Hugo Chavez!

Of course Obama’s defiance of Congress is an integral part of his political campaign for reelection. But this time he has gone to cussed far. There can be no question now that Obama is a threat to the freedom of the American people. His seeming thirst for power begs the question: Is Obama the American Putin??

Here we have a man in the Presidency who is, I believe, constitutionally unqualified to be President by reason of the circumstances surrounding his birth. His father was a citizen of Kenya and not an American citizen. The Constitution declares a candidate for US President must be a natural born citizen of the United States, which means -- BOTH mother and father must be American citizens.

We Americans know less about Obama than any other President in US history. Is his name Barack Hussein Obama or Barry Soetoro? Was he born in America – or Kenya? Whose Social Security number does he really have? A number of other people have, or have had, the same number. The record of his education is blurry at best. He is reported to have been a college instructor on the US Constitution, yet he seems to totally ignore it when it gets in the way of his insatiable thirst for power over the American people.

Let’s face it. Obama is a truly scary figure in American politics today. I am convinced he has a dark agenda for America and that agenda is a threat to the freedom of the people of America.

J. D. Longstreet

Political Analysis Paralysis ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-04T11:12:00.000-05:00

Political Analysis Paralysis

By Alan Caruba

Leading up to the Iowa caucuses and following in the wake of their results, the cable news channels and every other news media engaged in a paroxysm of political analysis, interviewing the candidates incessantly from the early hours of the morning until late at night.

I suspect that for many Americans this excess of analysis causes them to “shut down” and ignore the race, the issues, and the candidates. I suspect, too, the avalanche of political advertisements in Iowa exhausted what enthusiasm might have existed.

Divided by eight votes for first place, Romney and Santorum split the lead with Paul in third. The other candidates will begin to fade from contention. Iowa is a popularity contest, not a real political race for delegates to the GOP convention.

I recall spending a day in 1972 with George McGovern as he made the rounds of party bosses in New Jersey. He would be decisively defeated by Richard Nixon. Ron Paul has the same base of idealistic youth who think his ideas would work in the real world. The grownups know they wouldn’t. If Paul were the GOP candidate, he would suffer a similar fate as McGovern.

Meanwhile, the cable news analysts found themselves saying the same things over and over again.

An example of this was Sarah Palin whose specialty is repeating the obvious while occasionally venturing an opinion such as her judgment that Michele Bachmann’s time has not come as a candidate. One might well have said the same of her when she was Sen. McCain’s bizarre selection to be on the GOP ticket in 2008. She was not ready for prime time then and is the darling of Fox News now for reasons only Rupert Murdock knows.

In addition to political analysis there were and are the polls which rose and fell on an hourly basis. Some like Rasmussen and Gallup are considered to be the most valid, but a host of others chimed in to leave one wondering whether polls really tell us anything other than those with land lines get called and those with cell phones do not.

I have participated in this all-American guessing game, but mostly to point out that Mitt Romney can get elected while the others cannot. I expressed strong reservations about Newt Gingrich and did my best to ignore Ron Paul.

Being first in the electoral process is Iowa’s quadrennial claim to fame.

In the end it simply does not matter what the outcome in Iowa is. Iowa’s voters represent a negligible amount of Republicans, a thin slice of rural America. Moreover, Iowa has a poor record for picking the next president. Its purpose is to be a battleground where candidates test their message, their organizational strength, their ability to get campaign funding, and whether they can stand up to the horrendous process of running for president.

All that matters in the forthcoming election is the defeat of Barack Obama. I still think Mitt Romney is the man to do it.

Failing Obama’s defeat, the near future of America would be in peril and his initial efforts to destroy the nation with Obamacare, open borders, and the thwarting of access to our vast energy reserves will succeed. The poll numbers hold the key and at this point Obama’s continue to fall even among his base.

Who will be the Republican nominee? He will be selected by the end of January after the voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida have their say.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

How Not to Go Crazy in 2012 ... Alan Caruba

2012-01-04T03:03:00.000-05:00

How Not to Go Crazy in 2012

By Alan Caruba

Election years tend to create a level of frenzy concerning the selection of the nominees and the outcome. The media feed this in order to keep readers reading and viewers viewing. The history of American elections has always been one of vituperation between the parties, so there is nothing new about this. Indeed, since so much depends on it, the political free-for-all is a healthy exercise.

It can, however, make for a difficult environment in which to go about one’s life; the air filled with charge and counter-charge, polls going up and down, and a general sense that something is very wrong with the way the government functions.

On the bright side, a gridlocked Congress may bring a measure of relief to everyone. Writing about gridlock in January 2011, Marcus E. Ethridge, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, noted that “By fostering gridlock, the U.S. Constitution increases the likelihood that policies will reflect broad, unorganized interests instead of the interests of narrow, organized groups.” In 2011, we saw what happens when advocates of “renewable energy”, wind and solar power, or electric cars, get priority over the needs of most Americans for reliable energy and transportation.

At the heart of the 2012 election will be the recognition that the economy is still not recovering, that government is seeking to extend and expand its control over our lives, and, even among former supporters of Barack Obama, that he has been a failure of historic proportions.

A Friday Rasmussen Reports said that “Voters right now give the edge to Republicans when asked which political party is likely to win the White House and control both the House of Representatives and the Senate in next November’s election”, adding that “a lot of voters are undecided.” Those voters may actually wait until entering the polls to cast their vote.

Another bad piece of news for President Obama is a new comparative analysis of current voter registration data in key electoral states of Nevada and North Carolina. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, there has been “a drastic drop from 2008 levels when a record-high proportion of young Americans turned out overwhelmingly to cast their votes to elect Barack Obama as President.” This is significant because more than two-thirds of young voters supported the Obama/Biden ticket in 2008.

The President had a low moment following the passage of Obamacare that transformed itself into the Tea Party movement and an even worse one in 2010 when it propelled a large number of Republicans into the House of Representatives, causing its control to change hands. He has had, in fact, only one truly high moment and that occurred when he announced the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011. At the time, he typically took complete credit. In a speech at Fort Bragg to returning troops from Iraq, the word “victory” was never spoken.

Americans are not unmindful that the downgrade of the rating of the nation’s sovereign debt, the first in the nation’s history, was announced on Obama’s watch. The rate of "official" unemployment has receded to 8.6% but most Americans are well aware that it is far closer to 11% or more. America continues to experience that longest period of long-term unemployment since the 1930s.

For these and a myriad of other reasons, there is little reason to conclude that President Obama has any chance whatever of being reelected. The widespread contempt for Congress is also a hopeful sign for change. These are reasons to remain calm amidst the din of electioneering in the months ahead.

There is, however, all manner of troubles brewing in the world. Europe will have to find a solution to what will happen if its southern tier of nations elects to default on their sovereign debt. Cracks in the European Union are evident. If it falls apart, it will be very messy, but Europe existed before the EU and would if it disbands.

The Middle East is in the midst of a huge struggle between its fanatical Muslim faction and a population unhappy enough with former dictators to have forced out several in 2011 with the prospect that Syria’s Bashar Assad will fall in 2012.

Iran remains the wild card and its nuclear dreams will likely end with a well-timed and well-executed attack by Israel. Israel saved the world from a nuclear Iraq in 1981 and a nuclear Syria in 2007. An attack on Iranian nuclear and military facilities could trigger an internal movement to overthrow the mullahs.

There are other wild cards in the Middle East. The Palestinians show no indication of giving up their dream of destroying Israel. That will not happen. Without Iranian support, both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will be set adrift. Muslim atrocities in nations such as Nigeria where Christian churches were bombed on Christmas Day will contribute to a growing movement against Islamic terrorism. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen.

Even the Russians show signs of tiring of their post-Soviet ruling class led by Vladimir Putin.

America faces a long period of restructuring the socialist programs that began in the 1930s and reached their peak in the 1960s. Should the GOP gain control of Congress and Obama is defeated, real change will occur.

Two other factors signal better times ahead. They are the failure of the global warming hoax and the disdain the “Occupy” movement engendered.

In 2012 Americans will take steps to end the scandals and deprecations of the Obama administration.

We shall ignore the anticipated shouts of racism.

We shall see the Supreme Court disembowel Obamacare or set in motion its repeal by a GOP controlled Congress.

We will select a President and a Congress to put things right.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

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is the place to visit.

Americans Continue to Arm Themselves In Record Numbers

2012-01-03T03:17:00.000-05:00

Americans Continue to Arm Themselves In Record Numbers

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

The last two months of 2011 saw Americans buying guns in record numbers. December 23^rd saw more guns bought in one day that ever before. It set a record.

In an article at “The Telegraph,” a British News site, entitled: “Americans buy record numbers of guns for Christmas,” Nick Allen writes: “According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas.

It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November.

On Dec 23 alone there were 102,222 background checks, making it the second busiest single day for buying guns in history.

The actual number of guns bought may have been even higher if individual customers took home more than one each.” (SOURCE)

Mr. Allen goes on to say: “Explanations for America's surge in gun buying include that it is a response to the stalled economy with people fearing crime waves. Another theory is that buyers are rushing to gun shops because they believe tighter firearms laws will be introduced in the future.” (SOURCE)

To be sure BOTH the explanations mentioned above are valid -- but there’s more to it that that.

Back in January of 2009, in an article entitled: “Americans Are Arming Themselves. Why?” I wrote the following: “The popular explanation is that Americans are afraid of what this socialist Congress and president will do to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Well, that is CERTAINLY a PART of it, but I think there is more, much more, and a far more serious explanation… and, I am convinced the government believes as I do.

See, I think the American people are preparing themselves to go toe to toe with their government. I believe the American people are making a statement. That statement is: “This Far and No Farther!” In other words, “We are going to give you socialists a chance. But, if you step over the line, if you attempt to deprive us of our constitutional right to keep and bear arms, we will not tolerate that.”

Some of us older Americans remember what happened when the socialist took over in Russia in 1917. It is NOT going to be allowed to happen here.

I think it is meant to counter the act of the Bush, and soon, Obama Administrations of bringing combat troops back to The States and stationing them here, on US soil, reportedly for population control in the event of “social unrest” or massive acts of “civil disorder or disobedience” keyed by any number of things including the economy going through the floor, or, well, I’ll let your imagination fill in the blank, because, frankly, the subject is so delicate, I don’t even want to touch it!

I have concluded, rightly or wrongly, that Americans are sending a signal to their government. That signal is: “We won’t be bullied. There will be a price to pay if you dare step over the line.” Congress and the President had better pay attention. It is low profile stuff at the moment, but it can get very big, very fast. And… it is VERY dangerous!” (SOURCE)

Our overseas cousins have great difficulty understanding American’s love of the gun. But it really IS quite simple. You see -- America was born at the muzzle of a gun. We won our freedom at the muzzle of a gun. We expanded our country from the Atlantic to the Pacific at the muzzle of a gun. We fought our own war over state’s rights at the muzzle of a gun. We preserved our freedom by defeating the Japanese and the Germans at the muzzle of a gun and we have assisted a number of countries to maintain, or regain, their freedom at the muzzle of a gun. Even now, as I write, the US military is patrolling the waters of the Persian Gulf to protect the transport of approximately 40% of the world’s oil and ensure it’s passage through the Straits of Hormuz -- at the muzzle of our big naval guns, and we continue an attempt to salvage Afghanistan and drag it into the 21^st century by fighting off religious fanatics -- at the muzzle of a gun.

Americans understand the importance of the ability of every man to defend himself, his family, and his freedom. We also understand the importance of assisting our global neighbors in defending their freedom -- for the loss of their freedom brings the threat one step closer to our shores.

Americans have a scared duty to halt the encroachment of domestic tyranny. Freedom is our birthright and we WILL defend it.

Many Americans are deeply concerned over the state of the world today. We remember what happened in the 1930’s when the world found itself in similar circumstances to today. It led to a world war.

Then, too, there is this: We rather like the rogue nations, the terrorists, the tyrants, and tin-pot dictators to know that the American public is armed to the teeth, ready, and willing to defend our country should they, through some mental aberration, have designs on it. The LAST thing you want to confront is a PO’ed American with a gun!

Oh, … and we like to hunt, too.

J. D. Longstreet

What About Illegal Immigration?

2012-01-02T03:08:00.000-05:00

What About Illegal Immigration?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

It is time to get serious, my fellow conservatives. We have eleven months, within which, to get this right. The very existence of our country, as a free constitutional representative republic, hangs in the balance.

One issue I have yet to hear discussed at length, and in clarity, is the stance of the GOP candidates on illegal immigration. Oh, it has been touched on from time to time, but not in depth.

The United States has been overrun with the greatest land invasion in history. It is long past time to draw the line and bring the era of open borders to a screeching halt!

As a conservative voter I want to know where, exactly, each candidate stands on fixing the massive problem of illegal immigration in America.

Now, don’t preach to me about America being a land of immigrants. I am well aware of that fact. My own family came into this country in 1789 through the port at Charles Town, South Carolina. The entered the country legally.

Over the past few years there has been an endeavor by the political left in America, with the complete cooperation of the Mainstream Media, to confuse the issue of Illegal Immigration.

If you pay attention to such things, you may recall the media and the left suddenly began referring to illegal immigrants as “undocumented workers” (or immigrants). After awhile they dropped that term in favor of just plain “immigrants.”

It was, and is, clearly a scheme borrowed from the Communist Party to “reeducate” the citizenry so as to cloud the issue and make it much easier to lead the people of the US in the way in which the Democratic Party wants them/us to go. Frankly, it is disgusting and insulting to me to have anyone assume my intelligence is such that they can manipulate me through cheesy tricks and slight of hand. But the plain truth is – many Americans fall for leftist propaganda every day. (Then they fall victim to leftist rule.)

We have reminded you that those entering the United States illegally are criminals. From the moment their feet touch US soil they are scofflaws, criminals.

Look. It is clear the Democratic Party has, at every opportunity; made it plain that they endorse illegal entry into the US. Once the illegal aliens are here, they are bathed in government largesse -- at the expense of US taxpayers -- and they are encouraged, in exchange, to show their appreciation for all the money and services slathered on them by supporting the Democratic Party. And it has worked. Heck, it always works!

We on the right warned America this was happening but there seemed to be very little concern. So, we began to refer to the illegal aliens as “undocumented democrats.” We think that more clearly defines whom, exactly, they are. Of course, that infuriated the left -- as the truth usually does.

The federal government, under Democratic Party control, brought their considerable weight down on states like Arizona, Alabama, South Carolina, and others when those states sought to exercise their power as sovereign states to get a handle on the illegal immigration within the borders of their states. It is, some believe, raw abuse of power by the Obama Administration.

If we had anyone in Washington today who knew the history of this country, they would recognize that the Obama Administration is creating the very same atmosphere between the federal government and the states that existed just before the country split apart and went to war with itself in 1861. Just as the federal government caused that war, they are again pushing the states into a corner and creating a powder keg with a lit fuse that will most certainly explode into another conflagration, which could easily dissolve the union.

It is a dangerous game the Obama Administration is playing. Their arrogance has apparently blinded them to the consequences of bringing the mailed fist of federal power down own their own people.

The Obama Administration must be held accountable this November at the ballot box. Barring that, I dare not predict the course individual states may take to right the wrongs done them by the current administration. However, only a fool would expect a placid reaction from the angry people of the various states undeniably wronged by the arrogant power wielders of Washington.

The Republican candidates need to make absolutely clear that closing and sealing the border between Mexico and the US is their number one priority. They should declare, right now, their intention to send federal troops to patrol the border with everything the US military has until such a time as a barrier can be erected from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Those troops should have the approval of the Commander-in-Chief to use lethal force to assure the security of the border. If they desire the support of conservatives, such as myself, they will also declare no amnesty, in any form, for those inside the US illegally. A continuous round up of illegal aliens already in the US should be initiated immediately by placing a bounty on illegal aliens.

And while they are at it, all federal funding to sanctuary cities should be immediately, and completely, cut off. Then, and only then, will those inside this country illegally know that the US government has gotten serious about stopping illegal entry into the US.

If the republican candidates wish me to seriously consider them for President, then they would be well advised to make public their plans for dealing with this massive problem and I suggest they should adopt much, if not all, of my suggestions above.

J. D. Longstreet

The Great Panjandrum of Pundits ... Alan Caruba

2011-12-31T03:22:00.000-05:00

The Great Panjandrum of Pundits

By Alan Caruba

It’s a little known event, perhaps because its participants want it that way, but as the new year is poised to begin, the Grand Panjandrum of Pundits gathered at an undisclosed location for their annual review of all the predictions they made regarding things that did not occur, all the events that did occur—taking them by complete surprise, and to exchange notes on their thoughts regarding 2012.

The philosopher Aristotle had it right when he said “Stuff happens.”

This particularly applied to the third year of Barack Hussein Obama’s extended vacation as President of the United States of America. He ended the year comparing himself to previous presidents whose shoes he is not fit to shine and whose bathwater he is ill equipped to draw.

On January 2, 2010, I wrote that I thought Obama’s life, at least in the chronology and facts that were presented to the public, was a pure fiction, make believe. By then Americans had experienced a year’s worth of ineptitude that left anyone paying any attention astonished. It was just one blunder after another.

Even more astonishing is that no court, no one in Congress, and no one in the Republican Party has dared to say that the man was and remains ineligible to be President. Plenty of other people have said it. My friend, Dr. Jerome Corsi, wrote a whole book about it; two in fact.

The glaring truth that no one wants to address is the fact that his father was a citizen of Kenya and, as such, the terms of the U.S. Constitution which require that only “natural born” citizens—those whose both parents are U.S. citizens—can hold the office of President.

When you add in the serious doubts over the authenticity of his birth certificate—declared a fake by document experts and the dubious authenticity of his Social Security number, issued in Connecticut where he never worked a day in his life, and you have enough evidence to send him packing in less than 24-hours.

Even so, the Democratic Party will put him on the ballot again to run for office in 2012. The legality of this is no more likely to be challenged than it was in 2008, though some are trying. The Grand Panjandrum of Pundits was left to scratch their heads and mumble about the strangeness of this.

There was one thing they agreed upon. Barack Hussein Obama is the worst President the nation has ever had to endure.

No other president even comes close. He is the first to preside over the first U.S. sovereign debt downgrade in American history.

He has been responsible for the highest level of federal spending (25% of GDP) since World War Two and, in a comparable fashion, the highest level of federal debt (67% of GDP) since then as well.

Employment is the lowest since 1983 and long-term unemployment (45.9%) is the highest since the 1930s, the years of the Great Depression.

The rate of home ownership (59.7%) is the lowest since 1965 and the percentage of taxpayers paying income tax is the lowest in the modern era. At the same time, the level of government dependency (47%), those persons receiving one ore more federal benefit payments, is the highest in American history.

Obama and his economic advisors have achieved this in just three years while others in his administration were authorizing millions in loan guarantees to “Green” companies going bankrupt with alarming predictability or producing heavily subsidized products that no one wanted to purchase. Others we’re told were unaware of a Department of Justice program to run guns to drug cartels in Mexico. Plans to shut down Gitmo were quietly shelved. The Bush-Cheney policies were quietly extended.

Within twenty-four hours of the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Baghdad was besieged by bombings while the prime minister was busy trying to arrest and indict the vice president. You cannot make up stuff like this.

We are now mere months away from the Supreme Court hearing a case regarding the constitutionality of Obamacare. It is normal for judges who have had any previous involvement in a case or those close to it to recuse themselves from participating, but the Obama administration is so marked by a lack of ethics that his former Solicitor General Elena Kagan, now an Associate Justice, has still not announced her decision.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Obamacare, the federal government can require you to spend your money on things you do not want and may not need.

This is why the Grand Panjandrum of Pundits ended in a state of mass confusion and despair. Just like it did in 2010.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

************************

ObaHill?

2011-12-30T03:06:00.000-05:00

ObaHill?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

There is speculation all over the Internet that Biden is out and Hillary is in as Vice-President. All this is projected to happen in time for the full-out Presidential Campaign in 2012.

Oh, theorists say that Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton will actually swap jobs – Hillary to Vice-President and Biden to Secretary of State.

Yesterday, I went to my favorite barbershop for my too frequent haircut, and that was the topic of conversation. There was no shock. There was no concern. There was nothing but the collective conclusion that Obama would do anything to win… including putting his former arch-adversary on the ticket with him.

The whole thing springs from a piece by Robert Reich entitled: “Get Ready For An Obama-Clinton Presidential Ticket.” You will find it HERE.

Reich says: "My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.

So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.

Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that."

As far-fetched as it may sound, at first, after thinking about it for a few minutes, I can see where Mr. Reich may, indeed, have a point. But, what I don’t get is why the seeming panic in the Obama camp?

I must be the only commentator on the right who thinks Obama stands an excellent chance of winning another term in November of 2012. As excruciating to my friends on the right to hear such prognostications coming from a fellow conservative – there it is.

My reasoning is this (and I have said it ad nausium): I am simply not convinced the GOP has a candidate currently running who stands a snowballs chance in Hades of beating Obama in 2012. It has been a very long time; in fact, in my lifetime (over 7 decades) I cannot remember a weaker GOP ticket going up against an incumbent President – especially one with weak poll numbers.

The number one complaint I hear from fellow republicans is -- we have no one running, I can vote for.” Granted, I’m in the southern part of the United States and maybe it is a “southern thing” – but, honestly, I don’t think so.

I just do not see Romney doing well in the south. Once the primaries move into the southern tier of states, I expect Gingrich to begin picking up a few states. Of course, his recent decline in the polls would indicate otherwise.

I mean, just stand back, and take an objective look at the GOP candidates. The GOP’s favorite son is, without doubt, Romney. But the record so far indicated by the polls is that the party and the voters do not share that admiration for Romney – especially in the South.

When you consider the way voters have gone through the GOP candidates, one by one, it is clear the electorate is in an “anybody but Romney” mood. Well, maybe “anybody” is too strong. Maybe it should be “SOMEBODY” other than Romney.

Conservative voter in my neck of the woods are STILL searching for a candidate they can get behind. And, frankly, they have come to resent the GOP’s obvious and persistent promotion of Romney. An angry electorate is not good for the party, especially when that anger is directed at the GOP and not at the democrat candidate.

The enthusiasm is simply not there, and that spells HUGE trouble for the GOP at the polls in November.

It ought to tell you something when a candidate, Mr. Romney, has been running for President for fully five years and he STILL has not been able to win over the electorate in numbers that would translate into a victory in November of 2012.

Southern conservatives see Mr. Romney as a northeastern liberal-to-moderate candidate acceptable to voters in the northern tier of states but distinctly unpalatable where the word “conservative” seems to mean something entirely different than it does in the North.

Those southern votes that support Obama’s leftist/socialist agenda are already aboard Obama’s campaign. It will make very little difference to them whether Joe Biden remains as Obama’s running mate or he is replaced with Hillary Clinton. They are going to vote for Obama – period. They are, as we say, a lock.

There is no candidate in the GOP stable with a lock on the electorate and that would seem to hold true in a huge portion of the United States.

Nothing I have seen and heard, so far, has changed my belief that Romney, if chosen, will lose, and lose convincingly, to Obama in November 2012.

J. D. Longstreet

Israel Shouldn’t Ask Obama for “Permission”

2011-12-29T03:18:00.000-05:00

Israel Shouldn’t Ask Obama for “Permission”

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Israel doesn’t trust the Obama Administration. That is plain. Israel is right not to do so.

There is no love lost between Israel’s government and the Obama administration.

Somehow, the Obama Administration seems to have the mistaken opinion that Israel is a satellite state of America. It isn’t.

When America’s government continues to fly representatives of the US State Department and the Pentagon into Israel with dictatorial attitudes and demanding Israel do things the Obama way and even demanding that Israel ask permission from the Obama Administration before they mount a raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, you’d better believe the Israeli government is PO’ed. In fact there are reports that Israel has filed a “demarche” with the US. A demarche is a formal protest. It is rare between “friends.”

Israel should not ask permission or even alert Washington when they execute the raid on Iran. That is the nature of a secret operation. You tell no one – period. You certainly do not tell a government you don’t trust to keep the secret.

It has been a while since America has had such an amateurish foreign policy team. They bring to mind the “gang who couldn’t shoot straight.”

Israel is well advised to stir as clear of the US State Department as it possibly can. The Department of Defense, under the Obama Administration, is not much better.

Israel is the only friend America has in the Middle East and Obama is losing that friend. At times, it seems intentional. One would think Obama is seeking to make it clear to the Islamic nations in the region that Israel is on its own. In more ways than one, Obama has made it obvious that he favors the Islamic nations over Israel.

One look at the Islamic nations of the Middle East today and you quickly see the entire region is in flames – except for Israel. So much for Obama’s favor.

America’s extremely vocal President, early on in his term in office, made the decision to talk to Iran. Apparently he had convinced himself that his oratorical skills would just melt the Iranians and he, Obama, would be the “Great Peacemaker” in the Middle East. Well, that worked our just swell, didn’t it?

One of the first things you learn on the playground of grade school is that you cannot negotiate with bullies. You have to overpower them, one way, or the other. Oftimes that means meeting violence with violence. Reluctance to actually use violence against a bully will certainly guarantee one’s submission to the bully. Having said that, it is interesting to note that Islam means “submission.”

The on-going sabotage efforts by Israel’s Mossad and America’s various spy agencies, have had limited success. It should be understood that those efforts are not going to bring Iran’s march toward acquiring a nuclear bomb to a halt. At best those efforts will only slow the program. But the threat remains and is, in fact, growing.

It is extremely difficult for Americans to accept that the recent American bellicosity framed as “warnings” to Iran by the Obama Administration are sincere. If Americans don’t believe them, then how on earth can we expect the Iranians to believe them? Even US government experts have been reported as opining that when the balloon goes up, they simply do not know how Obama will react.

Obama is quickly running out of options. The threatened oil embargo now appears to be useless when sympathizing countries promise Iran they will make up the difference. The string is about to run out for Obama and his promises.

The final option is a military strike to cripple or destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. That strike will be carried out by the US, Israel, or both.

It would be wrong for America to stand on the sidelines and allow the destruction of Israel and maybe a few eastern European nations to boot – especially when it can be avoided.

America cannot afford to alienate Israel. We need Israel just as they need us.

J. D. Longstreet

Iranians Seem Ignorant of US Military Power

2011-12-28T03:05:00.000-05:00

Iranians Seem Ignorant of US Military Power

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Over the holidays I took time to visit a few Middle Eastern websites and read the reports of Iran’s latest naval war games. I also read a number of comments on those sites. I must tell you I was shocked by the comments left by those purporting to be, well, Iranians, or supporters of Iran. Actually, the comments I read overwhelmingly demonstrated the hatred held in the region for America. THAT is NOT what shocked me.

We have read often of the “educated people” of Iran. Supposedly a Middle Eastern country with a populace better educated than many, if not most, of her neighbors After my visits to their websites, I have extreme doubt about their education in so far as it pertains to world affairs, especially anything having to do with America, American history, the American character, and/or the American military prowess.

I suppose when one lives in a closed society, like Iran, and when that society is ruled over by a group of extreme fundamentalist clerics, where life is cheap, and one is taught one’s life belongs to the mullahs and only your death has value, then wild, extreme, statements concerning the certain destruction of America (and Israel) is what passes for manliness.

It is really sad to see a people whose lives are so devoid of meaning and so filled with hate that they are willing to destroy themselves and their entire country in an attempt to prove, what, exactly? To prove they are really BAD men? To prove they are masculine in the extreme? To prove their love for some god called Allah? To prove they had rather be dead than alive?

All the bellicose threats coming out of Iran these days is only hurting Iran. Theirs is the sort of speech that ignites wars. Theirs are the kinds of actions that will bring the wrath of the entire world down on their heads.

Most everyone knows that if you poke a tiger with a stick long enough and often enough, eventually it will tire of your sport and simply devour you. Everyone knows that -- but Iran.

Look. If Iran is planning on going to war with the US -- and expecting China and Russia to back them to the hilt -- they are in for a very rude awakening. Russia simply does not have the wherewithal to do very much but provide a few munitions. China? Well, China is not about to actually take on it’s number one customer and risk all the money America owes them in loans to defend some Middle Eastern country which has little to offer China -- other than oil. There’s lots of oil available from a host of other countries around the globe that would be happy to have China as a customer. Sorry Iran. Munitions and moral support is the realistic expectation of Russian and Chinese involvement in an Iranian war against the US.

We have seen this sort of display of bravado before from chest-thumping wannabe regimes in rogue nations around the globe. They usually wind up with the destruction of their country and a lot of dead leaders, both political and religious, and generations of rebuilding.

Iran’s “bathtub navy” is embarrassingly impotent. Oh, sure, they have a few good weapons and, sure, they will get in a few “hits” … before they are sent to the bottom. One has to wonder if that is how they intend to block the Straits of Hormuz … with the sunken derelicts of their own second hand navy?

The bottom line is: Iran is going to be attacked by the US, or Israel, or both. And yes, Iran will attempt to close the Straits… and they may succeed… for a week, or so. Then the hammer comes down.

Iran’s hyperbole these days is cartoonishly funny. If, however, they are foolish enough to light the fuse on a war, America will stop laughing -- and Iran will find that it has “talked” itself onto a path to national destruction from which there is no turning back.

Just days ago, we were singing of peace on earth and goodwill toward men as the world teeters on the cusp of Armageddon. (It reminded a great deal of the kid whistling as he walks past a graveyard at night.) The entire globe, today, is one huge powder keg with a smoldering fuse. It behooves people of sanity to tread softly, and speak softly, less that smoldering fuse sparks to life and the entire planet blows up in war.

Many pundits and modern-day soothsayers have proclaimed that, indeed, Iran’s goal is to bring war and chaos to the earth to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam. (Read more about the 12^th Imam HERE.) Their ultimate goal is to conquer the entire world in the name of Islam and establish a one-world, Islamic, theocratic, government – just like the one in Iran.

There can be no doubt that unless Iran changes her belligerent attitude, there will be war, and the people of Iran will suffer greatly – and lose. It is no secret that forces are already in motion in preparation for a war with Iran.

Iran’s dependence on what they feel is an elite military is misplaced. That will quickly become obvious once hostilities begin.

Someone once said: “It is better to have an army of sheep led by a lion, than an army of lions led by a sheep.” The people of Iran would do well to ponder this proverb -- deeply -- before allowing the first shot to be fired.

J. D. Longstreet

Minimal benefits, extensive harm ... Craig Rucker

2011-12-27T03:34:00.000-05:00

Minimal benefits, extensive harm

EPA mercury rules for electricity generating units are based on false science and economics

Craig Rucker

The Environmental Protection Agency clams its “final proposed” Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rules will eliminate toxic pollution from electrical generating units, bring up to $140 billion in annual health benefits, and prevent thousands of premature deaths yearly – all for “only” $11 billion a year in compliance costs.

This may be true in the virtual reality of EPA computer models, linear extrapolations, cherry-picked health studies and statistics, government press releases and agency-generated public comments. However, in the real world inhabited by families, employers and other energy users, the new rules will bring few benefits, but will impose extensive costs that the agency chose to minimize or ignore in its analysis.

Emissions of mercury and other air toxics from power plants have been declining steadily for decades, as older generating units have been replaced with more efficient, less polluting systems or retrofitted with better pollution control technologies. While a few older plants still violate EPA’s draconian proposed rules – the new rules are not based on credible scientific and epidemiological studies.

As independent natural scientist Dr. Willie Soon and CFACT policy advisor Paul Driessen pointed out in their Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily articles, and in Dr. Soon’s 85-page critique of EPA’s draft rules, US power plants account for only 0.5% of the mercury in US air. Thus, even if EPA’s new rules eventually do eliminate 90% of mercury from power plant emission streams, that’s still only 90% of 0.5% – ie, almost zero reduction. The rest of the mercury in US air comes from natural and foreign sources, such as forest fires, Chinese power plants and the cremation of human remains (from tooth fillings that contain mercury and silver).

EPA fails to recognize that mercury is abundant in the earth’s crust. It is absorbed by trees through their roots – and released into the atmosphere when the trees are burned in forest fires, fireplaces and wood-burning stoves. In fact, US forest fires annually emit as much mercury as all US coal-burning electrical power plants. Mercury and other “pollutants” are also released by geysers, volcanoes and subsea vents, which tap directly into subsurface rock formations containing these substances.

The agency compounds these errors by claiming fish contain dangerous levels of mercury that threatens the health and mental acuity of babies and children. In making this claim, the agency commits four more grievous errors. First, it ignores the fact that selenium in fish tissue is strongly attracted to mercury molecules and thus protects people against buildups of methylmercury, mercury’s more toxic form.

Second, EPA based its toxicity claims on a study of Faroe Islanders, who eat few fruits and vegetables, but feast on pilot whale meat and blubber that is high in mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – but very low in selenium. Third, it ignored a 17-year Seychelles Islands evaluation, which found “no measurable cognitive or behavioral effects” in children who eat five to twelve servings of fish per week.

Fourth, it used computer models to generate linear extrapolations from known or assumed toxic levels down to much lower levels. Not only is this method contrary to sound science and epidemiology; it resulted in politicized “safety” levels that are twice as restrictive as Canadian and World Health Organization mercury standards, three times more restrictive than US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and four times tougher than US Food and Drug Administration recommendations. No wonder the Centers for Disease Control says blood mercury levels in US women and children are already well below excessively “safe” levels set by EPA.

Simply put, EPA grossly exaggerated the health benefits of its proposed mercury rules – and then claimed additional mercury benefits based on double counting of reductions in particulate matter. It also ignored the adverse effects that its rules will inflict. Not only is EPA’s anti-mercury campaign scaring mothers and children into not eating nutritious fish that is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. It is also raising electricity heating, air conditioning and food costs, impairing electrical reliability, costing jobs, and thereby harming the health and welfare of countless Americans.

Energy analyst Roger Bezdek has calculated that utilities will have to spend $130 billion to retrofit older plants – and another $30 billion a year to operate, maintain and power the energy-intensive pollution control equipment they will be forced to install. Moreover, under its MACT rules, EPA intends to micromanage every aspect of power plant operations. It will now cite companies for violations even if emissions fully comply with air quality standards, if operators merely deviate from new agency “work practice standards” and “operational guidelines,” even under unusual weather conditions or equipment malfunctions that are beyond the operators’ control.

While it is true that older power plants are more significant sources of toxic air emissions, those plants are mostly in key manufacturing states that burn coal to generate 48-98% of their electricity. Many utility companies cannot justify those huge costs – and thus plan to close dozens of units, representing tens of thousands of megawatts – enough to electrify tens of millions of homes and small businesses. Illinois alone will lose nearly 3,500 MW of reliable, affordable, baseload electricity – with little to replace it.

Electricity consumers could pay at least 20% more in many states within a few years. According to the Chicago Tribune, Illinois families and businesses will pay 40-60% more. That will severely affect business investment, production and hiring – and family plans to repair cars and homes, save for college and retirement, take vacations, or have health physicals or surgery.

Chicago public schools will have to pay an additional $2.7 million annually for electricity by 2014, says the Tribune. Hospitals, factories and other major electricity users will also be hard hit. Many poor and minority families will find it increasingly hard to afford proper heating and air conditioning. Further job losses and economic stress will lead to further reductions in living standards and nutrition, more foreclosures and homelessness, and additional drug, alcohol, spousal and child abuse.

The very reliability of America’s electricity grid could be at risk, if multiple power plants shut down. Brownouts, blackouts and power interruptions will affect factory production lines, hospital, school, farm and office operations, employment, and the quality of food, products and services.

The impact on people’s health and welfare is patently obvious. But EPA considered none of this.

EPA insists there was strong public support for its rules. However, its rules were clearly based on false, biased or even fraudulent information. Furthermore, EPA itself generated much of that public support.

The agency recruited, guided and financed activist groups that promoted its rulemaking. Over the past decade, it gave nearly $4 billion to the American Lung Association and other advocacy organizations and various “environmental justice” groups, according to a Heritage Foundation study. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and members of her staff also visited historically black and other colleges – giving speeches about “toxic emissions,” providing templates for scare-mongering posters and postcards, and making it easy for students to send pro-rulemaking comments via click-and-submit buttons on websites.

This EPA action does nothing to improve environmental quality or human health. In fact, by advancing President Obama’s goal of shutting down power plants and raising electricity costs, it impairs job creation, economic recovery, and public health and welfare. It is intrusive government at its worst.

It is a massive power grab that threatens to give EPA nearly unfettered power over the electrical power we need to support our livelihoods and living standards.

Congress, states, utility companies, affected industries, school districts and hospitals, and families and citizen groups should immediately take action to postpone the MACT rules’ implementation. Otherwise, their harmful impacts will be felt long and hard in states that depend on coal for their electricity.

___________

Craig Rucker is CEO of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.

The 2012 Check List for America's Survival

2011-12-26T03:17:00.001-05:00

The 2012 Check List for America's Survival

By Alan Caruba

Many people make resolutions to start the year, but I think a list of things that must be done to protect and preserve the Republic should be tallied.

1. President Obama must be defeated in 2012 and the obstructionist Democratic Party must lose power in the Senate to ensure both houses of Congress will be Republican and in a position to initiate real change.

2. The Environmental Protection Agency must be reined in with increased Congressional oversight and legislative limits on its rule-making capacity. Having fulfilled its 1970 mandate to clean the nation’s air and water, it should be scaled back to the maintenance of these functions.

3. Americans, despite the administration’s efforts to redefine and distract us, must keep clearly in mind the threat of Islam to the nation and the world. A Middle East in turmoil lays ahead for 2012.

4. To jump-start the economy, taxes and spending must be reduced across the board. A tax on consumption, rather than income would be a good start. Only 49% of Americans currently pay income taxes, the lowest in decades.

5. Obamacare must be repealed should the Supreme Court fail to rule that the Commerce Clause takes precedence over its requirement that Americans must purchase health insurance or be fined for not doing so.

6. A serious restructuring of Social Security and Medicare must be undertaken. Older Americans who have paid into the system—it is involuntary—must be ensured their benefits will be paid, but younger citizens should have the freedom and responsibility to structure their own retirement and health plans.

7. Access to the nation’s vast reserves of coal, natural gas, and oil should be increased and encouraged. Oil companies should be encouraged to build more refineries via tax credits and removal of “environmental” obstacles.

8. Congress needs to identify and fund the repair to the nation’s aging infrastructure.

9. Utilities should be encouraged via tax credits and other incentives to expand the national “grid” for the distribution of electricity.

10. Term limits for Senators and Representatives should be added to the U.S. Constitution in the same fashion the presidency is limited. Salaries, pensions, and perks should be capped. A permanent political class is a danger to citizens.

11. The Federal government should be downsized with the elimination of the Departments of Education, Labor, and Energy, along with the Environmental Protection Agency. These powers should be returned to the individual States. (10th Amendment)

12. The nation’s military which has been significantly reduced in size and structure should be expanded with attention to the upgrade and increase of its naval fleet and aircraft.

13. Congress should reject and rescind all legislation based on “global warming” or “climate change” as the former has been demonstrated to be a hoax and the latter is meaningless insofar as the climate is beyond the control of humans.

14. The United States should significantly reduce its contribution to the United Nations and refuse to ratify any of its treaties.

15. Tort reform should be instituted to reduce the costs of health care.

16. The corporate tax rate should be significantly reduced from its present rate, one of the highest in the world, to increase expansion, new jobs, and competitiveness.

17. Public service unions should be illegal. The federal government does not permit such unionization and neither should states.

18. National Public Radio should no longer be funded. The “government entities” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be eliminated.

19. The federal government should be restricted or significantly limited from the acquisition of more of the nation’s landmass.

20. Strenuous efforts must be undertaken to reduce the national debt and deficit. A devalued dollar impoverishes everyone.

These are just a few changes which, if implemented, would go a long way to reducing the ills associated with a federal government grown too large, subject to crony capitalism, and corruption.

As John Adams said, "Let us disappoint the men who are raising themselves upon the ruin of this Country."

© Alan Caruba, 2012

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The Most Boring Celebrities of 2011 ... Alan Caruba

2011-12-24T03:13:00.000-05:00

The Most Boring Celebrities of 2011

Charlie Sheen Takes Top Spot on 25th Annual List
The Most Boring Celebrities of the Year

“Charlie Sheen is the poster boy for doing everything possible to ruin one’s life,” says Alan Caruba, founder of The Boring Institute, naming him the biggest celebrity bore of the year, number one on its annual list.

“He was making scads of money for each ‘Two and a Half Men’ episode, so naturally he demands more and bad mouths the show’s producers. Not smart. But dumbest of all was all the drug use, alcohol abuse, womanizing, and incessant rants before and following being fired. That got very boring, very fast for everyone.”

This year’s list is (1) Charlie Sheen, (2) Lindsay Lohan, (3) Lady Gaga, (4) Arnold Schwartzenegger, (5) Anthony Weiner, ((6) Casey Anthony, (7) the cast of the Jersey Shore, (8) Kim Kardashian,(9) Donald Trump, and (10) Occupy Wall Street

Number two on this year’s list is Lindsay Lohan. “Nobody cares anymore if she goes to jail for a day, a week, or a year. Despite jail time, rehab and community service, Lindsay’s bad attitude just gets worse.”

Number three is Lady Gaga. Caruba admits he has no idea why anyone takes Lady Gaga seriously. “Her life is an orgy of exhibitionism.”

Number four is former California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger. “Nothing like a juicy scandal to ruin your marriage and reputation,” says Caruba. “It was good for a month’s worth of late night TV jokes. After that, the only joke left was Arnold.”

Number five is disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner. ”His district, formerly Democratic, voted for a Republican to get rid of the stench.”

Number six is Casey Anthony. “The public took an understandable interest in the case of alleged child murder, but the media milked it endlessly and will likely continue to do so. Coming to your hometown soon, books, a made-for-TV movie, and a line of Casey Anthony baby clothes.”

Number seven is the Entire Cast of Jersey Shore. “As the New Jersey Governor noted, these imbeciles come from out of state,” said Caruba, a native New Jerseyean. “Appealing solely to adolescents, time alone will rid us of this infestation.”

Number eight is Kim Kardashian. “Kim is gorgeous, but she filed for divorce a mere 72 days after tying the knot, making a sap out of him and everyone else,” says Caruba.

Number nine is Donald Trump. ‘’The Donald played rope-a-dope with the media again when he had them guessing if he would run for president,” said Caruba. “He never tires of being the center of attention.’’

Number ten is Occupy Wall Street. ‘’They wore out their welcome so fast that the sale of tents plummeted after they were chased out of town.’’

Founded in 1984, The Boring Institute is a media spoof and clearinghouse for information about boredom. Its blog is http://theboringinstitute.blogspot.com. A business and science writer, Caruba is widely known for his popular blog, http://factsnotfantasy,blogspot.com, that recently exceeded a million page views. He resides in South Orange, New Jersey.

Iraq’s Five-Day Democracy

2011-12-23T03:09:00.001-05:00

Iraq’s Five-Day Democracy

Instant Civil War

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Surprise! Surprise! A free and democratic Iraq didn’t make it a week. Who would have thunk it? Actually, a LOT of people warned that the moment American troops left Iraqi soil, the so-called sectarian war would begin once again. The moment Obama announced the date for US troops to be out of Iraq, the Iraqi Civil War was assured. THAT was a DUMB move on the part of Obama. It was just another in his foreign policy blunders for which America will be paying for generations.

Ok. So we are clear: I endorsed America’s invasion of Iraq -- to topple Saddam Hussein. I thought it was necessary to preserve the free flow of oil out of the region. There was no doubt that had Saddam been left unchecked he would have rolled over, and through, Kuwait and taken Saudi Arabia -- and he would have had his hands around the world’s throat. That could not be allowed. What I did not endorse was the ensuing policy of “nation building” implemented by the Bush Administration and continued by the Obama Administration.

A couple of things: I am from the old school. I believe in defeating an enemy – totally -- and then, either taking the nation as a prize of war, or walking away -- leaving the former opposition sitting atop a pile of rubble for as far as the eye can see.

I do not like nation-building … period. The price of war with the US should be a landscape that closely resembles a moonscape. The cost of rebuilding should be paid in the blood, sweat, and tears of the defeated nation.

Another lesson the US has yet to learn, it seems, is that democracy is not for some people. Democracy does not, and will not, work in tribal nations. Sorry, but them’s the facts.

Look. Fighting a war in the Middle East, for any reason other than punitive, will suck a country, no matter its wealth, dry. That region of the globe is destined for turmoil until the earth, as we know it, is no more. But – the utter stupidity of our own government is such that we have no choice but to try and secure the source of our energy, oil, from those countries in the Middle East that hate our very shadow.

The US has enough oil for centuries into the future beneath our own soil and beneath our own territorial offshore waters. But the US government has bought into the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind, “Global Warming,” and, as a result, the government will not allow us to use our own natural resources, the very resources that made this nation great in the first place.

So what, if we have to sacrifice the lives of a few thousand American servicemen and servicewomen every few years in “oil wars?” What’s the loss of life as opposed to the billions to be made in so-called green energy, in so-called renewable energy, etc? Not to mention the increase in power over the people that accrues to the government through the passage and enforcement of “green laws and regulations.” Need I remind you of the hulking EPA?

Iraq is a lost cause -- Afghanistan, too. Nation building is a total waste of American blood and money. Does anyone remember that we went into Afghanistan to smash Al Qaida and capture, or kill, Bin Laudin? Well, Bin Laudin is dead and Al Qaida ran across the border into a nation friendly to them, Pakistan.

If there was a way to wall off the Middle East from the rest of the world so they could continue to happily fight their tribal and religious wars amongst themselves, and the adult nations of the world could get on with civilization, then I’d endorse it in a second. The US could get along just fine without them, especially when you consider their major exports are dope, oil, and terrorism.

The plain truth is, however, we can’t even shun them because we are inextricably tied to them by our own government’s refusal to allow us to get at our own source of oil.

So. The question now is – how long until Iran steps in and asserts its authority over Iraq? My guess would be sooner rather than later. With the Iraqi government, such as it is, already on the verge of collapse, just days after America withdraws, and with Iraq’s President Nouri al-Maliki’s ties to Iran, one must wonder how soon he will turn to Iran and ask for military support. Iran, already seeking hegemony in the region, will happily roll tanks and troops across their shared border and – take over the country. And believe me, Iran is not interested in “nation-building.”

J. D. Longstreet

Christmas 2011

2011-12-22T03:08:00.000-05:00

Christmas 2011

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

This is the time each year we wish for peace on earth and good will to men. Yet, we seem, each Christmas, to find ourselves lacking that Peace and the Good Will.

This Christmas, again, we find that American troops are far from home, very near the birthplace of the baby who gave his name to the day we call Christmas. Families will open presents and gather for a family meal and rejoice over the birth of the Christ child, and yet, we cannot bring ourselves to follow the teachings of that baby and stop fighting with each other. Christ, himself recognized that, a couple of thousand years ago, and said: “Men will cry peace, peace, but there will be no peace!”

Americans have found themselves in the unenviable position of being the policemen of the world… by default. It was thrust upon us. We did not seek it, we did not want it, but we learned, much to our chagrin, that we had no choice. When the “evil-doers” attacked us on our soil, we were instantly committed. We have been at war now since September 11^th, 2001. No end is in sight, no matter what we may have been told.

Back in the mid 1800’s America found herself in another war, much worse that the one we fight currently. It was a war among brothers. A war, which was being waged here, on our shores, and the carnage, was biblical in proportion. Families were torn apart by the war and entire families displaced as the war raged up and down the Middle Atlantic States and even out west, across the Mississippi River. 700,000 Americans lives were loss as a result of that war. Many of the scars can still be seen today in our buildings and landscapes. Many scars are less obvious, but are there, nevertheless.

I am a Veteran, and I’m a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and as such, I am, acutely acquainted with the scars -- seen and unseen -- of war. The entire reason for the existence of the SCV is to prevent the memory of what those men did from fading, or being redacted, from the memory of this nation. We feel that by holding the historically correct (as opposed to politically correct) reasons for that war up to public scrutiny we can learn from it and never allow such a thing to happen on these shores again.

The South was the recipient of more suffering and carnage than were our brothers to the north. It was a sad, disheartening, time.

Here is a small part of the text of a letter, written to his family, by a Confederate soldier on Christmas Eve of 1863:

" This morning battalion guard mounting began for the three batteries. It is Christmas Eve. I am sitting in my little cabin and my thoughts carry me away to Helena where I see my good wife before the hearth with three children around her; the eldest a girl standing and looking earnestly into her mother’s face; the second a boy, five years old, sitting in a small chair looking into the fire; and the youngest a girl about four, leaning on her mother’s lap--all listening attentively to what their intelligent mother is relating in regard to the visits of Santa Claus having visited them on former Christmas Eves with presents of toys, their curiosity is at its height to know if he will come tonight and fill their stockings. Ah, will not these little innocents be disappointed? Their father has not seen them for twenty months, and is now far away battling for home and liberty, and has no means by which he can convey them toys or money to purchase them. Whether their mother has the means to spare in procuring Christmas presents for them is unknown to me, but I pray heaven to provide her with the necessaries of life, and to bless and cheer the young and innocent hearts of my children during the Christmas holidays. Happy Christmas to my wife and children!" [From The Campaign Diaries of Thomas J. Kay, CSA and Robert J. Campbell, edited by Wirt Armistead Cate, 1938; entry for December 24th (1863).]

Surely, there were similar letters written by soldiers on the federal side of the lines.

So, as we tear open the Christmas presents, feast at the table piled high with God’s bounty, lets us find time, somewhere during the hectic day, to remember what the child, whose birthday we celebrate, taught us. Even if we cannot find it within ourselves to put his teachings into practice, we are, I believe, obligated to try. In the effort, we might just find that peace so often mentioned at this time of year

Let us remember our troops, so far from home, in constant danger, because so much of the world cannot bring itself to fight tyranny… of any kind. Let us pray that those misled peoples will, somehow, find the courage to stand up, like men, and fight the enemies of freedom as our brave men and women are doing. Let us pray that they come to understand that the brave American soldier, who dies on a foreign battlefield, has given his life for them as well as for his own American family.

And, finally, let us pray that next Christmas will find America, and the world, in a less contentious state than this Christmas.

May God richly bless you and your family this Christmas and in the New Year to come.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and please accept my sincerest gratitude for your past (and continued) support of my feeble efforts at expressing and sharing opinions on those things that affect us all.

J. D. Longstreet

Christianity's Triumph ... Alan Caruba

2011-12-21T03:11:00.000-05:00

Christianity's Triumph

By Alan Caruba

“By far the most important event in the entire rise of Christianity was the meeting in Jerusalem in around the year 50, when Paul was granted the authority to convert Gentiles without them also becoming observant Jews.”

So wrote Rodney Stark, the Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. His most recent book is “The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion” ($27.99, HarperCollins).

For Christians in particular, I recommend it if only because so many have a tenuous grasp of Christianity’s real history, as opposed the versions that too often are casually accepted as truth.

The truth is that the rise of Christianity is one of the most extraordinary stories of the past two millennia. Stark not only has the knowledge of his vast subject, but he writes with such felicity that it is hard to put the 500-page book aside for both its revelations and its devotion to the facts.

Despite the fact we live in a society that has at most only 4% who self-describe themselves as atheists, the more active among them have the audacity to demand that Christmas be banished to the privacy of homes or the pews and pulpits of churches. They rebuke religion in general as the source of conflict and wars, but ignore the spiritual support and ethical lessons that Christianity provides along with its promise of salvation.

While Judaism was the bedrock of morality and faith that gave it birth, Christianity made it more accessible and significantly includes the Torah as part of its liturgy.

To ignore the rise of Christianity is to be ignorant of an essential element of Western history. Likewise, to ignore the threat of Islam whose beginning is usually dated around 622 CE and which exploded following Mohammad’s death in 632 CE is to ignore the greatest threat to civilization, past and present. Less a religion than a battle plan for world conquest, Islam preaches death to all “unbelievers.” Take heed!

Stark provides a summation to his book and, even so, I shall select only parts of it in the interest of brevity.

“The first generation of the Jesus Movement consisted of a tiny and fearful minority” of a religion, Judaism, that had already been around for a thousand years or more before the assertion was made that the messiah had come and was a crucified Galilean rabbi who mainly and briefly preached in that area of Israel.

“The mission to the Jews was quite successful: large numbers of Jews in the Diasporan communities outside of Palestine did convert to Christianity.” The Diaspora were the Jewish communities in the Middle East and throughout the Mediterranean nations, including Rome, living in places where pagan faiths were dominant.

“Christianity was not a religion based on the slaves and lowest classes of Romans, but was particularly attractive to the privileged.” Moreover, in its earliest years, women often played important roles. Contrary to popular belief, however, “Paganism was not quickly stamped out, but disappeared very slowly.” Paganism involved the worship of multiple gods as well as a belief in magic.

Despite impressive cathedrals, in medieval times church worship among Christians was largely ignored and, as often as not, the clergy were ill-informed about the faith and sometimes not even baptized.

Despite what is said of the Crusades, they were a campaign to reclaim the holy land from Muslims who had conquered it and they were led by men who knowingly bankrupted themselves and often died in this cause. Though Christianity had been widely observed in the East, the armies of Islam destroyed all but remnants, thus shifting its survival to Europe in the West.

“Science arose only in the West because efforts to formulate and discover laws of nature only made sense if one believed in a rational creator.” Even the misnamed “Dark Ages” were actually times of technological development. Likewise historians have determined that the Spanish Inquisition was “a quite temperate body that was responsible for very few deaths and saved a great many lives by opposing the witch hunts that swept through the rest of Europe.”

Perhaps the greatest surprise was the damage done by Constantine who, having made it the religion of his empire, gave rise to an indolent and hypocritical Church hierarchy initially composed of Roman aristocracy. It fostered a clergy who were ignorant of the faith and indifferent to its mission. Not until the Reformation was competition introduced, forcing the Church to return to piety, as various Protestant sects emerged, and energized Christianity in the process.

Stark concludes that “The claim that religion must soon disappear as the world becomes more modern is nothing but wishful thinking on the part of academic atheists. Religion is thriving, perhaps as never before. More than forty percent of the people on Earth today are Christians and their number is growing more rapidly than that of any other major faith.”

And that, as they say, is the good news.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

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Ron Paul Next To Be “Creamed” By GOP

2011-12-20T03:13:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul Next To Be “Creamed” By GOP

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Sometimes I’m a little slow on the up-take but decades of following US politics as my favorite sport has given me enough insight into the way politics works, at the upper levels, to know that the GOP chose its nominee a very long time ago. Of course, it is Mitt Romney. All the hoopla, the debates, etc, really don’t matter. For when the smoke clears, the man who will be crowned as the GOP nominee for President of the United States will be Mitt Romney. You can, as my old Grand pappy would say: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

In the spirit of full disclosure allow me to state clearly that I do not intend to vote for Romney either in the North Carolina Primary or the Presidential Election in November of 2012. It is a matter of honor for me… not to mention that I am royally PO’ed at the Republican Party for “foisting” Romney on conservative voters under what I consider false colors. Its as though Romney is wearing a tattoo saying: “GOP APPROVED: CONSERVATIVE.”

The state motto of North Carolina is: “To be, rather than to seem.” In Romney’s case I fear it is “to seem, rather than to be.” I am not the least bit convinced of the validity of Romney’s conservative credentials.

The GOP has managed to convince me that it is focused on beating Obama. I, on the other hand, am focused on “saving America.” And THAT, Dear Reader, is where the focus of all Americans SHOULD be … in my not so humble opinion.

We have come only a short way from the smoke-filled rooms in which candidates used to be chosen by the party. In fact, about the only thing that has really changed is that the rooms are now smoke free. I am convinced that Romney’s victory at the GOP convention was planned, and assured, in one of those legendary rooms.

The endless debates, this cycle, appear to have been dreamt-up by a group of leftists in Hollywood. I honestly think the debates have done the candidates more harm than good -- so far as their individual campaigns are concerned. On the other hand, the debates have been a storehouse of ammunition for the candidate’s Democratic Party opposition. This election cycle, with the democratic candidate for President having no opposition from within his own party, the debates have – I strongly believe -- only hurt the GOP candidates.

We have witnessed the effect the GOP leadership has had, so far, on the various campaigns and we are about to see even more.

We have seen that any candidate posing so much as a hint of a threat to Romney is crushed and destroyed by the party leaders and elite. Each time any one of the other candidates began to rise in the polls and seemed to present a threat, they have been ground down.

The candidates remaining in the GOP race are
”also rans.” They either present no threat, whatsoever, to Romney, or they are being hammered into insignificance by the GOP.

Gingrich is getting the squeeze even as I write. Ron Paul is next. These two men will be smeared and very nearly ruined if they do not back off.

Yes, the GOP does eat it’s own. I have said for many years that the GOP is its own worst enemy.

Look. The majority of the GOP voters do not want Romney (especially conservative voters). One look at his ossified poll numbers will reveal that to a blind man. BUT -- you can bet the farm we are going to have him as our candidate come the Republican Convention next year.

I have a problem with authority. Always have. I have even more trouble with those in authority who believe they know better than I do what is best for me. And at this moment, I am livid with the Republican Party for deciding that Mitt Romney is best for me.

Heck, I don’t care for the man. I didn’t like his father. I don’t care for his brand of politics, and as a southerner, I am not particularly enamored of the state from which he hails. And I do not like being pushed -- or herded -- toward a voting booth where I am expected to vote for him -- because the GOP insists that I must.

I vote for a candidate because I am convinced that candidate can do the job the way I want it done. No amount of pressure will get me to vote for the party’s favorite unless the party’s favorite happens to be my favorite. I’m wired that way. If my parents were still living they would quickly, and vehemently, verify that fact.

The thing is – I believe there is a host of conservative voters across America who feels the same way. And the GOP is doing itself no favor by acting as the puppet master pulling the strings on the GOP campaign show.

It has been awhile since I have felt that I really had a choice of candidates from the list of GOP candidates for President. So, I went to the polls and wrote in a candidate’s name rather than vote for the party’s choice. I will do that again next year.

For better or for worse, I will decide for whom I cast my ballot… not the GOP, or anyone else.

This whole GOP campaign has been, and continues to be, a charade. That is my opinion, of course. You may think otherwise. But I defy you to watch what happens to Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul in the next few days and weeks (on top of what has happened to Cain and Bachmann, already) and still hold any belief that the hierarchy of the GOP has not had a hand in their destruction.

It’s enough to make a thoughtful man retch!

Finally, if the Republican Party loses this election, (As I am convinced it will) it has only to look in the mirror to see the culprit. To learn why – they must look much deeper.

J. D. Longstreet