Voice in the Wilderness

The original article is on WND.

The other day I incidentally drove by the Apple store in Manhattan and was really amused and disheartened by the long line of thousands of people waiting to pick up their iphone 4Gs. As this country is falling apart, it becomes evermore clear to me why: We are still living in La La Land. I questioned when the last time was New Yorkers formed such a queue to protest a government wrongdoing and lined up outside their congressman’s door. Undoubtedly, these hoarders of high-tech phones have seen a news flash or two and are aware that times are no good and are spiraling quickly downward. So why don’t they get it? Why don’t they realize that they are standing in the “wrong” line? And it dawned on me: It’s because we are a society and a generation reared on Hollywood endings. Things will be OK; things will work out; America will bounce back.

But, my dear readers, as the president and his administration proceed to fundamentally transform America as he promised, the floor under our feet, the one we were hoping to bounce back from, is being shattered. There is a dark deep abyss beneath, an unknown that those not blinded by the happy-ending syndrome believe is a socialist agenda at best, one that will destroy the United States of America.

Please tell me, if the president doesn’t believe in exceptionalism for our country, which succeeded in being great because of its freedoms and unparalleled system, why does he believe in personal exceptionalism? Why did he rise to the top and become a president and not remain a community organizer? Is he the only one allowed to reach for the top, to be exceptional, while the rest of us peons have to wait until he and his mammoth and ever-growing government doles us out what they think we deserve?

Now more than ever: Get “Taking America Back,” Joseph Farah’s manifesto for moral renewal, sovereignty and self-reliance.

We all know the numbers. The stimulus and bailouts, punishing the rich and businesses with higher tax burdens, the universal health-care bill and cap-and-trade are all means of overtaxing the system and redistributing the wealth. In addition to the unsustainable stress on our economy, let’s not pretend redistribution is governmental philanthropy – it is plain-out government theft. If it is my body that’s in the gym every morning at 6 a.m., is it fair that you should be accruing the muscles that I’m working so hard for?

The second step after controlling the purse strings is controlling the masses, which then leaves little surprise that this administration is so accommodating to illegal immigrants, even criminal ones. There is power in numbers.

Sometimes I wonder if Obama is trying so hard to implode the system that maybe, just maybe, there will never be a 2012 election. Maybe a revolution is already in place, but it is starting from the top down instead of by the people.

Yes, this country, the leader of the free world, has gone through deep crises in the past, but the one factor that gave us optimism and hope was the integrity of the structure, i.e., our Constitution and the certainty that this was a democratic and capitalistic country that was respected by its allies and respected them in turn. Even our fallings and failings were surefooted because America would always be America. Don’t count on that anymore.

My friends, as you show off your new iPhones with more applications than you could ever use in a lifetime, I urge you to tune into its built-in alarm clock and WAKE UP. The challenges we now face are unprecedented. I cannot help but think of the biblical story of Pinchas, where one sole man saw the threat to his nation and alone took action to save the day. Of course, I’m not calling for violence, but I am calling for action. Are you doing all you can do, my fellow Americans, to save this great nation? Which line are you standing in? Are you a lawyer? A writer? A speaker? A singer? Whatever you are, take the talent God gave you and use it to fight to save this great country right now before it’s too late and they lay the yellow tape around the map of America to demarcate the greatest crime scene and slaughtering of liberty the world has ever known.

This is a clarion call for freedom loving Americans to wake up. Amazingly, we seem destined to allow the destruction of our country by social progressives . We will then go the way of the old soviet union for generations; until the pain and suffering force another revolution upon the backs of our progeny. Sadly, we have failed our children and the generations to follow due to complacency and lack of foresight. We face a profound CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to the survival of our country. The original article is on World Net Daily. USARMYGUYRETIRED

Throughout his political career, Obama has consistently declared his view that the Constitution’s purposeful restraint of government power is obsolete. Since the outset of his occupation of the White House, he and his faction have signaled their intent to circumvent, undermine or simply set aside the authority of the U.S. Constitution. Both here and in postings on my blog I have repeatedly had occasion to remark upon the design for despotism that has been evident in their actions.

Now “eight Republican senators … are warning that the Obama administration is drafting a plan to ‘unilaterally’ issue blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants as it struggles to win support in Congress for an overhaul of immigration laws.” This represents the decisive step beyond derelict law enforcement. Not content merely to ignore the laws the legislature has properly and constitutionally made, Obama signals the intention to undertake unilateral executive action that alters the clear terms and intention of the established laws, entirely without the constitutionally determined consent of the people. This will be a blatant and presumptuous usurpation of legislative power. This is not just dereliction, it is lawless tyranny. It is outright dictatorship.

Constitutionally exercised, the executive power represents the force of law. Once divorced, however, from constitutional provisions for ascertaining the consent of the people, it asserts instead the law of force, the unjust rule that might makes right. In effect, just laws fall silent, and all that speaks are the government’s instruments of force and intimidation, imposing rules that have no more warrant of lawfulness than the command of a terrorist over those he holds, by threat of violence, hostage to his will. The forces under the authority of the presidency become in that case a weapon, loaded and cocked, held to the head of the American people.

The ultimate expose on the radical nature of our 44th president: “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and other Anti-American Extremists”

Cicero famously observed “Inter arma enim silent leges,” “under arms the laws fall silent.” For some time now, executive dereliction has effectively silenced what U.S. immigration laws have to say about the status and treatment of those who take up residence in the United States in violation of their provisions. If the Obama faction implements the reported plan to impose amnesty by executive fiat, the illegal immigrants’ violation of the laws will in effect be defended and maintained by the executive forces of the U.S. government. Those forces will be arrayed against state law-enforcement agencies, such as those in Arizona, that continue to respect the provisions of established law. Hence, just as Cicero’s dictum would lead us to expect, Obama’s move to silence the immigration laws through dictatorial abuse of executive power will produce an incipient state of armed conflict between forces acting in conformity with constitutionally established law and U.S. government forces intending unlawfully to impose unilateral executive rule, which is to say, unconstitutional dictatorship.

Though purblind politicos will pretend not to see them, this offensive move has ominous implications for the survival of peace, justice and liberty in the United States, especially if it is successfully carried out. Thereafter, the basis for U.S. government action will no longer be what the laws say, but rather which laws are silent; or which parts of which laws the executive will allow to be heard. The basis for civil peace will no longer be respect for the laws, but submission to unlawful dictatorship. If today the dictator mutes the immigration laws to allow illegal immigrants to violate them with impunity, then tomorrow what will keep him from muting the laws against murder, extortion, theft or arson so that they may be violated with impunity by people acting as his vindictive agents of repression? By warrant of his executive fiat, will they be allowed to assassinate, intimidate, despoil or destroy the opponents of the lawless tyranny he seeks to impose in place of law?

Under the cloak of compassion for hapless illegals, the Obama faction seeks to establish the practical basis for ruthlessly imposing its will upon us all. Once that has been achieved, the threat of silencing some existing laws will be used to intimidate hapless legislators into making whatever new laws are dictated to them by the whims and purposes of America’s new iteration of the age-old regime of tyranny.

It’s clear that the reported consideration of this dictatorial maneuver is already intended as such a threat. Given that fact, the Obama faction’s reported plan for fiat amnesty for illegals signals the commencement of the last stage in their consolidation of socialist dictatorship. While they still have the opportunity to do so, the people who oppose this surrender of American sovereignty and liberty must raise a hue and cry like none the nation has seen before. By all reasonable and peaceful means they must communicate and confirm their determination to remove from the seats of legislative power every vestige of the party that thus sponsors the rise of an American dictator.

And when their resolve to do so produces indications of an electoral tidal wave certain to sweep the Obama faction from control of the U.S. Congress in the elections this November, they will have to pray – pray to the God who made and still may keep us free; pray that the likely failure of their schemes of usurpation does not lead the desperate tyrants of the Obama faction to implement their reported plan to silence the laws in order in some way to silence the sovereign voice of the people, as we tell them to surrender the constitutional power they have disgracefully schemed to overthrow.

Americans are no longer prepared to take care of their basic needs without the involvement of the federal government. The majority of Americans have relinquished the responsibility of their future survival to bureaucrats. How and when did we, as an intelligent and formerly self-reliant populace, decide to become wards of the state?

Since September 11, 2001 this country has faced numerous disasters both man-made and natural. It is evident after these disasters the majority of the population is unable to fend for themselves without government assistance. In only a matter of days, people run out of food and water, no longer able to take care of their families. They then expect some level of government to open up centers which will provide the necessary sustenance to support their families during these emergencies. Basic needs cannot be met without outside assistance. In less than 60 years Americans have lost the knowledge and will to be self-sufficient. How did this happen?

The federal government, in conjunction with large food suppliers, has seduced the citizens into servitude. The greater part of the population no longer maintains more than seven days of food supply in their homes (paycheck to paycheck). Some may argue this is untrue but it is imperative to be able convert raw foodstuffs into an edible product. If you have basic ingredients but no water, heat source, or electricity those raw foodstuffs might as well be located on another planet. American citizens have succumbed to the lie that everything will be available to them at all times in all circumstances. Americans now spend their money on frivolous goods and services which will not protect them against a possible disaster. If one had the ability to inspect any citizen’s food supply they would be minimal and nutritionally harmful. Food products purchased today are processed to the point of having the actual nutrients degraded in the attempt at extending shelf life. Even Americans themselves seem to have a shelf life after death. A lifetime ingesting foods packed with preservatives and the residuals have significantly altered the very essence of what makes our bodies tick. Americans have fallen into the trap of a never-ending supply of food stuffs from the local grocery store. The just in time inventory system we mimicked from the Japanese has certainly increased efficiency but it has greatly increased risks in food supply if interruptions occur. No one ever questions what happens if that supply suddenly stops or their income ceases to exist.

The example before us today is the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. This affects a wide swath of wage earners in the gulf region with immense and unpredictable second and third order effects for the rest of the country. The impacted individuals no longer have the capacity to earn a living and limited job prospects, at least in this country. Food lines are now the order of the day in the region. The people now find themselves at the abject mercy of an indifferent, disengaged government bureaucracy only intent on expanding their agenda and the population’s dependency. Listen to the rhetoric from the federal government. Their major concern is not the people or the cleanup, it is how they will extort large sums of money from BP, how they will push forward their Cap and Trade fiasco and how they can take over yet another sector of the economy. The old-school media will cover any usurpation for the current administration in the face of this catastrophe. There will be limited blame placed on some minor bureaucrats with the majority of the fault falling to BP. The assignation of blame is only relevant because the federal government will use this as an opportunity to seize more power and control over business and the lives of the citizens. The economic illiteracy on the part of the government media complex is astounding. If BP is fined, that will have no impact on fuel prices down the line?

Hurricane Katrina and Rita were only small windows into what the country might face in the future. Those natural disasters were limited in scope and therefore did not reach the full consciousness of the American people. Yes, we were quick to blame the political powers for failing to act quickly in response to those disasters, especially if we were diametrically opposed to their agendas. Those disasters pale in scale to what the Gulf Coast now faces in conjunction with a grossly incompetent federal government and complicit media. The lethal combination of incompetence and the ability to have an unlimited scope in meddling is a recipe to make the Greater Depression worse than it is already.

Controlling the food supply has been the plan of the federal government for an extremely long time. The creation of the FDA was fundamental to the execution of this plan. Working in conjunction with large agribusiness and complicit media they now control the destiny of the majority of the population of the United States. They are attempting to eliminate all small farming operations through overbearing regulations and a wink and a nod in the courtroom to patent regulations for the agribusiness lobby. Part of the agenda is to force all small operations to microchip every animal and provide tracking information to the federal government. The large agribusiness operators will not be subject to the same regulations as small farmers. They will be exempt from providing the same information because of the political power they wield through the purchase of politicians.

It is a historical fact that whoever controls the food controls the people. History is replete with examples of what happens when a corrupt and ruthless government controls the food supply. In the 1930’s, Russia starved 10 million Ukrainians to death by stealing all the food produced in their country because they would not support Stalin’s farm collectivization program. Hitler used starvation in Poland for the mass murder of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. America is now poised for the same fate since they are unable to feed their families in the face of a disaster or corrupt government.

There are many reasons the food supply might cease functioning in United States. Natural or man-made disasters are the preeminent possibilities which might precipitate a food stoppage. We do not want to contemplate the stoppage may be due the interference of the federal government. The question that must be asked is how we survive as a people in the event of a long-term interruption of the food supply? The majority of the population no longer has any understanding of raising their own food supply. No longer are we capable of going to our seed supply and planting a survival garden. If a family does have seed, it is imperative to ask a question. Is the seed the heirloom variety or the genetically altered large agribusiness strain? If it is the genetically altered variety then it is part of the trap and that family will starve. Genetically altered seeds render them viable for one season with no ability to harvest seed for future planting. The unprepared with no stockpile of heirloom seeds will be at the mercy of the government or whoever holds the power.

The stoppage of the food supply is only an example of what might transpire in the event of a disaster. We, as a people, are an unprepared population. There are many books written concerning what this country might face in a disaster which also address the impact of a massive economic or social collapse of the government. I urge everyone to read these tomes and educate themselves as to what might transpire and to better prepare for the unspeakable but inevitable future. It is incumbent upon each family to prepare themselves for the coming crisis our country will eventually have to endure. It is naïve at best and foolish at worst to believe our country is too big to fail. The preparation of an informed populace will define how we survive as a people in the event of a major disaster or economic collapse.

Are you ready, or will your family starve?

The original article is on WND.

Obama believes in the rule of law – his law. No other law is relevant. No other law matters. When Obama speaks, he expects the world to obey.

In his Tuesday night performance, he said, “I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business. …” “Inform him”? Where does Barack Hussein Obama get the authority to issue orders to the CEO of a private corporation? There is no such authority in the Constitution. There is no law that empowers the president to “inform” the CEO of any corporation how he will spend the corporation’s money. Obama couldn’t care less about the Constitution or the law.

There was no constitutional authority for him to essentially take over General Motors and Chrysler, or the banks. Obama couldn’t care less about the law. When he speaks, he expects the world to obey.

There is no constitutional authority for the federal government to require American citizens to purchase health insurance or any other product or service. It doesn’t matter. Obama spoke; his congressional majority of comrades obeyed.

The ultimate expose on the radical nature of our 44th president: “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists”

In 18 months, the man has demonstrated that he cares nothing about the system of government created by our founders and enshrined in the Constitution. He has demonstrated that he fully intends to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America – as he promised in his campaign. Now we are beginning to get a picture of the nation he intends to build. The picture is frightening.

Virtually everything Obama has done since taking office has expanded both the size and power of the federal government. The federal government our founders constructed is a government limited to the specific powers enumerated in the Constitution. Those powers not enumerated are expressly reserved to the states and to the people.

Obama can’t comprehend any limitations on his power. The moment Arizona enacted a law that empowered state law-enforcement officers to check for citizenship, Obama bad-mouthed the state legislature and governor – without even reading the law. There have been arrogant presidents before, but none that can compare to the sickening self-centered narcissism that exudes from this man.

Obama’s declaration that America must end its addiction to oil misses the point entirely. America is not addicted to oil at all; America is addicted to the lifestyle made possible by the most efficient, abundant energy source yet discovered. Americans would be delighted to move to any energy source that will provide the same or better lifestyle at less cost.

In a capitalist society such as America, government’s role in the market is limited to providing a level playing field for the entrepreneurs who risk their own assets to provide a product or service in hopes of making a profit. Only in totalitarian systems are markets managed by government.

The reason the nation has not switched to solar, wind or other alternative energy sources has nothing to do with our addiction to oil; it has everything to do with cost and convenience.

Obama has decided that cost is irrelevant. He wants to wean America from oil and bond the nation to exotic alternatives, regardless of the cost. When Obama speaks, he expects people to obey. He is ready to artificially and unnecessarily increase the cost of carbon fuels in the form of taxes and fees, in order to fund subsidies for wind and solar-energy sources. It doesn’t matter to Obama that the environmental disaster that will be created by the solar farms and wind farms is much greater than the Gulf oil spill.

The Gulf oil spill will eventually be capped and cleaned; once a solar farm is built to supply energy to a community, it will never go away; it will only expand. The biodiversity that once flourished where the solar farm now is will never be restored. The land area will be devoid of biodiversity.

Obama and his congressional comrades absolutely refuse to consider allowing the development of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Of the entire 19-million-acre area, only 2,000 acres would be disturbed, an area of 3.125 square miles. But they have no problem condemning 25,700 square miles of America to be paved over with solar panels. This is the area required to replace electricity use with solar energy. This is an area roughly equal to the states of Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island. To replace the carbon energy used by transportation with electricity, at least Florida, Georgia and South Carolina would need to be added to the land area forever lost to agriculture, housing or biodiversity.

Nevertheless, Obama has spoken. He expects people to obey.

What’s most dangerous about this man is his restructuring the government to be operated by a collection of appointed czars, who are not accountable to Congress, who can exercise powers not granted to the government to achieve nearly dictatorial authority over the citizens of the United States.

This is a limited look at only a few areas of domestic policy; his vision for the rest of the world is even more frightening. That’s for another day.

The original article is on THE PATRIOT POST.USARMYGUYRETIRED

Sometimes you can read a book that will change your mind on some fundamental issue. Rarely, however, is there just one page that can undermine or destroy a widely-held belief. But there is such a page– page 77 of the book “Out of Work” by Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway.

The widespread belief is that government intervention is the key to getting the country out of a serious economic downturn. The example often cited is President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s intervention, after the stock market crash of 1929 was followed by the Great Depression of the 1930s, with its massive and long-lasting unemployment.

This is more than just a question about history. Right here and right now there is a widespread belief that the unregulated market is what got us into our present economic predicament, and that the government must “do something” to get the economy moving again. FDR’s intervention in the 1930s has often been cited by those who think this way.

What is on that one page in “Out of Work” that could change people’s minds? Just a simple table, giving unemployment rates for every month during the entire decade of the 1930s.

Those who think that the stock market crash in October 1929 is what caused the huge unemployment rates of the 1930s will have a hard time reconciling that belief with the data in that table.

Although the big stock market crash occurred in October 1929, unemployment never reached double digits in any of the next 12 months after that crash. Unemployment peaked at 9 percent, two months after the stock market crashed– and then began drifting generally downward over the next six months, falling to 6.3 percent by June 1930.

This was what happened in the market, before the federal government decided to “do something.”

What the government decided to do in June 1930– against the advice of literally a thousand economists, who took out newspaper ads warning against it– was impose higher tariffs, in order to save American jobs by reducing imported goods.

This was the first massive federal intervention to rescue the economy, under President Herbert Hoover, who took pride in being the first President of the United States to intervene to try to get the economy out of an economic downturn.

Within six months after this government intervention, unemployment shot up into double digits– and stayed in double digits in every month throughout the entire remainder of the decade of the 1930s, as the Roosevelt administration expanded federal intervention far beyond what Hoover had started.

If more government regulation of business is the magic answer that so many seem to think it is, the whole history of the 1930s would have been different. An economic study in 2004 concluded that New Deal policies prolonged the Great Depression. But the same story can be found on one page in “Out of Work.”

While the market produced a peak unemployment rate of 9 percent– briefly– after the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment shot up after massive federal interventions in the economy. It rose above 20 percent in 1932 and stayed above 20 percent for 23 consecutive months, beginning in the Hoover administration and continuing during the Roosevelt administration.

As Casey Stengel used to say, “You could look it up.” It is all there on that one page.

Those who are convinced that the government has to “do something” when the economy has a problem almost never bother to find out what actually happens when the government intervenes.

The very fact that we still remember the stock market crash of 1929 is remarkable, since there was a similar stock market crash in 1987 that most people have long since forgotten.

What was the difference between these two stock market crashes? The 1929 stock market crash was followed by the most catastrophic depression in American history, with as many as one-fourth of all American workers being unemployed. The 1987 stock market crash was followed by two decades of economic growth with low unemployment.

But that was only one difference. The other big difference was that the Reagan administration did not intervene in the economy after the 1987 stock market crash– despite many outcries in the media that the government should “do something.”

This is an excellent article by a great legal thinker. It illuminates how we arrived at the inevitable oil disaster now polluting our coastline and destroying vital jobs. USARMYGUYRETIRED

Tuesday night, in an Oval Office speech to the nation, President Obama took the gloves off.

He lashed out at BP over the monumental oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He vowed that he will make BP pay for all the long and short-term damage it caused. He argued that the battle against this now nearly two-month-old raging gusher of oil is tantamount to a war. And he asked the country to allow him and the Congress to regulate all businesses and private homes in the name of going green.

For most Americans, it was the first time they saw him angry — although a controlled anger from the no-drama-Obama, as his own campaign staff labeled him two years ago. But will the president’s feigned anger get the oil well plugged? Will it get cash into the hands of those truly harmed? Will it prevent future disasters?

No, no and no.

Here are the facts: After the Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska in 1989 had been cleaned up and nearly paid for by Exxon, the oil companies lobbied the Congress for liability limits — maximum amounts that they could be held to pay for in the event of a disaster.

A Republican Congress and President Clinton together made it the law that oil companies would be limited to pay $75 million for cleanups and the taxpayers — that would be you — would pay the rest. In return, the feds would be able to tell the oil companies where to drill.

In the case of BP, it asked the state of Louisiana if it could drill in 500 feet of water and Louisiana said it could. The federal government vetoed that and told BP could only drill in 5,000 feet of water.

Never mind that no oil company had ever cleaned up a broken well at that depth and never mind that the feds had never monitored a broken well at that depth and never mind that BP only needed to set aside $75 million in case something went wrong. The feds trumped BP’s engineers and the feds trumped the wishes of the folks who live along the Gulf Coast and the feds decided where this oil well would be drilled.

FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE FOLLOW THIS LINK

The original article is posted on WND.

The Marxmeister in the White House now says he takes full responsibility for ending the oil mess in the Gulf. He also says he wants to “know whose a– to kick,” that he “can’t suck it up with a straw,” and … well, you know … the ongoing narcissistic spiel – “I, me, my … blah, blah, blah” – day after day, week after week, ad nauseam.

Watching his recent performances on the Gulf oil disaster made me think about a monster hit The Platters had in the ’50s called “The Great Pretender.” Little did they know that the champion Great Pretender wouldn’t even be born until 1961 – probably in Kenya … but, then, no one is really sure about that because no one is allowed to see his birth certificate.

Everyone but 1) those on the far left, 2) Bill O’Reilly and 3) the loons (O’Reilly’s word) who have yet to return from lunch realizes that The Great Pretender has had a Marxist agenda since even before his pot-smoking days at Columbia. Names like Wright, Ayers, Lloyd, Dunn, Sunstein, Holdren and Jones (both Jeff and Van) are well-known to those who have taken the trouble to learn about The Great Pretender’s agenda.

The ultimate expose on the radical nature of our 44th president: “The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists”

As ever more people come to realize that the country has been hijacked by this angry young Marxist, many would argue that a better title for him might be The Great Reactor. Obama listens to the news – especially Fox News – then reacts to his critics by saying or doing whatever they accuse him of not saying or doing, or by changing his tune regarding something he’s said or done that offends too many people. Sort of humorous to watch – if the fate of an entire country were not at stake, that is.

Perhaps I’m getting soft with age, but I almost feel sorry for The Great Pretender. His flipping and flopping and spinning and twisting and contradictions have become downright embarrassing. He’s Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy all rolled into one. I admit it – I’m truly embarrassed for him.

Now, of all people, Mike Huckabee – continuing his swift turnabout in an effort to make voters forget about his slobbering interview of Michelle Obama (who, he tried to convince us, wakes up every morning frantically worrying about childhood obesity) – has succeeded in making The Great Pretender look like an incompetent, arrogant boob.

Hopefully, you saw The Huckster’s show last weekend. He paraded out one guest after another – entrepreneurs, inventors, engineers and chemists – to present remarkable solutions for cleaning up the oil in the Gulf. It truly was amazing to watch the simplicity of the methods presented, as contrasted with The Great Pretender’s spending his time talking about kicking a–, wagging his finger at everyone and bending over and picking up a lonely tar ball on the beach in his daily photo-ops.

Was the oil spill really just an accident? Probably. BP America Chairman and President Lamar McKay recently said that it was caused by “a failed piece of equipment.” I’ll buy that, at least for now. But it doesn’t matter. Rahm never said that you have to create a crisis. He already knew there are crises popping up all the time. All he said was that you should never allow a good one to go to waste.

In the case of the BP oil accident, it was a slam-dunk. More to the point, it was like unlocking the door to the EPA’s cage. Obviously – surprise, surprise – offshore drilling is now out of the question, right?

So it puts a few hundred thousand people out of work (ripple effect) … so what? The progressive must do what he must do to protect “the people,” even if it means taking away their jobs and giving them higher gas prices to boot. What in the world would we do without government to protect us?

So, yes, the BP crisis will not be wasted if it results in an end to offshore drilling. Nevertheless, I think The Great Pretender is going to have to come up with another crisis – or two – before November to pull off a number of miracles for the Demagogic Party.

The Dems, of course, would have us believe that they can win because so-called moderates will pull away from Republican candidates affiliated with the tea parties. If they really believe that, it would be wonderful. But, quite frankly, I don’t think they’re that stupid.

So I, for one, am still thinking crisis. A manufactured crisis is much better than an unforeseen one, of course, because you can have a prefabricated “solution” prepared in advance. You don’t have to do anything that actually helps make things better for people. All you need are a few talented individuals to put the right words on your teleprompters and be good at pretending you’re making things better.

Obama has been following FDR’s dictatorial playbook to the T. In his 1937 inaugural address, at a time when unemployment was still rising (15 percent on Inauguration Day), FDR bodaciously said, “Our progress out of the Depression is obvious.”

Sound familiar? It should. With the economy on the verge of total collapse, The Great Pretender continues to look his teleprompters in the eye and tell Americans how he’s saved the country from a depression and that “the worst is now behind us.” He always sounds so darn convincing when he says these things, but I hear through the White House grapevine that on at least one occasion after slinging this kind of B.S., he was overheard singing to himself in the Oval Office:

Oh yes, I’m the great pretender,
Pretending that I’m doing well.
My need is such, I pretend too much,
I’m lonely but no one can tell.

Lacking a really great crisis, The Great Pretender, hopefully, is going to feel a lot lonelier starting next January.

The original article is posted on WND. USARMYGUYRETIRED

President Obama’s oil-spill speech revealed, once again, how stunningly shameless he is. This relentless ideologue is not even marginally competent at masking his ongoing crusade to apply a wrecking ball to every sector of our economy and remake it in his own image.

And I do mean “his” own image. Once again, his speech was loaded with first-person references, from “I refuse to let (Gulf Coast residents lose their way of life)” to “I expect (the new commission tasked with determining the cause of the explosion) to do that work thoroughly and impartially” to “I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party.” More on that last howler in a moment.

Obama’s MO is so predictable that sophisticated practitioners of Marxist transformation should be embarrassed. Then again, Obama doesn’t need to be subtle; he is the president – a president who rejects the constitutional limitations that applied to his mortal predecessors.

After sitting on his hands for months, he comes out rhetorically swinging with both barrels of his teleprompter blazing. First, declare a crisis – meticulously distorting the facts, especially those relative to what caused the crisis. Second, isolate a scapegoat (along with the awful, resource-exploiting, oil-inhaling, pre-Obama America) to be demonized and bullied into conspiring with him to launch his transformational solution – a solution that has nothing to do with solving the “crisis.” In the meantime, shield the true culprits from any blame. Third, unveil his grandiose plan for salvation by the federal government, provided it first acquires structurally new powers. All the while, he not only downplays the government’s culpability in all of this but also overstates its (and his) response to date.

FOR THE COMPLETE ARTICLE FOLLOW THIS LINK

Excellent article on why the Constitution needs to be amended concerning the “anchor” baby problem. Remove the incentive to come here illegally thereby eliminating the overburdening of the welfare, schools, hospitals, and prison systems. The desire to assimilate is the distinction which defines the difference between an anchor baby and a legal immigrant. The US is one of the few countries in the civilized world recognizing a child born within its borders as a citizen regardless of the citizenship of the parents. It is an absurd and archaic practice which even Canada identified as a root problem of their cultural deterioration. It is past time for the US Congress to address this issue whether on its own or led by the nose by the state of Arizona. USARMYGUYRETIRED

The original post is found on THE PATRIOT POST.

Borrowing a line from the ’70s hit movie “Network,” the people of Arizona are apparently “mad as hell and [they're] not going to take it anymore,” as far as illegal immigration is concerned. On the heels of Arizona’s controversial immigration law is proposed legislation from Arizona state senator Russell Pearce that would block the children of illegal immigrants — so-called “anchor babies” — from becoming citizens, even though born in the United States. Explaining his rationale, Pearce stated, “This is an orchestrated effort by [illegal immigrants] to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we’ve created.”

At issue is not the fact that “anchor babies” could potentially provide a long-term path for citizenship to their illegal-immigrant parents, but rather this: If these children *are indeed* U.S. citizens by birth (i.e., entitled to so-called “birthright” citizenship), what then happens to them? What happens to their parents? The problem supposedly pits law against compassion. The prevailing wisdom is that allowing the illegal-immigrant parent to remain in the U.S. with their child averts a greater injustice: permitting the “citizen” child to stay in the U.S. while deporting the parent, or else deporting them both — effectively “deporting” a U.S. citizen. Thus, the problem hinges on the child’s citizenship status.

Accordingly, opponents of Pearce’s proposal point out that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution grants citizenship to anyone *born* in the United States. The plain language of the amendment itself, however, states that in addition to being born or naturalized in the United States, those seeking citizenship must be subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Case law and context surrounding the drafting of the 14th Amendment clearly reveal that “jurisdiction” does not mean simply being subject to U.S. laws and courts; rather, it means exclusive *allegiance* to the United States. Hence, American Indians were not considered U.S. citizens even *after* passage of the 14th Amendment, because their allegiance vested in their tribes, not the U.S. This concept is discussed at length in the landmark case of Elk v. Wilkins (1884). In like manner, so the argument goes, children of illegal immigrants — who obviously don’t meet the above definition — cannot reasonably be considered “citizens,” because their allegiance is tied to that of their parents.

The real problem with “anchor babies” is that the child is made a pawn of a scheme to circumvent existing immigration laws by “anchoring” the illegal-immigrant parent in the U.S. on the basis of their child’s citizenship. Thus, the problem is twofold. First, we simply must enforce existing immigration laws. We are either a nation of laws or we are not, and if we are not, then we have lost one of the keystones that set America apart from virtually every other nation on earth. As Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer notes, “We are a nation of laws. That is why we are American. And there are consequences, unfortunately.”

Second, real immigration reform is needed to allow productive, law-abiding immigrants a viable path to resident alien or citizen status. That path currently doesn’t exist for many because of immigration laws biased against targeted countries, particularly Mexico. Of course, anti-immigrant sentiment — largely produced from current failures to enforce existing immigration laws at the federal level — has produced a host of unintended consequences exacerbating the basic problem.

However, one good start on the road to reform is closing the “anchor baby” citizenship loophole, thus removing a strong incentive to immigrate illegally. Congress can and should do this. As evidenced by Congress’ offer of citizenship to numerous Indian tribes beginning in 1870, Section 5 of the 14th Amendment provides Congress the power to define who is properly within the jurisdiction of the United States … and who is not.

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This is an excellent article illustrating why it is time to get our ass out of Afghanistan. Original on WND

In December 1979, the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan with 80,000 soldiers supported by 1,800 tanks. The government of Afghan President Hafizullah Amin was overthrown in less than a week at a minimal cost of only 86 fatalities. However, Marshal Sokolov was unable to establish control outside the major population centers, and despite reinforcements that increased its total occupation force to 100,000 troops, 80 percent of the country remained outside the control of its military or its puppet government. Over the 10 years of the failed occupation, Soviet forces lost an average of 1,445 dead annually (63 percent of which were combat-related), until they finally retreated in a two-stage, largely peaceful withdrawal that was completed in February 1989.

The United States attacked Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, with a combination of Special Forces and air strikes in partnership with indigenous allies. Two months later, Kandahar fell, marking the end of the Taliban rule. Having left most of the fighting on the ground to the Northern Alliance, the U.S. suffered only 12 fatalities in taking over the country. However, as was the case with the Soviets, the U.S.-led coalition forces and their puppet government have been unable to control the countryside, which is increasingly dominated by the deposed Taliban. And as the occupation has continued, coalition fatalities have steadily risen to the current average of 203 per year. There were 521 deaths in 2009, and with 257 deaths already this year prior to the beginning of the announced summer offensive, there will almost certainly be more in 2010.

While the U.S.-led coalition’s performance in Afghanistan looks much better than that of their Soviet predecessors on a statistical basis, this is probably more the result of better medical care and the use of body armor than superior strategy or tactics. The Soviet casualty-to-fatality ratio throughout the course of the Soviet occupation was only 2/1, whereas the Coalition average is 11/1. This suggests that were it not for superior American technology, Coalition fatalities would be around 1,117 per year. While it is great that American soldiers are surviving their wounds, their unusually high survival rate has tended to paint a markedly false view of the war when viewed from a historical perspective.

As I predicted before his election, Obama has not ended the occupation of Afghanistan, but expanded it instead. I was wrong, however, in that he did not expand it into Pakistan as I expected. What is interesting is that as his popularity has declined, his liberal supporters are becoming increasingly vocal in their demands that he stop fighting George Bush’s wars. While I am seldom in agreement with Bob Herbert of The New York Times, it is difficult to take exception to anything in his recent column, titled “The courage to leave.”

There is no “clearly defined mission” to be found in Afghanistan. America has no national interest in continuing the occupation, and it cannot afford to continue to buy money to finance a strategically pointless decade-long military exercise. Even the lead puppet in the puppet regime, President Hamid Karzai, is showing signs of distancing himself from the United States despite the fact that his government is unlikely to survive three years post-occupation as the Najibullah regime did following the Soviet withdrawal.

The occupation of Afghanistan was never going to last forever, and the coalition that has maintained it is now fragmenting. The United Kingdom and other countries are actively discussing the withdrawal of their troops later this year, and it would be exceedingly foolish to insist on continuing the occupation following the coalition’s end. It is time for Obama to stop listening to the lobbyists of the war party and start listening to the great silence that is the American people’s indifference toward the fate of Afghanistan. The troops have served long, honorably and well; this is not their failure but rather a strategic failure of their civilian commanders. As the historical Soviet and British examples always suggested, it was a strategy destined for a failure that has now become abundantly clear. Therefore, it is time to end the occupation of Afghanistan and bring America’s soldiers home.