Newsflash: Arizona NOT a border state

OK, well this may explain why Democrats don't understand why Arizona passed SB 1070. A Wisconsin county supervisor states that Arizona is not a border state...according to her, it's "removed from the border". She deserves to be removed from her office for her ignorance.

Meanwhile, we are finding out that there is a nexus between Hezbollah and the Mexican drug gangs...

You'd think this intel would inspire the Federal Govt--that would be Obama--to take our border issues seriously, as a matter of national defense.

But no. This week Obama met with Arizona Senator Kyle, who reports in this video that Obama refuses to seal the border until the Republicans agree to work with him for "immigration reform"...also known as "AMNESTY".

And finally, Dear Leader Obama decided to appoint a Sanctuary City kook to head ICE.

"The Obama administration has tapped an outspoken critic of immigration
enforcement on the local level to oversee and promote partnerships between
federal and local officials on the issue.

Harold Hurtt, a former police chief in Houston and Phoenix, has been hired as the director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of State and Local Coordination.

...as a police chief, Hurtt was a supporter of "sanctuary city" policies, by which illegal immigrants who don't commit crimes can live without fear of exposure or detainment because police don't check for immigration papers. "

What other evidence do you need to prove that the Democrats are out of touch...and are just plain stupid?

Zelaya, Chavez, and Lula: Socialist intervention in Honduras

What should be one of the most important stories in the Western Hemisphere is going virtually unreported.

By now, only the profoundly and permanently ignorant can deny that former president Manuel (Mel) Zelaya violated the Honduran constitution when he called for reform of the constitution in order to give himself the option of re-election.

In a video-taped recording of a speech Zelaya gave to his followers four days before his destitution, he stated:
“Here the judges are re-elected, the fiscales (prosecuting attorneys) are re-elected, the mayors are re-elected, the Legislators (Diputados) are re-elected…the only one who is not re-elected is the President, but the Re-election is the theme of the next constitutional assembly.”

Constitutional Assemblies are organized efforts to re-write constitutions under Latin American democratic rules. The problem with this is that the Honduran constitution explicitly prohibits Presidents from requesting or even suggesting their own re-election, and he who violates this norm, according to the Honduran Supreme Court, automatically loses his mandate and is to be removed from power. This is what happened to Zelaya.

Yesterday, 21 of September 2009, Zelaya somehow slipped through the border and arrived in Honduras. The most common report states that he arrived secretly overland, while at least one other report suggests he was flown into Honduras aboard a Venezuelan military plane. He then managed to seek refuge in the Brazilian embassy.

In response, the interim president, Roberto Micheletti, stated: “I can’t help but think that he’s here to try to put up obstacles to our presidential election” that is scheduled to occur in November. Micheletti, in agreement with the Honduran constitution, cannot and will not postulate himself as a candidate, now or ever again, since he served as President, even if it was for only a few months.

The most important factor in this story is that Zelaya apparently left Nicaragua with the help of the socialist Nicaraguan government of Manuel Ortega and was given protection in the Brazilian embassy. It appears that the leftist governments of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Brazil are colluding to intervene in the internal affairs of Honduras, in order to overthrow the “de facto” government there and restore Zelaya to power, in opposition to what appear to be the legal and constitutional orders of the Honduran Supreme Court, the Honduran congress (or parliament), and the standing president.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to waffle and wobble, speaking out of both sides of its diplomatic mouth. Publicly they have called for the return of Zelaya, but then in the past written letters acknowledging that it was Zelaya’s own actions that caused his removal.

It is shocking to see the UN, OAS, and United States behave in such an inept and unhelpful manner. The moral confusion that appears to run these organizations and our State Department will eventually contribute to a violent upheaval in Honduras and could result in the ultimate destruction of the Honduran democracy.

UPDATE:
Interested parties should listen to this blistering critique of the Obama policy on Honduras by none other than the great Newt Gengrich.
Selected quote:
"I think this administration may rapidly parallel Carter, in that Carter had this deep almost psychologically driven compulsion to attack America's allies and apologise for our enemies, and this administration has a very similar pattern..."{he then reviews the situation in Honduras I have outlined in my posts}..."The Obama administration has already announced they will not honor (the upcoming November elections). In fact, they went further and just withdrew the visas of the 15 Supreme Court Justices (who ordered Zelaya deposed for constitutional violations). This is waging war on Democracy."

How our government makes “civil debate” impossible

CNN Political Analyst, Gloria Borger, published a criticism of the “hecklers” at the many town hall meetings across the country, in which citizens who are concerned, even infuriated, about the Obama Healthcare plan, are vocalizing their opposition to the plan in a way she describes as “bad behavior.” She says: “Their bad behavior is a derivative of the questionable quality of the political debate they listen to every day. Indeed, if there's one thing we've gotten really good at over the years, it's this: reducing complicated problems to bite-sized slogans.”

Bite-sized slogans? You mean like "HOPE" and "CHANGE"?

She then tries to reassure us: “The effort on Capitol Hill has been serious…members of Congress are actually doing some real work.” Well they apparently are not working hard enough! They haven't read at least TWO of the major legislative pieces they've drafted and admit as much publicly.

As an example of the alleged misbehavior, she specifically refers to a recent town hall meeting organized by Senator Arlen Specter with the HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.”In attempting to answer questions, they were shouted down by folks more interested in venting than discussing.”

Other examples can be seen all over the news, such as this confrontation between a “Democrat Tea Party Protester” who confronted the House Majority Leader, or another meeting in St Louis, or the one in Austin. And following the Hugo Chavez model of governance, rather than accept that the people are furious at the government and leaders, the Obama administration has instead lashed out and accused the protests as being “manufactured”— that is to say, according to the ruling elite, they are being artificially generated and staged. This was also the same accusation they leveled at the hundreds Tea Party protests a few months ago.

What’s more, the administration is accusing groups of passing “disinformation” about their “plan”, and have even created a mechanism by which private citizens can report sources of “disinformation” directly to the White House –effectively creating a form of domestic spying network reporting directly to the President (yet another tactic eerily reminiscent of Hugo Chavez).

On the White House website, you can read: “There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

What are they calling “disinformation”? How about the video of Obama stating that he wanted Single Payer healthcare, published on Drudgereport.com? Or articles such as this one, in which the President was quoted: “ ‘If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system,” Obama told some 1,800 people at a town-hall style meeting on the economy.’ ” These comments have also been recorded on video. They additionally call “disinformation” the videos that have been assembled showing the many times that Obama stated that he wanted a single-payer healthcare system.

More importantly, Obama and other "leaders" have been caught saying that, while they acknowledge that the public would not support going directly to a single-payer system, their plan would eventually lead us there. They then state in other forums that this is not their intention, and that they want "competition". They say that the "plan" (which they admit they have not fully read and with which they are "not familiar") would NOT eliminate private healthcare insurance. Analysts who actually HAVE read the bill are warning that the opposite is true.

So what should we believe? Should be believe what they say they didn't say after they have said the thing they deny having said? Or should we believe the analysts who are telling us that what is in the bill will lead us directly into the situation they said they wanted before they said they didn't want it?

What Borger fails to comprehend is that it is the government’s fault, clear and simple, that “discussion” has degraded into furious screaming matches. Democratic dialog can only occur in an environment in which all sides can feel that they are being mutually respected, and in which the leaders who are answering to their constituents understand that A) they work for the people, not the other way around, and B) the information they provide is true, to the best of their knowledge.

But when government leaders have stated, on camera, a position that later they say they never said, and then accuse the citizens of “manufacturing” dissent and spreading “disinformation”—which implies they are lying—the government has alienated itself from the people it pretends to govern. It also has undermined the necessary conditions for “civilized debate”.

These government officials are just like the criminal who is caught on tape robbing a store and later claims “I wasn’t there when they caught me”; their credibility is shot from the start. When they then turn around and claim that the people who have seen the video are “liars” for reminding them of what they have seen, they are engaging in a not-so-subtle ad hominem attack on the citizens.

The Democrats, who proudly bragged that they were part of a young and hip generation that understands modern technology such as Twitter and Facebook and the Internet, have apparently misjudged the overall sophistication of the average citizen, and have ironically overlooked the fact that their previous statements are out there for all to see. The Democrats have repeated the mistakes made by the Iranian regime that thought it could silence the opposition by quashing journalism, only to have their criminal exploits exposed via the new information media.

Americans have lost respect for their leaders. These leaders are bewildered that we don’t just trust them, even though they are exposed every time they make contradictory statements to different audiences (remember Obama’s “guns and religion” quote? Or his gaffe about the police “acting stupidly”?). Instead of admitting that they misspoke, or admit the mistake, they act as if we are all stupid, and explain themselves by saying something to the effect of; “I know what I said but what I meant was the opposite.”

The citizens are screaming because they are honestly angry. They are yelling because they do not believe what they are being told. They are heckling because they know that it is impossible to have “civilized debates” with arrogant government officials who disrespect them, ignore them, and lie to them.

And if this does not change, soon, the screaming, yelling, and heckling may morph into actions a great deal more serious. Remember that the 1773 Boston Tea Party was not the start of the Revolution: it was just a warning that was not heeded by the arrogant and bullying British aristocracy.

Democracy requires citizen action.

Democracy requires citizen action. Are you doing your part?

My experience as founder and President of a non-profit 501c-3 taught me that the “leaders” of our Republic can truly be influenced by direct action of their constituents. While many people cynically underestimated the effects that a small group of activists could have on the colossal US government, we stubbornly moved forward.

We formed action groups, wrote analysis white-papers that we faxed to the representatives on a regular schedule, and met our representatives whenever they were in town. Our persistence paid off. When we started, the Democrat representatives thought that Hugo Chavez was a “harmless clown”, or a “democratically elected leader” who was “honestly concerned about the poor.” They didn’t take us seriously at first. But over time, we won a few key Congressmen and Senators over to our side. Eventually, they told us that they even found our analysis more credible than the analysis they received from the Department of State, and our understanding of the issues deeper and more reliable than “experts” such as the Carter Center.

Our nation is now at another crossroads. If concerned citizens sit idly by, waiting for the leaders to lead in the right direction, they will be disappointed with the results. Democracy requires direct citizen action. And you need to do your part.

Many people want to help, but don’t know how. So here is a step-by-step plan to get you started.

1. First, create a list of your representatives.
a. Click on the link to Congress.org
b. In the box titled MY ELECTED OFFICIALS, input your ZIP code and click GO.
c. The names of your Congressmen and Senators will appear.
d. Make a list of these Representatives.
e. Click the link to each of them.
f. Click the Contact tab, and gather all the contact information about the individual. Put it in your list. Be sure to get the FAX number!
2. Each representative also has a link to his/her website. Go to their homepage and search for dates of their Townhall meetings they are going to have during the recess.
3. If there are no meetings scheduled, call the local office for the representative and demand a schedule of those events.
4. Identify your two or three top concerns.
a. Research those concerns. Find articles and analysis written by journalists or organizations you respect and trust. Do NOT use blogs. Use only respected news and analysis sources.
b. Create a document on each of those topics, and cut and paste the best pieces of analysis, quotations, statistics, etc. from the articles.
c. Always include the SOURCE, in case you are challenged on the veracity and quality of your citations. Trust me: when challenged publicly, they will often try to belittle the constituent in order to make you look incompetent or misinformed. The ability to quote directly from trusted sources will stop that immediately.
d. Create a folder of these documents, and carry them with you to every meeting so you can refer to them.
5. Plan on attending every townhall meeting you can.
6. Create a network of people who share your opinions, and disseminate the dates and locations of the meetings, and encourage your friends to join you. Strength in numbers!
7. Create a brief, respectful but forceful letter on each of your concerns.
a. Address all letters directly to each of your representatives.
b. Save the letter as a form letter that you can use to send to each representative so you don’t have to waste time re-writing the letter.
c. Create two copies of each letter: one signed by you, and one with the signature space blank.
i. Give the blank signature page to friends and family and ask them to FAX it to the representative.
d. Do NOT send it yet.
8. Call the representative’s office, and ask for the names of the Aids that focus on your two or three concerns. They will give you those names.
a. Ask to introduce yourself to those individuals.
b. Explain who you are, and inform the individual that you would like to fax a letter to the representative, and to be expecting it shortly.
c. NOW FAX and mail the letter to the representative.
9. The most effective but time consuming thing you can do is to form a group.
a. You will be asked when you call the representative’s office if you are an individual or represent a group. If you can say (honestly) that you have dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands of constituents in your group, they will be eager to please.

Now, get off your ass and go put pressure on the idiots ruining the country!

Obama embraces our enemies and rebuffs our friends

I continue to be fascinated with the Obama administration’s handling of the Honduran political “stale-mate” (my term). The latest twist in the sordid tale is that, while ousted President Zelaya continuously taunts the interim government there by making frequent visits to the border, stepping one foot inside Honduras and then backing away before he can be arrested (generating lukewarm condemnation from US Secretary of State Clinton for his “provocative behavior”), the United States has decided to revoke the visas for officials in the interim government. (Read my previous analyses: Here, Here and Here)

As reported in the Washington Post, “the U.S. government revoked the visas of four members of Honduras's de facto government Tuesday, escalating the pressure on officials there to reinstate the president, who was kicked out of the country a month ago.” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly “indicated that other officials also could have their visas revoked.” Not only that, but he added that “U.S. authorities were reviewing the visas of all members of the current government and their dependents.”

This latest move is yet another example of how the Obama administration slaps its friends and allies, while coddling tyrants and enemies. Obama has not revoked the visas of the Iranian officials, who last month brutally oppressed protestors who claimed the presidential election was a fraud, resulting in untold number of deaths and injuries. Nor has he revoked the visas of North Korean officials, who have repeatedly threatened the destruction of the United States and provocatively launched missiles toward Hawaii. No, to the contrary: Obama believes in “engagement” with our enemies, and repeatedly opens his arms wide to them, turning his other cheek when those tyrants rebuff his entreaties and slap him down.

In keeping with that absurd policy, Obama has picked up the cause for President Zelaya, who was a part of the cabal of “Bolivarian” Marxists who openly called for the downfall of America, and has rejected the pleas of the interim Honduran government that wishes to befriend the United States.

Obama’s racial prejudice was recently on display with the Gates-Crowley brouhaha, when Obama precipitously and publicly prejudged the white officer and, quite frankly, got it all wrong, as has been indisputably proven by subsequent events and analysis.

The Honduran debacle reveals Obama’s parallel anti-American prejudices: his automatic sympathy toward world leaders who vociferously criticize the United States or accuse it of being an evil empire. It appears that Obama is predisposed to believe the historical interpretation that the United States has repeatedly and wrongly supported “dictators” in Latin America, and in a desperate effort to distinguish his Presidency and display his presumed “moral superiority”, he has ironically decided to meddle in the internal affairs of Honduras. Obama could have called a summit in the United States, in order to hear both sides of the story and try to find a way to reconcile the differences. Instead, he farmed that out to Costa Rican Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias, who failed to achieve progress. And far from remaining neutral, the Obama administration sided with the Castros and Chavez in demanding the reinstatement of a President who has been accused of various crimes, including treason.

Obama not only has ushered in a dark period in American race relations. He has also undermined our credibility in international affairs and proven yet again that the American government simply cannot keep its meddling mitts out of Latin American affairs.

Mr. President: Inaction is not a strategy.

In response to the recent crackdown by the Iranian regimes against millions of protesters in defense of what they perceive was a corrupt and stolen election, President Obama has tended to be remarkably silent. So quiet, in fact, he has been accused by some as “voting Present”.

Obama, in response to growing pressure, has finally made a new statement (from The Belgravia):

"The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion... Right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness."

In short, Obama has only committed to “bear witness” to the actions of the Iranian regime. But what consequences are there? The Mullahs must be thinking: “So what?”

Obama recently took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement to Iran that coincided with their new year, known as Noruz. In that statement, Obama made one very important point:
“The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.”

This was just weeks before the Iranian elections that triggered the upheaval. Considering the stunning courage on display by unarmed Iranian citizens who have continued to march while they are gunned down by government snipers, I feel that the “true greatness” of at least one sector of the “Iranian people and civilization” is on clear display. To this, we bear witness, but should we stop there?

While some on the left have stated that the United States should not do or say anything that would be interpreted as “meddling” in the “sovereign” affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, because “the Iranians don’t want our interference” (overheard on radio commentaries), we should also “bear witness” to the fact that the protestors carried innumerable placards written in English—the language in Iran is Farsi, not English. So why would they do that, if they were not sending a message out to the rest of the world, that they are fighting for freedom, and hope for support? On a twitter page I read the comment sent by an Iranian that stated (in English): “Thank you for paying attention to our struggle.”

In a speech Obama made speaking to the Wisconsin Democratic Party Dinner in Milwaukee on the campaign trail, he said:
"Don't tell me words don't matter," Obama said. "'I have a dream.' Just words? 'We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.' Just words?

The sentiment behind that speech was that words that bear undeniable truths are somehow more than simple, hollow phrases. They are powerful, capable of changing minds, nations, even the world.

And it is clear that Obama, who has been lauded as one of the great political speakers of our time, has a love affair with words, although he apparently cannot commit them to memory, and must have them displayed for him on a teleprompter.

It may be fruitful to review the words he uttered in Egypt, while promoting himself as the American ambassador to the Muslim world. His intention there was not just to apologize for America (he had done enough of that in Europe and Turkey), but to smooth over the differences—both perceived and real—between the Muslim world and our nation. And he started by reiterating some of the concepts that he believes are universal truths.

“…Recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.”

How right you are, Mr. President. Words alone are useless. We must act boldly. And when he stood upon that dais, it would have been easy to imagine that he would follow up those words with brave acts. After all, he continued: “We must face these tensions squarely.”

Obama had set the stage for bold actions that would support Muslims who sought peaceful progress toward democracy. In citing the case of Israel and Palestine, he urged the Palestinians to seek justice through peaceful means, because “resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.”

I myself have stated the same point, although certainly not as eloquently as Obama, his staff of writers, and his reliable teleprompter were able to do. “America will align our policies with those who pursue peace,” he promised in the same speech.

His message appears to have been especially prescient, foretelling the upcoming electoral clash in Iran. Bear witness to the following two paragraphs of rhetorical brilliance:
“I …have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.”

Elections alone do not make true democracy.

I wonder if the Iranians, who are dying by the score in the streets of Tehran, had heard this speech. I wonder if they took heart in these words, so courageously uttered from the safety of a well-guarded dais at a major university in Egypt, and if they wrote their English placards for him.

So what, Mr. Obama? So you went out of your way to tell the world that America is not at war with Islam. So what? And then you travelled around Europe apologizing for what you perceived as the errors of American arrogance, we who dare to “impose our values” upon other nations. So what? And then you, with the unique heritage of Christian and Muslim roots, who saw Islam from the perspective of three different nations, you who recognize that our American values are international, are human rights, and that elections are not legitimate if the will of the people is quashed by coercive means. So what? Are these “just words”?

What the Iranians want from you now, is not just the empty echo of truisms read from a teleprompter; what they want from you now, what the entire world is waiting to see, is how you convert your beautiful prose into meaningful actions.

Rhetoric is the tool of rabble rousers, propagandists and flim flam artists. American Presidents cannot rely upon rhetoric alone. They must lead through action—action that is often unpopular among some quarters, action that angers the tyrants who coerce and oppress their people, action that may have unpredictable outcomes, but actions, nonetheless.

Mr. President: Inaction is not a strategy.

***UPDATE***
Obama has now made new statements...words...
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared the United States and the entire world "appalled and outraged" by Iran's violent efforts to crush dissent, a clear toughening of his rhetoric as Republican critics at home pound him for being too passive.
Obama condemned the "threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days. "
"I strongly condemn these unjust actions," Obama said in a news conference at the White House.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared the United States and the entire world "appalled and outraged" by Iran's violent efforts to crush dissent, a clear toughening of his rhetoric as Republican critics at home pound him for being too passive.
Obama condemned the "threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days. "
"I strongly condemn these unjust actions," Obama said in a news conference at the White House.

"I have made it clear that the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering in Iran's affairs," Obama said. "But we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the Iranian people, and to a remarkable opening within Iranian society. And we deplore violence against innocent civilians anywhere that it takes place."

"We have seen courageous women stand up to brutality and threats, and we have experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets," Obama said. "While this loss is raw and painful, we also know this: Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history."

**SO WHAT? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? WHAT DOES YOUR TELEPROMPTER SUGGEST THAT YOU DO?**

A wonderful comment from "rto"

I was reading a story about the behavior of the Whitehouse press corp who apparently refused to turn off their cellphones and repeatedly interrupted the buffoon Whitehouse press secretary known as Robert Gibbs. The article itself was interesting and amusing. But within the readers' comments was a little nugget from "rto", no more detail provided. I liked it, and thought I'd post it so it might be read more widely. Kudos to the mysterious "rto".

Barack Obama:
A “reverend and mentor” who GD’s America...
A wife who has never been “proud” of America...
A man who runs on transparency – then seals his college records to prove it...
A man who claims citizenship – then hires a team of lawyers to secure it...
A man who would attempt to destroy another life – simply for asking a question he should have answered...
A man who campaigns on eight years of runaway spending and a deficit – then quadruples it in less than 100 days...
A man who bans lobbyist – then attempts to hire one...
A man who condemns cheats and dishonesty – then appoints one to run the treasury...
A man who vows to find all of the tax cheats in this country – but fails to turn around and confront one...
A man who has never held a job – but the most important one in the world...
A man who feels hard work should pay – for those who choose not to work…
A man who’s ability to speak – is dictated by his ability to read….
A man who feels government can solve the problems it faces – while addressing everything but the problems it created…
A man who signs a contract – but does not read it....
A man who runs a government – the opposite way he runs his home…
A man who preaches “equality for all” – then targets 5% unequally...
A man who pledges to reduce the tax for 95% then raises them for 100%...
A man who feels all have the right to own a home – even if they cannot pay for it….
A man who speaks of responsible behavior – then throws a party every Wednesday night....
A man who tells me to show fiscal responsibility – then borrows and spends money he doesn’t have....
A man who loans my money to a bank – then refuses to allow that bank to repay me my money....
A man who loans my money to a car company – then gives majority ownership to the autoworkers union who bankrupted it...
A man who supports failure “in” this country – while promoting failure “of” this country...
A man who speaks of practical solutions – using impractical methods…
A man who shows me nothing for my money that he spent – and tells me it’s “my patriotic duty” to give him more...
A man who has never run a business – but would like to tell me how to run mine...
A man who would operate the highest office in the land – similar to the way the mafia operates the lowest...
A man who pledges allegiance to the constitution – then nullifies and voids a perfectly legal contract protected by it...
A man who follows the belief that upholding the immigration laws of America – is unpatriotic and unAmerican...
A man who turns his back on this countries friends – while embracing this countries sworn enemies...
A man who is willing to provided for those who attacked this country – while degrading those trying to defend it...
A man who would even think of not providing for this countries fallen – after his order fell them...
A man who “voices” free choice – then systematically seeks to silence the voiceless...
A man who pleads for God’s blessing of America – then destroys the greatest gift ever given to it....

When government owns the press

Life is full of ironies.

I remember the grand days of the GOP, when Reagan stated so astutely that “Government is not the solution to our problems; Government is the problem.” For a wonderful period of time afterward, the fashion was to reduce government, and by the end of the Clinton era, the Democrat President and the Republican Congress and Senate had reduced government enough that we actually had a budget surplus.

After the September 11th attack, however, the Republicans suddenly forgot their roots and decided that we needed new bureaucracies to “keep us safe”. That was the first irony. The pendulum began to swing in the opposite direction, heralding a return to the era of big government. The ultra-liberal Obama administration is taking this to its orgiastic conclusion, and we now see a promise of massive, intrusive government, massive spending, and massive debts. Oh, and of course, massive taxes to pay for it all.

We’re informed that “It’s patriotic to pay taxes.”
Then we are told that “higher taxes will stimulate the economy because the government won’t have to borrow so much, there will be more private capital available for investment, so interest rates will go down.”
“All this government spending will stimulate the economy and we will see record growth,” they promise.
“We have no intention of running the automobile industry,” said the Obama administration, as they “rescued” the company, declared that they owned it, fired the executives, cut their advertizing budgets in half, gave majority stake to the Unions that did not own sufficient stock to warrant this gift, and violated the constitutional protections of the shareholders by bullying them in the bankruptcy negotiations.
“We don’t want to nationalize the banks,” they soothed, while gobbling up one after another, controlling their boards, refusing to allow the banks to repay the money, and tinkering in their internal policies.

But now we have some great news to celebrate. Washington State has approved a bailout of its newspapers! Yes, it’s true. And isn’t it glorious?

No, they won’t be actually giving the papers money. You see, in these challenging times, the Seattle Times can’t compete with online news sources. They are going to collapse, just like the Rocky Mountain News and others before them. Sound the bugles, the liberals have come riding over the hills with—irony number two—a 40% tax cut.

Wait a minute. Aren’t tax cuts the hallmark of Republican policies?

Well, why stop there? As Conservatives have been saying, if you want to stimulate the economy, cut corporate taxes! Don’t stop with the newspapers, cut the taxes on the auto industry! Cut taxes on the medical industry! Reduce the costs of doing business and watch how they grow.

The flip side of the tax cut for the newspapers is something that should alarm us all. I heard a radio commentator state that the newspapers should never be given “government money”. In reality, they are not being given “government money”, but rather are being allowed to keep a greater share of their own money. But the perspective is clear: they are being given “government money”.

If a newspaper receives money from the government, how can it possibly continue to be an independent watchdog of those same politicians that gave them the funds?

I’m sure we will be calmed with promises that “we have no intention of owning the newspapers, controlling their content, or restricting their editorials.”

And we would believe them because they have already demonstrated their noble intentions with the auto and banking industries.

If anything, we already were witness to the voluntary prostration of the news media to the socialist agenda during the 2008 elections. We are witness to their continued unwillingness to ask tough questions of Dear Leader Obama. We see how they verbally berate, assault, insult, and malign conservatives, invoking accusations of treachery, vulgar references to oral sex, and misogynist denigrations of innocent women who dare to express their values.

So why should we be concerned that these same papers are now accepting bailout bucks from the socialists?

Go back to sleep, people. There is nothing to see. Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez has already closed down opposition channel RCTV, forcing them to broadcast from Colombia, and now promises a “little surprise” as he prepares to shut down the last free television network, Globovision.

But that would never happen here. This is America. OK, sure, Chavez is a socialist, and Obama is a socialist, but Obama is a nice guy. We can trust Dear Leader with our freedoms.

Forget the Bush Doctrine. We need to look forward.

Coffee break talk last Friday centered on Sarah Palin’s first interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson. In general, she received good marks for her adroit responses to Gibson’s questions, with the one exception being Gibson’s alleged “gotcha” moment when he asked her: "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?''

Palin paused, looking a bit perplexed, and tried to get some clarification by asking: “In what regard?”

When Gibson finally—and rather pedantically—revealed that he was referring to the Bush policy of pre-emptive strikes, Palin responded by reaffirming that the US has the right to respond to what it perceives as an imminent threat.

Liberals tried to point to this moment as an example of how Palin is weak on her comprehension of international policies and is ignorant about the “Bush Doctrine”. All which is powerfully contradicted by the brilliant commentator, Charles Krauthammer, in his article “Gibson’s Gaffe”.

Krauthammer makes the point that there is not one “Bush Doctrine”, but rather a total of four. The one to which Gibson referred is the third in the series, and technically was incorrect, because it is Bush’s fourth policy statement that will probably be remembered as his “doctrine”:

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of
liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of
freedom in all the world."

Liberals have remained fixated on Bush’s third policy statement, the one stating that the US has the right to preemptively strike against nations that harbor terrorists or support them and pose a threat to US security. They cling to this argument because they believe they will gain political points—and political office—by reminding America of how we got into the war in Iraq.

This may be an interesting discussion, but discussions of "presidential doctrine" is table fare for historians and will do nothing for America's future. So Charlie Gibson's question was not only misleading and probably wrong, but really was totally irrelevant!

I’d like to use this moment as an example of how these so-called “leaders” are not leading at all. It was not Bush’s third policy statement that is now heating the current and riskiest global crisis, but his fourth and most far-reaching that needs deeper examination.

The “Bush Doctrine” quoted by Krauthammer is potentially the more controversial of the two. After all, it this part of the Bush policies that has inspired the administration to take such an aggressively supportive role of Eastern European democracies such as Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, and Georgia. Bush’s determination to defend the former Soviet bloc countries is making Moscow feel threatened. In response to the ‘missile shield’ that the United States is offering to put into Poland and the Czech republic is at the source of the conflict with Georgia/Russia. We must remember that it was shortly after the Bush administration worked out deals to locate the missiles in Poland that Moscow responded, threatening that their response could be a military one.

Russian President Medvedev was quoted in NOVOSTI, Russian news source:

“These missiles are close to our borders and constitute a threat to us,"
Medvedev said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on Tuesday. "This will
create additional tension and we will have to respond to it in some way,
naturally using military means." … The Russian president said that offering NATO
membership to Georgia and Ukraine, two former Soviet republics, would only
aggravate the situation.

Shortly afterward, the Russians apparently manufactured a political crisis in Georgia by encouraging Georgian rebels of Russian descent to ramp up their activities. The Georgians responded militarily in an attempt to restore control of the breakaway region, giving Moscow the excuse it wanted to invade the territory in the role of “peace keepers.”

While the US and Europe wrung their hands over the issue, it became clear that the US was not willing to confront Russia militarily. But the Bush administration did respond diplomatically, and began to press to speed the inclusion of the other Soviet bloc nations in NATO, thus providing them with a promise of multilateral military defense, if needed.

Predictably, this action again provoked Russia. But watch this time, it appears that the Russians are looking to expand their influence in our hemisphere.

Weeks after the Georgian conflict, as tensions between the United States and Russia continue to escalate, Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez declared that Venezuela sided with the Russians in the Georgian affair, and bragged that the Russians and Venezuelans were planning war games in the Caribbean region.

The Russians then flew two Tu-160 long distance strategic bombers into Venezuela. Chavez declared that the presence of the bombers was a warning to Washington that “Venezuela is no longer poor and alone.”

Other reports indicated that Chavez had been courting Russia for a long time in the hope of convincing Moscow to establish a Navy port there and install an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean.
Congresswoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said she was not concerned about the presence of the Russian bombers in Venezuela: “I don’t think Russia would launch attacks on the United States.” By contrast, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md) said that “There is a continuing pattern over the last several months of Russian intimidation…and they are using the same old bullying intimidation tactics that go back to Brezhnev and Stalin.”

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, stated clear concern.

“What you are suggesting doesn’t surprise me, and yes it concerns me,” said Murkowski. “If it is clearly a flexing of muscle and effort to display force, it makes you wonder what the objective is and what the appropriate response should be.”

What is the objective?

Today’s leaders—both Republicans and Democrats—may be missing the point entirely. The threat is not that Russia might launch a military attack against the United States. It is that the Russians might act as a shield to protect Chavez’s socialist regime, giving him the ability to increase his interventionist policies in regional countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and others.

This past weekend, violence erupted in some of the Bolivian ‘departments’ (the equivalent of states) between supporters of socialist president Evo Morales and his conservative, capitalist opponents. The Bolivians expelled the American diplomat, claiming that he was promoting violent protests. Chavez stepped in and expelled the American diplomat in Caracas, causing a quid pro quo expulsion of the Venezuelan ambassador from Washington. Chavez then demanded that the Bolivian government respond with force to the “imperialist aggression” and that if Morales was overthrown, he—President Chavez—would send Venezuelan troops to Boliva. “I am prepared to die for Boliva,” he professed.

If the Russians had a naval base in Venezuela, Chavez would feel free to deliver on his repeated, hollow threats. The borderline-dictator and friend to the Colombia FARC terrorists, having bought the technology to build a Kalashnikov AK-47 and ammunition factory in Venezuela, would have the ability to arm hundreds of thousands of rebel forces throughout the continent, thus turning his dream of creating a continental revolutionary army into a reality. Russian protection would make US intervention in this plan much more difficult.

The objective that eludes our congressmen and women could be this: if the US continues to make threatening moves in the Russian neighborhood, they will respond with parallel maneuvers. If we are uncomfortable, we will have to back off our support for the Soviet bloc democracies to get the Russians out of our back yard.

I cannot reiterate strongly enough how potentially dangerous this is. Chavez has repeatedly insisted that the “non-aligned” nations, including Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc. need to work together to create an “asymmetrical” attack on the United States, in his words, to create many “Viet Nams” which would simply be too much for the United States to handle.

The United States is already struggling with the entry of millions of illegal aliens, and this during a time of relative peace throughout Latin America. If Chavez manages to create a wave of socialist revolutions across the continent, the number of refugees could increase exponentially.

It is time for the representatives in Washington to get this through their heads: Hugo Chavez is a serious threat to Democracy in the hemisphere, and his alliance with Russia is potentially explosive.

What should be the American doctrine on the Eastern European democracies? Are we really ready to go to war to defend them when they are threatened by Russian imperialism? If so, are we willing to go to war to defend democracies in our own hemisphere that are threatened by local (Bolivarian) and European (Russian) imperialism? The two concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have nearly broken our nation. Are we going to be drawn into the many "Viet Nams" in which Chavez and his cronies want to lure us, in order to lure us into our own doom?

The best thing that could happen right now would be for idiots like Charlie Gibson to stop playing "Gotcha" and instead start asking Presidential candidates Obama and McCain to address this issue now and clarify what they would do about the situation.