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Treason at Copenhagen

When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made the announcement this week that it has declared carbon dioxide (CO2) and five other gases as “a danger to human health,” it fired the most lethal salvo yet into what little sovereignty remains of our constitutional republic. With her so-called “endangerment finding” declaration, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson made clear that this declaration will lead to new regulations under the Clean Air Act to govern emission standards for cars, power plants, crude-oil refineries, chemical plants and all other “environmental suspects” in the economic engine that drives the U.S. economy.  It appears that the act of exhaling when breathing will now become regulated.

In making this announcement on the same day in which the United Nations climate change conference began in Copenhagen, Denmark, Jackson was making it clear that when Obama attends the last day of the conference, he will be able to unilaterally commit the United States to a binding, international treaty that will begin the process of ceding our national sovereignty to a body of UN bureaucrats.  It is designed to make Obama look like “the savior” since the coming EPA regulations will practically force the US into signing a “Cap-and-Trade” bill to lower its carbon footprint to such a low target that will make U.S. economic growth virtually unsustainable. 

In light of the recent ClimateGate revelations, in which some 3,500 emails from the Climate Change Unit (CCU) at Britain’s University of East Anglia revealed the extent to which man-made global warming backers went to illegally skew real climate data in order to cover and hide the truth, the EPA should not be making this announcement, let alone hinting at further regulation. Because “man-made” climate change is not real, and every delegate at the UN conference knows it, the EPA’s actions are a means to hurry a final agreement before the masses really discover just how they have been lied to about the “urgency” of “global warming.”

It is an absolute scandal that the head of the UN panel of climate scientists have decided to attack the entire ClimateGate affair as nothing more than a way to undermine the credibility of the organization. Despite the fact that they were caught red-handed from the content in these emails, these hypocrites choose instead to lash out at those who exposed the fraud rather than try to come clean on what really is going on. The emails are directly from “respected” climate scientists, who, in their own words, exchanged messages that say real climate temperatures have not really risen to dangerous levels. Rather than try to find out why this is the case, they decided to engineer methods to keep all opposing viewpoints from being argued while covering real data with false data to match their own desired  “results.” 

The lack of any acknowledgment by the delegates at Copenhagen, and by our own President and the members of his radical leftist administration have been deafening.  If this is the so-called “science” on which Obama happily bases his actions in leading our national sovereignty to slaughter in a binding treaty, without question and without the support of Congress, it is akin to an act of treason against our constitutional republic. 

The Copenhagen conference is not about “man-made global warming,” it is about setting up an international, global supervisory body under UN auspices, in order to facilitate the transfer of national wealth and sovereignty from wealthy nations to the Third World. It is not about trying to save the planet, rather it is a means of controlling individual freedoms and getting your income in a global tax in order to transfer your income to bring about a lower standard of living in the developed world to match that of poor and corrupt nations.  In reality, this is about punishing success and free enterprise, especially the United States. 

Under the Treaty Clause in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, the President of the United States is only empowered to make treaties with other nations only after obtaining the consent of a two-thirds super majority of the United States Senate. This has not yet happened, nor will it before Obama goes to Copenhagen with the EPA declaration. Yet the Obama administration has indicated that the President will sign a binding treaty which will force the U.S. to commit to a twenty percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. Of course, the socialist European climate scammers are excited by Obama’s arrival in Copenhagen armed with bureaucratic, top-down command-style regulation rather than a legitimate mandate based on Congressional legislation. After all, they are unelected power-hungry bureaucrats who are excited to see this president doing everything in his power to literally destroy the liberty, sovereignty and power of the United States from within. 

Treason, defined at Dictionary.com, is 1. The offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or to harm or kill its sovereign. 2. A violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state. 3. The betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery., as defined at
 
If Obama attempts to surrender our national sovereignty to an unelected bureaucracy at Copenhagen, which is openly known to be based on junk science which is founded on fraudulent data, he knows that he will undermine our economic health, military strength and standard of living, while forcing us to pay taxes to an unelected, global body where we are not represented. He knows he will be bypassing the required legislative process as defined in the U.S. Constitution, therefore trampling our guaranteed liberties and rights as citizens of the United States and protected by the U.S. Constitution. Based on the definitions as stated, I believe Obama will meet most of the definitions for treason.
 
If we are going to continue standing idly by while Obama’s radical left leads us down the path of intentional destruction, and we do not start peacefully speaking up to the current Administration’s total disregard for the laws set in our Constitution, then we will not survive as an independent nation much longer.
 
The coming House cleaning in November 2010 will go a long way toward restoring a real check on Obama’s current unbridled power.

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Obama's Gift to Al Qaeda and the Taliban

FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 file photo, U.S. Army soldiers belonging to the Alpha troop 3-71 Cavalry Squadron and members of the South Carolina National Guard patrol near the town of Baraki Barak, Logar province, Afghanistan. This is Logar province: scene of a major U.S. military surge, fuel for the argument by senior commanders that more troops and aid infusions could reverse Taliban gains in other areas of Afghanistan and ultimately culminate the war in victory.
FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 file photo, U.S. Army soldiers belonging to the Alpha troop 3-71 Cavalry Squadron and members of the South Carolina National Guard patrol near the town of Baraki Barak, Logar province, Afghanistan. This is Logar province: scene of a major U.S. military surge, fuel for the argument by senior commanders that more troops and aid infusions could reverse Taliban gains in other areas of Afghanistan and ultimately culminate the war in victory.
(AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)

As I watched President Obama give his speech on how he will conduct the war in Afghanistan last night, I became convinced that this man is not a true leader in the mold of Winston Churchill or Ronald Reagan. Instead, Obama is simply a politician who is more concerned about his political future and the Democrat’s hold on power than he is about giving our military the support needed to win the war. Obama decided that it is more important to give the left wing of his party what they want, rather than being the Commander-in-Chief that our soldiers need. The radical left of his party want us to pack up and surrender the effort in order to leave a power vacuum in Afghanistan from which Al Qaeda and the Taliban can re-establish their terrorist base of operations. By giving away our military game plan, telling our enemies how weak and broke we are, and putting a unilateral deadline for our withdrawal on the surge, it appears that Obama decided to give our Al Qaeda and Taliban enemies and his leftist friends an early Christmas gift.

Obama stood before an audience of West Point cadets, many of whom will be sent to the war zone and some who will not return, and attempted to politicize the entire effort in order to hedge his bets to protect his political reputation and agenda. First, he spent a great deal of time blaming former President George W. Bush, rehashing the Iraq war as a huge mistake that took resources away from Afghanistan. Then Obama proceeded to take personal credit for the success in Iraq by mentioning that his actions have allowed for the “responsible withdrawal” of all US troops from that country by next summer.

I could not help but notice that Obama still cannot bring himself to admit that the surge, which Bush authorized in the Iraq war, worked in bringing about a successful outcome in that country. Yet Obama made sure to take the credit personally for his ability to completely withdraw from Iraq in a “responsible manner” by the middle of next year. Had Obama been president when Bush actually was making the surge decision, there is no doubt that he would not only have opposed any surge, but would have withdrawn unconditionally and left a mess in Iraq. He said so much during the campaign last year. The only reason he can withdraw the military next year is because the surge did work and Bush would not leave until there was victory.

After taking credit for Iraq’s success, he moved on to the subject for which the speech was intended. First, the President rattled off the history of the situation going back to 9/11, and for a brief moment, appeared to “get it.” He seemed to be heading in the right direction of explaining why we must prosecute the Afghan war so there will no longer be a new terrorist haven from which to attack us again. But just as I started to believe he was going to start lifting morale and energizing Americans and the military to carry on with the fight ahead, Obama returned to his petty politicizing of the war to criticize how it had been handled up to now. He acted as though there had not been any success in Afghanistan prior to his watch, and failed to credit his predecessor for wiping the Taliban from power within 60 days of the initial invasion. He failed to recognize prior success of pushing Al Qaeda into a defensive position by taking its power base away. He spent time explaining how polarized all Americans are over the war now because of its conduct in the past, and then started to defend his reason for a surge of troops and his reason for setting a deadline for the war.
In defending the 100 days it took for Obama to act on the initial request from his chief commander of operations in Afghanistan, he made deflective statements that were designed again to protect his reputation. By claiming to be tied down by restrictions as to when he was allowed to commit more forces, he was attempting to divert attention away from his political reasons for stalling the decision. He also acted as though he had gone through all sorts of agonizing decision-making analysis in finally committing 30,000 additional troops to the Afghan theater. He explained why he was not going to authorize the 40,000 personnel that his generals had requested, as it was too expensive and the US is too financially ruined to sustain its defense against Islamist terrorism. Obama used the cover of additional troops that he expects the “international community” to provide cover for the 10,000 difference. Then, during what was supposed to be a speech focused on military objectives for the war in Afghanistan, Obama chose to be a politician again, by using the speech to state that his real objective was to focus on “rebuilding” America rather than making it possible for the Afghanistan to put itself back together.

After telling our friends and enemies alike just how bad our morale and fighting capabilities are, he then proceeded to tell the enemy our plans for conducting the war for the next year and a half. The plan consists of a “brilliant” strategy for putting these troops into action between January and June of 2010, and then making sure our troops are all withdrawn by July 2011. He did not once mention “winning” as the objective of the surge to end the war. His idea of victory seems to be getting all soldiers out of there by his deadline. In this way he could please the left wing of his own party and liberal idealists, and be ready to use the “successful” withdrawal as an asset when he runs for re-election. It is not an accident that he chose July 2011 as his complete withdrawal date.

Now Al Qaeda and the Taliban know our plans, our weaknesses and our scheduled date of withdrawal. They know when the additional troops will come over, and when they will leave. The enemy simply gets to adjust their own strategies of engagement to Obama’s planned schedule by choosing when to disappear and reappear to fight another day. They will now get to control the prosecution of the war because they “got our playbook” from Obama. Our troops will not be the ones who choose the battlefield or the time and method of attack, as they will be on the defensive. And don’t think for a minute that the enemy has not marked August 1, 2011 as the date they take over the government in Afghanistan.

It is impossible to imagine Winston Churchill, at the height of World War II, explaining that the German blitz had wiped out most of Britain’s capabilities to fight on, and that morale in the island was so low that any invasion of Hitler’s territories would be governed by an artificial deadline. Just think of the consequences had Roosevelt and Churchill openly stated, in 1944, that once we put our troops into Normandy, we would plan on leaving France in 12 months as our goal is to get out of there, not the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. After Hitler watched their public announcement on a newsreel, he would simply pull his frontline back far enough to wait out the 12 months, and then go back to reoccupy the ground that the Allies vacated because the clock had run its course. Then, when he had rebuilt his war machine, he could again bomb London and perhaps finish the invasion that he first attempted five years earlier. Fortunately, Churchill was a shrewd wartime leader who understood the necessity of boosting his compatriot’s morale and defining the goals of the war in terms that did not give away Allied military secrets. He was a gifted speaker and wordsmith, and he knew how to use those gifts to clearly state the objective was complete destruction of the Nazis and complete and total victory over Germany.

While Obama is said to be a gifted speaker by many, (I am not one of those who see this “gift”) he has not used his alleged gift to raise our morale and motivate us to action for a final objective. Instead, Obama has foregone victory as the top goal by making clear that our “real” objective is to start the clock on removing our troops by July 2011. He has put an 18 month deadline on the mission, telling us that the war would be run against a clock like a football game rather than getting the job done. The real objective is to get Obama re-elected in 2012.

And so, it appears that Obama is saying “Merry Christmas” to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and his radical leftist friends here in the States. And sooner or later, we will get an explosive thank-you note for not winning the war completely.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!
 

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Climate Change Fraud Exposed!

James Delingpole at the U.K. Telegraph has written a piece of advice for those who are invested in stocks related to companies in the "alternative energy" business. Alternative energy means wind turbins, solar power and water power sources. The advice is to dump the stocks fast, because the lie of "man-made global warming" has finally been exposed for the fraud it is.

It appears that hackers have broken into the Hackley CRU (Climate Research Unit) and have released 61 megabytes of confidential files pertaining to man-made global warming onto the Internet. The data appears to validate what we conservatives have known for years; man-made global warming is nothing more than a hoax that is designed for the leftist, elitist and radical enviromental groups in the West to tax all of us, over-regulate all of us, and finally, have total control over all of us. The files allegedly demonstrate the legths to which the left would go to hide any evidence to the contrary. There is a reason that Al Gore will not take any unscripted questions from his audiences when he jets around the world to give his powerpoint presentation on how the Earth is going to die if we do not enact cap-and-trade (a.k.a. cap-and-tax) on all of us to stop this "man-caused disaster." Al Gore has refused any offers to intelligently debate those scientists whom would back their argument of the global warming fraud with empirical evidence. Gore, like all liberals, are afraid of the truth, and so their strategy is to simply attack those who disagree with their world-view by not debating the other side. Instead, the radical left attempts to destroy those who can actually disprove the likes of Gore with real facts and scientific evidence. To radical leftist environmentalists, the ends justify the means. In this case, the ends are completely controlling what you eat, wear, drive, ride, and think. The ends are completely controlling where you will live, what size your dwelling will be, and where you will work. The ends are their ability to take between 50-90% of your income in order to "combat man-made global warming." So the means of complete control over all avenues of communication and media, shutting down any opponents, and hiding all evidence that will prove their theory and argument as false are hidden away. The means include Alinsky rules such as picking the target, i.e. scientists who do not buy into the climate-catastrophe hype, and doing all they can to discredit that scientist. One at a time, they do this, in the hopes that all who can disprove the man-made global warming hoax will fear what can become of them if they go public and argue against the fraud.

Which brings me back to Mr. Delingpole's report. This just proves what we already know. It proves that the radical left will stoop to any level for nothing more than aggresive, naked grabs at total power over all of us. If the truth gets in the way, they simply hide it away, and it "disappears" as though it never existed in the first place. Just like the Communist Party used to erase people from pictures in the old Soviet Union. Anyone with whom the party disagreed with, or those people who could expose the lies of the Communists, were simply "erased" from ever existing. Today's radical leftists are absolutely no different.

Obama is slowly succeeding in his attempt to destroy America from within. If he goes to Copenhagen to sign the latest "man-made global warming" treaty, in lieu of the evidence just released on the Internet, no doubt can be left as to what this man's real objective for our country is.

Source:

1. Telegraph U.K.- Climategate: the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?

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Fort Hood: A Politically Correct Massacre

In the aftermath of the Fort Hood atrocity, the mainstream media are wringing their hands over the "tragedy," while trying to wrap their heads around "what made poor Hasan snap?" The usual stream of mainstream media suspects, such as MSNBC, ABC News, NBC News and CBS News, trotted out their usual repertoire of politically correct excuses while obscuring the facts. Everything from  "snapping under tremendous pressure," or "pre-combat stress syndrome” were given as reasons why Major Hasan decided to go on a murder spree earlier this week.

If that isn’t enough, the mainstream media attempted to place blame on the shooting  victims as “the instigators” while putting the shooter on the “victim pedestal, “ with claims the killing spree was the result of "continued harassment" that Major Hasan allegedly experienced from his fellow soldiers. This warped viewpoint places the blame on the very soldiers who were killed or wounded, but not on Major Hasan.  

However, there is one small detail the liberal mainstream media continues to conveniently over look. It is the fact that Major Hasan is a radical Muslim who believes waging war against his fellow soldiers is willed by his religion. He has unabashedly let many of those who were serving with him know exactly where he stood on this issue. His Power Point presentation, which can be seen at this link at the website Atlas Shrugs, pretty much sums it all up in Hasan’s own words. He simply follows what his religion teaches him, and that means murdering all those who are not Muslim or do not submit to Islam. But you won't hear that at the media outlets named above. You will only hear more of the same politically correct assessments and the obligatory "Islam is the Religion of Peace" statement. “Journalists” such as Chris Matthews will simply blur the facts and bury their heads in the sand, refusing to believe their own eyes and ears. They will try to equate all other religions as having their own extremists in an attempt to whitewash the religious ideology behind this terrorist act in order to explain the shootings as the work of a “lone disgruntled gunman.” When the perpetrator literally explains his reasoning in a detailed 41- page presentation and the media still chooses to ignore the facts, the media become accessories to the crime by hiding facts from the public.

Political correctness has run amok. It is driven by the media, creating a culture of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” as evil stares them in the face. It paralyzes individuals for fear of being labeled as ”racist" or "intolerant" if they see, hear or know of something that could lead to harming others down the road. Instead of risking being labeled in such ways, people choose to ignore certain realities and look the other way instead of reporting suspicious actions and behaviors. In this case, Major Hasan's colleagues were fearful of his radical language and open threats to kill American soldiers, yet they failed to report these incidents through their chains of command out of fear of being targeted for "Islamophobia" by the likes of the Center of American Islamic Relations (C.A.I.R.). Being labeled as such would have ended their careers in terms of advancement, as the stigma of bigotry would follow them everywhere. Rather than being destroyed in such a manner, it was preferable to keep these incidents to themselves.

Most of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims are peaceful, simply going about their daily lives. However, even if just 1  percent of them are willing to wage violent jihad against "infidels”, then it means there is an army of 100 million extremists who are dedicated to imposing radical Islamic rule on everyone and everywhere, including here in the United States. If we do not wake up to the paralysis of fear that created, led and fueled by the politically correct crowd, it will lead to our inability to protect ourselves. Our failure to recognize the threat and state the obvious about Islamist terrorism will only lead to more of these atrocities being committed in the future.

Right or wrong, there is a stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists. While this is not true, it is also not lost on the public that almost every terrorist act in the world is carried out by a Muslim in the name of Islam. While we should not rush to judgment to condemn an entire religion because of the actions of the 1 percent, the Islamic community needs to understand why non-Muslims hold such stereotypes and begin confronting the radicalism in their faith. That would go a long way toward eliminating distrust between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Hasan’s apologists and defenders in the mainstream media, and those of the politically correct left contribute nothing positive when they gloss over the facts. Excuses such as “snapping under pre-combat stress syndrome,” to run cover for mass terrorist murder by an army officer who had not yet deployed to a combat zone is an insult to all military personnel who are doing their duty. The media’s shameless attempt to sugarcoat the truth will only make matters worse for everyone.

Political correctness killed 13 unarmed people earlier this week. Unless we are willing to start calling a spade a spade, political correctness will continue to get innocent people killed.

 

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Bag-Eyed Nancy: Pelosi in Denial

Remember “Baghdad-Bob,” who denied that American forces were anywhere near the capital during the first phase of the Iraq War? He was the Iraqi Information Minister famous for holding daily press conferences in which he made statements that implied American troops were “committing suicide at the city gates in the hundreds,” and “the Americans are surrendering or they get burned in their tanks.” Of course, when he was making these statements, American troops, tanks and equipment were already in Baghdad, literally a few hundred meters away from “Bob,” and everyone present at those conferences knew it. I would venture to say that the sight of American tanks in the background, down the street from where “Bob” spoke, made it difficult for “Bob” to convince his audience to not believe their own lying eyes. “Bob” was in a state of severe denial, choosing to believe his own fantasy rather than the reality that was rapidly overtaking his former world. In the end, his bubble burst and he had to deal with reality.
 
I remember laughing out loud the first time I saw “Baghdad-Bob’s” statements. At first, I thought it was a comedy sketch on a cable network, because it seemed so unreal that anyone could really be that clueless. However, I soon discovered the entire story was actually true, and that “Bob” really had believed Iraq was winning, America was losing, and the tanks he was seeing were actually figments of his own imagination.
 
Now, here in America, we have our own version of “Baghdad Bob,” whom I call “Bag-eyed Nancy,” a.k.a. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. On Tuesday, her party took heavy losses across the board. Democrats lost the governorship, lieutenant governorship and attorney general offices in Virginia, which voted for Obama one year ago. Worse for her party, was the loss of the governor’s office in New Jersey, which is typically a very liberal state, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1.  President Obama spent a lot of his political capital in stumping for the Democratic incumbent governor, Jon Corzine, as did several other high-ranking Democrats. Yet Corzine was finally sent packing by Republican Chris Christie, who stayed on track with his conservative campaign message against bloated spending, big government and over regulation. In contrast, Corzine used every liberal Democratic trick in their bag, including his attempt to tie Christie to former President Bush and trying to steer the electorate’s attention from New Jersey’s battered economy to cultural issues like gun control and gay marriage. Seems that Corzine was following Obama’s strategy of trying to “blame Bush” for his lack of success. Like Obama, he preferred to blame a man who has not been the President for 11 months, but was never in charge of New Jersey at all. So now Corzine will join the unemployed ranks of his state come January 2010.
 
Then there is the story of northern New York’s 23rd Congressional District, in which Democrat Bill Owens won the seat. This is the first time a Democrat has taken the moderate-to-conservative district away from the Republicans in a century and here is where “Bag-eyed Nancy” comes into the picture. Citing this one Democratic victory in upper New York State and one other Democratic victory in a liberal district in California as evidence of a mandate for her continued agenda of forcing America toward  socialism, Pelosi opined that,"From our perspective, we won last night." However, Pelosi’s remark is more spin than anything else. The 23rd district was not a traditional two-party, two-candidate race. It was a three-way race, with an independent conservative candidate, Doug Hoffman, running against the Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava and Democrat Owens. The problem for Pelosi’s rationale is the fact that Scozzafava is a radical, social and fiscal liberal who supports partial-birth abortion, socialized health care, union car checks that eliminate secret ballots, cap-and-trade, and giving government the right to take over private sector businesses via the stimulus. She was “chosen” as the Republican candidate by 11 local so-called “moderate” Republicans rather than in a primary election. She was given $1 million in Republican Party money to fund her campaign against the Democrat. Saying she was a “loyal moderate Republican,” she immediately embarked on a campaign that exposed her as a far left radical, perhaps even further than Pelosi. Scozzafava was a RINO (Republican in name only) who managed to make her Democratic opponent look conservative by comparison.
 
As Scozzafava’s extreme liberalism became apparent to the voters in the 23rd district, conservatives and independents began to see the race as between liberal medium and liberal heavy, with no real choices. Conservatives were outraged, saying Scozzafava was not even remotely “moderate” in her political views. Her radical politics were out of touch with what the Republican Party stood for, and the result was the loss of any endorsements for Scozzafava by The Conservative Party of New York. Instead, they chose Doug Hoffman as the real conservative in the race for the 23rd, and he became the Conservative Party candidate. For the first time, the Republican Party was being challenged directly by real conservatives in the form of Hoffman’s candidacy. Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh openly supported Hoffman on their programs as a “teachable moment” to the Republican Party and to Obama.

In early October, the polls had Hoffman
in third place with 16% support. He was behind Scozzafava, who had 35% and Owens with 28%. But at the end of October, just prior to the election, Hoffman had overtaken Scozzafava and led her by 16%. The result was Scozzafava suspending her campaign as the Republican candidate, and she openly endorsed her former opponent, Democrat Owens. This endorsement proved that Scozzafava was a RINO who had tried to redefine what a “moderate Republican” was. Her attempt to sabotage the Republican Party had failed, but she succeeded in knocking the Republican Party out of the race before polling even began. In the end, Hoffman lost the election with 45% of the vote compared to 49% for Owens. But if taken from the standpoint that most of Scozzafava’s original supporters were probably liberals, RINOs or Democrats who would have voted for her anyways, then Hoffman’s effort must be considered a success. In the end, Hoffman drew not just base conservatives and Republicans who are upset with their party, but also with the independents who had a real choice with a real conservative candidate.
 
On Wednesday, Obama’s spin doctors of David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs entered into the denial fray, arguing that the loss of the governor’s office in New Jersey and inability to win in Virginia were not a referendum against Obama, but were simply the result of “local issues.” Their argument is based on the fact that Obama “remains personally popular” by national and state polling. They also said the light voter turnout this year meant the Obama voters from last year, including independents, had simply not voted. This allowed the Republican “right-wing extremists” to win the vote for their side. They see this as no reason to be concerned about next year’s Congressional mid-term elections.
 
The fact-twisting logic being spun in the White House and the Democratic offices of Congress is amusing, because it is the equivalent of nervous laughter. They know, deep down, that they were sent a strong message that Americans are not going to let them get away with force-feeding socialism down our collective throats. They don’t want to look at the reality facing them, so they pretend there was no referendum or messages sent by the voters. Instead, they cover up by telling us the only message they hear is to get their radical healthcare and climate change bills rammed and ratified into law, because that is still what the people want. Once enacted, these liberals know it will be next to impossible for a future conservative Congress or voters to repeal these massive socialist intrusions on the private sector. They are in a hurry to get them through before they lose Congress next year.
 
Democrats and liberals can continue to play this game of denial and go on living in their utopian bubble. Nancy Pelosi can still tell us that “they won” despite losing most of this week’s major elections and having to fight off a challenging conservative candidate from a new party in a small Congressional district. They can tell themselves that Americans want their brand of socialism and continue to ramrod bills through and impose their socialist views on us. But they will pay for it next year when the voters punish the Democrats and return Congress to a sane, conservative majority.
 
It is the beginning of the end for Pelosi’s and Obama’s brand of socialism. November 2010 is coming fast, and conservatives are regaining control of the Republican Party. The moderate and conservative voices of the country are rising up and challenging the radical left, and the sound is getting louder. The proverbial tanks are on now in the city, and Bag-eyed Nancy continues to deny reality.
 
 
Sources:
 
 
 
 
 
 
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The Public Option: A Health Care Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a small and prosperous village.  The inhabitants of this village were very happy, because they had created a limited town government, whose powers to tax, regulate and legislate were granted by the very inhabitants they had been elected to serve. Every 4 years, the villagers nominated candidates from among themselves to run for mayor of the village. The mayor, as the elected leader of the town, was entrusted with executive powers to manage the village. In turn, the mayor’s powers were balanced by the village council of representatives, who had been elected from among the people. The council was given the power to make the city ordinances and laws by which all villagers were required to live. The council, in turn, was checked by the circuit judges, who were responsible for making sure the laws made and passed by the council and signed into an ordinance by the mayor were enforceable laws. Because the village government was answerable to the citizens, everyone in the village had a say in forming the rules by which they lived.  

Over time, the village grew economically and the population continued to grow in size and wealth. Because they continued to elect the mayor, council and judges from among themselves, the elected officials shared the same concerns, problems and issues facing the villagers. As many of these officials owned businesses themselves, they were reluctant to create financial burdens on the population in the form of taxes or by over regulating free trade. These officials understood that their capacity as government officials were not mandates for creating large, unmanageable government bureaucracy. The mayor, council and judges also understood that their tenure was limited in nature. They understood that holding office was not a career nor was it a birth right; rather it was a privilege and honorable period of service to their constituents. Because these officials understood their governmental jurisdictions were only as powerful as delegated by the inhabitants of the village, with a clear understanding that they served only at the pleasure of the voters, the officials worked hard to maintain a fair balance between the common needs of the village and the rights of its inhabitants.  

The villagers understood the necessity of taxes for the common good, so long as taxable items were clearly defined and all citizens could have a say in what those items would be. The input from the public could either be in a public referendum or in the village council through their elected representatives.  No one argued against the need for a sound infrastructure, meaning access to a good transportation network, schools and emergency services. They understood that continued prosperity and growth required a healthy environment for business, which in turn, created more jobs. Creating jobs required those who had the desire, ambition and drive to succeed in taking entrepreneurial risks to start, locate or expand their businesses in the village, as these places of business were also where the jobs were at. To achieve this objective, it was necessary to create an environment that was friendly to free enterprise and commerce. By agreeing to pay a small portion of their incomes to the public service tax, while offering tax incentives to all businesses in the village, the citizens understood this investment paid off by bringing more opportunities to their town. In turn, the businesses that located or were already in the village understood the efforts made by their hosts, and reciprocated in good faith by creating new jobs and hiring all those who were willing and able to work. 

 As the businesses continued to thrive, they would voluntarily invest back into their communities through charities, donations to public works, and volunteering time and money to causes. The companies viewed the village as their home and the inhabitants as their family, neighbors and friends. They considered themselves good corporate citizens of the village and continued to actively participate in all activities and projects to make their village a desirable place to live, work, play and raise a family.  

Over time, as the village grew, several doctors moved to the village. They established their respective practices in separate locations, specializing in general medical treatments. At first, there was no real difference in the types of treatments offered, and so the villagers did not really care which doctor they went to. As there were no differences, doctors did not worry about improving their methods, because each realized their practices would attract roughly the same number of patients from among the villagers. This made it possible for the doctors to “agree” on a price structure for their treatments with profit margins that were artificially high. Since each doctor practiced the same medicine and were making huge profits, no doctor wanted to undercut the others and ruin a good thing. The villagers did not complain, as they had nothing to compare one doctor against another and therefore believed this was simply how the system worked. And so the villagers continued to see whatever doctor was most convenient and paid the fees without asking. And the doctors began to grow wealthy. 

One day, a new doctor moved into the village and set up her practice. When she was invited by the established doctors to join their price-fixing program, the new doctor refused. She had just finished her residency at a medical research facility in a larger city and believed she could provide alternative treatments for her patients at a lower cost. The other doctors scoffed at her boldness, believing she would fail if not part of their group. After all, she was just a new, independent doctor fresh of her residency, without benefit of a long, established practice. The other doctors went back to their old ways.  

In a short span of time, the new doctor was attracting most of the villagers to her practice. Word of mouth got around the town that the new doctor was offering newer and better treatments that worked in a way the villagers had not realized existed. The best part, however, was that she charged less than the other doctors, and she soon started taking patients away from their practices. This worried the established doctors greatly, as the loss of their customers endangered their livelihood.  

The doctors realized the only way to survive was to start attracting new patients. This meant that the doctors, who had earlier collaborated to fix their prices, had to start competing against each other as well as the new doctor to attract the villagers back into their offices. They now had to offer better health care at a lower cost to their customers in order to attract new patients. So the other doctors abandoned their former arrangement and began trying to outdo each other to gain patients at the others’ expense.   

Over time, the doctors realized it was necessary to keep up with the latest medical trends, technologies and procedures in order to offer the best care to their patients. There was a high cost, both in time and money, for the doctors to keep abreast of these advancements. However, the training and investments allowed the competing doctors to differentiate from their competition by offering more specialized and advanced treatments in various fields. For the first time, the villagers now had a variety of doctors and treatments from which to choose. The open competition had created a means for patients to shop for the best doctors and treatments at the lowest competitive costs. These factors determined which doctor the patient would see. The doctors had to work very hard to compete for these patients in order to cover their cost of advanced medicine, yet many were pleasantly surprised when they realized their operating costs could be offset by expanding their customer base. In turn, this allowed many doctors to still keep their prices to the patient down while offering even more advanced, and better treatments. 

As time went by, some doctors who refused to keep up with the latest trends lost their patients to those who invested in research and development, and their practices failed. Those that remained had carved specialty areas in which they practiced, which gave the village a health care system higher than any other town in the land.  

Eventually, the doctors started to work with the village businesses to create plans that would help employees with medical insurance options. This meant that all villagers who were employed were now able to pay even less for their better level of medical care. The companies shopped the doctors and their insurers for the best rates and options, in which the employers paid a large percentage of each employee’s medical premiums. The benefit was to all parties, because the employee now only had to pay a very small percentage of their fees while the employer covered the remaining costs to the insurers. The benefit to the employers and the village was a work force of healthy individuals. It was also a fair system, because it rewarded those villagers for their hard work by offering them a benefit while still maintaining a top-tier health care system. Since ninety percent of those in the village were employed, most villagers were extremely happy with their benefits and their doctors. 

In the meantime, the village government had grown in size and started to lose its course. Even though the village government was still run by elected citizens, various offices had somehow become corrupted by career politicians. Certain council members now seemed to get reelected for infinite terms. In order to first get elected, and then to continually win reelection, several of the council members had to offer special favors to their own constituents. As each member of the council represented a subset of the overall village population, several of the “favors” promised were usually to special interest groups within their own constituency, at the expense of the all the village citizens. Often, these career council members would find ways to funnel tax dollars, originally set up for the limited public services as permitted by the citizens, into personal favors or projects to those of his “own” constituency. This meant that citizens in one constituency were paying for unauthorized projects in another council member’s constituency, indirectly “buying” votes for the career council member.  

This is not to say that there were still several government officials who served for the public good. There were still several council members who tried to do the right thing and not cave to special interest groups. However, their viewpoints were often overshadowed by those government members who had become corrupt from the perks of their seat.   

Several bills were offered to the council by the decent members to be passed into an ordinance to protect the public, only to be dismissed by the vocal career politicians. It was during this time that a good member of the council proposed an ordinance to create a fund to insure those citizens who could not work for reasons that were beyond their fault. However, this councilman made clear that the program would have restrictions. It would not cover those who simply did not want to work due to laziness. It would not provide coverage to any villager who was in the village illegally or participating in an illegal act. And it could not be funded unless both the citizens, businesses and doctors of the village participated in the fund’s creation. Finally, such an ordinance would not be passed until put to a general referendum in a special election. The good councilman was almost shocked when the other council members passed his bill on his restrictive terms. And when the plan was presented to the citizens of the village, they elected to provide some benefit for their fellow citizens who found themselves in a slump.  

The village government, which by now had grown exponentially, had created committees to regulate commerce within the village. These committees answered to special designates appointed by the mayor and answerable to no one else. They were responsible for setting the rules by which commerce must operate and had the power to put anyone out of business if deemed as not complying with the designate and his committee.  

The new mayor, freshly elected to office on a wave of hoping for an even better future with some minor adjustments, had campaigned as a proponent of strong commerce and keeping the village government free of corruption. However, when he was sworn into village hall, he quickly began a radical shift in the village government’s direction, from a limited, representative pro-free market government to a bureaucratic, non-transparent, anti-business and anti-doctor big government. With the aid of his career politician allies in the council, Spokeperson of the Council Nana Pessimist and Council Pro-tem Henry Greed, the majority in the village government set about to completely overhaul all areas of the village economy and the lives of its citizens. From this point on, they made clear that all decisions, private and public, would be made by government bureaucrats and carry the weight of the law.  

The new mayor’s top priority was to destroy the current village health care and insurance system. Instead, a village government-run single-payer health plan would replace the old private plans. Led by Pessimist and Greed in the council, the government started to tell the villagers that they were in a massive health-care crisis, and that over fifty percent of the villagers were without health care. The mayor said the village doctors were out of control, because they were vastly overcharging the villagers while performing unnecessary advanced treatments. These doctors, according to the village mayor, were only lining their own pockets with money that they did not deserve. What’s more, the mayor insisted the businesses that had created a voluntary insurance benefit for their employees were also lining their pockets by not covering even more of the cost for their employees. The mayor and his council allies stated that the fifty percent of the uninsured in the village had a right to health care benefits, regardless of whether they were unemployed by choice or beyond their abilities. Finally, the mayor told the people the village that a government health plan must also cover those who are in the village illegally or involved in illegal activities.  

The mayor and his allies were convinced they had sold their plan to the citizens. However, the citizens rose against this plan. The mayor had cited several inconsistent and false statistics. The village did not have fifty percent uninsured, they had about ten percent. The villagers also questioned the mayor about his unproven attacks on doctors and employers, and they demanded that he prove which treatments were unnecessary, and by whom. They gathered in front of the village hall in huge numbers to get answers from the mayor and council about how the village government intended to fund this plan. Almost all of the villagers made clear that they did not want to lose their doctor or the plan they were in, and told the mayor and council to please back off. Finally, they made clear to the mayor that there was already a village collective fund to provide medical care for those who were in an unfortunate economic situation. The villagers made clear they had no issue to help the poor or disadvantaged, but were not interested in funding slackers or illegal residents. 

The protests fell on deaf ears in the mayor’s office. Spokesperson of the Council, Pessimist, accused the villagers who gathered in front of the village hall as an unruly mob that were criminally immoral. However, she threw the citizens a bone by offering to create a village-run program with a “public option.” She explained that this public option meant that the current plan could stay in place, but if you left your employer, you would automatically be placed on the village government plan, which constituted the public option. Pessimist changed the term to “competitive option” as a means of selling the citizens on how the program will still offer competition. The only difference is now the village government would be the competitor in the game and will create an option for all those who do not have employer insurance to be covered on the government program.  In other words, the employer-insurers would compete against the village government itself. 

Unconvinced, the citizens explained to the bewildered Spokesperson that it is not “competition” when one of the so-called “competing” entities is also the regulating entity. They tried to reason with the mayor and the radical career council members that it would be impossible for the employers insurance to compete with the village insurance, because the village is also able to simply regulate the competitors out of existence. They expressed their concerns that this would force doctors out of practice, because the doctors would no longer invest time and resources into an education to become doctors and then have to carry the costs of advanced medical treatments. The Pessimist-Greed plan is for the village government to regulate compensation for doctors, which will destroy competition. No doctors will work harder than the next if all are being structured at the same rate. Finally, if all the doctors are all doing the same treatments, what is the point of so many doctors?  

Again, the Spokesperson and Council Pro-tem responded with a look of bewilderment. They then informed the villagers that it was the mayor and council who knew what is best for them, and that they would ram this ordinance through even if all of the citizens were against the plan. She then insulted the group once more, likening them to a peasant mob. Then she turned abruptly into the village hall and proceeded with the ramming vote. 

One year later, the village had sixty percent of its citizens unemployed. After months of paying a new business and property tax, levied on them by Pessimist and Greed, most of the businesses could no longer afford to do business in the village and had either closed their doors or simply relocated to a more business-friendly town. The jobs they had created disappeared with the employers who left or shut down. The village government had forced them to pay a double-tax to fund the government health plan they enacted. This meant they had to pay for the program they voluntarily set up years before and had to pay the same amount to the village to support the public plan. They were also required to pay a two-thirds tax on the total of their profit margins to fund other government programs. It was simply too much, and so the end result was lost businesses and high unemployment. 

As for the medical situation, there are still two government doctors practicing medicine in the village. Each one is paid a fixed salary from the village, and all procedures are covered by the publicly funded village government health plan. Because every citizen is now in this village plan, the village government oversight committee and its medical designate have the right to decide who will get what treatment, if any. The advanced medical treatments are no longer optional, as the committee is unwilling and unable to pay for it. Because of the extremely depressed economy, brought about by the vast number of businesses fleeing the village, there is simply not enough tax dollars to cover everyone’s medical care. So the village government allows anyone to apply for care, but if you are over a certain age, you are instructed by a government life panel to let your ailments deteriorate and hasten your end, so as not to be a burden on the population.  

Once upon a time, there was a happy, prosperous small village that grew into a wealthy town. That village is now a desolate shell of what it once was.  

The End.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Post-Journalism World

"A lot of people will repeat back to me and take it as face value something that they read on the Internet, and my line to them is you have to vet information."  -Tom Brokaw, former anchor of NBC News

"The Internet is an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information, left, right, center, up, down, and requires that kind of filtering by anyone." –Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and best-selling author

When Tom Brokaw and Thomas Friedman made these statements as guests of David Gregory on Meet the Press, they were discussing the recent firestorm surrounding the “Green Jobs Czar,” Van Jones, a self-proclaimed Communist, who believes the 9-11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job,” plotted by the CIA and Israel. During the panel’s conversation, the general assessment was Jones had been unfairly “targeted” by “extremist right wing” bloggers and the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. At one point, Gregory pondered on how the new media is so fast that “You can be a target real fast.” By the end of this episode, these “real journalists” argued that since the evidence against Jones did not come from “proper” journalistic news sources, it excuses Jones of his radical ties. Case closed…or is it?

Looking back on that Meet the Press episode, it was evident that the primary concern for these “real journalists” was focused more on how citizen journalism, made possible by the outlets such as the Internet, is not “real” journalism. The so-called “hype” that is generated by these “wannabe” bloggers against the leftist policies of Obama is unacceptable as news. In their opinion, these are not newsworthy stories, and the bloggers should quit insinuating their opinion as being “newsworthy.” They would rather the blogosphere leave the news making to those journalists who have cut their teeth in the liberal mainstream media.  Bloggers are therefore the problem, not unelected radicals wielding unconstitutional powers over Americans.

Friedman, Brokaw and Gregory, like their colleagues in the old liberal news media, are concerned that their world is literally crashing down around them. They see the internet, blogosphere and talk radio as a threat to their profession. Gone are the days when there were only three main television news divisions that controlled all news gathering and media resources, as well as full control over what content would be on the nightly news.

Newspapers are going out of business by the hundreds. The New York Times is in such a financial hole that it had to sell its building and lease back office space from its new landlord in order to raise cash. The liberal old-school media elites have lost the monopoly on information, and with it, the ability to mold their content in a way that favors Democrats, liberals and left-leaning issues, while at the same time tailoring and choosing stories that portray Republicans, independents, conservatives and moderates in a less favorable light. No longer can the Charlie Gibsons and Katie Courics of the world dictate “what is news” to the rest of us. However, they still insist on trying, and their ever dwindling audiences prove just how unsuccessful their arrogance has failed in turning the tide.

Veteran mainstream journalists view bloggers as nothing more than renegades in the basement, writing whatever they want, without regard to vet sources for reliability or researching and fact-checking as “real” mainstream journalists do. They do not believe that stories are really newsworthy unless it is properly parsed by the likes of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and so-called “reliable” print media, such as the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, etc. Of course, they exclude Fox News and conservative talk radio as the mainstream media do not consider those outlets to be “real journalism.”

Ironically, Fox News outperforms all the other cable networks combined in terms of their viewership ratings. Sometimes, Fox News outperforms all of the other news networks combined, including the original “Big 3” networks. Talk radio’s audiences are growing rapidly, as are the conservative and independent websites now populating the blogosphere. This large audience, increasing daily, is in sharp contrast to the biased mainstream media. This is the same audience which has fled the other networks to escape the daily pro-Obama bias. Fox and talk radio do not insult the intelligence of their audience as do the other networks, and they do not take their audience for granted. These media outlets simply deliver the news, and offer opinion on their shows. However, they always balance the opinion shows with proponents from both sides of the issue or topic of the day.  

Over the past decade, we have seen a website scoop the regular media with the major story of the Monica Lewinsky affair in the Clinton Oval Office. Since the Drudge Report first beat the mainstream press to that story, there have been countless attempts to belittle those who run independent news and opinion websites. Matt Drudge has been mocked and looked down on by “real journalists” for his pioneering role in the establishment of independent reporting vie the internet. In the late nineties, they saw internet news by independents as nothing more than a passing fad. Yet today, the Drudge Report is one of the most-visited websites on the internet, with some 24,000,000 visits daily. That is 24 million viewers a day! Drudge is constantly being used as a reference for news, not only by conservatives, but by those in the mainstream media, because Matt Drudge has a reliable track record for accuracy. His viewers understand that his website has become a proven, reliable source for news. Rarely has Matt Drudge posted anything on his site that has not been thoroughly verified and checked for accuracy. And when there is a rare story that turns out to be inaccurate, Drudge immediately posts retractions and clarifies the reason.

Late in George W. Bush’s first presidential term, we experienced a veteran “true journalist,” CBS News anchorman Dan Rather making up parts of an expose that criticized George W. Bush’s service in the Air National Guard. This was during President Bush’s campaign for a second term against Democratic presidential candidate, and Vietnam veteran John Kerry. Known as the Killian Documents Controversy, or less formally as “Rathergate,” it involved Dan Rather reporting on a 60 Minutes segment that George Bush had allegedly used his family influence to avoid service in Vietnam by getting into the Texas Air National Guard. The report, which aired less than two weeks ahead of the presidential election, also made claims about Bush not even fulfilling his obligation to the Guard. The entire basis of the story was based on six documents, four of which were cited and presented as authentic during the broadcast. Shortly after the episode aired, however, it was discovered that CBS News had not checked the documents for authenticity. Led by an army of internet bloggers doing real fact-checking, combing through the documents and looking at the sources, the blogosphere immediately brought the inaccuracy of the documents to the forefront. The attention to the lack of fact-checking by CBS News, and Dan Rather in particular, started to bring the network’s credibility into question. When forensic and typography experts later found the documents as forgeries, CBS tried to defend itself as having been misled by the document source. However, the damage was already done to the credibility of the mainstream press.

Although Dan Rather had acknowledged that the sources were forgeries, he still insists to this day, that he sincerely believed, at the time, the documents were authentic. This lack of vetting the sources and fact-checking by a major network news organization and its veteran “journalist” anchor, led to Rather’s downfall at CBS. Ironically, it was an army of internet bloggers and news forums that proved to be credible news sources by doing the work the current mainstream press accuses them of not doing, but were not doing themselves.

As we have watched the mainstream press practically “smother and cover” their chosen presidential candidate, Barak Hussein Obama. By doing everything possible to protect his past and cover his true radical associations with assorted communist, union and other leftist groups, the mainstream media no longer seen as a reliable source for news. Instead, we see the mainstream press as more of a supermarket tabloid, swooning over the “glamorous” Obamas at every turn while labeling anyone not in the Obama camp as “extremist,” thus making them fair targets for character assassination. Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, and other victims of the liberal mainstream media’s actions to ruin those who disagree with the Left are examples of how pathetic the old media have become. Almost daily, Palin has been ostracized, insulted, misquoted, been lied about and have have daily experiences of dealing with attacks against her family. The mainstream media have shown absolutely no shame in their continued assault on Palin, hurling a daily dose of vitriolic fabrications against her. This is a dangerous tactic by the mainstream press that treats citizens as not sophisticated enough to form their own opinion. However, it is not lost on the average American viewer that this very media would do the exact same to them and their families if they happen to publicly disagree with the viewpoints of the liberal press.

Just last week we watched the “Balloon Boy” story on every mainstream network, covered in a sensationalist way, only to find out that the press had again been duped, victims of an elaborate hoax. The mainstream media’s continued slide to obscurity culminated this week when a radical leftist group called the Yes Men, acting as real spokespersons for the United States  Chamber of Commerce (USCC), held a press conference to explain that the USCC had  made a 180 degree turnaround on their opposition to Obama’s intended climate change bill and were now supporting it. Several prominent members of the mainstream press were in attendance. When members of the real USCC entered the room, uninvited, to explain that the speakers at the podium were imposters, and that the press should disregard statements made by the fake USCC spokesman to instead, direct their questions to the real USCC members, they were rebuked by reporters in the room.  Members of the press scolded the real USCC officials and asked them to quiet down so they could continue hearing what the imposters were saying. It took awhile for the press corps to catch on that they had been tricked into a phony press conference by a radical group. Regardless of this fact, CNN decided to invite the main “spokesman” of the fake group to a formal interview on CNN with Rick Sanchez, in which the Yes Men imposter continued calling for radical environmental climate controls. This was after the phony press conference!

To watch arrogant, old school, liberal, mainstream “journalists” pontificating their message that a story is not “really news” unless it comes from their sources, organizations, or pens, is to watch a dying breed who are not living in the real world. They are no longer indispensible, and it terrifies the media elitists. Their accusations against new media for not properly gathering facts, vetting and verifying sources, and their almost vitriolic attacks against members the new media clearly demonstrate their arrogance and sheer hypocrisy. At the same time, their attacks against conservative talk radio and Fox News, accusing their audience as nothing more than “right wing extremist simpletons,” magnifies the desperation of the mainstream press.

The mainstream media is running scared at the loss of their absolute control, and they should be. They no longer matter.

Case closed.

Sources:

1)     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34153-2004Sep19.html

2)     http://www.dailytexanonline.com/opinion/viewpoint-lessons-from-dan-rather-1.2029888

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Is Globalization Good or Evil?

The following is an article that written in 2003 pertaining to the issues of globalization and the trends affecting this phenomenon. As I began writing my article this afternoon, my intentions were to detail some of the pros and cons of globalization in order to make the point that overregulation can kill the entrepreneurial spirit. When I read the original article, it became clear to me that it would be difficult to do better in my explaination of globalization than I had in the original article. With the exception of the date originally written, the pretext of the article applies moreso today in the age of Obama and his planned economy than in the time when it was originally written.


Is Globalization Good or Evil?
Archives - Original Articles from The Conservative Camp 2003
Written by Robert Ditmar
Wednesday, 05 March 2003 22:28
 

The world is rapidly getting smaller today than at any time in previously recorded history.” When we hear this statement, we tend to think this phenomenon is a brand new concept. Today’s lightening-fast technological advancements in communications, transportation, and most growing bodies of knowledge have made transcending cultures and national boundaries increasingly commonplace like no time before. In the past 25 years, major advancements in technology have enabled humans to connect with one another on opposite ends of the globe in real time. There is growing interdependence between national economies and governmental policies. In the past few years, nation states have begun to surrender their national sovereignty to “supra-states” such as the European Union. An incident, such as a terrorist attack on an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia can have a negative ripple effect on the economic well being of the American economy, even though there is 8,000 miles of ocean separating them. 24-hour news coverage on outlets such as CNN and the Internet enables anyone in the four corners of the globe to get the same news at the same time within seconds of the actual news breaking. Many times we can watch an historic event as it is happening, whether we are in Tanzania or Hong Kong or Rio de Janeiro. So in a sense, this technological globalization is indeed making our world a much smaller place. But the actual concept of globalization, although it was not called such, is not really new at all.

Globalization is a concept that has grown from centuries of human discovery. When the known Western World consisted of Greece, the Roman Empire, and Northern Africa, the people of those times tended to look at their world in terms of tribalism and the city-state. Life centered on the village, town, tribe, and family units. Until explorers such as Marco Polo cut a path eastward to open the route to China, Europeans did not view the world beyond their own spheres of geographical influence. However, once the overland route to China had been established, European tastes for all things Oriental, such as tea, spices, herbs, gunpowder, and technologies advanced beyond their own visions created a new way of thinking about the world. To an Englishman or Spaniard, occurring events in areas of the newly discovered world to the east could create problems in their own nations due to the newly established trade of goods. An example is that of the ordinary European that was now drinking Chinese tea, an Islamic invasion of Afghanistan, though not directly affecting this European’s daily life, now threatened his access to goods and trade because of the interdependence that had been created between the two worlds. If the Islamic Caliph made a decision to choke off the Silk Road to westward trade, those Europeans that depended on this trade would be ruined economically. Thus the overriding factor was a new age of discovery to find the westward overseas route to China, leading to the discovery of the New World. With this new development, the Europeans again had to adopt an even larger worldview that became increasingly interdependent on various factors outside of Continental Europe.

So it can be said that today’s rapid rush to globalization is nothing really new when looked at from this factor. What makes today different from the past is, rather than physically finding new, undiscovered areas on the globe, we are advancing our communications and technologies to bring the various and different parts of the globe into an instant interconnectedness with one another. This interconnectedness brings instant cause and effect everywhere. The stock markets of the world now tend to follow each other in synchronism following the exact same market trends everywhere. A recession in Japan or China can trigger a worldwide recession. A multibillion-dollar conglomerate, such as an Enron collapse in Houston, can cause automaker shares to fall in Detroit due to sudden fears of fuel costs, but at the exact same moment can raise the shares of a German automaker because of an assumption of an increase in the sale of fuel-efficient vehicles. Because communication is so instantaneous, markets tend to be shortsighted. A negative but simple verbal threat by a dictator in a third country, such as North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, might create a market panic causing a massive sell-off of a particular stock, even though the statement was nothing more than an utterance.

In another new twist of globalization, nation-states such as Britain, Germany and France, are entering into unions that intertwine economies, national currencies, foreign policies, and create a common domestic code of law. Moving into this direction, it appears that national sovereignty is starting to disappear. While pooling national resources under a common government seems an efficient trend, it is not an effective trend. The varied cultural differences and the loss of democratic power to a super state bureaucracy is in fact a negative outcome of modern globalization. When citizens of a country, such as a law-abiding Londoner going about his daily life, is suddenly arrested by UNPOL (United Nations Police) for an incident deemed illegal by “Eurocrats” in Brussels, the negative effects of going too far with globalization becomes apparent. The Englishman who is accustomed to common law rights such as a trial by jury of peers and the concept of innocent until proven guilty will now find himself bearing the burden to prove his innocence in front of a panel of non elected Euro judges, not a jury of peers. The judges will care not a lick if this man was following the letter of the law, written in stone by perhaps years of precedent in the English common system. They will judge based on what this man has violated as written in the new European coded system. This man will be found “not innocent” of the allegations and serve a European Union sentence for a violation of “European” law, even though the man was raised British under assumed inalienable rights. His own nation’s laws cease to exist, as does the concept of free speech, freedom of religion, and perhaps even a free and sovereign Great Britain. This disintegration of sovereignty will negatively affect representative republican government, representative taxation, and the universal rights of man. EU Napoleonic Law from Brussels is now calling the shots.

This negative effect of globalization goes even further in the concept of the United Nations and its actual sphere of influence. Increasingly, the UN seems to view itself as a sort of “government of the world” rather than a forum for independent, sovereign nations to work out differences short of war. The United Nations seems to be gravitating more towards interfering in sovereign national internal affairs, claiming jurisdiction over just about anyone, anywhere for any reason.

The International Criminal Court is an example of how far the UN has decided to take globalization. Essentially, the ICC, now a permanent UN bureaucratic entity housed in The Hague, Netherlands, has decided what may constitute a war crime. The ICC can try any individual from any nation if that nation does not prosecute the accused individuals under their own national laws. In essence, the United Nations has decided for us what the law is to be. Instead of the Supreme Court of the United States being the highest court in the land, it is now a lower “appellate” court, subservient to the court of bureaucrats in white wigs at The Hague.

Imagine an American soldier, having just returned home from the war in Afghanistan, receiving an indictment from the ICC for war crimes. Say this soldier was in combat in an urban environment where civilians were killed in crossfire between Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters and the American soldier’s company. The Islamist fighters have purposely set up their position in a private home with the goal of making these innocents human shields from which to hide behind while ambushing American soldiers. In this scenario, the casualties, while tragic, are criminal only in the sense of the Islamist’s intentions. However, the removal of the fascist regime of the Taliban to liberate the Afghan people is to no avail to this UN Court. Under the ICC requirements, this soldier, who performed nobly during this incident, now must be indicted and court-martialed by U.S. authorities for the “crime” of “genocide of civilians.” If the Americans do not acquiesce to this UN demand, the soldier is now fair game to be picked up by The Hague for trial and sentence under “international UN” law. This idea is absurd, but the reality of the new globalization is that this is possible.

As can be seen, globalization is a concept that is not necessarily new, but the technological nature and the recent trends of total interconnectedness are. Globalization in itself is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a very positive occurrence when communication, information and economic trade are considered. There are endless opportunities for everyone in the world to take advantage of these advancements and interconnectedness to work and bring their own standards of living up substantially. However, we must be very careful to not let globalization run amok, but instead must balance it. We must not allow globalization to turn into an excuse to surrender our national sovereignty, rights, and cultures to a few bureaucrats with their own vision of “utopia” dictating what is right, wrong, and is to be.
 

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Rush Limbaugh, the NFL, and the liberal double standard

The liberal hypocritical machine went into overdrive this week to put pressure on the NFL to exclude Rush Limbaugh from participating in a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams. Led by the liberal media and the usual suspects of the race-baiting industry and others of the American radical Left, Limbaugh was attacked viciously as being “divisive,” a “hate-monger,” racist,” and several other epithet’s to name just a few. Voices from some of the players, coaches and owners in the NFL spoke out against Limbaugh as being too “controversial” for the right to be an NFL team owner, because he is an “extremist” preaching to his “ditto heads” in a manner not becoming an owner in the league. 

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, who is against Mr. Limbaugh having any ownership or stake in an NFL team stated, “I would not be in favor of voting for him. I could ask Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell, Dwight Freeney and consult with them, but there have been comments that have been made that have been inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive. It's bigger than football. We have to watch the words that we say.... Sometimes privileges in life do get lost. I would not feel comfortable. I've met Rush only once and he seemed like a nice guy. But when you see the comments that are out there, I would not be comfortable. I myself couldn't be in favor of voting for him.... We've got to watch our words in this world and our thoughts because they can do damage."

Apparently, Mr. Irsay is now an advocate of making it a crime to “think thoughts” that may disagree with his, or any liberals viewpoint. At the very least, he seems comfortable of allowing free speech and free thought to be sacrificed for the sake of the NFL, and the dollars he thinks he will lose if Rush is part owner of another team. Sort of like putting a question on the application asking if you ever committed a felony or been convicted of a crime, except that in this case, it is a “thought crime,” to disagree with the dangerous path that Obama is trying to push the country down. 

To clarify, Mr. Limbaugh was not even the majority holder if this bid had happened. He was only going to be a limited partner in a bid led by St. Louis Blues chairman Dave Checketts. If anyone has ever listened to Rush on his daily radio program, they would know that Mr. Limbaugh absolutely loves the game of football, and he is in awe of the athletes and coaches who excel in this sport. Having come from a town called Cape Girardeau, a hundred miles south of St. Louis, Missouri, Rush grew up within a stone’s throw of the St. Louis Cardinals football team. That team relocated several years ago to Phoenix, Arizona. Then, the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis, where they have since won a Super Bowl and are often contenders for the playoffs. Even though Rush became a huge fan of the Steelers from his days as a radio disc jockey in Pittsburgh, there is no reason to believe that he has ulterior motives in pursuing a stake in the Rams. He is simply a man with the means to pursue his dream of being a part of the NFL. If there is one person in all of this so-called “controversy” that has not been politicizing the issue of Rush Limbaugh’s minority stake as part of a larger group bidding on the team, it is Mr. Limbaugh himself.

So, what is the message in all of this? I think the message to Rush Limbaugh and all who disagree with the radical Left is simply this; if you are a conservative American who loves their country, its institutions, its Constitution, and see all the good that America really is, yet recognizing there is always room for improvement, without having to hate America, you are targeted for character assassination from the Left. You become fodder for the liberal press, and you are slandered and libeled by the usual suspects on the left. You are accused of saying things or doing thing, even thinking things or inciting things, that you have never done.  And it is richly deserved in a liberal mind.

The second message appears that if you disagree with President Obama and his unelected, radical czars and leftist Congressional allies about their radical agenda and policies that are leading America down the socialist path to a socialist abyss, then you are guilty of “racism” and “bigotry.”

The third message is clearly directed at all of us who exercise our First Amendment rights to peacefully protest or engage in free speech to get Washington’s attention and listen to our fears, anger and frustrations about where the Left is leading us. The message to  those of us opposing the Obama agenda are that we are dangerous racist, hateful bigots. Liberals have put us on notice that we are not to engage in such activities, as that is an arena reserved exclusively for the radical and elitist Left. Only the  Left has the right to protest everything they seem to detest, including America itself, but when it is they who wield power, absolutely no dissent will be tolerated.

Rush Limbaugh is not any of the things the Left has said he is. Rush Limbaugh has not said any of the statements that his accusers on the Left constantly try to stick on him. However, I can think of numerous examples of abusive insults, derogatory statements and outright slander that several celebrities, politicians, business leaders, church leaders, civil rights leaders, and “organizers” on the Left have hurled at individuals disagreeing with their viewpoints with nary a word from the liberal press or consequence to their careers. Even though it is more often the Left who slander their opponents or engage in dirty tactics such as Tawana Brawley's 1987 rape accusation against six Caucasian men, the usual suspects, such as Al Sharpton, who clearly advocated for Ms. Brawley even when it was later proven she had fabricated the entire story, seem to get a free pass to higher privileges,  status, fame and all that goes with it. Al Sharpton has made a very successful career out of making race the issue of any situation. He has never really suffered the consequences for his role in the Brawley case, rather he has thrived. The Brawley attempt to destroy six innocent men by accusing them of rape is what made him a household name. He has become a sought-after sweetheart of the Left, and  has made a lot of money on the race issue. But I digress, as he is a man of the Left, therefore he gets the free pass.

The hypocrisy of the left has reached an absurd level. Conservatives need to start taking pages from the radical leftist playbook and start countering their accusations, slanderous and libelous attacks on those of us on the right. They expect us to always play nice by the rules, which we proudly do. However, there are times when we must push back on the left, and that can only be done by leveling the playing field. We need to start calling those on the Left who seem to get away with vitriolic language against those of us on the center-right. They seem to have no damage to their careers nor do they seem to lose opportunities to freely pursue whatever they desire in life. That is only reserved for those of us who are not in their camp.

Saul Alinski, in his radical manifesto, Rules for Radicals, said, “Pick your target, isolate it, personalize it, attack it.”  By your very opposition to Obama, you are considered a target that must be marginalized. Today, they attack Rush Limbaugh, a man who simply tried to pursue a dream to be involved in a sport he is passionate about.  Tomorrow, it may be you in their crosshairs.

Sources:

1)      http://views.washingtonpost.com/theleague/nflnewsfeed/2009/10/nfl-casts-doubt-on-limbaughs-bid.html

2)      http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091015/D9BB767G0.html

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Unions destroyed the U.S. Auto Industry

Unions destroyed the Michigan Auto Industry
 
The U.S. suffers from its worst recession since the Carter years, with unemployment rates hovering near 10%. Yet Michigan’s own battered economy makes the national rate look like an economic boom by comparison. Since taking office in 2003, Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm, has mismanaged the healthy state economy that she inherited from her predecessor, Republican governor, John Engler. To understand this clearly, you need first to see the employment numbers during the three terms of Engler, starting in 1991 and ending in 2002, then compare those numbers to Granholm’s first term and her current and final term today.
 
When John Engler took office on January 1, 1991, he faced an unemployment rate of nearly 9.9%. Under his  predecessor, Democratic  Gov. James Blanchard, Michigan’s unemployment rates exceeded the national average by as much as 5.8% points. By the time Gov. Engler completed this third and final term in 2001, the Michigan economy was prospering at record levels. By November 2001, Michigan’s unemployment was only 0.4% above the national average. From 1992 to 2001, Michigan saw its greatest job growth in decades, with growing employment at 16.8% and a record 4,674,000 Michiganders employed by late 2000. This number is out of a total Michigan population of 9.5 million, with a record low unemployment level near 3.8% by November 2000. When Engler left office at the end of 2001, the economy had slowed slightly prior to the 9/11 attacks. Yet  at the end of 2001, after the attacks had already impacted the national economy, Michigan still tracked to the national average of about 5.5% unemployment rather than above.
 
Since Governor Granholm first took office, the total number of jobs lost has grown to almost 800,000, meaning at least that many Michiganders are standing in the unemployment lines. The vast majority of those jobs are in the auto manufacturing sector , their suppliers, and all businesses that serviced the auto industry. This does not take into account those Michiganders who have simply given up on seeking employment nor does it take into account the several hundreds of thousands who have decided to move out of the state for better economic conditions in other states.
 
During Granholm’s first term, Michigan’s unemployment shot up to around 7% or higher. Obviously there were several outside factors that contributed to this dire statistic, including the impact of the 9/11 attacks, however, the auto industry has suffered more than all other business sectors by far.  Auto makers and the unions should have seen the warning signs at least 10 years ago. Instead, the Big 3 chose to rest on their laurels by primarily focusing on proven “winners” such as minivans, pickup trucks and SUVs, while the unions continued to demand more and more of a shrinking economic pie for themselves while not considering the consequences.
 
In the 1980s and 1990s the automobile industry found itself struggling to compete in the global economy as Chrysler, Ford and GM lagged behind foreign competitors to manufacture  higher fuel efficiency vehicles and investing in newer technologies to respond to shifting market demands.  While Japanese and German autos were being built to get maximum fuel efficiency, developing and advancing “smart car” technologies, the Big 3 were building SUV’s and pickup trucks that used much more fuel than the foreign competitors. Even though the demand for such large vehicles was there during that time, the Big 3 could still get away with investing more into those types of vehicles and continue charging inflated prices at their dealerships. As long as there were buyers willing to pay more for an American-built vehicle and gasoline was cheap, it was not an issue. After all, it is a free market, and at that time, the formula was still working. However, trouble was brewing on the horizon, and no one seemed to be planning on how best to meet the coming challenges in Lansing or Detroit.
 
The first challenge was the 9/11 attacks and a shakeup of consumer confidence. There was a real fear that Americans would lock up their wallets out of a fear that further attacks would create an economic crisis. The second challenge that followed immediately was gasoline prices started to shoot into new highs. As the cost for a barrel of crude rose up to $70, doubled by the scarce number of refineries in America, gasoline has never really gone back down to pre-9/11 levels, making it very expensive to drive fuel-intense vehicles such as a Hummer or Ford F150 Pickup Truck. The auto industry made no effort to really plan on this market change until after they started getting hit with negative numbers. To get into competitive shape would require major changes in the US auto industry, as far as outsourcing non-core capacity items, eliminating waste and unnecessary processes on the manufacturing floor to drive down production costs would be required to make Detroit lean and effective competitors. Since unions do not thrive in efficient and effective environments, as such a workplace is not conducive to their funding, the UAW and Teamsters would become one of the biggest hurdles Detroit faced in upgrading to compete in the 21st century.
 
One major hurdle facing the Big 3 is the simple fact that they pay nearly 3 times as much in wages to their employees than the foreign automakers. Because all Big 3 autoworkers are members of the union rackets, the Big 3 had no choice but to continue paying off the collectors from the unions “for protection” from strikes and shutdowns. In addition to the $80 per hour wage of an average union auto employee, the unions also demanded that the Big 3 provide extremely generous benefits, such as full medical coverage and a requirement that the Big 3 must pay all laid-off union members up to 80% of their full employment wages while idle. Of course, once the huge pensions and benefits enjoyed by union members can be added to this mix, and you have a recipe for disaster. These unsustainable costs to the auto makers, when  added to the overbearing benefits to the unions, have essentially priced Detroit’s vehicles out of the market. The high costs of paying the artificial wages and benefits “protection” demanded by the unions have almost destroyed the City of Detroit and, to a larger extent, the economy and image of Michigan.  
 
In the past, the unions could count on American consumers to pay for US-built cars with nary a thought to the inflated dealer prices. In the 1980s, when the economy started booming under President Ronald Reagan, fuel was cheap and everyone seemed to have disposable cash, it was deemed as a patriotic duty to “buy American” such as the K-car from Chrysler as a means of communicating to the world, and especially, the Japanese, that foreign investment to locate manufacturing plants in the US would be a costly failure. The message was loud and clear, but it was not effective. For a short while, the Big 3 and the unions with whom they made a deal enjoyed a rebound of sorts, as Americans bought purchased US cars to show their loyalty to the American auto industry.
 
However, the foreign automakers continued to make advances in automobile quality by designing better vehicles, developing more efficient and effective manufacturing techniques. These companies began investing in US property and locating new plants in “union-free” Southern States. They were able to build vehicles as good, or better than Detroit, at a higher profit margin and lower cost due to the simple fact that they were not held hostage to the union’s artificial patronage racket. Eventually, as the economy soured and consumers started to see foreign cars with better technologies and fuel efficiencies that were lacking in contemporary American- built vehicles, they started to buy foreign. The lower prices for a new, sleek, well-built and technologically advanced Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Lexus, etc, without sacrificing quality and performance began eating into the domestic market that the Big 3 and the unions had dominated for almost 75 years. It was the beginning of the end.
 
When the non-union wages for autoworkers are $30 per hour as opposed to union-made vehicles at $80 per wage hour, it does not take a rocket scientist to see how negative the impact was going to be on Detroit.  By the 1990s, consumers found they no longer had to accept the skyrocketing costs of American-built cars. They could proudly buy foreign autos while no longer being shamed by the unions crying foul or making accusations of being “un-American.” Over time, this led to the fall of Detroit’s auto-makers, which, in turn, started to have negative domino effect on the thousands of suppliers who depended on a healthy automobile industry and all other businesses that provide service to this huge sector.
 
Yet, even today, in an era when the U.S. government is a majority holder in General Motors, when even the U.S. President has a say in what cars GM will be allowed to manufacture and who will be the corporate chairman, it becomes clear that the UAW and Teamsters continue to think, like parasites, only of themselves and not about the host upon which they feed. The unions have played a major role in destroying an auto industry that was once the envy of the world. Even today, when GM and Chrysler are literally struggling just to exist, when GM stocks are worth only pennies and consumers are flocking to other makes and models,  the unions continue to bite the hand that feeds them, demanding still more of the Big 3 in terms of unrealistic wages, benefits and gifts.
 
It is ironic and sad that the unions continue pressuring the Big 3 with unsustainable demands that will all but destroy the shell of the once-great U.S. automobile industry. Like the parasite that eventually kills its host, in turn, killing the parasite, so too the unions kill the remnants of their livelihood, which will destroy the unions  eventually lead to the end of the unions themselves.
 
Sources:
 
 
 
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How "W" helped Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize

There is nothing like winning the Nobel Peace Prize to get your weekend off to a great start. Such a great honor is usually the result of a lifetime of hard work and achievements in the cause of advancing global peace and progress.  So who better to award the 2009 prize to than “The One,” Barack Hussein Obama?
 
The Nobel Peace Prize, one of 5 Nobel prizes awarded annually in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, was created in the 1895 will and estate of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist and the inventor of dynamite. Nobel believed that recognizing those individuals whose work contributed most toward the advancing the condition of the human race should be recognized for their hard work and accomplishments. The first awards were bequeathed in 1901, and the majority of recipients have had a long career of hard work and solid achievements on their resume by the time they receive the award in their particular field.
 
Of the five awards, the Nobel Peace Prize is probably the most controversial. In Nobel’s will, he stated that the peace prize was to be awarded annually to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition of reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”  Since 1901, 96 individuals and 20 organizations have received the award.
 
While there is no doubt that the majority of past recipients are deserving of this award, there are also several in the mix whose credentials to the advancement of world peace are at best, questionable.  While names such as Mother Theresa, Theodore Roosevelt, The Red Cross, George Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Anwar Sadat, Menachim Begin, Jimmy Carter, Mikail Gorbachev  and Nelson Mandela have undoubtedly contributed to positive change that lead to advancing peace and stability, several other recipients are extremely questionable. Recipients who fall into this category include the likes of Yasser Arafat, the United Nations/Kofi Annan, and the International Panel on Climate Change/Al Gore. The newest member of the “questionable recipient club” was announced this morning, when U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama was honored with the prestigious award by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the overseer of the award.
 
How does a man, who has only been in office for nine months and who has accomplished nothing with exception of taking over the private sector, apologizing for his country to its enemies, abandoning Americas traditional democratic allies, destroying the morale of America’s military while it is engaged in a violent and dirty war, and undermining our national security, all while trying to ramrod socialized medicine down America’s throats, win the Nobel Peace Prize? How does the most radically, left-wing President to ever occupy the White House, who has created a level of hostility and divisive atmosphere between the U.S. population not seen since the late 1960s, get the honor of having his name alongside the likes of Mother Theresa, Woodrow Wilson, Desmond Tutu, Lech Walesea,  and Elie Wiesel? Many are asking this question today, but I believe I have the answer; Obama is not George W. Bush.
 
In short, the European elitists, American radical leftists, liberals, dictators, communists, and Islamist terrorists around the world made a blood sport of blaming and “bashing Bush.” While I have many criticisms of how Mr. Bush handled various situations over the course of his two terms, no one can argue that his policies of attacking the terrorists in their own lair put America’s enemies on notice to fear what we may do if attacked again. By rooting out those whose only objective in life is to kill, maim and destroy those who do not subscribe to their interpretation of Islam or political ideologies, Bush kept America safe and at least earned the respect and fear of those who would seek to attack and destroy us. He did not allow liberal democracy to be threatened by the radical dream of making America into a utopian, totalitarian society. In short, he stood up for freedom, even if he sometimes erred in his strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 
This is the very thing that upsets the radical leftists, liberals, European socialists and their Islamist allies, from Boston to Baghdad, San Francisco to Caracas, and Seattle to Kuala Lumpur. These are the people who despise individual freedom, free markets, religious freedom, national sovereignty, and Western history, traditions, and culture. They view the world in terms of racism and believe that all who are not in agreement with their leftist viewpoint are racist, backward, uneducated, right-wing “extremist mobs” that cannot be trusted to govern themselves. The left is most comfortable with the concept of unelected bureaucrats running the world from Brussels, The Hague and the United Nations. They believe that individuals should not be allowed to have the freedoms as granted by the U.S. Constitution, nor in liberal western democracy in general. The radical left and their totalitarian allies would rather dictate to you and I how we will live every aspect of our daily lives, from what we read, to what we eat and where we live. They want to force you to follow their religion, either in the form of Islam, or in the case of the Western leftists, the religion of “global warming” and big government. They seem to despise Christianity and Judaism, and they seem to hold contempt for anyone who is not alumni of an Ivy League university or a radical revolutionary cause that is anti-American.
 
George W. Bush was, and is the antipathy to most of the Left’s radical agenda for changing the world. Although he has several flaws, as we all do, Bush did not go around the world groveling to dictators and mullahs to apologize for America at every opportunity. He did not coddle dictators like Venezuela’s “President-for-Life,” Hugo Chavez or Iran’s thug-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while simultaneously dropping insults or abandoning our democratic allies, such as Britain, Poland, Israel and the Czech Republic. Bush did not get permission from some unelected, overseeing, bureaucratic world body, such as the U.N., to defend American interests by responding to the existential threat after the unprovoked 9/11 attacks. He did not treat an act of war as a criminal investigation. Essentially, “W” did not just sit back and let America and its institutions be destroyed and bullied into surrendering its sovereignty, and this is what drives liberal elitists, dictators, Islamist totalitarians, and unelected, transnationalist bureaucrats the world over with such foaming hatred of George W. Bush. Even nine months into Obama’s presidency, they cannot get over “W.” It is almost an obsession with them.
 
Understanding that those who make up the Nobel Prize Committee are European elitists and trans-nationalists who share the radical ideology of President Obama, and who are comfortable with the President’s desire to take America down by weakening its institutions, demoralizing its military, sacrificing its sovereignty and turning it into a socialist state, and you then understand why Obama was selected for the prize. Simply put, Obama is not George W. Bush, and for that one qualification alone, he was deemed deserving of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize by the committee.
 
Obama and his supporters want the world to love America, even if that means destroying the foundation on which America is built. But countries do not have friends; they have interests and create alliances to protect those interests. Since Obama and his radical friends do not understand that countries must be respected, not just loved, in order to advance and keep the peace, he endangers the very utopian ideal that he aspires to. And since Obama does not understand that peace is achieved through strength, the world may “love” America, but they will not respect America. The “love” of a weak America is far less desirable than “respect” of a strong America. This is what the left craves, and Obama is delivering the goods. For bringing the country down and for reversing “all things Bush,” while Obama continues to blame his own failures and shortcomings on the last President, was winning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It does not take a genius to see this for what it is.
 
Congratulations to President Barack Hussein Obama on his honor. The first call he should make is to Texas in order to thank former president George W. Bush for making all of this possible.
 
 
 
 Sources:
 
 

 

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Obama loses the Olympics, then tries to lose a War

We are in an economic slump that borders on a depression, while at the same time we face a grinding, low-intensity war against resurgent Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. We face increasing threats from a nuclear-armed Iran and North Korea, and the continued proliferation of nuclear technologies from rouge states and terrorist-sponsoring nations. While Obama trots the globe to continue apologizing on behalf of the United States for being the “root of all evil,” several of those receiving these “apologies” are gleeful at the chance to reciprocate our President’s ongoing apology tour by blatantly violating treaties, attacking the US dollar, admonishing democratic process in Latin America and the Middle East, and increasing threats to former “satellites” in Eastern Europe.

As if these rewards for America’s retreat and groveling to the “international community” are not enough, Obama decided that a personal appearance at the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen preceded all other issues on the table at that time, including an annoying little request by the commander of all US military forces in Afghanistan to send more troops or losing the war and peace there. With Olympic glory on his mind, Obama decided the little Afghan war issue could wait for a few more weeks.
Thus, our “rock star” President, heroically setting out for the Danish capital on Air Force One, would mesmerize all those within his glow to surely win the 2016 games and bring back the gold to his city of light, Chicago. Aided by the selfless First Lady, who “sacrificed” so much of herself by jetting to the exact same locale as her husband, suffering on a separate private jet in order to do her part to fight so-called “global warming” with her good friend, Oprah Winfrey, the messianic couple would rain down milk & honey to the I.O.C. if the 2016 games were awarded to the Windy City. The world would rejoice and be as one. Just the appearance of the “The One” and “First One” would surely seal the deal. So, the Power Point presentations were made as Barack and Michelle turned the Office of President into outside sales account manager for the Chicago territory, pitching Chicago as the site for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
So, what was the reward for the global, “America-is-Horrible” apology tour, and neglecting real Presidential priorities like a little war in order to grovel before the I.O.C.? The reward was a first-round elimination of the City of Chicago by the I.O.C. vote.
How can Chicago have been eliminated in the first round? My own theory is that during the presentation, Obama’s teleprompter failed, causing him to stumble through the rest of the Power Point and then thank himself for his sacrifice. Maybe ACORN was not able to get enough dead voters registered in time to stuff ballots. However that is an issue for another day.
Maybe I am just a slow-study who simply is too average to understand the complex greatness of “The One,” President Barack Hussein Obama. I want to believe that this president actually understands the gravity of the serious issues facing America and hope that his strange methods of strengthening our resolve to win in Afghanistan, while at the same time renewing our allies’ confidence in American leadership, will work. I want to believe things like “world apology tours for evil, terrible America” and unilateral disarming, abandoning traditional allies such as Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Columbia, and all the others, while coddling the likes of Iran’s theocracy and Venezuela’s dictatorship are some sort of a grand “strategic reverse psychology” plan. However, I am more inclined to believe that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have hit the nail on the head; President Obama has no intention of protecting American interests. In fact, he seems hell-bent on destroying traditional American institutions and values while undercutting the military and the economy. The plan appears to be finding the most efficient methods to effectively degrade and weaken American influence as quickly and severely as his administration and Congressional allies can. 
It is becoming clearer to many Americans, whether conservative, independent, or moderately liberal, that Obama is the “Manchurian Candidate” who campaigned as the centrist in order to win, but has let his true, radically left and anti-American values take over once he received the keys to the Oval Office.  And the evidence is that he is trying to take down this country is in the way this President and his administration are setting their priorities or handling various crisis’ and threats, and in setting policy. The disturbing body of evidence continues to grow dangerously long, foremost in Afghanistan.
In the past year alone, Afghanistan has seen an increase of violent insurgent attacks against American and coalition forces. The Taliban have not only increased resistance to the presence of foreign troops, they have literally become a resurgent force which has retaken and now control vast areas of the country. They now stage very sophisticated, insurgent-style attacks on our troops from these areas, even to the level of making direct, bold attacks against American military bases.
The NATO commander of American forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, asked the President to send up to 40,000 more troops to the war zone. Without a surge, General McChrystal has warned that the increasing ability of the Afghan insurgents will put the success of our mission to secure Afghanistan as highly unlikely. This request was made in late August and it is now early October, and to this day, Obama has been “kicking the can” down the road, as he is more concerned with political outcomes to his own domestic policies rather than protecting our service members who are in harm’s way. Every day that this President plays politics with this urgent request is another day that our soldiers are abandoned and left to die on the road to defeat.
In an October 5th article from London’s Daily Telegraph, Alex Spillius, writes that Gen. McCrystal gave a speech last week in which he reiterated the urgent need for the surge in combat forces to Afghanistan in order to prevent the Taliban from retaking control of the government, or whatever constitutes a government, in Kabul. Obama allegedly called the General to a private conference in which the President rebuked McCrystal for having made such comments. According to sources, Obama is “furious” with these remarks; however, Obama still has not made any sort of decisions to increase troop levels, and in fact, made clear that he will not be making any commitments for several more weeks. Yet Mr. Obama and his wife placed more importance on selling Chicago to the I.O.C., as that apparently ranks much higher on the President’s list of objectives. This very action alone demonstrates the lack of common sense in the thinking of this President. So while the military must wait for this decision, more soldiers will die in further attacks.
This is a President who stated that he is “uncomfortable with victory” and still will not admit that the surge strategy worked in Iraq. He would rather not ruffle the feathers of his radical Democratic allies in Congress, from whom he needs support in order to ram his socialized healthcare program legislation through. He would rather get his single-payer health care option instead of protecting the military personnel already in combat by supplementing their strength to win a total victory.
If we lose in Afghanistan, the attacks of 9/11 will look like a cakewalk in the future, because Obama will have proved to the Islamist terrorists that we are the “paper tiger” Osama bin Laden once called us. And Al-Qaeda will again have their base of operations from which to safely stage even more massive and horrific attack on the West, and “infidels” on a global scale. And Obama will then wish that the only thing he had lost were the Olympics.
Sources:
 
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All hail to the one, Barack Obama

A recent video has surfaced from the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township, N.J., in which the children can be seen paying the "Dear Leader" tribute in song & salutes, all in unison. The children, unknowing participants in a radical attempt at creating a new order in America by instilling a radical allegiance to Obama, are in a trancelike state, giving homage to all that Obama will bring to their new world order. It is almost bordering on the left's dream of creating a cult-of-personality in Obama, and the "curriculum" has the fingerprints of William Ayers, former Weather Underground radical terrorist and now a "respected professor" of "education & curriculum" development at Northwest University in Chicago. It is a very disturbing trend that has followed this president since he appeared on the national stage just 5 short years ago in a speech at the DNC. 

While watching this video, I could not help but be reminded of old newsreels during the late 1930s in Nazi Germany, where the German children of the Hitler Youth stand at attention, mesmerized and in awe of "Der Führer" as he pontificates his vision of the Third Reich's future, and the roles in which these children will carry out in the name of the Fatherland. He promises Germans will own the world, while explaining to these children that they owe him (Hitler) their allegiance by performing their duty (service) to the Fatherland to attain those goals at all costs, including the loss of individual freedoms and sense of identity. In the film, "Triumph of the Will," homage to the greatness of Nazi Germany and its "benevolent" leader, German film director Leni Riefenstahl captures these children snapping the "Heil Hitler" salute to Der Führer while breaking out in songs of praise and service to Hitler and the Fatherland. It is sad that half of those children did not live to see adulthood as a result of their leader's "benevolence." 

There are several other comparisons that are just as haunting, such as the Young Pioneer children of the former Soviet Union and Communist bloc nations all participating in synchronized song and dance, celebrating the virtues of the paternal central state, which in turn delivers their "workers paradise." It is especially comparable to footage of children in North Korea, singing praises to their "Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il, who is often credited in the
North Korean state controlled media with miraculous events such as "trees blossoming in the winter" upon the arrival of the "Dear Leader." North Korean media often cites Kim as having amazing superpowers, while crediting him for his amazing feats to the Motherland. Of course, by our standards, these news reports border on the ridiculous. However, when the media gets into a love affair with their leader to assist in creating that cult of personality, and when that media is controlled by the government with no possible opposing viewpoints, the ridiculous becomes dangerous. An entire population sacrificing everything to the service of the state, in turn creating a threat to peace and prosperity, both to the outside world and to the ignorant masses in the prison that is North Korea. There simply is no access to the outside world as Kim controls all lines of communication, allowing for the cult-of-personality to thrive. The average North Korean citizen simply believes what they hear, because they have no knowledge of reality.

Barack Hussein Obama, like no president before, has worked a radical network, coupled with inside connections of almost all the mainstream media, minus Fox News, to get everyone from radical leftist celebrities, politicians and universities, to the average non-informed, “ignorance-is-bliss” citizen to drink the Kool-Aid.  The majority of the media practically ran Obama’s campaign for him, and it worked overtime to demonize any and all opposition.  “Educators,” i.e. public school teachers, used candidate Obama as “inspiration” to their students.  Who can forget the “Because of Barack Obama” video, in which students loudly proclaim their allegiance to the man who is making their lives suddenly seem to have purpose?  Who can forget the posters of “The One,” during, and since Obama’s election? These posters were very reminiscent of old Communist propaganda posters, not to mention Nazi and Fascist posters, in which the “great leader” of the particular country is portrayed as an almost god-like figure, takes care of his subjects, treating them as little children because the great leader knows best. The irony of these Obama posters being produced by a company called “OBEY” was not lost on many conservatives.

Today, it appears that Obama is taking the old, totalitarian dictator’s playbook, using the same tactics to enlarge his cult-of-personality. He gives a great speech off the teleprompter, but speaks with a forked tongue. What he says to the public are broad statements that are tailored for his audience, the sheeple, while he actually governs in an opposite way of what he pontificates.  He makes constant use of the mainstream media, minus the only non-biased Fox Network and talk radio, in order to continually remind us that he is there and knows what is best for us.

His lapdog, state-controlled media, like their predecessors in Nazi Germany, the Soviet bloc and North Korea, give almost no coverage of the massive opposition to Obama’s policies that threaten to destroy our Constitutional representative republic. In fact, the mainstream media attempts to portray all peaceful opposition to the radical Obama administration as nothing more than “uneducated, Christian extremist, racist domestic terrorists,” which allow the mainstream media, the Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration to simply ignore the protesters.  Because these opposition types are “lunatic hicks,” they simply cannot comprehend what is best for them and why the government must ignore them as they ramrod their radical agenda down our throats.

Like all dictators and totalitarians, Obama and his Congressional allies know they must get control of the nation’s children in order to cultivate their young, impressionable minds if they are to succeed in keeping the radical agenda moving well into the future. Gaining control means getting public schools to read books about Obama to the children, getting access to the children in schools by making speeches directly to the children from the Oval Office, and by getting the children to sing, dance and do plays about the greatness of Obama.

It looks like we are heading into round 2 of the old 20th Century totalitarian movements. The thing most frightening, however, is that Americans are voluntarily being led to the darkness this time, just like sheep to slaughter.

Everyone had better open their eyes and decide if this is what they really want for this country.


 

For more info: Robert Ditmar can be contacted at The Conservative Camp .
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