Saturday, May 30, 2009

May 29, 2009 The Latest Czar to Regulate Far More than Cars ... From: W.A. M. Newsroom


The Latest Czar to Regulate Far More than Cars

www.WAMAction.org
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A long-forecast and dreaded announcement came recently from the head of the "Change" Administration himself.



The astonishing sequence of end-runs, by the "Change" Administration - around traditional and critical structures which preserve the U.S. Constitution- and its balance of powers - seems about to take its greatest toll to date. The protections provided by the 3 American branches of government have continued to erode via Obama's unprecedented installation of "Czars" - ie, politically hand-picked individuals who are given enormous powers over free enterprise - and whom report directly to the Chief Executive himself. This newly invented system for expanding Executive branch authority, among its other dangers, eliminates the need for Congressional approval or involvement with these power-packed new authority figures. It also short-circuits Capitol Hill oversight of the activities which they undertake.



Obama has made public today his plan to take control of the Internet - directly from the White House - on behalf of preserving
"Cyber-security." This strategy to expand his authority to encroach further on Americans right to privacy - with warrant less supervision of online activity - has been in the works since the Inauguration. The timing of its current announcement holds notable coincidence to the Chief Executive's recent decline in public opinion polls (along with the downhill slide of popularity among his key Congressional leadership (Pelosi, Reid and Dodd.)



Former Democratic activists who worked against Obama's nomination are among those most aware of the alarm bells this current move to suppress opposition sets off. His online primary campaign, which generated maximum impact via use of high tech applications-is recalled by many for its brutality and vicious conduct against web opponents in 2008. Several reported personal threats while many more indicated repeated disruption of their blogs and large-scale attacks on their forums. Throughout the campaign season, an online army of campaign-paid web thugs were hired for these intrusions, as reported and verified by FOX News. Intimidation, verbal threats, gutter language and even obscene images were the order of the day.



Those in the know, then are acutely aware, then, that the "threats to security" listed by this Head of State in his televised speech today ironically coincide with tactics similar to some his own campaign used to get elected. An Obama small-dollar-on-line donor even reported receiving a phone call on his unlisted cell phone to remind him of a "Meet Up" in his own neighborhood - this despite the fact that the donor had not supplied the campaign with either his cell number nor his physical address! At least one Nigerian husband and wife both confessed last year to using their executive positions with international tech corporations to obtain personal records of U.S. citizens for use in harassment by the "Change" campaign.



In the meantime, while specifics of the new leader's rationale remain to be seen, it's already foreshadowed they will be as far-reaching as possible. Obama's sweeping statements about the urgent need to protect everything from banking records, to online purchases to information exchange. Rumors have indicated that the NSA is also disturbed that this new report-to-President only position would also circumvent this agency's normal role in cyber-watching. Further evidence of the long-term planning of this eradication of online privacy plan lies in the fact that Senators Rockefeller and Snowe introduced a bill in Congress on April 1st to give the White House these cyber-space powers.



One could ask: How does the rest of Congress feel about turning over their responsibility and authority to the Executive Branch? Also, if the right to online privacy is allowed follow the path of warrantless phone wire-tapping what does Big Brother have in mind next? And lest we wonder who might be put on the Cyber Czar's Watch List, just remember the recent Homeland Security Warning that "right wing extremists" (ie any citizens identified as "Change administration opponents) are now a grave threat. Even a child could quickly connect the dots between that recent DHS Alert and the press conference on cyber-security threats today! It’s not hard to gauge whose "security" seems to feel most threatened. The only question that remains is how much more terror - against free enterprise and freedom of speech - will We the People permit the "Change" Administration to undertake?!

For quick valuable information on other current events, come to Wake Up America Movement at:
http://WAMAction.org/NewsRoom.html


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Climate Change “Morality”



Climate Change “Morality”
The duplicitous politics of money, power, control and corporate rent-seeking
Paul Driessen

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The climate “crisis” is a “moral issue that requires serious debate,” Al Gore proclaimed in an April 27 AlGore.com blog post.


His conversion to the Anglo-American tradition of robust debate came a mere three days after the ex-VP refused to participate in a congressional hearing with Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Republicans had invited Monckton to counter Gore’s testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

But Gore froze like a terrified deer in headlights, and Chairman Henry Waxman told the UK climate expert he was uninvited.

Their hypocritical cowardice simply reflects a recognition that their entire energy rationing crusade would collapse if they ever allowed real debate.

Monckton would have focused on the science. But it is morality that truly requires serious debate. Climate Armageddon claims are being used to justify malignant policies that have no rational basis.

Global average temperatures peaked in 1998 and since have cooled slightly, despite steadily rising CO2 levels. Except in its Western Peninsula, Antarctica is gaining ice, and Antarctic sea ice reached an all-time high in 2007. Arctic ice is seasonably normal, and in 2008 the Northern Hemisphere was covered by more snow than ever before recorded.

Scientists are hard-pressed to point to long-term state or country climate trends that differ from historic experience and can reasonably be linked to anthropogenic warming crises. Merely asserting that obesity causes warming or increased malaria and house cat populations are due to warming does not make it so.

Even more devastating to alarmist claims, long-held assumptions about the deep Atlantic counter-current or “conveyor belt” below the Gulf Stream have been undermined by recent studies. Those assumptions underlie many climate models and their scary worst-case scenarios about alleged planetary crises. The models and GIGO scenarios are now even more questionable.
Yet, model results are constantly portrayed as “evidence” – “proof” that immediate, drastic action is required to avert disaster. Nonsense. Climate changes and their causes are complex, our knowledge is still limited, and the inputs and assumptions are deficient.
Climate models are no more reliable than computer predictions of future Super Bowl winners and scores.

Their Frankenstein scenarios are no more valid as a basis for law and policy than the special effects in The Day After Tomorrow or Jurassic Park.

Worse, even the 942-page Waxman-Markey climate bill’s absurd target – a 17% reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 and 83% by 2050 – would have no detectable benefits, even if CO2 does cause climate change. Research climatologist Paul “Chip” Knappenberger calculates that even these draconian measures would result in global temperatures rising a mere 0.1 degrees F less by 2050 than doing nothing, mostly because Chinese and Indian emissions would quickly dwarf America’s job-killing reductions.

Meanwhile, China and South Africa want developed nations to slash carbon emissions 40% by 2020 – and give poor countries $200 billion annually, to help them cope with global warming’s imagined disasters. Bolivia wants $700 billion a year. Our children will get the bill for that, too.
None of this apparently matters to congressional leaders, Climate Action Partnership members or other professional alarmists and rent seekers. If anything, it has spurred them into even hastier action, to transform America’s energy and economic system, regardless of the consequences. Waxman-Markey was approved by the E&C Committee May 21 on a mostly party-line vote.
Above all, they want to replace vile hydrocarbons with wind power. That would require $$$ billions in taxpayer subsidies; hundreds of thousands of turbines, across millions of acres of scenic land, habitats and sea lanes; thousands of miles of new transmission lines and towers; and billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper and fiberglass – plus raw materials and natural gas for backup generators.

Spain’s experience should be cautionary, but probably won’t be. According to a study by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Spanish taxpayers spent $754,000 for each new job in the wind turbine industry (mostly installing towering turbines) – and destroyed 2.2 regular jobs for each “green” job, primarily because pricey “renewable” electricity forced companies to lay off workers, to stay in business.

A recent Lauer Johnson Research poll found 78% of respondents saying even a $600 per year increase in utility bills would be a “hardship.” They should be so lucky.

Compared to no cap-and-tax regime, Waxman-Markey would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in real GDP losses by 2035, according to an updated study by the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. The bill would also cost an additional 1.1 million jobs each year, raise electricity rates 90% after adjusting for inflation, cause a 74% hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices, and add $1,500 to the average family’s annual energy bill, says Heritage.

The Congressional Budget Office says the poorest one-fifth of families could see annual energy costs rise $700 – while high income families could see their costs rise $2,200 a year. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein estimates that the average person could pay an extra $1,500 per year for energy. MIT says household energy costs could climb $3,000 per year.

Where will families find that extra cash? “What do I tell a single mom, making $8 an hour?” asked North Carolina congressman (and Congressional Black Caucus member) G. K. Butterfield.
That was a few days before he and his Democrat colleagues voted against amendments to Waxman-Markey that would have suspended the punitive law if electricity prices go up more than 10% after inflation, unemployment reaches 15% or gasoline prices hit $5. What will he tell that single mom?

Eco-activists gleefully predict that oil, gas and coal companies, utilities, vehicles and investors are destined for extinction. No wonder lobbyists have descended on Washington – over 2,300 of them just on climate change: 4.4 per member of Congress.

Some are getting $400-$850 an hour for their skill in promoting mandates, subsidies, legal measures to hobble competitors, and cap-tax-and-trade versions of the mortgage derivatives market. Al Gore alone boasts of having received $300 million (from unnamed sources) to trumpet alarmism and draconian legislation.

Colleges, scientists, activists, unions and companies receive billions in taxpayer money, to hype climate chaos claims, intimidate skeptics and lobby Congress. African bureaucrats get millions from the UN (and thus US taxpayers) to hype climate disaster claims that
keep millions of Africans impoverished and deprived of the life-enhancing benefits of reliable, affordable electricity.

President Obama says the Bush Administration “made decisions based upon fear, rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions.” He and his Democrat allies in Congress should take that critique to heart on global warming.

As it stands, this Congress is rapidly shaping up to be the most unethical, immoral and dictatorial in history. When the people finally rebel, it won’t be a pretty sight.
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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.
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Friday, May 29, 2009

Scotomayor ~ vs ~ Guns

Sotomayor on the SCOTUS takes US one step closer to Americans losing their right to keep and bear guns.
J. D. Longstreet




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“………….. The Maloney opinion is, on this issue, entirely consistent with Judge Sotomayor's opinion in a 2004 case: "the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right." United States v. Sanchez-Villar, 99 Fed.Appx. 256, 2004 WL 962938 (2d. Cir. 2004)(Summary Order of Judges Sack, Sotomayor & Kaplan), judgement vacated, Sanchez-Villar v. United States, 544 U.S. 1029 (2005)(for further consideration in light of the 2005 Booker decision on sentencing).Judge Sotomayor's record suggests hostility, rather than empathy, for the tens of millions of Americans who exercise their right to keep and bear arms. From: THIS WEBSITE. More HERE.

As the next few days and weeks reel off the pages of the calendar, be prepared for a flurry of activity on Capital Hill as the Democrat Socialist Party pushes the Sotomayor nomination for the Supreme Court through as quickly as possible. Nothing much will change in the way The Court makes decisions now as Sotomayor is simply replacing another liberal, David Souter. However, the stage is being set for the N E X T opening on the court coming soon, I expect, much sooner than any Americans might believe. Once the Democrat Socialist Party controls the SCOTUS, they will have a complete lock on the government of the United States - and if you think you have seen socialism at work in the past few weeks, believe me when I tell you, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Now, I want to say something - something that is on a lot of commentator’s minds, but many, however, are afraid to express their concerns about it. For the first time since the American Civil War, Americans are afraid that their free speech guarantee is worthless. And, to a degree, they are correct in feeling that way.

I want to be absolutely clear here when I say I do not want to see this country torn apart by another war such as we experienced in the mid 1800’s. Yes, I refer to the War Between the States. Some call it the Civil War. (The War Between the States is the congressionally approved name for that conflict.)

I love the US and I do not want to see her spilt again. But, if one steps back and looks objectively at what is happening in this country today it is actually quite easy to see that we are on the brink of just such a horrible, horrible, thing happening all over again. As a nation we stand today on the razor’s thin edge. We could easily fall either way.

As a member of an international organization which studies the era of the American Civil War, the people involved, and the reasons for the war, including the mistakes made that led to the war, I can tell you I am frightened for my country. Why? Because I see the US making the same mistakes it made then and I see the very same reactions by the citizens of the country toward the government today that our ancestors had in 1861. The faultline that divided the country then, and that many had hoped had been filled-in and was gone forever, is again pushing upward and breaking the surface in warning with an admonition to Americans that the slightest tremor will bring the bursting open of that gap splitting the country apart once again.

As conservatives try to put together a political party of their own and rid themselves of the anvil around their necks (the GOP) there has been much talk from northern and northeastern politicians of the Republican and Democrat Socialist Parties of the formation of a regional party by conservatives. For the uniniated, that is code for a “Southern Party.” As a conservative, I can tell you that is NOT the intention of the conservatives. It is NOT what we want. But, having said that, it is becoming clear the politicians who will not accept the cultural differences between the two regions of this country are pushing us in that direction.

Probably the most glaring cultural difference between the Southern American culture and the remainder of the country is our relationship with guns. We are a gun culture. In many southern homes the Bible and the gun share near equal respect. Needless to say the southern American is greatly concerned over Sotomayor’s’ stance on gun control. She has affirmed that she believes the constitution only ties the hands of the federal government in restricting the right to keep and bear arms. In other words, she believes the individual states can restrict gun rights, pretty much, as they choose. Last year, in August 2008, Sotomayor affirmed the district court opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo, which ruled that the Constitution does not prohibit state governments from restricting the right to bear arms.


We recommend you read: "Sotomayor Ruled That States Do Not Have to Obey Second Amendment" here:

www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=48718


In that decision the court said that “the Second Amendment applies only to limitations the federal government seeks to impose on this right [that is the right to bear arms]. Needless to say, this is extremely troublesome to southerners and, of course, other gun owners across the nation. I would venture to say the “sovereignty movement”, in so many of the southern states today, was, at least, partially triggered by the fear of the government taking, confiscating, our guns. If there is one single overriding issue that would cause the creation of a “Southern Party” and, eventually, another serious “secessionist movement”, it would be a move by the government to confiscate our guns, through what the so-called “gun-grabbers” refer to as reasonable gun control. To a gun culture such as my region of the country there is no such thing as REASONABLE GUN CONTROL.

The problem is, our fellow Americans in the northern and northeastern states, as well as some of the liberal west coast states, do not, cannot, and never will, understand that. We southerners, on the other hand, have no intention of giving one inch on our belief that no government body whether federal, or state, or county, or even a lowly city council, has a right to take our guns. We believe, way down in our bones, that any so-called reasonable gun control is the “camel’s nose under the tent” type of Incrementalism and to allow even what may seem, on it’s face, as “reasonable” only allows the camel to push it’s nose deeper into the tent, until pretty soon the entire camel is in the tent with you - and your guns are gone!

Just as the southern states warned the federal government, beginning in the 1820’s and continuing throughout the 1830’s, the 1840’s and 1850’s, that those unfair taxes levied against the southern states would eventually blow up in the federal government’s face, current warnings about gun control are, also, going unheeded. The “gun culture states” have been warning the government for decades now that a serious gun control campaign by those governments will blow up in their faces with truly awful consequences. THAT is just how serious this is to southerners.
The Judicial Confirmation Network has issued a statement we recommend you read. It is titled: “JCN Statement on nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court” and you will find it HERE.
As a conservative I have no doubt Sotomayor will be approved by the US Senate and will take her seat as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. But you need to understand that her seat is simply a building block toward complete and utter control of the Supreme Court by the liberal/socialists running the US government today.


J. D. Longstreet

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

The American Conservative Party ... Texas Fred


The American Conservative Party
By: Special Guest : Texas Fred (Friend and Fellow Blogger)
Visit Texas Fred at: http://texasfred.net/

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The Conservatives of this nation, ALL of the Conservatives of this nation, MUST come together to save this nation. If we don't, we soon won't have a nation worth saving! We must consolidate our efforts and unite under one CONSERVATIVE banner, and for me, the banner above is it!


We have got to organize, we have got to bring ALL the splinter groups into this thing and get everyone pulling in the RIGHT direction.


No more RINO politics, no more libber politics, no more being forced to settle for the lesser of the evils! Conservatives of all persuasions are FED UP and it's time we stood as one, and told BOTH major parties, this is it, we are here, we are angry and we are coming after you!!


Big Tent politics is NOT going to get the job done. Big tents are great for the circus, if you want to go to a circus to be entertained. I don't want my government to be my entertainment! The circus in D.C. appears to have the CLOWNS running the show.


WE, THE PEOPLE, the American Conservative, the American taxpayer, the American Patriot, WE can change that!


And so you know, I am NOT anti-GOP, I am anti-RINO, and any Republican that isn't anti-RINO is NOT a Conservative.


There are some folks that a declared Democrats and are, in their hearts, Conservatives and true patriots, they too are looking for a place that they won't be taken for granted.


As a whole, the major parties of this nation have NO USE for you and me! It's this simple, we only matter when the politicians are looking for votes at election time.


Conservatives normally vote for the Republican party, but as of late, except in a few isolated incidences, we don't have any REAL, Conservative Republicans to vote for, all the GOP/RNC has offered up is Dem-Lite, more RINOs.


I am not trying to force anyone to defect from their party, I am not trying to stir a firestorm, I am trying to get my friends, family and Internet buddies to take a look at the ACP.


If your party isn't doing the things you think it should, if you are tired of the *Good Ol' Boys* network, if you're tired of your choices being Dem and Dem-Lite, the lesser of the evils, maybe you're a prime candidate for membership in The American Conservative Party yourself.


All we're asking you to do is take an open-minded look, read the platform, see for yourself. You may find yourself mildly surprised!


And here is the biggest PLUS I have found to date, any time I have had a question for the leadership of the ACP, I have been given an ANSWER, not a BS, *go away kid, ya bug me*, I mean a REAL answer. So far, those answers have taken care of any and all questions I have had.


The Official site
Facebook Group
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IS the Obama Regime Content with an Iranian “A” Bomb?



Is the Obama Regime Content with Iranian “A” Bomb?
J. D. Longstreet

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The Obama Administration certainly seems content to allow Iran to build an “A” bomb even with the knowledge of what Iran will do with that bomb and what the proxies of Iran will do with the “other” bombs Iran will build and surely divvy out to their lackeys in the various Islamofacist farm teams around the world, several of which are active here in this hemisphere and even in this country.

It is becoming even clearer as each day goes by that the Obama administration is not going to do a single thing to stop Iran from acquiring the bomb. And after the head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, flew (secretly) to Israel recently to read the riot act to Israel in an attempt to scare Israel into stopping their planned raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, it is apparent that Obama is desperate to stop Israel. I have to wonder if Mr. Obama understands just how difficult it is to frighten a people who lost six million of their own to another terrorist state in the twentieth century. It is damn near impossible - and the sooner Obama understands that, the better off his relationship with Israel will be. For the moment, US/Israeli relations have tanked.

One has to wonder just how those American Jews who supported Obama, in his run for the presidency, feel now as they find themselves in the same situation their recent ancestors found themselves with FDR in the White House and their relatives in Europe being gassed to death by the Nazis while the White House chose to look the other way.

We are rapidly approaching the day when another six million Jews will be killed if SOMEBODY doesn’t do SOMETHING to stop Iran. From the Obama White House we can expect nothing but Jimmy Carter diplomacy, which was to “speak softly and do nothing.”

So here is a news flash for Mr. Obama and the White House: Get ready for all hell to break loose in the Middle East. It is coming as surely as night follows day - and very soon.

After the chief spook, Panetta, flew in with his bullying tactic, Israel, understands, even better now, that they stand alone. What Obama and his bully boys do not seem to grasp is that once that visit by Panetta was ended, Israel was free from any constraints upon them by the US to go ahead and make their much planned and rehearsed raid as soon as possible, the sooner the better.

Washington does understand that once the Middle East goes up in flames all the things they worry about, primarily the free flow of oil from the Gulf region to the rest of the world, will certainly be curtailed, if not stopped entirely. Oil tankers attempting to navigate the Straits of Hormuz will most likely be hit by Iranian missiles, set ablaze, and sunk in the straits, effectively closing them to all oil shipments out of that region. THAT is the point at which the US military will be involved and we will then have a three front war in the Middle East. Obama IS smart enough to know that once the missiles begin to rain down on American sailors, on American ships, the American people will demand that the US military strike back at Iran with everything we have.

Look, a head-on military conflict between Iran and the US is unavoidable unless Obama is willing to sacrifice six million more Jews AND the state of Israel. It certainly looks, today, as if Mr. Obama is ready to do that very thing.

After all the apologies Obama made in his “victory tour” of Europe, following his election, I have to ask - is there no end to the shame his government is willing to bring upon the people of the United States?

(For an excellent article on the deteriorating relationship between the US and Israel go
HERE.)

J. D. Longstreet

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Nuke’m Danno! ... Alan Caruba

Nuke’m Danno!
By Alan Caruba
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The popular TV series, “Hawaii Five-O”, made the line, “Book’m, Danno”, famous as a signoff. The world has surely arrived at a point when we need to say, “Nuke’m” to nations like North Korea and Iran. There simply is no alternative.

Well, not exactly. There is an alternative and it involves North Korea selling a small nuclear weapon to some Islamofascist to smuggle into the United States and destroy one or more of our cities and millions of our citizens.

The memory of the recent slaughter of 3,000 of our countrymen is already fading swiftly.

Soon enough, Iran will be making their own such devices and, since the United States has been their “Great Satan” for the past three decades, they too may choose this option. It is more likely they will fulfill their mission to bring about the return of the Twelfth Imam, a mythical Islamic Shiite figure, by plunging the world into a nuclear holocaust.

Perhaps it will begin with a nuclear attack on Israel, though Israel’s history suggests they will not let that happen. Having risen like the phoenix from the ashes of the Holocaust they will not permit such evil.

All this is occurring at a time when we have a pacifist in the White House who is just too eager to “extend the olive branch” to Iran and to scold North Korean instead of marshaling the world’s nations to impose sanctions that will bring its government to ruin.

A nation has to get lucky in its choice of leaders in times like these and the United States is the most unlucky of nations to have fallen into the hands of Barack Obama and his Democrat toadies in a Congress led by two of the greatest ignoramuses to have held the offices of Senate Majority Leader and Speaker of the House.

“History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap,” said Ronald Reagan, noting too that “If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.”

It is folly to think Iran is not working night and day to make its own nuclear weapons and it is folly to think they will not use them.

It is folly to think that North Korea can be contained and can be restrained from continuing to make nuclear weapons and the missiles to carry them because the latest test of an atomic device and firing of missiles was North Korea’s way of advertising its wares for sale.

North Korea has been described as China’s dagger, a rogue nation presumably under its control, to keep the United States tied up in South Korea since the truce in 1953 that left a permanent state of war between the two halves of that vast peninsula. North Korea threatens both South Korea and Japan, American allies. If it were not so useful, China could crush it in the course of a week’s time.

What we do know is that, most recently, North Korea was assisting Syria in the construction of a nuclear facility until Israel turned it into a parking lot. North Korea is a global arms merchant that will sell to anyone with the cash to buy their deadly merchandise.

Not all the pretenses of the United Nations have any useful impact on North Korea, nor has the UN been of any use in the Middle East that just packed its human rights council with representatives of the worst despots on earth. The United States funds a quarter of its budget.

It is doubtful that President Obama has a clue regarding the history of the past half century, the reason the Korean War was fought, the reformation of China from a crazed Maoist third-rate nation into one that has embraced capitalism in all but name. It is doubtful, too, that the lessons of World War II, the appeasement of the Nazi regime, the butchery and plundering undertaken by the 20th century imperialist Japanese Empire has penetrated his mind.

Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford understood the threat. Neither Presidents Carter, nor Clinton did. President Reagan did, along with Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

For President Obama who along with Clinton never wore a military uniform, any attack on the United States is the fault of the United States. He is utterly devoted to the belief that common ground can be found with Islamic fanatics whose goal is a global caliphate.

The United States is seen by many around the world these days as a wounded giant, a failing economic power. As such our enemies will see these times as perfect for an attack. We have replaced a President who warned the world that America would launch a preemptive attack if threatened with a President whose first instinct is to apologize for America’s past policies and actions.

Having just celebrated Memorial Day to honor the men and women who gave their lives to protect history’s most unique experiment in self-government, in freedom, and in liberty, we have arrived at a point in time when all the signs point to the loss of our nation to those devoted to our destruction.

We are a nation that will not defend our southern border against the wholesale invasion of millions of illegal aliens, bleeding us of billions to provide healthcare, to educate their children, to live with the crime they bring to our streets. The President has stopped the building of a fence to slow that tide and proposes to close the detention center of its most rabid Islamic enemies.

We shall either summon the courage to act in our defense or we shall be a chapter in the book written by our enemies, describing how we hesitated…and lost.
Alan Caruba
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Is the Christian Church in America Being Forced Underground?


Is the Christian Church in America Being Forced Underground?
By: J. D. Longstreet

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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” - First Amendment to the US Constitution

My old Pappy used to say that the persecution of the early Christian Church was the greatest thing to happen to the church since the Resurrection. It forced the church to spread through out the modern world of that era. In doing so, it spread the Gospel, the “Good News” of the newly formed Christian church and sank its roots deep into what had, until that time, been pagan soil.

Judging from the news coming out of San Diego, California, it’s a mighty good thing they don’t have coliseums and lions there. For if they did - well, you get the picture.

Wait a minute! You DON’T get the picture! Haven’t you heard of the strident measures the government is taking there to squelch religion taught in the home? Apparently, many of you have not.

Well, now. It would behoove us to fill you in so you can have a solid foundation upon which to build your opinion of what is going on in this particular part of California.

To get a good grasp of the situation you need to go
HERE. The piece is titled: “Home: No place for Bible study.” Drew Zahn wrote it.

It seems a San Diego Pastor and his wife were questioned by officials from the county and told they would be fined if they continued to hold bible study courses in their home. Yep, that’s what I said: “Their H O M E!”

The incident dates back to (the) Good Friday before Easter when a county government employee paid them a visit. According to the couple they were asked a number of questions about the bible study they were conducting. Among them were questions about whether or not there was hymn singing and the verbal expressions: “Amen” and even “Praise the Lord ” spoken aloud.

It seems the county has this permit they refer to as the Major Use Permit, or the MUP. The Pastor’s wife says she was informed that she and her husband MUST have an MUP before they continue to hold those services in their home. Now, a MUP oft-times involves lots of money. Depending upon the activity, they may require a traffic study, and/or an environmental study. Plus, the applicant for a MUP must comply with parking and sidewalk regulations, as well. We’re told that the costs for all this often exceeds ten thousand dollars could exceed that several times.

We have warned a number of times about the complete disregard for the US Constitution and the shredding of it by others. It seems to us, this is a good example of simply ignoring the law of the land and making up law on the fly.

Of most concern, though, is the obvious ignoring of the US Constitution - the First Amendment that makes up the Bill of Rights, no less.

While some may argue that the First Amendment only applies to laws made by the Congress of the United States, the Supreme Court has interpreted it as applying to the executive and judicial branches of the US government, as well. And – during the last century - the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the limitations of the First Amendment to each state, including any local government within a state.

Now, as if that is not enough, along comes something called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. This one is SO bad it prompted A Texas pastor to write an open letter to the US Senate asking ANY Senator to filibuster the bill! The Pastor, Rick Scarborough, pastor of Harvest Point Church in Nacogdoches, Texas, and founder of “Vision America” refers to the recent Congressional actions as a "maddening march to the destruction of our First Amendment right to freely practice our religion."

In the outside event that you don’t know - this bill would provide special protections to homosexual people while leaving Christian ministers open to prosecution – if - their teachings were to be linked to any subsequent offense, by anyone, against a homosexual person.

Now, to understand the import of this bill to a Christian church, one must understand that the Christian faith teaches that homosexuality is a sin, one of the gravest of sins. As the vast majority of Christian churches teaches that the Bible is the “infallible” Word of God or, at the least, the “inspired” Word of God, then a Christian pastor is bound by his/her faith to teach the same and, from time to time, he/she will be “lead” to preach against homosexuality as the sin that he truly believes that it is.

Under this law, as I understand it, a pastor preaching such, from a pulpit, will be liable (would be in violation of the law) and subject to imprisonment, a fine, or whatever the court and the law decree, should one of his parishioners, or simply a listener, go out and commit a “hate crime” against a homosexual, especially if that perpetrator should mention that he did the crime after hearing one of the good pastor’s sermons.

The act has already been approved in the US House of Representatives as HR 1913 and is sitting in the queue and waiting in the Senate as S. 909.

In his letter, Pastor Scarborough says: “The legislation pending before you will make me an 'inducer' to hate crimes if I preach Romans 1:18-32 and someone who hears me then commits a criminal act against a protected class. It is clear that this bill will criminalize biblical preaching and will prevent me and thousands of other clergymen from practicing our faith without threat of penalty from our own federal government." (You REALLY NEED to read Romans 1:18 - 32 in order to understand the Christian church’s take on homosexuality.)

Here is the text of the letter Pastor Scarborough sent to the Senate:

Dear Members of the Senate of the United States:

As a pastor of a local congregation, I humbly request that at least one of you stand up on behalf of all God-fearing Americans and stop this maddening march to the destruction of our First Amendment right to freely practice our religion in America via "hate crimes" legislation including the protection of pedophiles and other aberrant and destructive behaviors. As you are fully aware, the hate crimes bill that recently passed the House and is now before your body will seriously erode that freedom.

Congressman Louie Gohmert repeatedly sounded the alarm that if the version of the bill which passed the House is finally signed into law, the radical left will be fully armed with the power of federal criminal law to silence any dissenting voice that declares homosexuality or other such behaviors sinful and wrong.

I have been preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ since 1969. I have deeply held religious convictions that the Bible is God’s revealed truth about man and humanity, and I hold no animosity toward homosexuals or anyone who disagrees with me. Let’s debate the merits and the facts and allow all sides to air their opinion. But do not silence pastors nor penalize people of faith.

In the Scripture there are clear guidelines regarding marriage, human sexuality, and social order.

In the first chapter of Romans there is a clear prohibition against same-sex relations. The legislation pending before you will make me an “inducer” to hate crimes if I preach Romans 1:18-32 and someone who hears me then commits a criminal act against a protected class, including those who choose to live in defiance of God’s revealed truth. It is clear that this bill will criminalize biblical preaching and will prevent me and thousands of other clergymen from practicing our faith without threat of penalty from our own federal government.

A congressman who strongly opposed this legislation in the House recently said to me, “They just don’t get it, Pastor Rick!” I believe that some of you do “get it,” and it is incumbent upon you to stand up for what is right and just and stop thistrain from arriving at the station.

I have walked the halls of the Senate Office Building, as have others, begging for someone to lead a filibuster of the bill, only to be told repeatedly that it is a lost cause. Frankly, sirs, there are no lost causes except when good men fail to fight a desperate battle for their God and their liberty.

That’s why we are making this appeal to you. On behalf of God and our freedoms we beseech you to take up the torch. In the words of acclaimed actor and World War II hero, Jimmy Stewart, in one of the most memorable movies of the 20th century, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington": “Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.”

Who will step forward and filibuster this wicked legislation? Who will champion Christians, Jews, and even Muslims who will find themselves in jeopardy when this legislation is signed into law? Will you?

When young David approached the field of battle bringing news to his three warrior brothers from his father, and saw Goliath taunting the armies of God, he left his carriage and said, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” When his own brothers rebuked him, he then replied, “Is there not a cause?” That day one courageous follower of the living God showed the world that God could whip a giant and rout an army.

Senators, I plead with you to be our champion, NOW! Surely there is one Senator who believes in the cause of righteousness enough to stand up and do the right thing, whether it’s popular and winnable or not! Is my freedom to practice my religion freely a worthy cause? Is not the First Amendment a righteous cause? Is there not a cause?

You have been honored by your constituents who have elected you to uphold the Constitution.

To get more on this story, go
HERE.
To answer the question posed in the title to this commentary - yes, I believe, eventually, the Christian Church will be driven underground in America as it has been in other nations around the globe. Otherwise, it will cease to exist in this land many firmly believe was founded by Christians.

As I scribble these few words it could not be any clearer that this bill is a violation of the First Amendment. Will it pass the Congress and be signed into law by the President? Yes, I believe it will. Why? The answer is quite simple: because America is no longer a Christian nation. At least, America’s government no longer governs based on the Judeo-Christian code of laws and beliefs. And very soon now, the Supreme Court of the land will be in the hands of socialists, as well, and that will be the end of the failed experiment called “America” a nation which was to have been governed only by the voice of it’s people and their God.

J.D. Longstreet

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Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day 2009. No Greater Love....


From the world wars of Europe to the jungles of the Far East, from the deserts of the Middle East to the African continent, and even here in our own hemisphere, our veterans have made the world a better place and America the great country we are today. --- John Hoeven



Happy Memorial Day, everyone, from J. D. Longstreet and the staff of INSIGHT on Freedom! Let us remember, in everlasting reverence, those who made the Supreme Sacrifice that we might enjoy FREEDOM in America.






















Sunday, May 24, 2009

Press Release from the Sons of Confederate Veterans


05-24-09

Note from the Editor: You may read the letter sent to President Obama (and referenced below) at:


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Press Release from "The Sons of Confederate Veterans"



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For Immediate Release:


The Sons of Confederate Veterans urge President Obama to continue the long-standing tradition of sending a wreath to the Confederate Monument in Arlington Cemetery. This tradition began with President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 when he spoke at the dedication of the monument and should be continued, as it is an important part of the civic and memorial life of the nation.

There has recently been a letter circulated urging President Obama to forgo the practice of sending a wreath to the monument in Arlington. That letter is filled with false conjectures and absolute lies about the history of the Confederacy and the remembrance of it in our nation. It is signed by supposed "academics and scholars". Two of the signers of this letter are Bill Ayers and his wife, once members of the radical Weather Underground who have admitted their part in conducting terrorist bombings against the police and government facilities of the United States.

Besides long standing tradition, President Obama should send a wreath to the Confederate Monument at Arlington Cemetery because all Confederate Veterans have the status as American Veterans as well.

Several acts of Congress have defined Veterans of the Confederate States of America as American Veterans due the same benefits and honors as any other American Veteran.

End Release



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Three of the laws referenced in the release:P.L. 38, 59th Congress, Chap. 631-34 Stat. 56)U.S. Public Law 810, Approved by 17th Congress 26 February 1929(45 Stat 1307 - Currently on the books as 38 U.S. Code, Sec. 2306)

This law, passed by the U.S. Congress, authorized the "Secretary of War to erect headstones over the graves of soldiers who served in the Confederate Army and to direct him to preserve in the records of the War Department the names and places of burial of all soldiers for whom such headstones shall have been erected.

"U.S. Public Law 85-425: Sec. 410 Approved 23 May 1958(US Statutes at Large Volume 72, Part 1, Page 133-134)

The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval forces of the United States.

U.S. Code Title 38 - Veterans' Benefits, Part II - General Benefits, Chapter 15 - Pension for Non-Service-Connected Disability or Death or for Service, Subchapter I - General, § 1501. Definitions:

........ (3) The term "Civil War veteran" includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term "active military or naval service" includes active service in those forces.



Socialized Medicine in the US.


National Health Insurance? No way!
J. D. Longstreet
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“National Health Insurance” is one of the primary tools used by a government to control her people. That alone is enough for me to be whole-heartedly against it.

Now, lets get something straight… I believe the Health Insurance Companies, in America, deserve what they get. They have been, in my opinion, abusing their subscribers for entirely too long. Rates have risen through the roof at an undeservedly fast pace. Sure medical costs have gone up, but not at the percentages your insurance premiums have gone up. This has to stop. But National Health Care is a cure worse than the disease.

More government in our lives is more than just a little bit scary. Once National Healthcare is implemented, and don’t get me wrong, I believe some form will be, your life will be under the control of the administrators of that insurance.

For Instance, lets say you have an obesity problem. You have developed a heart problem as a result of the obesity. You need treatment for your heart. National Health Care says: “OK, we will not pay for the heart treatment until you lose weight”. Or, they provide all citizens with a chart, approved by the FDA, of the “Approved Foods” all citizens should eat. They make it clear that if you cannot show proof of having ingested those “approved” foods, on a regular basis, also decided by them, you Health Insurance is no good. You will not receive treatment. Or, another example, you may be allowed to have one child only. It must be a boy. (See China.) If you choose to have another baby, after the approved ONE, the costs will come out of your pocket. Get the picture?

Now, this does not take into account the reduced quality of care we will receive from the medical community. Their hearts will not be it. After 8 years. or so, in school, to learn their profession and they will become “salaried government employees”. Need I say more?

The left is hell-bent on imposing such a system on the citizens of this country. National Health Care is a Socialist dream. It is also a Conservative’s worst nightmare.

We must be on our guard, for some form of National Health Care is about to raise its ugly head in the Nation’s legislature. Our socialist Congress, in ka-hoots with our socialist president, are working hand in hand in the shadows, behind the scenes in Washington, DC, to yoke the citizens of this country to the slavery of universal healthcare. The month of July is the target date, we are told, to get a bill to the floor of the US House of Representatives. It is time for conservatives to exercise their power and stop it in its tracks as we did the “Clinton Care” attempt in the ‘90s.

J. D. Longstreet
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Saturday, May 23, 2009

Fed Up Yet?



Are you fed up with a Congress and a president who:



...vote for a $500 billion tax bill without even reading it?



...are spending trillions of borrowed dollars, leaving a debt our great-grandchildren will be paying?



...consistently give special interest groups billions of dollars in earmarks to help get themselves re-elected?



...want to take your wealth and redistribute it to others?



...punish those who practice responsible financial behavior and reward those who do not?



...admit to using the financial hurt of millions as an opportunity to push their political agenda?



...run up trillions of dollars of debt and then sell that debt to countries such as China?



...want government controlled health care?



...want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?



...refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?



...appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?



...want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?



...want to impose a carbon tax on your electricity, gas and home heating fuels?



...want to reduce your tax deductibility for charitable gifts?



...take money from your family budget to pay for their federal budget?



...If so, help organize and/or participate in a Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party in your community on July 4.




For more information on how you can help --- go to:



http://www.teapartyday.com/



Find your state's group here:



http://www.teapartyday.com/Locations.aspx



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Friday, May 22, 2009

A Note to Obama Loving Israelis: Want to Trade?


A Note to Obama Loving Israelis: Want to Trade?
By: J. D. Longstreet
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Israel, like all democratic countries, and formerly democratic countries (such as the United Socialist States of America), have liberals and a coterie of the not-so-bright members of elite academics and members of their press corp. That is a given. It is a given we mightily disagree with, but, hey, some things we just have to swallow hard and move on.

I make an effort to stay up with current news events in Israel on a daily basis. I'm from the old school where the scholars believe that Israel is the linchpin of humanity on this earth and by keeping a close eye on Israel one can see the future in the making.

It also gives me ulcers. Israel, you see, has a goodly number of left-wing journalists, just as we do in the states. The Israeli leftists want the same thing the American leftists want. That is socialist domination of their country and the world.

One of the things that really grinds on me is the Israeli leftist's continual promotion of our President, Mr. Obama --- and their continual tearing down of their own Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Granted: I do the same thing here --- only I do it in reverse!) If such things were possible, I would gladly swap our Mr. Obama for their Mr. Netanyahu, in a heartbeat, and never look back! As a mater of fact, I expect about 47%, or so, of the American electorate would be happy with that trade!

The left-leaning press in Israel continues to tell their readers how Obama is going to force Netanyahu to do thus and so. Ain't gonna happen! Oh, don’t misunderstand, now. Obama will try to T E L L Netanyahu what he W I L L do and what he W I L L N O T do, but it will go into one of Mr. Netanyahu's ears and out the other. See, Bibi has a mind of his own and he tends to think for himself. Sometimes it brings him grief, but, hey, he is his own man. Nobody owns him --- not even Obama.
Recently Netanyahu went to Washington to speak with Obama. We were assured by the leftist press that Obama would read him the riot act and Netanyahu would relent and fall in line behind the Two-State Policy of Obama's which features a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Didn't happen!

Us dumb ole conservative writers told you it would not happen weeks before the event. But, dear reader, you must understand that if a scribe, such as myself, has "conservative" by his or her name, it automatically means we are dumb, inbred, hicks from the backwoods of the American wilderness. Why IS that, do you suppose?

You see, we frighten the leftists so much they live in constant fear of our penchant for being able to almost instantly form an opinion and then defend our stand in the face of all comers. Seldom do we wring our hands and worry for days on end about the nuance of the words we have just spoken or written.

The left is in awe of our insight into world events, including the current events here in our own country. We make them look so bad, they make every effort to keep us under wraps and to stifle us at every opportunity. They will censor any news of events of a conservative nature they fear might have some effect upon the American electorate. Allow me to give you just one example: "The Great American Tea Party,” held just a few days ago all across America: Did you know the collective crowds were estimated at over one million Americans gathered at the many gathering points, from sea to shining sea, (As planned) to protest the continued raising of taxes on American citizens in order to redistribute the nation’s wealth, and the government's blatant ignoring of the Constitution. Did you see anything in the papers about it? Did you hear or see anything on the TV about it? When you DID manage to find a story the press had reluctantly produced about it, were you surprised to see the leftist slant to the reporting and the nearly inaudible snickering from the elitist newspersons covering the report?

You can bet that had the US Supreme Court been considering a case on Roe vs Wade and there had been just three persons carrying poster board signs, in support of Roe -v- Wade, outside the Supreme court building, you would not have been able to walk those sidewalks for the hundreds of newspersons, cameras, microphones, microwave dishes, and mobile control rooms (in multicolored vans) parked everywhere forcing you to tip-toe through the cables strew everywhere as if a 2-year- old had been playing with his spaghetti supper. But, how dare I? Don’t I KNOW there is absolutely no left-leaning bias in the press? Well, DUH!

Now a note to our Israeli friends: You have finally got a Prime Minister who is ready, willing, and able to save the country so many of you have bled and died to preserve. Let him do his job! Right now, at this point in history, Netanyahu's job is to save Israel from Iran. If that requires bombing Iran back to the stone age, then get behind Netanyahu and help him do it. It is the only way your country, Israel, will be saved. The socialists running America these days are far more concerned for the welfare of the Arabs and Muslims than they are for Israel.

You are, for all intents and purposes, on your own. It is going to be up to Bibi Netanyahu to stop Iran. He can do it, but, it seems to me, an admitted outsider, that you have a responsibility to help defend your nation --- and it also seems to me, you can best do that by supporting your Prime Minister's efforts at this particular time in history.

Forget Obama! In four years, eight years, tops, he will be gone from the political stage and we conservatives, with God's help, will have gotten our act together and will have earned an opportunity to salvage whatever is left of the once great America and re-establish her as a world power once again.

As you can plainly see, under Obama's guidance, America is slipping from the pinnacle of power, with each passing day, and will continue to do so until the American people say “enough” and purge our political house of all the socialists in our government.

As I look at Washington today I am forced to admit that Joe McCarthy was right, only too early, with his charges of communists in the American government.

To our friends in Israel we say, don't allow your nation to be taken from you as we Americans did just last year. America has gone from a democratic state to a socialist state almost overnight. On the surface, the promises socialism makes are beguiling --- especially to the ignorant among us and to those of lesser intelligence, as well as to the lazy and, shall we say --- non-motivated. It is also appealing to those who are ready, willing, and able to use their guile in the service of greed and power to wring anything and everything of value from those who willingly fall into step behind the leader of a socialist movement. That is what is happening everyday here in America these days.

As a loyal America, who has great feelings for the state of Israel, I plead with you to not take your direction from the Obama Administration. I strongly suggest that you, as a free people, insist that your government make it's own decisions based on what is right for Israel --- and Israel alone.

J. D. Longstreet
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Thursday, May 21, 2009

Government Mandating Deathtraps For American Highways?




Small cars -vs- Large cars in Crashes
J. D. Longstreet


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In this scribe’s opinion, reports from America’s legendary auto making region describe the cars the Feds are going to force the new “government motor companies” to build as little more than “death traps.” Once you consider their small size, light weight, and cramped seating spaces to accommodate passengers you may arrive at the same conclusion.

Small passenger compartments with three rows of seats and little or no trunk space, and tiny little engines that run on about as much power as a one hundred watt light bulb will soon be the standard for all automobiles built in America. What a pathetic excuse for an automobile! I’d be ashamed to even be seen riding in one. My peers would think I had better sense than to climb into something so dangerous. Think I’m kidding? Then go
HERE.

I intend to keep my pickup truck until the wheels fall off --- then I plan to secure new wheels or, failing that, have some made! Point is --- I will not, willingly, give up my strong, powerful, and safe truck for one of those “pregnant roller skates” the government intends to force Americans to drive. There is something completely un-American about a tiny little piss ant car, anyway.

I’m from the generation who took old cars from the 1920’s and 1930’s and rebuilt them into hotrods and street rods and drag racers which, off-times, were engineered better than the original car was when it rolled off the assembly lines. Mine was the generation that designed and built the so-called “muscle cars.” (And what beauties they were, too!) They remain engineering phenomena, even today. (If you want to see a new car that comes close to imitating our muscle cars go to your nearest Dodge dealer and take a look at the new “Challenger” with the “Hemi” engine.)

In a few years America’s highways will resemble the roadways of Cuba. In Cuba there are a slew of American cars from the 1950’s still running strong because the Cubans learned how to make replacement parts they could no longer obtain because of the boycotts and embargo(es) on all things American. You are going to see Americans driving cars that are 20 - 25 years old. Driving those cars will be people, like me, who refuse to submit themselves to the obvious danger to their lives and limbs presented by those government motors’ “beer cans on wheels.”

Look, we’re are talking about an automobile a couple of men, with their bare hands, could all but destroy in short order. Think back to the last so-called fuel shortage when some American auto companies made those fuel-efficient cars. Remember the small, boxy little things? It was fairly easy for a grown man to cave in the quarter panel of one of those cars with his bare fist. If you put your whole body weight, of say 200 hundred pounds, behind it --- you could, fairly easily, smash in a fender --- and a door pane --- and the roof.

One police department near me bought a few of them for service within the city limits and when they tried to mount the blue lights and sirens on the roof of those cars --- the roof caved in and they had to be taken back to the dealership and have reinforcement bars welded onto the roof, behind the headliner, just to keep the roof from caving-in from the weight of a set of blue lights and siren which were easily picked up and carried about by one man. An officer told of an incident in which he had to break off a chase, at 80 mph; because the car was so light he could not control it on the highway.

There is an excellent article at Forbes.com you really need to read. It is titled: “Why Small Cars Won’t Keep You Safe.” Hannah Elliot writes it and you will find it
HERE. We learn in this article of a report released recently by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) which says that even with airbags, electronic stability control and strong front-crash ratings--small cars are much more dangerous in head-on crashes than larger vehicles. Death rates in minicars involved in multi-car crashes are nearly twice as high as those in large sedans.

I’m just an ole country boy without a single PHD to hang onto my moniker, but as mentally slow as I am, I could have told them that without even a single hesitation. I mean, in a crash between a grocery store shopping cart and an Abrams Tank, which had you rather be in, the shopping cart or the tank? See what I mean?

In 2009 making a fuel-efficient car means making a smaller, lighter, car. We simply don’t have the technology to do anything else… yet. Smaller, lighter cars are not as safe in a car crash as larger, heavier, cars.

Let us say you are driving or are a passenger in one of those rolling coffins, what do you think your chances would be in a rollover crash? How about a “head-on” collision? Have you stopped shaking yet?

As a former police officer and a former rescue man, I have picked up auto crash victims in situations where I had to make multiple trips to the pile of mangled metal to recover all of the same body! Let me tell you --- it is sickening.

This is where we are headed with the government’s fuel-efficient automobiles. Once those things hit the roads and the ad agencies do their jobs selling them to the public, people will decide they MUST buy them. Then we can just stand back and watch the body count go up and up, because, assuredly, it will. It did the last time we did this. The history is there for you to see. But, unfortunately, this is what you get with a nanny government run by socialists.

America is about to learn another of the hard lessons of socialism --- under socialism we all suffer equally.

J. D. Longstreet
*** For more information on the dangers posed by the small cars read: "Obamamobiles may kill Americans 'faster than Iraqi war" at:



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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The War on Our Southern Border ... Alan Caruba


The War on Our Southern Border
By Alan Caruba


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Among the latest news out of Mexico was the discovery of four U.S. citizens found in a van, strangled, beaten and stabbed in the border city of Tijuana. The victims, ages 19 to 21, were two men and two women from San Diego and Chula Vista areas.

In 2008, 6,292 Mexicans were killed in the drug wars between the drug cartels. In the first eight weeks of 2009, there were already a thousand casualties, some of them beheaded. By way of comparison, in six years of war in Iraq, this exceeds U.S. losses by more than three thousand.

In mid-March, however, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, third in the line of succession to lead the nation, told a crowd of legal and illegal Hispanics that enforcement of federal or even local laws regarding immigration is “un-American.” She called the illegal aliens in the audience, “very, very patriotic.”

No, Madame Speaker, the patriotic, indeed the constitutionally responsible thing to do is to enforce the laws of the nation. You even took an oath of office to do so.

It is an open secret in Washington, D.C., that Obama and his fellow Democrat travelers in Congress want to push through an amnesty in order to increase the number of voters likely to support Democrats in coming elections. Congress has a short memory and no doubt has conveniently forgotten the firestorm of protest that erupted when the Bush administration attempted the same thing.


President Obama’s proposed budget cancels plans to extend the border fence along the U.S.-Mexican border beyond the 670 miles already completed or planned. That leaves 1,277 miles open. In addition, the budget would end payments to states and communities to cover the cost of jailing illegal immigrants.

Sooner or later, some innocent American bystanders in downtown Tucson or any other American city are going to get caught in a hail of bullets as Mexican narco gangs exchange fire in a territorial dispute. Then Americans will demand action. You may recall that was the feeling right after 9/11 in 2001.

When I say “territorial dispute” I am referring to the network of American cities in which these gangs are currently operating. In April 2008, the Justice Department reported that Mexican drug cartels represent “the largest threat to both citizens and law enforcement agencies in this country and now have gang members in nearly 200 U.S. cities.”

Obama’s response to this was a promise to reduce gun sales that end up across the border and I believe him because we are already witnessing efforts to take away everyone’s guns. While calling for tougher border security, Obama so far is doing nothing beyond the management of a U.S.-Mexico agreement forged during the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is saying stupid things to blame America for the chaos of Mexico, claiming that American “is at least as responsible as Mexico for the violent drug wars…” No, we are not responsible for Mexico’s endemic corruption and its failure to crack down on the drug cartels many years ago.

Forgive me if I have little confidence in any real action being taken by Obama’s new director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. When she was Governor of Arizona, she called out the National Guard to back up the Border Patrol, but essentially had them man desks. It was a serious waste of man power by all accounts. Currently she is calling for more motion sensors and aerial surveillance to spot those entering the nation illegally. That’s just a bad joke.

If the U.S. wants to avoid an all-out border war with the narco cartels, it needs to put up one very high fence along the 1,947 miles we share.

I have even less confidence in the Mexican government to deal with the narco gangs. It isn’t like they’re not trying. Meeting with George Bush in 2007, the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, asked for help to fight the gangs and to his credit, he has been making a serious effort, deploying thousands of police and military, but at a terrific cost to their lives. It is, in the very truest sense of the word, a war.

Mexico’s drug war is closing in on becoming Obama’s “Iraq”; a war not so much of choice as one that is integral to our national security.

This is not an exaggeration. In December, Four-Star general (ret.) Barry McCaffrey and former national drug czar said that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a narco-state. An Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at West Point, McCaffrey released a report that predicted Mexico will be in control of the narco gangs within a decade. “Chronic drug consumption in Mexico has doubled since 2002 as has cocaine use, while U.S. cocaine consumption has dropped by 70% in the past two decades. An estimated 5% of the Mexican population now consumes illegal drugs.”

Fully 90% of all U.S. cocaine use transits through Mexico and it is also a dominant source of methamphetamine production for the U.S. market.

All this is occurring while Speaker Pelosi is encouraging illegal immigration and denouncing enforcement of our laws to prevent it.

All this is occurring as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has released a report that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless, targeting rivals, along with federal, state and local police. Citing a dramatic rise in border violence over the past three years, it called it “an unprecedented surge.”

“Good fences make good neighbors” says the famous Robert Frost poem, Mending Wall, but a vastly increased border patrol and other steps are needed now to ensure the safety of Americans everywhere within the nation. It must be coupled with a renewed and vigorous effort to thwart the influx and to encourage as many of the estimated twelve million illegals living among us to return home.

Editor’s Note: One of the best websites for information about this problem is
http://www.borderfirereport.net/. I recommend you bookmark and visit it to gain the insight and information necessary to demand congressional and White House action.

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at
http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/ and a weekly commentary at http://www.anxietycenter.com/, the website of The National Anxiety Center.

© Alan Caruba, May 2009

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