Raising Cain!

Raising Cain!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Surprise, surprise!  Herman Cain has risen to at least a tie for the number one slot amongst the candidates for the GOP nomination for President.  It seems everyone is surprised – but Herman Cain.

So – what the heck is going on here? 

Here’s what I THINK is happening:

REAL conservatives within the republican ranks are in near rebellion.  They actually LIKE Herman Cain and they actually LIKE his platform.  But that is only a part of the story here… in my opinion.

Conservative republicans have made no secret of the fact that they do not want Romney as the GOP candidate for President.  That puts them at direct odds with the GOP and the RNC.

See, Romney was supposed to be the GOP candidate this time round.  I the time honored fashion of the Republican Party, it is Romney’s turn.  Never mind that he has very little chance of actually beating Obama in a head to head race for the Oval Office, the GOP made its decision that Romney would be the candidate long ago.  They made a very serious mistake.  They didn’t ask the grassroots conservatives in the parry how they felt about it.  Had they done so, the republican field of candidates would be very different than it is today.

I catch a lot of flak concerning my insistence that Obama stands a better than even chance of winning four more years in the Presidency.  In fact, I believe there is every reason to believe that he WILL win another term even with all the problems the country has today… many of which can be traced directly to his inadequacy as a leader on the national and international stage.

Never, ever, underestimate the democrat’s election machine and their willingness to do whatever it takes to win an election.  I am seriously afraid the GOP is making that mistake in the2012 election and, as a result, may find themselves waiting four more years for a shot at the Presidency.

Now.  The grassroots conservatives do not like Mr. Romney’s politics.  He is far too liberal a candidate for tastes.  (Please.  Do not try to convince me that Romney is a conservative.  History is on my side.) 

Mr. Romney is a pure politician who will trim his sails for the prevailing political winds.  He will continue to tack, either side of the wind, to get to his destination.  Just as a seasoned sailor can tack either side of the wind to take their vessel just about anywhere they want, regardless of the winds direction, Mr. Romney has a past record of just such maneuvering.  Conservatives don’t like that.  They REALLY don’t like it.  And southern conservatives like it even less.

So, what to do?  Support a so-called second tier candidate, a candidate they actually like to begin with, but has very little chance of achieving the anointment of the GOP.  Walla!  Herman Cain.

I am a born and bred southerner.  I eat, sleep, and breathe southern.  As such, I can tell you today, that I would not be surprised if Herman Cain swept the primaries in the southern states. 

Why would conservatives vote for another inexperienced black man for president?   The answer is simple … Mr. Cain strikes them as an honest, no bull, honorable man.  Cain has held fast to his principles and has impressed conservatives with his forthright answers to the media’s questions, and (and this is VERY important) he has the ability to lift the spirits of conservatives and inspire that “can do” spirit that made this country great in the first place.  Southern conservatives are drawn to his gracious southern charisma. And … contrary to what the liberal press, the democrats, and Hollywood would have you believe -- the southern people are no more racist than any other Americans. 

Now.  Having said all of the above … this is a very fluid campaign season among republicans because we have been asked, again, to support a candidate we don’t like.  We are tired of “settling” for a candidate and we would really like for once in a very long while to be able to endorse, and support our republican candidate will all the enthusiasm and energy we have not been able to commit to ca candidate since Ronald Reagan.

Now we wait for establishment republicans to undermine the Cain campaign and make sure Romney regains the top spot in the polls.   You can be sure the heat will be on Mr. Cain and it will increase in intensity in the immediate future.

That calls for a warning to the Romney campaign.  Whether conservatives go to the polls and cast a ballot in November or stay at home disgusted, may very well depend upon the Romney campaign’s efforts to discredit and/or destroy Herman Cain’s campaign.

I say, again:  If Romney is the GOP nominee, there is a very good chance that Obama will be returned to the Oval Office for four more years.  Frankly, I’m not at all certain America can survive another Obama term in office.

  

J. D. Longstreet

Iran Spits in Obama’s Outstretched Hand

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

It was bound to happen.  Just like Jimmy Carter, Iran sensed another weak US President and gave Obama the back if its hand.

The unfortunate truth is – Obama will react to Iran’s attempt to murder the Saudi Ambassador and bomb the Saudi embassy and the Israeli embassy pretty much the same as Jimmy Carter reacted to the taking of American hostages in the US embassy in Tehran during his administration.

Already the Obama administration is calling for an international response to Iran’s latest plot against the US.  WHY?  It strikes me as more of the “It Takes A Village” philosophy.  And it will work just about as well, too.

Already our illustrious Secretary of State is calling for international condemnation of Iran.  What’s the matter, Hillary?  Is the US not big enough to take care of itself? 

No doubt Obama will threaten Iran by sending a letter of condemnation to the mad mullahs in Tehran.  Oh, and to show just how angry, and how serious Obama really is -- he will most likely seek more sanctions on Iran.  We all know just how well the existing sanctions have worked, right?

"We will work closely with our international partners to increase Iran's isolation and the pressure on its government and we call upon other nations to join us in condemning this threat to international peace and security,” our esteemed Secretary of State said on Wednesday.  Wow!  That ought to really put the fear of God in ‘em, right?

Just how out of touch with reality is the Obama administration?  Well, Vice President Joe Biden gives us a hint when he said the following in an interview: "It's critically important that we unite the world in the isolation" of Tehran and that "whatever action is ultimately taken ... that it's not the United States versus Iran."   See what I mean?

Biden is dead wrong!  It IS the US versus Iran.  We have, been assured by Iran’s government, that once they have the nuclear bomb, they intend to strike Israel with the first bomb and the US with the second bomb.  How much clearer could it be?

The US is the Great Satan. The US is a nation of infidels, so far as Iran is concerned, and Iran is the mortal enemy of the US.  The murder and bombing plot in Washington this week should underscore that Iran is at war with the US whether the US government wants to admit it or not.

Here’s what troubles me.  I have said many times in the past that eventually the US will have to go to war with Iran. (Iran is already at war with the US!) And I am very afraid that given the current endeavor in Washington to cut back on the military budget, the US will not have a military large enough and strong enough to go head to head with Iran on a battlefield. 

Our military, today, is in bad shape.  We are making up the difference, so to speak, with military technology. When our opponents become able to overcome our technological advantage – we are going to be in a fight for our lives as a country.  We are flying aircraft that should have been replaced years and even decades ago.  Our Navy is about the size it was when the First World War broke out.  Our Army is exhausted and way, way, under strength and is going to become even more under strength in the immediate future.

And we are staring down the barrel of a soon to be nuclear-armed Iran.

Oh, but you say we held off the Russians for forty years and they were a nuclear power.  That is true… but… Russia is a northern European nation. They think and act as we do.  The same cannot be said for Iran. 

The only real friend the US has in the region is Israel and the Obama administration is treating Israel as if is an enemy.  Dumb does not begin to describe the Obama administration’s treatment of our only friend in the Middle East.

One of the questions making the rounds since the plot was revealed earlier this week is why Iran sought to strike the embassies of both Saudi Arabia and Israel?  There have been unconfirmed reports (dating back at least two years) that the Saudi kingdom had granted Israel access to an area in northern Saudi Arabia to use as a staging area for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.  If those reports are correct, then surely Iran is aware of it.

In any event, Iran just sent a signal to the Saudis that cooperation with Israel would not be tolerated.

Iran just sent the Obama administration a signal, too.  Unfortunately, our fearless leader seems totally clueless as to what that message is.

In the meantime, Obama will send Iran a letter explaining how attempting to murder Saudis, Israelis, and Americans -- in Washington DC -- is well, really, not nice. That ought to scare the heck out of ‘em.

Yeah, right.

J. D. Longstreet     

Obama's Delusions of Grandeur ... by Alan Caruba

Obama's Delusions of Grandeur

By Alan Caruba

Did Obama really think that a 2,000-page takeover of the nation’s healthcare system, passed late on the night before Christmas 2009 in the Senate was going to go unnoticed or unprotested?

Indeed, it was protested when a million Americans showed up in Washington, D.C. in September 2009 to demand its defeat.

The obscenely misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed because all the Democrats in the Senate voted for it, but in the House 34 Democrats in addition to all the Republican members voted against it on March 21, 2010. The President signed it into law on March 23, 2010.

By November 2010, political power in the House passed from the Democrats to the Republicans and in almost every election before and since Republicans have been the people’s choice. The House voted to repeal Obamacare and that bill sits idle in the Senate that is still controlled by Democrats.

The Supreme Court is expected to take up the case brought against Obamacare by 26 state attorneys general and various amicus curiae. It would be justice, indeed, if it were declared unconstitutional before the November 2012 elections. A new Congress controlled by Republicans would finish it off no matter how the Supreme Court decides, but Obamacare has had a dangerously disruptive affect on the economy.

I have been saying that Obama is a moron since well before it became fashionable to doubt his alleged intelligence. I saw little evidence of it and now, like many others, I am seeing evidence of a man under intense pressure and—to be generous—not handling it well.

We expect our presidents to be able to take the heat. It is the job description.

We learned belatedly that President Nixon was a raving paranoid, convinced that everyone was plotting against him when, in fact, he was plotting against them. He even kept an “enemies list”. The result was the Watergate scandal and it took impeachment proceedings in Congress to finally get him to resign. His successor, Jerry Ford, granted him a pardon and promptly lost the next election. Unfortunately for America, it was won by Jimmy Carter.

I was therefore not surprised when New York Post columnist, Michael Goodwin, made the same connection, writing “While there is no indication Obama is walking the halls of the White House late at night, talking to the portraits of former presidents, as Richard Nixon did during Watergate, the reports explain his odd public remarks.”

In a similar fashion, a recent column by David Limbaugh titled “Obama’s Behavior is Getting Worse” spells out the reasons to doubt his intelligence and judgment, while focusing on his personality and the price we all pay for his failures. Elections have real consequences.

What we know about Obama at this point is that he is a hardcore narcissist who will not take the blame for anything. This is an unpleasant trait in children, but we know, too, Obama is extremely immature.

We know that he spends taxpayer’s money on all manner of foolish things such as loan guarantees to Solyndra and countless other “Green” enterprises that yield either bankruptcy or slim returns. He threw billions at the nation’s unemployment problem without success and, incredibly, is insisting that Congress authorize more of the same.

We know that his “answer” or “fix” for any problem is to give another speech either before a joint session of Congress (usually reserved for a State of the Union speech or the declaration of war). on the campaign trail, or in a hasty press conference where any serious questions evoke the rather tiresome blaming syndrome.

Lately everything is the Republican’s fault even though Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years he held office and still control the Senate. The President’s own party is dragging its feet on his latest “jobs” bill.

For a President of all the people, he makes no secret of the fact that he has no love for people who use corporate jets, for businesses of any size, for bankers, for Wall Street, for physicians and their patients, and people who don’t want to join a union.

Most certainly, he has been actively engaged in bankrupting the nation, achieving in two and a half years (with the authorization of a Democrat-controlled Congress) a national debt that exceeds the total achieved by every prior President from George Washington to George H.W. Bush.

This reflects his penchant for self-indulgence which has been seen in his vacation choices, the lavish lifestyle he maintains in the White House, and his frequent visits to the golf course. His wife seems to think she is the National Nanny, forever hectoring everyone about what and how much they should eat. The administration tried to pass her off as someone who shops at Target!

The worst aspect of all of this is the contempt other nation's leaders feel for him and, in particular, his judgment which impacts events worldwide. He is a great embarrassment for his inept handling of foreign relations. Ironically, after decrying George W. Bush’s conduct of the war on terror, he has adopted every single aspect of it.

His energy policies have favored no energy as his administration attacks coal, oil, and natural gas extraction and use. Unleashing the energy industries would generate thousands of jobs and billions in tax revenue. Lacking adequate energy, America will begin to resemble a Third World nation.

In so many ways, his election has proven disastrous whether it is for the 14 million Americans who cannot find work or those whose homes have been foreclosed. It is a national shame that so many are on food stamps and other government handouts.

We have witnessed a mainstream news media that debased itself, first by ignoring his thin resume and then by ignoring to whatever extent is possible the damage he has done and continues to do.

All Americans must now wait out the election process until November 6, 2012. The good news is that his party will suffer greatly at the polls and America will be rid of Barack Hussein Obama on January 20, 2013.

The nation has taken wrong turns in the past and reversed course. It will do so again.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Columbus Day. A Day of Infamy? Not Hardly!

Columbus Day.  A Day of Infamy? Not Hardly!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Columbus Day is the day leftists love to hate. 

Chris is blamed for everything from “evil, EVIL, colonialism, to destruction of the environment.  Some even blame Colombo for slavery, and even charge him with genocide of the indigenous peoples he found here. All of it smacks of some ethereal, imaginative, leftist, “Blame America First” propaganda -- otherwise known as Bovine Scatology.

I have never seen any evidence that Christopher Columbus actually “discovered” America. Rather, he seemed to have simply bumped into it on is way to, er, India or China?  “It” turned out to be Hispaniola where now resides Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

It is reliably reported that he actually touched the America’s well south of the equator and thought he had discovered Eden.

It is said that Columbus was one of the most confused men – ever.  He didn’t know where he was going when he left, he didn’t know where he was when he got there, and he didn’t know where he had been when he got home! (Same thing happened to me once on a weekend pass from Fort Sill!)

Truth be told, we modern Americans haven’t a clue as to WHO, exactly, discovered this place we call America.  We think we know the people we erroneously call “Indians” were here first having crossed the land bridge where now exists the Bering Strait between what is now Alaska and Russia. 

There are claims that the Chinese explored the western coasts of the two Americas long before Columbus was even a twinkle in his father’s eye.

There are accounts that Europeans actually fished the waters off the coast of what became Newfoundland as far back as the 1400’s.

Then there is the report of the Vikings and their settlements on the northeastern coast of North America.  Some even claim the Erikson boys, themselves Vikings, explored the northeastern coast and may even have settled here for a short while as early as 1001.

But the more we dig, and I do mean DIG, we find even more astonishing evidence that white men were on this continent long, long, before any of the explorers we know of today.

Anthropologists have discovered the skeletons of two Caucasian males that date back to at least 9,000 years ago.  They were found on the west coast of the Americas.  Now, where the heck did THEY come from – and how the heck did they get here? 

But Columbus gets the credit, deservedly, or not. 

I got my basic education in the public school system where I was taught: “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” I was taught that it was on the 12^th day of October of that year that land was sighted. THAT is Columbus Day.

So, maybe Columbus didn’t “discover” America.  But he did map a sea route to the western continents that was the most reliable of its time. 

Columbus is not to blame for the mess we have made of the Americas.  Only in the minds of those who must denigrate their own country in order to feel important is such an idea acceptable.  It is WE, not Columbus, who must accept responsibility for the good and the bad we have created on these shores.  Unfortunately, those who hatch such theories, blaming Columbus for all our ills, are not, it would seem, willing to accept responsibility.  But then, that is America’s most pressing problem today -- lack of responsibility for one’s self and one’s actions.

What really gripes me is that we celebrated Columbus Day on Monday, October 10^th, this year instead of October 12, the day of record.  Heck, I even raised my flag in celebration of Columbus Day -- for about ten minutes -- until my conservative traditionalist self forced me to bring it down.  I could not be true to my convictions and put the flag up on Monday the 10th.  It will go up on October 12^th.

Moving historical dates about on the calendar, to suit a government payroll, simply confuses the record of America’s history.  When one’s history and heritage is confused it is generally lost.  It is the greatest loss a people can suffer because it deprives them of their knowledge of self.  That’s when we become just another face in the crowd, a number, a zip code, an IP address, anything but a living, breathing, human being created in the image of God, Himself.

When a nation of people loses the knowledge of self, they become like sheep, easily controlled – and ruled.  If you need evidence of that, I invite you to look at modern day America.

My generation of individualists is dying out.  And I am not sorry that I am.  I do not wish to live to see the inevitable end of my country – death at her own hand.

No, I did not get all of this from the moving of a date on a calendar.  But, IT WAS the straw that put the camel in traction… at least for me.

Feel free to join me in celebrating Columbus Day tomorrow, October 12^th.

J. D. Longstreet

A Taste of American Socialism

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Now that America has had a taste of socialism – American style—How do you like it?

Mr. Obama and his henchman have done a wonderful job, in just two and a half years, to “fundamentally change” America – JUST AS HE PROMISED.

America is now very close to, and is certainly becoming,  a third-world nation.

 

Our economy is gone.  Our money is virtually worthless.  Thousands upon thousands more Americans are on the government dole.  Unemployed Americans make-up some 9 to 10 percent of our workforce.  Our government is crumbling under its own weight.  Protesters are in the streets taking advantage of a weakened America to demand such things as a guaranteed government stipend for every American… WITHOUT HAVING TO WORK, AT ALL.  I’m just hitting the high spots here.  The socialist rot goes much, much, deeper.

Those of us alive today are witnessing just how quickly socialism can terminate a country as healthy as the USA.  It is a vicious, viral, form of national cancer. And it has America practically on her knees.

A couple of years ago, I wrote the following: 

“You must forgive me if I get a bit wound-up when socialism is the topic.  I have watched that “destroyer of nations” reap its harvest for many, many, decades. It is, in my opinion, the greatest threat to democracy on the planet.  I see socialism as presenting an even greater threat than the Islamofacist terrorists!  I will never be comfortable with a socialist government in America.  We can argue “degrees” of socialism all day and it won’t matter.  As the expression goes: “a little leaven leavens the whole loaf.”

I think it is pure irony that now, as a “near” socialist nation, America can celebrate an event named “Independence Day” with a straight face! 

 Today, Americans are anything but independent!  We are fat, lazy, and dependent on our new “near” socialist government for far too much.  There is very little “independent” about Americans today.  In just a few months of the Obama regime we have gone from “King of the Hill” to just another member of the “Mediocrity Mob” of nations.

 I know this is difficult to swallow.  You can’t know how much pain it caused me to write these words.  I have stood on the ground where the Wright brothers took their first flight launching America into the space age.  They had no idea that their short flight would end up taking man to the stars, but of course, it did.   I have trod the ground from which our astronauts blasted off to land and walk upon the surface of the moon.  I have witnessed America claw her way to the top through sheer willpower and determination to be the best.  And now, as I approach the autumn of my life, I am watching the decline and fall of that same America.  Do you really think I don’t feel a tremendous amount of pain? I think I must now know what the ancient Romans felt as they watched the greatest civilization in history, to that day, decline, crumble, and fall in ruins around them.

 “Oh,” but you say, “… Socialism is the only way to go.  Everyone will be equal!  No classes, no class warfare…” and such.

 Well, let us see if we can break it down so that even those of you in love with the “cancer of nations,” socialism, can understand it.