President Barack Obama is ignoring the country’s immigration statutes despite saying in an interview last week that no occupant of the Oval Office has the right to bypass the law, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith charged Monday.

“Throughout the three years of his administration, Obama has waived applying several of our immigration rules and has refused to enforce other immigration laws,” said the Texas Republican. (Read entire story)

Illegal Immigration Is Immoral

Illegal immigration has been in the news daily during the Republican primary campaign, even though a depressed economy here, stronger border enforcement, and vast new finds of petroleum in Latin America may soon radically curtail the number of illegal entrants into the United States. But for now, conservatives are warned that coming down hard on illegal immigration (i.e., enforcing federal statutes) would lose them the all-critical Hispanic vote. Meanwhile, in California, some legislators want to grant de facto state amnesty to illegal residents. But lost in the continuing furor, pro and con, is the moral dimension. The strange notion has developed that supporting something as immoral as illegal immigration is somehow ethical. It is not, and there are several reasons why. (Read entire story)

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Democrats would simply drop their façade and admit they have morphed into some sort of American breed of a socialist political party?

In the past few months, even years, my teeth have been set on edge when I have listened to their rhetoric about “fairness,” in this or that, and their use of the words “fair share” to drive a wedge between the American classes, and especially the words, or phrase, “income inequality” which seals the deal.

When a nation seeks income equality it is assuming socialism as its core philosophy. Income inequality is the clarion call for redistribution of a nation’s wealth. It is as simple and as basic as that.

In the past two decades I have slowly come to the realization that the dumbing down of Americans is near completion. It has taken approximately 50 years to realize, but the leftist movement in America successfully infiltrated and gained control of America’s public education system. Now we have a full generation and most of a second generation who have no clue what America is about. They don’t have a clue what their freedom cost. They don’t have a clue that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states as an agent. They have been taught — and they believe — that the people of the states are subservient to the federal government. They do not understand that the Bill of Rights is a protection for the American people from their federal government. Those ten amendments restrain the federal government in the interest of the people.

Most of our young Americans today don’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Don’t believe me? Ask ‘em!

I have mentioned in previous articles that as a solider in the US military I was trained to meet and combat socialism on the battlefield. It was rightly recognized as an enemy of freedom. It was recognized as a form of government that was destined to fail, but before its demise, it would enslave the people of any nation that was so utterly stupid as to even try it. No nation has yet survived socialism.

Europe is teetering on the edge of complete disaster simply because they have run out of other people’s money with which to pacify their populace after decades of coddling and teaching them to depend on their government for their very existence.

The USSR is now a footnote in history.

Yet, despite the fact that America was nearly crushed under the weight of a mere sampling of socialism, the left persists in their socialist agenda for America.

In 2008, they managed to elect a socialist as President of the United States. In 2010 the people of the political right in America successfully blunted the socialist left’s endeavor to shove America deeper into socialism. Conservatives were successful in retaking a majority of the Congress.

Now we have a chance to solidify conservative control of the American government by refusing to reelect the socialist in the White House this November.

It was clear after the President’s State of the Union address that their next step is to incite a class war in America. The great-unwashed masses in America must be taught to hate the “patricians” and the “plutocrats” – the very people who financed — and continue to finance — America’s success as the greatest nation in the history of mankind.

The wealthy Americans must be brought low and their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the – ahem – less fortunate among us. That is what I like to refer to as: BOVINE SCATOLOGY!

Nevertheless, their efforts to incite class warfare has been more successful than most think. It ought to be. It has been an underground movement for at least nine decades now. With the left’s capture of the Oval Office the socialist were emboldened to rise to the surface and ram their agenda through the national legislature.

But the right stopped them in 2010. That, dear reader, is why we now see the President’s abuse of the power of the Executive Order. Obama is intent on diluting democratic freedom in America by infusing socialism into every agency and administration under the control of the executive branch of the government.

Americans must retake control of their government in November and free it from the clutches of the socialist elite who have dipped their fangs into America’s bloodstream and are sucking her dry.

America needs a champion who will lead from the front. A leader who take a stand on the deck of our sinking ship of state, much as the Father of the US Navy, Captain John Paul Jones, when his ship was blown to bits and sinking from enemy fire. When asked if he was prepared to surrender Jones famously replied: “I have not yet BEGUN to fight!” Against all odds, Jones won the battle and took the enemy ship.

THAT is the spirit we need, indeed, the spirit it will take to lead America out of the muck and mire of socialism, put her back on course, trim her sails, and stir for the safe harbor of capitalism and freedom.

It is a life or death decision we Americans will make in November — the life or death of America.

January 26, 2012

~ The Author ~
J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.

He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.

Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.

Federal Observer contributing columnist, J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom.

You have finally succeeded in socially engineering a neutered society of sheople.

I would like to blame Congressman John Boehner, and the Republican establishment leadership, for not offering any resistance to our nations suicidal path of destruction.

I’d like to walk into Congress and grab that big weepy goof, Boehner, by the nape of his neck and slap the shit out of him for general purposes, but I realize that he really isn’t the cause, he is merely a symptom for this terminal disease that has deteriorated our nations moral compass, and replaced it with fear, intimidation, and fecklessness.

These Congressmen are tainted public servants, running a game on the people while they place our national security, and our safety at risk.

These are the same stooges who have sat on their hands for the past three years, huffing, puffing, weeping, and peeing in their pants while watching our country disintegrate and offering no resistance to this lunacy occurring in the United States.

Last week we had two major occurrences of Treason being investigated in Congress, and in the Judiciary, but the main stream media over shadowed these stories with pomp, and the fool heartedness of a Donald Trump endorsement to Republican Presidential Candidate, Mittens Romney, in his lack luster campaign.

So, while the media foamed at the mouth, drooling over the Trump to Mittens endorsement, two guys sitting in different states should have been dragged out of their safe havens, horse whipped, then hung for Treason.

The head lines should have read:

1. Eric Holder guilty of contempt of Congress and Misprision of Treason.

2. Georgia Judge ignores irrefutable evidence – guilty of Misprision of treason.

3. Barack Obama guilty of treason, a charge punishable by death.

Instead, we get wall to wall coverage of a meaningless endorsement by some huckster clown, to a faint hearted loser, and this over shadows the real news of crimes being perpetuated on the people by a gang of criminals who are using the government to engage in criminal activity and replace our liberty with criminal intent.

Professor Gonorrhea, and his little cockroach buddies, have done a pretty good job of surreptitiously, subverting the original intent of the law.

Most lawyers, and judges really don’t understand the mechanics of criminal law. They are over educated in the fictitious concept of social justice, transferring wealth through the gray areas of extortion, doling out tax payer benefits to illegal aliens and malcontents, or the protection of sodomites and other freaks of nature, instead of dispensing justice when it threatens our national security, or comprehending the laws which grant us liberty and preserve a viable nation.

While the media and the pundits were oozing all over themselves in wonder lust over Donald Trump and Mittens, two cases of Treason went virtually unreported by the media which wants to play out this charade of a historic presidency at the detriment of American citizens, instead of trying to promote the common good for the general welfare of the nation.

There is a well established law in our jurisprudence which places an affirmative duty on all of us to expose any treasonous, or criminal act, which comes to our attention.

Treason – according to Title 18 USC Chapter 115 ss.2381: who ver, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States, or else where, is guilty of Treason and shall suffer death.

Misprision of Treason applies to Officials who have taken an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution.

Misprision of Treason : 18 USC, Chapter 115, ss 2382 states; whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President, or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor, or to some judge or justice of a particular state, is guilty of Misprision of Treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years; or both.

Now that we know what the stakes are, we had two cases heard last week. One in the House Oversight Committee, headed by Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa, against United States Attorney, Eric Holder, who was threatened with a contempt of Congress citation for refusing to turn over documents in the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms gun tracking investigation dubbed “Operation Fast and Furious.”

Holder is trying to conceal the Obama administrations involvement in this moronic and heinous scheme of selling weapons to Mexican drug cartels who in turn used these weapons to commit crimes including murders of Mexican citizens, and United States Border Patrol Agents… and I conclude that Eric Holder is guilty of Misprison of Treason to say the least.

If anything was proven to be news worthy last week, it was that our Lady of Justice is not only blind … she is deaf and dumb as well.

Georgia Administrative Judge, Michael Hussein Malihi, not only dismissed three cases against Plaintiff’s represented by attorney’s; Van Irion, Mark Hatfield, and Dr. Orly Taitz, for Barack Obama’s inability to qualify as a “natural born citizen,” as required by the U.S. Constitution, Article II Section I … Malihi let Obama slide for flipping him off, and not reporting to the court which he was subpoenaed to appear.

This was the first time in American history that a sitting president did not comply with a court ordered subpoena, and this judge was wrong for letting this arrogant president slide.

The plaintiff’s evidence was clear and well defined ,yet the judge ignored it and used to establish precedent an Indiana State Kangaroo court ruling which elevated the defendant above the Constitution illustrating to the world that the fix was in, a move which could only be rivaled by Al Capone.

Judge Malihi rewrote the United States Constitution for the Chicago Machine which has spent over one million dollars trying to cover up this treason.

Maybe Malihi thought he was being compassionate and doing a good deed for Black History Month, but his actions were contemptible and he should be charged with Misprison of Treason also, for ignoring his sworn duty and obligation.

What we are witnessing is a cover up scheme of High Treason. A grave risk to national security by having a foreign agent posing as President of the United States, and most members of Congress are complicit and guilty of Misprision of Treason.

We have traitors in Congress acting in breach of their oath.

If Speaker Boehner, Senator McConnell, and the Republican leadership would have been exercising their duty, these events might not have occurred … but they weren’t, they were criminally negligent putting every citizens safety at risk.

They are part of the cancer that has corrupted our political system and it’s up to the people to sever it, up root it, and destroy it, so it never takes hold again.

We can’t do it with the aid of these traitors presently clutching to power. The best we can hope for is electing more Tea Party Candidates and purge the traitors out of the system.

Then we can proceed with hearings to hold these critters accountable for their criminal actions and sentence them to prison.

If Barack Obama is found guilty of High Treason, he should have his neck stretched out to match his ears.

February 5, 2012

~ About the Author ~
Federal Observer contributing columnist Rick Biesada is the co-founder of The Chicago Minuteman Project.

Angry White Male and The Horse He Rode In On by Rick Biesada can be special ordered through most book stores, or through the publisher at wholesale price off of the Angry White Male web site at http://www.stylefeeder.com/i/pf0v5r2j/Angry-White-Male-And-The-Horse-He-Rode-In-On-By-Rick-Biesada-Paperback.

We now have another example of the Obama administration’s continuous effort to skew the truth and suppress any real information about our country being invaded by outlaw Mexicans. On the evening of January 31, 2012 at approximately 7:00 p.m. four illegal aliens were in the process of stealing a vehicle in the Road Forks area near Interstate 10, seventeen miles west of Lordsburg, New Mexico. This intersection is where U.S. Highway 80 leaves the interstate and makes its way south to Douglas, Arizona, and is only two miles east of where Larry Link was brutally murdered in June of 2011.

Following a high speed chase at least one of the alien burglars bolted on foot, running onto the eastbound lane of Interstate 10. This outlaw was hit by an eastbound eighteen-wheel semi-truck and was killed instantly.

As a result of this accident, eastbound traffic was completely stopped until 12:00 midnight. Traffic was backed up all the way to San Simon, Arizona where it was diverted back to the west. This logjam of vehicles was close to 15 miles long.

Several local residents were told by Border Patrol agents on the scene that the person killed was indeed an illegal alien, and prior to his death he had been involved in a high-speed chase in which he and others tried unsuccessfully to evade law enforcement officials.

One of the agents who gave this information to motorists stranded as a result of this calamity was a commanding officer from the Lordsburg U.S. Border Patrol Station. Several different Border Patrol agents gave the same information to numerous citizens at the scene of the accident.

Ironically, several local residents, who were stranded for five hours as a result of the accident, were returning home from a meeting with Tucson Sector Border Patrol officials where high ranking Department of Homeland Security bureaucrats assured them that the situation on the border was quieter than ever.

The following morning at least one of the stranded motorists who had been informed by Border Patrol agents of details of the accident called the Lordsburg Border Patrol Station and the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office requesting more information. The Border Patrol and Sheriff’s Office refused to release any information or comment further.

On February 2nd two separate fires were started in Cochise County Arizona south of this accident. One of these fires was located on U. S. Forest Service land and cost the U.S. taxpayer a considerable sum to put out. Locally it is widely believed these fires were started by illegal aliens as the fires were located on major smuggling trails.

Submitted for publication to the Federal Observer & No Stinking Amnesty, by Ed Ashurst, an Arizona Border Rancher.

February 5, 2012

“Published originally at NoStinkingAmnesty.com“: Republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.

Today at work I was having a discussion with a co-worker about what is happening in Georgia regarding Barack Obama’s eligibility to be on the upcoming ballot. My friend told me that he had been discussing the subject with another co-worker and this person had refused to accept that it was happening because he had not seen anything about it on the evening news.

I tell you this, not to poke fun at the co-worker we were discussing, but to point out that most people simply do not wish to spend any amount of time seeking out the truth, or doing any critical thinking on their own.

Critical thinking is defined as “…is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.”

What this is all leading up to is this, the presidential election in November. I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction. Even though Barack Obama’s performance as president has been dismal, at best, I still believe that we will get stuck with another four years of that S.O.B. Allow me to explain why.

Mitt Romney, will all likelihood, get the Republican nomination, and I don’t think Romney stands a snowballs chance in hell of beating Obama. And even if he did, I don’t honestly think we would be much better off with him in office anyway.

I know a lot of people are still hanging onto the hope that Ron Paul can win, but that isn’t going to happen. Not that I have anything against Congressman Paul, it is simply that the people that truly run this country, those behind the curtain so to speak, just won’t let him win.

I have heard a lot of discussion online about the delegate issue, and how Ron Paul is only hoping to collect enough delegates to have his views entered into the discussion during the GOP convention. I suppose if he has enough delegates they will have to give him time to air his opinions in return for support of those delegates.

I have also heard that it is mathematically impossible for Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to get the nomination because neither of them made it onto the ballots for enough states. People are asking why both of them are even bothering to continue their campaigns when they know they can’t win.

This is what I see happening. I think that the reason Gingrich and Santorum are sticking it out is so that, even though they know they can’t win, they may be able to gather enough delegates between the two of them so as to diminish the importance of the Ron Paul delegates. I think that eventually, whatever delegates collected by Gingrich and Santorum, will swing over in support of Romney, leaving Ron Paul out of the picture, and his message off the table during the convention. But that’s just what I see happening, I could be wrong.

Whatever happens, Romney is going to get the GOP nomination, leaving us with the option of either voting for him, Obama, or Ron Paul as a write in. Sure, a write in vote for Ron Paul will be a vote based upon principle, and a vote for what this country may need, but it isn’t going to change the outcome of the election. Either we are going to have Romney as our next president, or four more years of Obama. In plain English, we’re screwed either way.

So where does that leave us, what options do we have? A long time ago, George Washington said, “The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”

If any of you have seen the very first Matrix movie, you will recall the scene when Neo is first plugged into the construct, the training program where he learns the truth about the Matrix. When someone is jacked into the construct it is possible to then upload any data they want into that person’s brain. If I had the ability to jack every single person in this country into a similar training platform, and then upload every document I’ve ever read regarding the formation of our government, the origin of our rights, and the reality of what our elected representatives have done to our republic, that most people would still look to solve this nation’s problems at the voting booth.

I’m here to tell you people, we do not have to put up with our governments bullshit if we don’t want to. We put up with it because we do not know our rights, and the fact that we built this government, and we can damn sure dismantle it if it stops serving its intended purpose.

Grover Cleveland, our 22nd President reminded us that “Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.” In 1838, Abraham Lincoln stated, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.” [my emphasis]

Our system of government, as I discussed in a recent article, probably came as close to perfection as anything every created by man. So why do we sit back and let a bunch of limp dicks tinker with it and usurp all kinds of power and authority over our lives that it was never intended they have?

In 1785 James Madison wrote, “The preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be universally maintained but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them and are slaves.” [my emphasis]

In The draft for the Kentucky Resolutions Thomas Jefferson offered us a simple way out; “Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”

In his Notes on Virginia, 1782, Jefferson reaffirmed that by saying, ““[The purpose of a written constitution is] to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.”

Note that he says that our acquiescence may be construed as an intention to surrender our rights. In other words, if we sit back and do nothing, our government assumes we don’t have the courage to stand up for our rights and put an end to their constant usurpation of power and authority over our lives.

Jefferson is also quoted as saying, “And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?” How much longer are we going to seek answers by electing people to do what is rightfully within our power and authority to do ourselves?

Yet, I share the same sentiments as did former President Franklin Pierce when he said, “I wish I could indulge higher hope for the future of our country, but the aspect of any vision is fearfully dark and I cannot make it otherwise.”

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

If you wish to comment, please go to Neal’s blog so that others may partake of your wit and your wisdom as well… http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal

Once more a SNAKE wearing a black ROBE HAS SPIT IN THE EYE OF THE American people.

There is no justice left in this country, nor any integrity in the upholding of ones oath of office.

Judge Michael Malihi, the Deputy Chief administrative Judge in the State of Georgia has just proved it with his cowardly decision with regard to the eligibility of Obama to remain on the ballot (by declaring him a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN), when there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Obama doesn’t even come close to meeting the criteria of a Natural Born Citizen.

Based on the strength of a blatantly forged birth certificate, he has declared Obama to have been born in Hawaii, and further, has declared him to be a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN, and we haven’t even gotten to the part where he is using a phony Social Security number (issued in Connecticut where he Has never lived).

My advice to you Malihi, is to pull your head out of your anal sphincter, take a good close look at that supposed Birth Certificate, and then go look up the definition of a NATURAL BORN CITIZEN, and then look up U.S. Supreme Court decision of Minor-vs-Happerset SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 88 U.S. 162; 21 Wall. 162 OCTOBER, 1874, Term, (Unanimous decision of the Supreme Court)
By his own admission his father was not, nor ever was a U.S. citizen.
He Said so in his book.

How on earth do you think you can get away with just sweeping this under the rug is beyond comprehension.

Where is the guillotine when we need one?

Trust me bubba, this is not going to go away, not by a long shot.

All you have done with this insane decision is light a fire under the butts of a large portion of the population, who are getting extremely fed up with you idiots in your black robes making up law to suit your own purposes as you go along.

Keep it up, and you and the rest of your ilk will be wearing your gavel as a suppository, and that is just for openers.

You might want to look up Shakespeare’s play “Henry the 6th” act 4, scene two, and see what the character “Dick” has to say about lawyers, they were not too well thought of 400 years ago either.

I think it was Thomas Jefferson who once said: “THERE ARE MEN AMONG US WHO HAVE BEEN TRAINED FROM AN EARLY AGE TO PARSE WORDS SO FINELY THAT THEY WILL ARGUE THAT BLACK IS WHITE, WHITE IS BLACK, AND THE MOON IS MADE OF GREEN CHEESE, THEY ARE CALLED LAWYERS”!!!

I BELIEVE HE WAS ALSO THE ONE WHO SAID: “A LAWYER WITH HIS BRIEFCASE CAN STEAL MORE THAN 100 MEN WITH GUNS”.

I FIND THAT QUITE IRONIC SINCE JEFFERSON WAS AN HONEST MAN, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, HE WAS A LAWYER, WHICH IS ALMOST AN OPPOSITION IN TERMS.

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

Submitted to the Federal Observer for publication, by the author, Aaron Cantor USAF (ret), February 4, 2012.

Every day, like vultures circling a fallen prey, they descend upon the centers of political power with their hands outstretched and without a hint of compunction or embarrassment, they beg, lobby, or riot for what they consider to be their “fair” portion of the sweat, blood and tears of those who are successful, self-reliant, responsible and independent. Black, white, tan, red or yellow, these mostly urban beggars and whiners epitomize the Occupy Wall Street crowd that say they aren’t getting their fair share of America’s wealth and demand that those that produce and earn their way, must cough up more in taxes to pay those who won’t work and want something for nothing, using the power of government to get it, in a grand scheme of wealth re-distribution. This “system”, if you can call it that, is socialism by any other name. If they don’t get their way, they resort to violence, property damage and mayhem. This display of “Gimee! Gimee! Gimee!” is disgusting and not worthy of a people who once called themselves free, sovereign and independent. If the Founding Fathers could see us now, they would wonder where they went wrong.

Over the last 50 years, America has spawned at least hall of the population (if not more) as a mindless collective of whiners and takers, egged on by corrupt politicians scrounging for votes to remain in power. The legislatures, local, state and federal, exploit human weakness and greed and can’t wait to rob the public coffers to pay the bloodsuckers for what they have not earned. Government then uses the education system to brainwash the next generation, the court system and law enforcement to intimidate the current generation and passes never-ending social legislation to make the people and their offspring weaker and more dependent.

Unfortunately, these whiners and takers can vote and thus will always vote for the corrupt politician (and there are so many of them, “R’s” and “D’s”) that will keep the “pig trough” full. When the whiners and takers demand more, the corrupt politicians, eager to placate and pander to the rioters and complainers, scream that the rich aren’t paying their fair share and in so doing they are direct contributors to dividing America, with malice aforethought, in a totally unnecessary war of the haves and the have-nots.

“Fair Share!” Let’s talk about fair share! 10% of the top income earners in America pay 70% of the income taxes. That’s not just fair it is way more than fair, to the point of outright theft. 47% of the population pay no income taxes at all and that 47% receives money FROM the government for just being poor, paid by those that pay 70% of the taxes. This unconstitutional re-distribution of weatlh, is class warfare run amok! In a free society, it is inexcusable. If this author had the fortune of being in the top 10% of income earners, you can bet we would do everything in our power to shield our income from the rapacious government and the bloodsuckers. By what right, or by what common sense law, or by what constitutional principle, does the poor obtain a benefit from the rich by the mere fact of being poor? You won’t find that in the constitution ladies and gentlemen.

As Obama dodges along the campaign trail towards re-election and lies come out of his mouth like a saliva-driven Niagara Falls, he uses class warfare to further divide the country between ethnic and white, naive and intelligent, socialist and patriot, un-wise and wise and the rich and the poor. He is the consummate politician that will say anything to get elected. He will tell any lie, use any meaningless example, dupe any group, or exploit any opportunity or emergency, to fulfill his goal of four more years. Millions of Americans saw through this snake-oil salesman style charlatan, well before he was ever elected president and couldn’t believe that the electorate was so mesmerized by someone who was so shallow, without substance and a severely tainted past.

But all of Obama’s lying and propaganda wouldn’t work if government hadn’t been so successful in dividing us, such that we are so dumb down now that we fight with each other instead of taking our anger and actions out on those who manipulate us, pull our strings and given the chance, would enslave us. We have spawned more than one generation that no longer values freedom, self-reliance and independence they only value what they can get for free. They no longer value the therapeutic and monetary rewards of hard work. They have willingly sacrificed their freedom for welfare payments, guaranteed jobs, a so-called “living wage” and the false umbrella of security, as defined and provided by government. At least half of these last few generations of Americans find no value in personal pride or doing the best job they can because they haven’t been taught that doing a good job reflects well upon them and gives them credibility and honor. Instead, they are obsessed with electronic and other toys, communication devices and mindless, guttural TV shows, or movies with no redeeming value or substance. They are also obsessed by “unfairness”, spoon fed to them by a government that exploits everything they can out of the looters, moochers and freeloaders for their vote. What is even worse, these folks that hate America and would take her down if they could, are spawning more generations of dependent Americans with the same Gimee! mindset.

But bear in mind, none of this has happened by accident, because throughout history government has learned that the best and easiest way to govern is to keep the masses happy, brainwashed, distracted ….. and divided. But what faces America today could also not have happened if the people were honorable, honest, trustworthy, self-reliant and vigilant against government’s shadowy and covert expansion of its constitutionally authorized powers.

It is quite possible from the foregoing that you think that we are heartless and without compassion. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, we believe there is a limited role for government to play in helping those that can’t help themselves by providing incentives and enhancing the role that private charities play in providing this assistance. When a person gives to a private charity as a voluntary charitable act that is an act of free choice. There are millions of Americans who give regularly to charities every year. There are millions more that give to their churches that also provide assistance for the poor. In fact, America is the most generous nation on earth.

However, when government says you MUST pay higher taxes so that government can transfer those taxes to the poor and the un-deserving, that is an involuntary act of charity through force of law and takes away the right of free choice. But what so many forget is, without free choice there can be no freedom and free choice is the first casualty of a tyrannical government.

Here is what Benjamin Franklin said about the poor:

“I am for doing good to the poor, but … I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed … that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

When the government gets in the act of providing for the poor, especially when their motive is to buy votes, the poor grow in number and the cost to continue their support grows as well. The cost for government to support the poor in America since President Johnson’s Great Society, (click on “Great Society” link for more information about the poor from the Heritage Foundation) has been in the trillions of dollars and yet we have neither “….. led or have driven the poor out of poverty”, in the words of Benjamin Franklin. We have only succeeded in growing poverty and growing exponentially, the cost to support it. As a result, we are weaker as a people and weaker as a nation.

Of course, being poor is no picnic and not all poor people are looters, moochers or freeloaders. But in America, where anyone who will get an education, work hard to the best of their physical and mental ability, stay on the right side of the law and be personally responsible for their actions, can rise above being poor. The history books are full of individuals that have risen out of poverty to become household names. But the poor will never rise out of poverty if they continue to surround themselves with other people who care so little about them. The poor will never beat the odds if they settle for a life of dependency on government and pick roll models that are the dredges of society.

The reality is, the poor in America live far better off than the poor anywhere on the planet, with subsidized housing, food credit cards, plasma TVs, free health care, free education, free school breakfasts and lunches and free cell phones, all paid for on the backs of the American taxpayer and administered by a grossly in-efficient and hopelessly corrupt government. The reason that they live so well is, they are just the pawns of government who pay them off to buy their votes. This is why the Democrats have been so successful at maintaining political power in America for the last 70 years. They pander to the poor, the un-deserving and ethnic minorities with your tax money for their votes.

Through ever-expanding entitlement programs, government has been instrumental in spawning generation after generation of people whose only choice for living is being dependent on the great mother, government. Having done so, the government has brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy and has created a large segment of the population that is weak, wholly dependent upon government and votes for those politicians that promise and deliver their continuing subsistence, in a classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A letter to the editor in the Waco Tribune Herald back in November of 2010 by one Alfred W. Evans of Gatesville, TX, sums up pretty well what millions of Americans think about the welfare state. Chances are, you agree with Mr. Evans: (link for publisher https://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/tag/waco-tribune-herald/)

“The Parallax Prophecy” predicts that the law of diminishing returns will eventually bring this scheme for buying votes through government handouts crashing down (as it has in Greece and soon the rest of Europe) and those now dependent on government for their lives and livelihoods will either have to become self-reliant and independent, or find the skirts of another “mother” to hang on, or suffer or die needlessly.

Ladies and gentlemen, the history books tell us that it took just 3% of the colonials to give birth to freedom some 235 years ago, by making the greatest sacrifice that anyone can give, the sacrifice of life. Can 3% of Americans restore freedom again this time peacefully, or are there 3% of Americans who even care about freedom anymore? The presidential election in November of 2012 will give us a clue as to which way the wind is blowing. If the wind is blowing in the right direction, perhaps then we can “spawn” another generation of greater Americans who believe in freedom so much that they will give whatever sacrifice is necessary to preserve, protect and defend that freedom for their children and grandchildren ….. so help them God, in spite of the freeloaders that circle the seats of power to beg, borrow, or steal their “fair” share and the political criminals that will hand their “fair” share to them by force of law.

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” – Ayn Rand

© Copyright Sunday, February 5, 2012 – All Rights Reserved

~ The Author ~
Ron Ewart is the President of The National Association of Rural Landowners and nationally recognized author on freedom and property rights issues. Ron may reached for comment via email at r.ewart@comcast.net.

My favorite Looney Tunes Characters © Warner Brothers

I have begun to think of the Republican campaign as a series of Looney Tunes cartoons being replayed again and again. They are filled with a combination of laughs and the fantastical, self-defeating violence of Wily Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner

As the primary season moves along, I sometimes think that far too many Republicans have temporarily lost their minds. Three years of Barack Obama will do that to you.

My response to the campaign thus far may have something to do with the fact that, like Reagan and others, I was once a Democrat and, to borrow a phrase from Paul, First Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

These days, a lot of Republicans sound like a kid who sent Santa a list of toys he wanted and, even though he got most of them, he feels compelled to write and ask why he didn’t get all of them.

Granted that Republicans don’t have the most scintillating field of candidates, but most, including Donald Trump, have concluded that a guy that made millions as a successful venture capitalist, gave a couple of million away in charity just last year, has been a Governor, and hasn’t had a single hint of scandal in his life, might not be such a bad choice.

His opponents at this point include a guy who wants to start a Moon colony, is married to his third wife, left the Speaker’s position under a cloud of ethics impropriety, is given to saying genuinely bizarre and extremely nasty things with regularity, and would make the pathological narcissist in the White House look like a Boy Scout.

Another opponent—one whom nobody including himself—thinks could get elected seems to be in the race for the purpose of having one last hurrah, beating the drum for a few good ideas and a lot of really bad ones. Ron Paul has been in Congress since shortly after the last Ice Age ended and has sponsored only one bill that passed.

And, finally, there is Rick Santorum who is so infused with religious commitment that he reminds me of someone who was touted in a similar fashion, a former Sunday school teacher named Jimmy Carter. All the religion in the world cannot substitute for the steely-eyed realism a President requires in a world filled with evil counterparts.

It’s the voters, however, about whom I worry. New Hampshire was expected to endorse Romney, but in South Carolina Republicans there gave the nod to Gingrich. The Floridians came through with the unmistakable choice, based I am inclined to think on the many older and wiser citizens that live there though, in fact, he won all the demographic groups.

Ron Paul may be mildly amusing to some, but he cannot win. Santorum is a nice guy and, as the saying goes, nice guys finish last. And Newt Gingrich is like one of the Loony Tunes characters, the Tasmanian devil, going around wrecking the place and throwing bombshells that do nothing to advance the Republican and/or conservative agenda.

Too many Republicans appear to be waiting for a candidate who is perfection in every respect, political and personal, and in the real world few fit that description. America has had its shot at electing a “messiah” and it has turned out very badly.

As the rest of the primaries unwind, I anticipate that Mitt Romney will emerge as the party’s choice. I also expect a lot of pure nonsense about his being a Mormon, about the fact that he has not always hewed perfectly to conservative principles, and that he has—God forbid—actually changed his mind more than once or twice in the past.

Lost in all this blather is the fact that he is ideally prepared for the toughest job in the world and appears to have both feet planted firmly on the ground. I actually like the idea that he occasionally misspeaks, admits it, and then apologizes.

I hope that between now and the convention in Tampa, Republicans will regain their senses, their optimism, and their fighting spirit.

Rolling over for the worst President of the modern era because our candidate is not “perfect” is not an option.

Voting for a third party candidate is not an option.

Staying home on Election Day because “your guy” didn’t get the nomination is not an option.

The Republican compass has to point in only one direction and that is the resounding defeat of Barack Obama.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

~ About the Author ~
Federal Observer contributor Alan Caruba writes a doily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

Pete is an angry Catholic currently…

Our Third-world, Affirmative action president, a Somali pirate in a suit, that I have prayed for many times, thinks he knows better than the 2000 year old Church founded by Jesus Christ. If it mattered, calling these jerks in Congress would probably be illegal, but please flood the phones with calls and emails and paper letters. I have never been more outraged at the govt in my life (peacefully outraged- righteously indignant-don’t worry-all legal and lawful and with smile). Please pick up the phone and call- the # toward the bottom. I leave you with two quick quotes by Statesmen. STATESMEN – NOT these fricking politicians!

“Only one reform is worth attempting, reform of conscience” - Russell Kirk 1952

“Whenever man tries to ignore sin, some avenging angel intervenes, progress material and spiritual collapses and the reality of evil is reimpressed…” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

The above submitted by Cynthia B. on behalf of Pete.

NOTE: And as you read through this column and its respective links – don’t whine to me that you are not Catholic, or I’ll cram the words of Pastor Niemöller down your throat. (Ed.)

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I was Protestant.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me. – Pastor Martin Niemöller

On January 20, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reaffirmed a rule that virtually all private health care plans must cover sterilization, abortifacients, and contraception. The rule is set to take effect August 1, 2012. Non-profit religious employers that do not now provide such coverage, and are not exempt under the rule’s extremely narrow definition of religious employer, will be given one year—until August 1, 2013 to comply. (VIDEO INSIDE)

Responding to the announcement, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated: “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” Cardinal-designate Dolan continued: “To force Americans to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. . . It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom.” Noting that the Obama administration “has now drawn an unprecedented line in the sand,” the Cardinal-designate urged that the HHS mandate be overturned. “The Catholic bishops are committed to working with our fellow Americans to reform the law and change this unjust regulation.” See: www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-012.cfm. For more information, see: www.usccb.org/conscience.

Last August, the HHS issued a list of “preventive services for women” to be mandated in almost all private health plans under the new health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The mandated services include sterilization, all FDA-approved birth control (such as the IUD, Depo-Provera, ‘morning-after’ pills, and the abortion-inducing drug Ella), and “education and counseling” to promote these among all “women of reproductive capacity.” HHS’s interim final rule allowed only a very narrow exemption for a “religious employer.” The January 20 announcement makes this interim rule final.

To correct the threats to religious liberty and rights of conscience posed by PPACA, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act has been introduced in Congress (H.R. 1179, S. 1467). This measure will ensure that those who participate in the health care system “retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

It is more important than ever that Members of Congress be urged to co-sponsor this measure. For co-sponsors, please check HR 1179 IH and S. 1467.

ACTION: Contact your U.S. Representative by e-mail, phone, or FAX letter:

Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: 202-224-3121, or call your Members’ local offices.

Send an e-mail through NCHLA’s Grassroots Action Center HERE.

Additional contact info can be found on Members’ web sites at: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

SUGGESTED MESSAGE BY FAX or EMAIL: “Please co-sponsor the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179, S. 1467) and help enact it into law. The Obama administration’s decision to require even religious institutions to provide coverage of sterilization and contraceptives, including drugs that can cause an abortion, makes passage of this measure especially urgent. Please ensure that the rights of conscience of all participants in our nation’s health care system are respected.”

The above was published by National Coalition for a Human Life Amendment (NCHLA), January 31, 2012.

~ Additional Reference Material and columns ~

• Buchanan: Obama Sandbags the Archbishop

• QCA Catholic Dioceses Fight Obama Healthcare Law

• Catholic Resistance Must be the Response to the Unjust HHS Edict to Violate Conscience

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There is a quote, taken from what is one of my favorite movies, V for Vendetta, where V says, “Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.” That quote has come to mean so much to me as I have learned that words DO mean things, and often not what we expect them to.

Take the word allegiance for instance, do any of you know what it means? Allegiance is defined as: “a subject’s or citizen’s loyalty to a ruler or state, or the duty of obedience and loyalty owed by a subject or citizen.” When combined with the word pledge, which means a solemn promise, or undertaking, the two mean something which bears considering.

Although the flag is simply an object which represents this country, when you take that pledge you are stating that you are giving your loyalty to the rulers of this country, and pledging your obedience as a subject, or citizen. To me, that entails surrendering my sovereign individuality, and placing myself in the position to where I am subservient to people, whose purpose is to represent me, not rule over me. For that reason, I will no longer recite the pledge of allegiance, as I do not feel the obligation to be allegiant to the government.

I could be wrong, but the way I see it a pledge is like a spoken promise. However there are also vows and oaths, both of which are similar, but are slightly more serious in nature. In 53 years I have taken one of each, both of which I take quite seriously. Twenty-two years ago I took a vow to love, honor, and cherish my wife, till death do us part. The other, an oath of enlistment, stated that I would “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…” Notice that word allegiance right there? That is where my allegiance lies, to the Constitution, not to the men and women who sit in office and defile it.

I owe absolutely no allegiance to those men and women who have violated THEIR oaths to support and defend the Constitution. In fact, sorry for the crudeness of my language, but I wouldn’t piss on the majority of them if they suddenly burst into flames.

You see, you can read all about these conspiracies, but it is those men and women who were elected by the people of this country, to uphold the Constitution, who are to blame. If they had did their jobs, and not let the power of their offices go to their heads, we would not be in the predicament we are today. To take it a step further, if the people of this country had educated themselves as to the purpose for their government, and of their inherent, unalienable rights, then maybe we would not have elected such pathetic pieces of shit to represent us.

A very long time ago, a very wise man once said, “…how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” That man was Thomas Jefferson, and if he said that over two hundred years ago, imagine what he would be saying now.

Because people are so much more interested in being entertained than they are in being informed, we have allowed our government to shred the Constitution, and trample all over the Bill of Rights.

In 1956 the Supreme Court heard the case of U.S. v Minker. From their ruling we read, “Because of what appears to be a lawful command on the surface, many citizens, because of their respect for what only appears to be a law, are cunningly coerced into waiving their rights, due to ignorance.”

People, no matter how hard I try to convince them otherwise, are under the misguided belief that the government can pass any law whatsoever, and that there is very little we can do about it. Think about something Ben Franklin once said, “In free governments the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors & sovereigns.”

Our government did not just appear out of nowhere, with unlimited powers to rule over our lives. As Thomas Paine wrote in The Rights of Man, “It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles of Freedom to say that Government is a compact between those who govern and those who are governed; but this cannot be true, because it is putting the effect before the cause; for as man must have existed before governments existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist, and consequently there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact with.

The fact therefore must be that the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.”

In the case of Gaines v Buford, Justice Underwood stated, “I do not admit that there is any sovereign power, in the literal meaning of the terms, to be found anywhere I our system of government… sovereign power, or, which I take to be the same thing, power without limitation, is nowhere to be found in any branch or department of the government, either state or national, nor indeed of all of them put together.”

In fact, the very first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, clearly stated, “…at the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people, and they are truly the sovereigns of the country…”

We, in all truthfulness, are the sovereigns in this country, and those who represent us are our servants, not vice versa. When are the people in this country going to get that through their thick heads and grow a set of balls and start acting like it?

The public opinion rating for our government is in the cellar, yet people continue to look for an answer by repeatedly voting for more corrupt men and women to sit in that cesspool known as Washington D.C. In 1776 our nation’s founders had also grown tired of their government, and they rose up against it. I am not saying we should do the same, but the right exists, as firmly stated in the Declaration of Independence, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”

I don’t know if there is any hope or future for this country. I do know that as long as I live and breathe I will continue to take my oath to support and defend the Constitution seriously. In the book of Numbers we read, “If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out his mouth.”

If the time comes that to uphold my oath I must sacrifice my life, then so be it. I don’t want to die, but if I do, I hope to be in good company when I pass into the next life. Among what company do you hope to find yourself when your time comes?

January 30, 2012

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

If you wish to comment, please go to Neal’s blog so that others may partake of your wit and your wisdom as well… http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal

Moreover, not only were the signers distinguished scientists, but they came from places like Paris, France and Cambridge, England, Jerusalem, Israel, and Geneva, Switzerland. Mostly climatologists and meteorologists, some were physicists and astrophysicists. Antonio Zichichi, one signer, is president of the World Federation of Scientists. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the combined credentials of these men represent some of the best minds on planet Earth in their respective fields.

What brought them together? On the surface it was just another of the countless articles that have been published over the years as scientists of real merit and courage took on the juggernaut of those for whom global warming had become a vast flow of government and foundation funding.

The effort was to “prove” that carbon dioxide (CO2) was building up in the atmosphere and would soon incinerate Earth by trapping the heat from the sun. It had not done that in the 5.4 billion years of the Earth’s existence, but the “warmists” claims came day after day and year after year. They permeated every aspect of society and you can go into any school in America and find textbooks still selling this garbage.

STOP the B.S.

Until, that is, 2009 when thousands of emails between the small clique of scientists working for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were leaked on the Internet and it became clear that even they knew the Earth had entered a cooling cycle around 1998. The challenges to their bogus computer “models” were coming like cannon balls against their academic castles in America and England.

Starting in 2008, The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based 27-year-old, non-profit research organization, sponsored four international conferences on climate change, attracting the top scientists and world leaders courageous enough to speak out against the global warming hoax. The momentum of opposition began to build against those who, from the late 1980s had warned that, in Al Gore’s words, “the world has caught a fever.”

The Wall Street Journal article said, in the plainest language, that candidates for public office “in any contemporary democracy…should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true.”

In fact, scientists had been signing petitions opposing the global warming hoax for a very long time. The problem was that the mainstream media either paid them no attention or dismissed them as “skeptics” and “deniers”.

With a light touch, the Wall Street Journal article noted that “Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over ten years now.” It wasn’t as if the warmists did not know it. It was more like they regarded it as a problem to be solved by changing references to global warming to “climate change.”

Their current dying gasps have to do with warnings about “extreme climate events” that have been occurring for eons; tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, floods and earthquakes; now all routinely attributed to too much carbon dioxide.

The article calmly said, “The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant.” Indeed, more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing, aiding increasing crop growth and healthier forests and jungles worldwide.

Someone needs to tell that to the Environmental Protection Agency that is striving mightily to shut down coal-fired energy plants for emitting CO2. Add their efforts to do the same to a wide swatch of American industry and you get an agency that is in great need of being abolished.

“There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy.

In time, historians may look back and conclude that the January 27th article was, in fact, global warming’s death certificate, signed by an international group of scientists who could not be disputed no matter how many times the warmists jump up and down and cry that the sky is falling.

It has taken a very long time for most of the public to come to the conclusion that they have been the object of an elaborate hoax. In America polls demonstrate that global warming is at the very bottom of their concerns these days.. In time, wind and solar power, electric cars, biofuels, and other environmental delusions will join that list.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

~ About the Author ~
Federal Observer contributor Alan Caruba writes a doily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

Those of us who can see through such distorted thinking know that White is a principled writer who has never displayed a shred of racism in his work. Zoabi is very well-known civil rights leader with a long-standing reputation of courage and poise.

How could anti-racist endeavors themselves become the subject of accusation by Halili and others like him?

It goes without saying there should be no room for any racist discourse – Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, or any other – in the Palestine solidarity movement, which aims at achieving long-denied justice and rights for the Palestinian people. A racist discourse is predicated on racial supremacy, which is exactly what Palestinians are resisting in Israel and the occupied territories.

But the “Jewish and democratic state” of Israel is riddled with so many contradictions, the kind that no straightforward narrative can possibly capture.

Many scholars and rights groups have discussed the way in which irreconcilable values defined the very character of Israel from the onset. According to Adalah (meaning “justice” in Arabic), the legal center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, “Israel’s Declaration of Independence (1948) states two principles important for understanding the legal status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. First, the Declaration refers specifically to Israel as a ‘Jewish state’ committed to the ‘ingathering of the exiles.’ (Second)…it contains only one reference to the maintenance of complete equality of political and social rights for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, or sex.”

Adalah further asserts that there is a ‘tension’ between the two principles. Perhaps this is the case, intellectually, but in practice the Israeli political establishment has resolved the seeming quandary whereby the Jewishness of the state prevails above every other humanitarian, democratic or legal consideration. Racially discriminating legislation is being churned out in the Israeli Knesset at an alarming speed, and new laws are constantly being proposed. These include “one that would end the status of Arabic as one of Israel’s official languages and another that would punish Israeli citizens, including Arab Israelis, for refusing to pledge their allegiance to ‘Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,’” according to columnist Linda Heard (Arab News, Jan 24).

As for Palestinians living in the occupied territories, their legally enshrined political inferiority has been felt in much harsher and often bloodier ways than their brethren living in Israel. For nearly four and a half decades, the Palestinians living in these territories have been losing their land, livelihood, freedom of movement and even their very lives in the name of the racial superiority of their occupiers. Jewish settlements are illegally constructed on Palestinian land to host Jewish settlers, who use Jewish-only roads to travel between their heavily fortified colonies and the “Jewish state.” While numerous intellectuals, activists and ordinary members of Jewish communities around the world have strongly protested Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, as well as Israel’s misuse of the Jewish religion to attain political goals, Israel relies greatly on the support of Jewish communities, organizations and individuals for vital funds, political support and lobbying.

While many Jews identify with Israel as a ‘Jewish state’, “younger American Jews are more likely than their parents to be acquainted with the Palestinians and their story,” reported TIME magazine on September 29.

The TIME story references one such youth, Benjamin Resnick, 27, who decries the fact that Jewish state and American liberal democracy represent two views that are ‘irreconcilable’. On the other hand, he “continues to consider himself a Zionist,” who “quotes the Torah in support of his view that American Jews should press Israel to end settlement expansion and help facilitate a Palestinian state.” Even Resnick’s political dissent is riddled with inconsistencies, where national identity (as an American) clashes with ideology (Zionism) and religion (the Torah) is referenced as a means to resolve the discord.

The Torah is put to good use repeatedly among mainstream and ardent Israeli rabbis, whose edicts to kill Arabs are commonplace in Israeli media (although rarely discussed in US media). The so-called King’s Torah – which is endorsed by some prominent Israeli rabbis – has made it permissible to kill Palestinians of all ages, including those who don’t pose a threat. “You can kill those who are not supporting or encouraging murder in order to save the lives of Jews,” it states in the fifth chapter, entitled “Murder of non-Jews in a time of war.” The BBC elaborates: “At one point it suggests that babies can justifiably be killed if it is clear they will grow up to pose a threat” (July 19).

This becomes particularly problematic when the lines between politics, ideology and religion become so conveniently blurred. Israeli and Jewish leaders borrow from the corresponding text as they find suitable to achieve policies to further occupation, war and illegal settlement. Alan Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School, came to represent the latter model. His style lacks diplomacy and logic; however, it is effective in some circles because it centers around the idea of smearing anyone who dares to criticize Israel. The greater tragedy is that Dershowitz is provided with platforms in mainstream and rightwing Israeli media, thus giving his smear campaign the means to turn any genuine discussion of Israel into a controversial hate speech.

While critical non-Jews are often smeared as ‘anti-Semites’, jurist Richard Goldstone, who lead the UN investigation into the Israeli war on Gaza., was not a mere anti-Semite for concluding that Israel and Hamas had both potentially committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Dershowitz told Israeli Army Radio that Goldstone is a ‘traitor to the Jewish people’. ‘The Goldstone report is a defamation written by an evil, evil man,’ Dershowitz said (Haaretz, October 31).

While the case for Palestinian rights and statehood can be clear-cut – not many true-to-self intellectuals could justify ethnic cleansing, defend Apartheid and rationalize murder – delving into the political identity of Israel and its ideological and religious supporters becomes immediately ‘controversial’. The controversy is embedded in the purposeful intellectual and political elasticity by which Israel defines, or refuses to define itself. It claims to be Jewish as well as democratic. It claims to embody religious ideals but also to be secular. It claims to be liberal, while it is militarily oppressive. It claims to uphold ‘equality’ for all, while it is racially exclusive.

And if you dare to challenge these irreconcilable contradictions, you are termed an anti-Semite or a traitor – or both.

February 1, 2012

~ The Author ~
Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

For example, Hannity and O’Reilly have suggested that “establishment” Republicans are so fearful of a repeat of 1964… when Barry Goldwater suffered a defeat of landslide proportions at the hands of Lyndon Johnson… that they are willing to join liberals and Democrats in destroying any conservative who might achieve frontrunner status in the 2012 primaries. As evidence, they cite the relentless attacks on Newt Gingrich… from the left and from Republican moderates… since his rise to the top of the opinion polls.

They are either too young to remember political history, or they tend to remember political history… conveniently.

Barry Goldwater was a five-term senator from Arizona who ran for president in 1964 but was defeated by Lyndon B. Johnson

The Draft Goldwater Committee was organized in the early 60s by a group of dedicated Young Republicans who understood that, in order to nominate a true conservative to run against John F. Kennedy, it would be necessary to seize control of the Republican Party from the Rockefeller wing of the party… the “eastern liberal establishment.” As a card-carrying member of the Draft Goldwater Committee, I traveled across the Midwest with other Young Republicans, helping to build support for Goldwater and recruiting convention delegates.

We sold the Goldwater-Kennedy contest as the classic confrontation between liberalism and conservatism. And although Goldwater did not actively seek the nomination, when it became evident that, like it or not, we were going to nominate him, he finally relented. Our efforts were so successful that, by November 22, 1963, the day that JFK was assassinated, we had sufficient support nationwide to guarantee a first-ballot victory at the 1964 convention in San Francisco.

What many of today’s pundits fail to understand is that those of us who planned and executed the Goldwater candidacy never once considered the possibility that we would be facing Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 General Election. They fail to appreciate what we knew by day’s end on November 22, 1963, which is that we would have to work on Goldwater’s behalf for an entire year, seven days a week, knowing that we were going to suffer a massive defeat in November 1964. With Johnson and the Democrats benefiting from an unassailable sympathy factor, our defeat in November 1964 was preordained. This is a bit of history that many fail to understand.

Until the very last minute at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, “establishment” Republicans did everything in their power to sidetrack the Goldwater nomination, even going so far as to arrange an eleventh-hour nomination of liberal Pennsylvania Governor William F. Scranton.

As predicted, Goldwater lost in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson, but it wasn’t because of his conservative ideology; it was because the American people simply were not up to dismissing a president who had been in office for less than a year. Their innate fairness dictated that they at least give Johnson a chance to see what he could do.

Establishment Republicans had everything their way during the following three presidential campaigns, nominating Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972, and Gerald R. Ford in 1976. After Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976, conservatives again became concerned about the ability of establishment Republicans to advance the conservative cause. A meeting of movement conservatives was convened in Chicago in December 1976 for the purpose of deciding whether to scuttle the Republican Party and form a Conservative Party, or to allow the party to live on, working within the party structure to nominate a true conservative in 1980. The consensus of opinion was that conservatives follow the latter course.

When Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination at the Detroit convention in 1980, his short list for vice president contained three names: former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

I was in Detroit as a member of a small staff of Simon aides, attempting to win the vice presidential nomination for the former Treasury Secretary. No one knows which of the three on Reagan’s short list was his personal favorite because, once again, establishment Republicans intervened to control the selection process.

On the third day of the convention, after Reagan had won the presidential nomination and delegates were awaiting his choice of running mate, establishment Republicans attempted yet another end run. Believing that Reagan would be incapable of governing without a great deal of help, establishment Republicans launched a rumor suggesting that former president Gerald Ford would be selected as Reagan’s running mate.

Unless the rumor was quickly squelched, it threatened a major split in the party. Reagan’s hand was forced. Watching the convention from his suite at the Renaissance Plaza Hotel, Reagan made a quick decision. In the interest of party unity he selected his principal primary opponent, the darling of the Rockefeller wing of the party, George H.W. Bush, as his running mate.

As I was arriving at the Joe Louis Arena that evening, Ronald Reagan was just stepping from his limo, a determined look on his face. I walked through the entrance to the arena that evening shoulder-to-shoulder with Reagan as he went to the floor of the convention to announce his selection of George Bush as his running mate. I have often thought of how history might have been changed if only I had stuck out my foot and put “the Gipper” flat on his face.

Bush served eight years as vice president, during which time he stacked every conceivable government agency with loyalists, campaign aides who merely fed at the federal trough until Reagan had completed two terms in office.

Beginning in 1986, conservatives mounted several campaigns, all attempting to prevent Bush from winning the 1988 nomination. The opposing candidates were former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, former Delaware Governor Pete duPont, former Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole, and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld… any one of whom would have been far superior to Bush.

As deputy campaign manager in the Rumsfeld’s exploratory committee, I was amazed to see the extent to which conservatives went to deny Bush the 1988 nomination. Unfortunately, Bush was able to parlay his years of service to Ronald Reagan into a path to the 1988 nomination.

Unfortunately, Bush was not up to the task of dealing with congressional Democrats and they used his “read my lips; no new taxes” pledge as a weapon against him. The antipathy toward Bush among conservatives was palpable. When Bush and Quayle ran for reelection in 1992, former U.N. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick was asked whether or not she was disappointed with Bush’s performance in his first term. Kirkpatrick replied, “Of course not. In order for one to be disappointed, one must have had some expectation of him in the first place.” Touche!

Bush’s performance as president ultimately gave us Bill Clinton and Al Gore for eight years, and eight years later establishment Republicans gave us George W. Bush. We all know how that worked out. The failures of Bush (43) and his principal brain trust, Karl Rove, were such that few Republicans are now able to defend their own party from Democrat attacks.

Now, as the field of Republicans is narrowed to four and former Speaker Newt Gingrich has won the all-important South Carolina primary, the talking heads of the networks and cable TV news are in a state of total bewilderment, not understanding why their moderate hero, Mitt Romney, cannot seem to break above 30% in the polls. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly quiz Karl Rove on almost a daily basis, asking, “Why is it that Romney can’t seem to go any higher in the polls?

As a dedicated member of the Republican establishment, Rove is not about to explain to conservative newcomers Hannity and O’Reilly that the Republican Party is roughly 80 percent conservative and only 20 percent moderate and that, as such, conservatives preach to 80 percent of the choir while Romney has an audience of no more than 20 percent. Nor do they understand the current mood of conservatives. They fail to understand that, after Bush (41), Bush (43), and McCain, conservatives are in no mood to settle for a candidate without a solid conservative core, or a candidate without the intestinal fortitude to take on Obama and the Democrats.

After suffering through three establishment candidates… the two Bushes and John McCain… nice guys no longer need apply. It’s as simple as that. Conservatives don’t just want to see Obama defeated, they want to see him embarrassed. Of the current crop of candidates, Newt Gingrich is the only one with the toughness to absorb the attacks that are sure to come and still win the presidency. The nation cannot afford another Republican moderate. If Floridians allow Mitt Romney to come out on top in their January 31 primary, the outcome of the 2012 General Election will be in serious jeopardy.

Written by Paul R. Hollrah and published on The Post & Email, January 31, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

“The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and goodnight! You’ve been a terrific crowd!”

I gather that Americans prefer something a little more upbeat, so one would not begrudge a speechwriter fluffing it up by holding out at least the possibility of some change of fortune, however remote.

Instead, President Obama assured us at great length that nothing is going to change, not now, not never. Indeed the Union’s state — its unprecedented world-record brokeness — was not even mentioned.

If, as I was, you happened to be stuck at Gate 27 at one of the many U.S. airports laboring under the misapprehension that pumping CNN at you all evening long somehow adds to the gaiety of flight delays, you would have watched an address that gave no indication its speaker was even aware that the parlous state of our finances is an existential threat not only to the nation but to global stability.

The message was, oh, sure, unemployment’s still a little higher than it should be, and student loans are kind of expensive, and the housing market’s pretty flat, but it’s nothing that a little government “investment” in green jobs and rural broadband and retraining programs can’t fix.

In other words, more of the unaffordable same.

The president certainly had facts and figures at his disposal. He boasted that his regulatory reforms “will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years.”

Wow. Ten billion smackeroos! That’s some savings — and in a mere half a decade!

Why, it’s equivalent to what the government of the United States borrows every 53 hours.

So by midnight on Thursday Obama had already re-borrowed all those hard-fought savings from 2017. “In the last 22 months,” said the president, “businesses have created more than three million jobs.” Impressive. But 125,000 new foreign workers arrive every month (officially).

So we would have to have created 2,750,000 jobs in that period just to stand still.

Fortunately, most of the items in Obama’s interminable speech will never happen, any more than the federally funded bicycling helmets or whatever fancies found their way onto Bill Clinton’s extravagant shopping lists in the Nineties.

At the time, the excuse for Clinton’s mountain of legislative molehills was that all the great battles had been won, and, in the absence of a menacing Russian bear, what else did a president have to focus on except criminalizing toilet tanks over 1.6 gallons.

President Obama does not enjoy the same dispensation, and any historians stumbling upon a surviving DVD while sifting through the ruins of our civilization will marvel at how his accumulation of delusional trivialities was apparently taken seriously by the assembled political class.

An honest leader would feel he owed it to the citizenry to impress upon them one central truth — that we can’t have any new programs because we’ve spent all the money. It’s gone. The cupboard is bare.

What’s Obama’s plan to restock it? “Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary,” the president told us. “Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

But why stop there? Americans need affordable health care and affordable master’s degrees in Climate Change and Social Justice Studies, so why not take everything that Warren Buffett’s got?

After all, if you confiscated the total wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans it would come to $1.5 trillion.

Which is just a wee bit less than the federal shortfall in just one year of Obama-sized budgets. 2011 deficit: $1.56 trillion.

But maybe for 2012 a whole new Forbes 400 of Saudi princes and Russian oligarchs will emigrate to the Hamptons and Malibu and keep the whole class-warfare thing going for a couple more years.

The so-called “Buffett Rule” is indicative not so much of “common sense” as of the ever widening gap between the Brobdingnagian problem and the Lilliputian solutions proposed by our leaders. Obama can sacrifice the virgin daughters of every American millionaire on the altar of government spending and the debt gods will barely notice so much as to give a perfunctory belch of acknowledgement.

The president’s first term has added $5 trillion to the debt — a degree of catastrophe unique to us.

In an Obama budget, the entire cost of the Greek government would barely rate a line-item.

Debt-to-GDP and other comparative measures are less relevant than the hard-dollar numbers: It’s not just that American government has outspent America’s ability to fund it, but that it’s outspending the planet’s.

Written by Mark Steyn and published on The National Review, JAnuary 28, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

Come election night I would be overjoyed to see Obama lose and equally overjoyed to see the Republican candidate, whoever it is, also lose. I cannot see how either Romney or Gingrich or even Ron Paul could possibly offer what is truly needed to fix the root causes of all the dysfunction, corruption and despair with the US political and government system. And Obama? Nothing but slickness instead of results.

Here is a central, common deficiency: No major presidential candidate has come out with strong support for any of the constitutional amendments critically needed to truly reform our system. More than ever, after so much failed government, a whole lot of Americans are ready to support amendments that would, for example, mandate term limits for members of Congress, remove all private money from federal elections, require a balanced federal budget, and revitalize the constitutional requirement for Congress explicitly declaring war.

With one or two billion dollars spent on campaigning for this presidential election cycle the real winners will be all the media companies and army of campaign advisors and consultants getting all that money. With the media and pundits focusing on the election the public has been robbed of real in depth news coverage of countless issues and situations worldwide that we should be far better informed about, especially to better understand exactly what public policies we should want from the president and Congress. The mainstream media that treats the presidential campaigns like sporting events has become as superficial as the presidential candidates.

There is only one scenario that could make me enormously interested in the presidential election outcome. With relatively little media attention to it, few Americans know about the Americans Elect national effort that will place a presidential candidate on every state ballot. The candidates for president and vice president will result from a lengthy process conducted on the Internet involving millions of Americans that have signed up to be part of that process. True, those two candidates that cannot have backgrounds from the same political party, but they may turn out to be somewhat familiar to us because of their past political efforts, though neither will be the same as those on the Democratic and Republican tickets. For a fair analysis of this innovative process read what John Heilemann has said in New York Magazine.

Considering the widespread and deserved disgust among Americans with both major parties, there is a decent chance that people like me will be strongly motivated to vote for the Americans Elect alternative ticket. It definitely will be a vote against both major parties. If millions of Americans make this choice, then I will be overjoyed and so should you. Why? Because it may be the most important historic event that could motivate actions to get us genuine reforms of our political and government system. The Americans Elect ticket does not have to win, just show the Democrats and Republicans how much they are both being rejected.

For this scenario to occur, however, people must stop thinking about the “spoiler” fear that both major parties promote. Democrats want people to fear that a vote for the Americans Elect ticket will cause the Republican ticket to win, and vice versa. In truth, by voting for the Americans Elect ticket we the people have the most important electoral choice to fix our broken system. Think of it as an electoral revolution. The imperative is to stick with your fundamental belief that in the end it really does not matter whether the Republican or Democratic presidential candidate wins, principally because elite rich and corporate interests will still prevail. This means that the vast majority of Americans will continue to get screwed: The top one percent will still own and control our nation under either a Republican or Democratic president. Keep remembering that both major party candidates have lied repeatedly, will keep lying, and will never implement whatever they have promised they will do to reform the system.

My best advice to you now: Stop wasting your time on following all the nonsense about the Republican primaries and later about the main campaign from both major party candidates. Don’t let yourself be manipulated. Instead, sign up at Americans Elect and join the 2.4 million Americans who have already joined the process to give Americans a true alternative to both major parties. Note that 80 percent of people have said they are ready to support an alternative presidential ticket this year. Will they put their votes where their words are?

At some point it will become necessary to mount a national demand that the Americans Elect candidates be allowed to participate in the pre-election national televised debates and also to demand that the mainstream media give equal time and attention to them. If we are to convert our current delusional democracy into a genuine one, then the most patriotic and courageous thing to do is to support the Americans Elect effort.

January 31, 2012

~ The Author ~
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Sprawl Kills – How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money and Delusional Democracy – Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. He is a former Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources at the National Governors Association and a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress.

When it comes to systems of government, perfection is hardly ever something the people get, even under the best of circumstances. In a speech written by Benjamin Franklin, read to the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, we read, “In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution… From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does…”

Franklin admitted that our system is not perfect, that it has faults. But later Daniel Webster is quoted as saying, “Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again.”

With all the bickering and disagreeing going on in the Constitutional Convention, it truly is a miracle that anything came out of that assembly at all. Yet what they produced was a government that was designed to represent, and safeguard the rights of, the people and the states; with an Executive branch to ensure the laws passed by the Legislative Branch were enforced, and a Supreme Court to settle all disputes under said Constitution.

This government was to be one of very limited powers, those powers being specifically enumerated, [listed], with everything else, “…not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” [Tenth Amendment to the Constitution]

In Federalist 48 James Madison asked a very important question, “Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power?”

He should also have asked, “How can we expect a government to refrain from overstepping the limits upon its power when the only true barrier to such encroachments is by resistance to such encroachments by the people?”

Thomas Jefferson spoke of this resistance when he said, “The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all.”

In his Declaration and Protest of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers.”

Yet here we are, over two hundred years later with exactly that; our Constitution lay in tatters at our feet, and the Bill of Rights has been shredded, leaving us in worse shape than were the colonists who fought a war to gain their independence over 230 years ago. The sad part about it is that we have done it to ourselves, by our ignorance, our apathy, and, to be truthful, our cowardice.

The colonists who rose up against the mightiest army on the planet at the time suffered far less at the hands of their government than we do now, yet they said enough was enough and mustered up the courage to either gain their independence, or die. And here we are, in the year 2012, begging our elected representatives to pass more laws which further enslave us. How pathetic is that?

In a speech delivered to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, James Madison stated, “[T]he powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.”

In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”

Yet not only do people today refuse to demand that their elected representatives restrict their actions to those powers granted them by the Constitution, but they ask them to pass laws which clearly overstep the limits that document places upon their powers.

Lest you forget, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and anyone who violates it is, in fact, a criminal. That goes for every government agency which imposes restrictions upon the ability of the people to freely exercise their rights, all the way down to the lowly law enforcement officer who enforces unconstitutional edicts. To claim that these people are only doing their jobs is both ludicrous and asinine. I could hire an assassin to kill you, and if he succeeded and was caught, could he claim that he was simply “doing his job”? No, the law is the law, it applies equally to all, and all who violate it should be held accountable for their actions.

The founding principle upon which this country rests is thusly stated in the Declaration of Independence, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, most sacred right- a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to excercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit.” This was right before he placed his foot in his own mouth and squashed the rights of the Southern States to do the very thing he claimed to support.

People today talk about a democracy, they talk about their rights, they go to the polls and cast their votes for people they know very little about, and most don’t have the first inkling when it comes to what their government is supposed to do, or how their rights have slowly been stripped away. Still they look to the same body of people to fix the very problems that they themselves created. If it weren’t so pathetic it would be hilarious!

Freedom is as much a state of mind as it is a state of existence. First you have to know what your rights are, and then you have to be willing to stand up for them. If you can’t do these things then you may as well admit that you are a slave.

I know I’ve used this quote before, but it best expresses my sentiments, and I will continue to use it until Samuel Adams words sink in, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget they ye were our countrymen.”

January 29, 2012

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

If you wish to comment, please go to Neal’s blog so that others may partake of your wit and your wisdom as well… http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal

West made the comments during a speech at a Palm Beach County GOP event in West Palm Beach.

“This is a battlefield that we must stand upon. And we need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and my dear friend, chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table,” West said.

The audience was booing by the time West got to Pelosi’s name.

“Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else,” he continued. “You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

As the audience cheered and many rose to their feet, West added, “Yeah I said ‘hell.’”

“This is not about 1 percent or 99 percent. This is about 100 percent. It’s about 100 percent America. And I will not stand back and watch anyone defame, degrade or destroy that which my father fought for, my older brother, my father-in-law, myself, my nephew and all my friend still in uniform,” he said.

“I will not allow President Obama to take the United States of America and destroy it. If that means I’m the No. 1 target for the Democrat Party, all I got to say is one thing: Bring it on, baby.”

Source: The Blaze, January 29, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

In each of us there lies a gland (adrenal) that activates a fight-or-flight response, when we are confronted by danger, provided that is, if a person is cognizant of the danger in the first place. When danger to our own life or a loved one is thrust upon us, this gland injects a hormone (adrenalin) into the blood stream that almost instantly increases the heart rate and breathing rhythm. All of our senses become super charged. In some, this surge of adrenalin triggers instant panic and the person becomes like a deer frozen in the headlights. In others it prepares them to meet any threat with force and energy many times their normal strength. Under these conditions, frail little women have been known to lift a car off a victim.

However, many dangers are so subtle they do not signal their presence until it is too late to retreat or charge. The adrenal gland is never activated. One of the most onerous of those subtle dangers is the slow rise of government tyranny.

As an example of not recognizing a danger, many years ago we took a trip to a farm in Nodaway County, Missouri, located in the northwest corner of the state. We stayed on the farm for about a week. On one of those days the skies grew dark and ominous. Strange colors crossed the sky between the dark clouds and the air grew suddenly quiet. You could feel the electricity almost crackling in the space around you.

We noticed a fearful look that appeared on the faces of the owners of the farm. They looked like the sky was going to literally fall upon them and they could be possibly standing at death’s door. We didn’t know what to think! What we didn’t know at the time, being from an area where tornados do not occur, the farmers were dreadfully afraid that a tornado would drop out of the steadily-darkening clouds and wipe out their farm and maybe even their lives. You see, they were fully aware of the dangers of a tornado, but we on the other hand, had no experience with tornados and were ignorant of the horrendous damage they can inflict on lives and property. We were not afraid because we knew not of the danger.

And so it is with many Americans. They do not recognize the growing danger as the iron grip of absolute power circles around them without them even knowing it. Oblivious, they go on about their lives “….. living in that gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”

Americans, if they are truly aware of the danger, can act quickly and coalesce around each other in their defense. But the danger we face today is like a slow growing cancer inside of you, where there are no apparent symptoms. Life goes on as usual, that is until symptoms, like less freedoms, decreasing jobs, growing debt, more draconian regulations, a police state and the looming one-world-order, start to manifest themselves. These almost ghostly symptoms have been showing up through all of our institutions of government., special interest groups, law enforcement and even in the minds of the people, for several decades.

Had there been an early diagnosis, the cancer could have been arrested or sent into remission. The signs were all there and many wiser folks warned us, but the people ignored them because they were still living in that “gray twilight.” Many still are. Unfortunately, that makes the job of curing the “cancer” or sending it into remission that much harder ….. but not impossible. Americans are much more resilient than that.

No, you are not powerless! But first you need to know whom your enemy is and then you need to arm yourself with a strategy, tools and weapons that you can use effectively against your adversaries to secure a victory. Individuals, acting as one, are more powerful than any government, provided the individuals are of one mind and they are in great number. As we stated in last week’s column, “divided, we are hopelessly sinking into quicksand.”

Before you can move against your enemy, you must be committed to victory and you must be courageous. Anything less than that opens the door to failure. You cannot take on your enemy where he is the strongest. (at the Federal level) You must nip at his heels where he is weak (at the local and state levels). You must confront him with hit and run tactics. You must show up when he least expects you. You must coordinate your efforts and confuse and disrupt his operations. You must be unrelenting and never give up because persistence pays off. You have to fight until they give up, and they will give up or give in, if you persist. We know! We and others have done it!

We are not talking about violence here. We’re talking about effectively using the existing framework of our Declaration of Independence, the U. S. Constitution and the law that works in our favor. We are talking about peacefully “pushing” the envelope until we are heard and the desired action is taken as a result of that “pushing”.

As we stated, your government is weakest at the local level. You can take him on there with some impunity. We have developed some of the TOOLS you can use in this effort that is if you care enough and have the courage to take the “locals” on. It all depends on just how important freedom is to you and whether you want to preserve it for your children and grandchildren. This presidential election year will prove whether America has gone past the point of no return, or whether there are enough Americans who are committed to making a course correction before it is too late.

Ladies and gentlemen, the human spirit is truly a wonder. That spirit is personified in many different ways, but what stands out for the rest of us is uncommon generosity, honorable leadership, heroism, or exceptional talent. That spirit is the catalyst to spur the rest of us on to greater accomplishments.

The inspiring words of Thomas Paine, during the American Revolutionary War, lifted the spirits of the cold, dirty, hungry and exhausted colonial soldiers that persevered, in spite of insurmountable odds, to win freedom for all of us. Uncommon leaders, like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, led a nation that teetered on the brink of extinction at any moment, but carried us past the danger, even with all of their human flaws and the mistakes they made.

President Reagan saw the strength in America and in Americans and he used his great oratory skills to embolden those strengths and make us feel good about being an American. Reagan emphasized the good that he saw in us, that we could not see in ourselves. He told us:

“Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries (including our domestic enemies) in today’s world do not have.”

A free and sovereign America is once again on the edge of extinction and “The Parallax Prophecies” predicts that somewhere there is an uncommon individual, or individuals, that will rise to lead us to victory over ourselves and the evil that invades our souls and occupies the corrupt centers of political power. We won’t at first recognize the individual as a leader, as he will seem to be imperfect, as we all are. But he will have a higher vision that will transcend his imperfections and he will convey that vision to the rest of us and inspire us to follow him.

That spirit of which we speak rose in the breast of a young girl who sang a song that should lift the hearts of every American and inspire each of us to have the courage to take on that domestic “enemy” which threatens our extinction as a free nation, a free nation that was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal and that our rights are a gift from our creator, not a list of privileges granted from government which can be withdrawn on a whim.

We encourage each of you to listen to this young girl sing her heart out in a display of musical talent that ranks at the top of the greats of all time. You will not believe the voice that comes out of the mouth of this young, beautiful and talented child. Chills ran up and down our spine.

Many of you already know of her. We just learned about her as we were writing this article and it fit right in with our title, “We Are Not Powerless!” She is a little older now and her storybook career is assured. So let the spirit of her exceptional gift motivate you to do the things you know need to be done to preserve American liberty. Yes, the song has some religious lyrics, but it’s not the words so much as it is the spirit of her soul that shines like a beacon of light and projected flawlessly by her music. In closing, it is our distinct honor to present to you, 10-year old Jackie Evancho, inspirational soloist extraordinaire ….. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foUrBztgzZA. In her name and her song, let us all “try to do the very best that we can” in the defense of liberty, for this and all future generations.

No, we are not all born with exceptional talent like Jackie Evancho, but in a free America, (as long as it remains free) we are all born with unalienable rights and equal opportunity ….. opportunity to use our talents to fulfill our desires and ambitions and to enrich the lives of others from the expression of those talents.

NOTE: We are carrying our message of freedom and property rights to three radio programs this weekend starting Saturday night at 6 PM PST with Jack Bauer of “The American Reconstruction Project” at (http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=74235&cmd=tc) and at 9:00 AM PST on this Sunday we will be on with Maggie Roddin on her “The Unsolicited Opinion” radio show (http://www.theunsolicitedopinion.com/), and at 9:00 AM PST this coming Monday with Marti Oakley of the PPG Gazette who hosts a radio talk show on Blog Talk Radio at (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/marti-oakley). We encourage you to listen in, if you are of a mind. Be sure to adjust the Pacific Standard Times (PST) we have shown, to your time zone.

© Copyright Sunday, January 29, 2012 – All Rights Reserved

~ The Author ~
Ron Ewart is the President of The National Association of Rural Landowners and nationally recognized author on freedom and property rights issues. Ron may reached for comment via email at r.ewart@comcast.net.

Most American politicians actually despise the UN. While the Security Council is directed or tamed by the US veto (often to shield the US and its close ally Israel from any criticism), other UN bodies are not as easily intimidated. When the UN education and science agency, UNESCO, accepted Palestine’s bid for full membership last October, following a democratic vote by its members, the US could do little do stall the process. Still, it immediately cut funding to the agency (about 20 percent of its total budget).

The move was devoid of any humanitarian considerations. The UNESCO provides vital services to underprivileged communities all over the world, including the United States. Yet, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, insisted on sugarcoating what was an entirely injudicious political act. “Today’s vote by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as member is regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” said Nuland (CNN, October 31).

The fact is, there has been much sabre-rattling in the US Congress targeting the UN. The campaign, led by Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, is threatening the UN with all sorts of punishment if the organization does not cease its criticism of Israel and tighten the noose around Iran. Naturally, the UN is not meeting the expectations of Ros-Lehtinen and her peers. It happens to be a body that represents the interests of all its member states. Some US politicians, however, see the world through the distorted logic of former president George W. Bush: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

The late British author and humanitarian doctor Theodore MacDonald showed that the US actually has a love-hate relationship with the UN. In his final book, Preserving the United Nations; Our Best Hope for Mediating Human Rights, MacDonald reveals a strange reality: that the US and its allies labor to undermine the UN, while also using it to further their own military, political and economic objectives. Expectedly, successive US governments had mastered the art of political manipulation at the UN. When successfully co-opted to accommodate US military designs, the UN suddenly becomes true to its mission – per Washington’s account, of course. However, when US pressures failed to yield a unified front against Iraq in late 2002, President Bush asked in his first address to the United Nations, on September 12, 2002: “Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?”

The Bush years were rife with such ultimatums – to the UN and the whole world. However, a similar attitude continues to define the administration of Barack Obama. The US latest assault on the UN is now happening under the guise of reforms, but no ‘reforms’ are possible without first creating the needed polarization aimed at pushing for an American agenda. Joe Torsella, the US Deputy Ambassador for Management and Reform of the United Nation, spoke of the latest US efforts at reining in the 47-nation Geneva-based Human Rights Council. “The US will work to forge a new coalition at the UN in New York, a kind of ‘credibility caucus’ to promote truly competitive elections, rigorous application of membership criteria, and other reforms aimed at keeping the worst offenders on the sidelines,” he said (Reuters, Jan 20).

UNHRC is an outspoken critic of human rights violations. As of late, the organization has been particularity vocal regarding the rights violations underway in Syria. It is also very critical of Israel and its one-sided wars and human rights violations in Gaza and the rest of the occupied territories. For years, the US has conspired to undercut, intimidate and silence this criticism.

The Reuters report on the US latest push for the supposed reforms states: “Council members include China, Russia and other countries where rights groups say abuses are commonplace.” To offset the seeming inconsistency – between UNHRC mission and its members’ records – the US, according to Torsella, wants to “hold Human Rights Council members to the same standard of truly free and fair elections that the U.N. promotes around the world, and insist on the highest standards of integrity for the Council and all its members.” Viewed without context, it is a noble endeavor indeed. However, it becomes a tainted statement when one considers that the US status at the UN has been achieved through the least democratic of all means: a disproportionate political power (the veto) and money (used for arm-twisting).

Attempting to curb and contain the UN, as opposed to punishing and boycotting the international body, is basically what sets Democrats apart from Republicans. Unlike Republicans, “the other side of the debate (mostly Democrats) believes that achieving these reforms requires strong American leadership – and strong leadership is demonstrated by paying dues on time and in full. You can call this side ‘constructive engagement,’” wrote Mark Leon Goldberg in the UN Dispatch (January 20). Practically, both approaches are aimed at achieving similar outcomes: realizing US policies, rewarding allies and punishing foes – even at the expense of the noble mission once championed by the UN over 65 years ago.

While the latest push for ‘reforms’ is being hailed by Washington’s media cheerleaders, no honest commentator could possibly believe the US campaign against UNESCO, UNHRC and the UN as a whole represents a genuine democratic endeavor. In fact, the truly urgent reforms required right now are ones that aim at correcting what MacDonald described in his book as the UN’s “foundational defects”.

MacDonald counseled for immediate addressing of the “issue of permanent membership and the use of the veto”. He also recommended the granting of greater power to the General Assembly and eliminating the “imposed use of the US dollar” in mediating UN transitional affairs. MacDonald’s guidelines for reforms are comprehensive, and rely on the concept of equality, guided by humanitarian and moral urgencies.

The same can hardly be said of Washington’s latest UN intrigues and shady politics.

~ The Author ~
Ramzy Baroud is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.

We’ve all heard the term the American Dream, but we really know what it is, or upon what it is founded? Some people consider the American Dream as owning a home with the traditional white picket fence, and a family with 2.5 children. Yet according to Wikipedia the American dream is stated as, “…life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” regardless of social class or circumstances of birth…”

The American Dream has, as its roots, the Declaration of Independence, which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

There are many people in this country who THINK they are living the American Dream. They THINK that, just because, they have a job, own their own home, and are free to watch as much TV and drink as much beer as they want, that they are living that dream. Consider what Jefferson once asked, would we “…in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom?”

I believe that to be the case, America has gotten soft, that we have let the eternal flame of liberty die down to the point it is barely kept alive by a small percentage of the occupants of this once great nation.

Alexander Fraser Tytler is accredited with saying, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”

IN 1850 Frederic Bastiat penned his book The Law, in which he said, “But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect.”

Bastiat furthermore writes, “Self-preservation and self-development are common aspirations among all people. And if everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. But there is also another tendency that is common among people. When they can, they wish to live and prosper at the expense of others. This is no rash accusation. Nor does it come from a gloomy and uncharitable spirit. The annals of history bear witness to the truth of it…”

These men were great THINKERS, whose thoughts and opinions often went against the general public sentiment. I can relate to them because much of what I talk about when I write goes against what most people currently believe, i.e. the general consensus.

English author Samuel Johnson, who wrote the Dictionary of the English Language, once wrote something that I feel to be the most important statement I’ve ever read in regards to people. He said, “Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.”

The truth about how far our government has changed, from one which was designed to safeguard our unalienable rights, to one which takes it upon itself to decide which rights it will allow us to exercise, has been is out there for anyone who wishes to see, and accept. The truth about who actually runs our government, who shapes our national policy, and who holds us under their thumbs as indentured servants to them, is out there, for those with an open mind and the initiative to find it.

The problem is that people need something to believe in. When someone or something threatens their beliefs, or their hope, people react with predictable outrage. When you realize that most people do not want to know the truth because, in so learning that truth, it will threaten everything they have ever believed in, you can begin to see why things will NOT get better in this country.

It is my belief that we have gone way past the point of no return; that our government has gotten too big, too powerful, for us to restore it to the one envisioned by our founders when they drafted the Constitution.

The other evening I was listening to an online radio show in which one of the hosts talked about how he had gone around asking people the following question, “What is your purpose in life?” I’ve thought about that long and hard since hearing it. I don’t know whether it is my purpose to record the downfall of our nation, or to keep the flame of liberty alive for anyone wishing to rekindle it. In the Matrix Reloaded, the Keymaker states, “We only do what we’re meant to do.”

Many, many years ago I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. When our founders drafted the Declaration of Independence, they closed it with the following statement, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Whether my efforts to keep the flame of liberty alive, amongst a people who don’t seem to care, will succeed is yet to be seen. All I know that it is what I was meant to do; I realize that and accept it.

So, I will continue to write, espousing the principle of liberty and constitutional limits upon our government. I will do so until the government decides that I have become too much of a nuisance and squashes me like a bug, or my belief that this country is going to eventually end in tyranny is proved correct.

In either case I will go to my grave, however that happens, knowing that I have done my best to serve the purpose for which I was brought into this world. I would hope that all you reading this will be able to say the same thing when your time comes.

January 29, 2012

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

If you wish to comment, please go to Neal’s blog so that others may partake of your wit and your wisdom as well… http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal