by MITT ROMNEY
New York Times Op-Ed Contributor
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html?_r=1
If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run20American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers.
First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.
That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.
Second, management as is must go. New faces should be recruited from unrelated industries — from companies widely respected for excellence in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations.
The new management must work with labor leaders to see that the enmity between labor and management comes to an end. This division is a holdover from the early years of the last century, when unions brought workers job security and better wages and benefits. But as Walter Reuther, the former head of the United Automobile Workers, said to my father, “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.”
You don’t have to look far for industries with unions that went down that road. Companies in the 21st century cannot perpetuate the destructive labor relations of the 20th. This will mean a new direction for the U.A.W., profit sharing or stock grants to all employees and a change in Big Three management culture.
The need for collaboration will mean accepting sanity in salaries and perks. At American Motors, my dad cut his pay and that of his executive team, he bought stock in the company, and he went out to factories to talk to workers directly. Get rid of the planes, the executive dining rooms — all the symbols that breed resentment among the hundreds of thousands who will also be sacrificing to keep the companies afloat.
Investments must be made for the future. No more focus on quarterly earnings or the kind of short-term stock appreciation that means quick riches for executives with options. Manage with an eye on cash flow, balance sheets and long-term appreciation. Invest in truly competitive products and innovative technologies — especially fuel-saving designs — that may not arrive for years. Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.
Just as important to the future of American carmakers is the sales force. When sales are down, you don’t want to lose the only people who can get them to grow. So don’t fire the best dealers, and don’t crush them with new financial or performance demands they can’t meet.
It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition. I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research — on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like — that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today. The research could be done at universities, at research labs and even through public-private collaboration. The federal government should also rectify the imbedded tax penalties that favor foreign carmakers.
But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.
The American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing. A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs. The federal government should provide guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties are not at risk.
In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.
Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, was a candidate for this year’s Republican presidential nomination.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The New Cold War
By Julian Krasta
It has not been Barack Obama per se (because I could never give him credit for being that clever) but rather the liberal mainstream media that have succeeded, as in no other presidential election, of drawing shut an impregnable iron curtain between Obama and the truth about Obama.
Their actions – their abject bias – have sparked another paroxysmal event … a turf war of the coldest nature: Americans for Obama openly and aggressively hostile to any and all Americans who are not.
The safety of the United States requires unity. But that unity is falling to pieces because of this new and very ugly cold war.
Leftists, liberals and democrats are married to, but cannot explain or justify, Obama’s brainstorm of an authoritarian agenda to fritter into a general government account Americans’ hard-earned, dream-realized income that will then be “redistributed.”
It’s no secret that some of some of this country’s super-rich, the famous, and the infamous have locked themselves inside the Obama sphere. Don’t they understand that they, too, would be subject to this redistribution plan (the taxable gross income for which has been reduced by Obama and Biden from $250,000 to $200,000, to now $150,000)? That is, unless, he intends to give them a pass.
In any event, they are completely under their candidate’s inexplicable mind-bending control. Under that control their thought processes are locked down tighter than a prison after a riot and have sunk lower than the orlop deck of HMS Titanic.
Conservatives are dedicated to detecting, uncovering and presenting truth. We strive moment-to-moment and day-by-day to correctly identify and bring to light emergent realities facing our country.
Our efforts are similar to those of seismologists who work round the clock gathering crucial data for when and where the next devastating earthquake or tsunami will strike and destroy.
Yet, no matter how many valid warnings conservatives have delivered to liberals or called upon them to acknowledge the perceived dangers, they pretend not to hear or feel the rumbling beneath their feet.
They deny that the current financial crisis was the result of the Democrats’ reckless tomfoolery, and turn their eyes away from the destruction yet on the horizon, which Obama will bring upon us.
Instead, they’re more concerned with seeing set loose that snarling beast called the Fairness Doctrine, which is meant to cut off conservative communications, because our researched opinions are, as much as possible, based in legitimacy.
If Obama reaches the Oval Office and is then able to execute the changes he has in mind, and on the basis of the data conservatives have gathered about him, this country will be hit with a tsunami of insanity, the likes of which this generation has only read about in books written about Socialist Europe and the American Civil War.
His supporters eventually will wake from the spell they’ve been under, which they allowed to be cast over them. They all will discover that they’ve been robbed of their senses and sense of direction, and wonder how they could’ve been so expertly conned.
But the burden of responsibility will be on their heads, because they chose to stand behind a losing proposition.
Only then will they realize that Republicans and conservatives were right, that we were not misguided or paranoid when we tried to do everything in our power to stop the oncoming insanity.
By that time, however, it might be too late, because the liberal mainstream media, via their nefarious dump-truck saturation reporting, had raised the bridge every time we attempted to cross over with the truth.
I’ll say the truth once more:
Barack Hussein Obama is not qualified to be President of the United States. He is desperately short of executive, legislative, leadership, foreign policy and relations, and military experience, because he is a walking, talking intellectual cul‑de‑sac.
America under Obama and a super-majority Democrat Congress could become like a Nazi Germany or a Stalinist Russia: a totalitarian state which controls everything that is written, printed and read, where all subjects are scrutinized and/or rejected before being produced for television and the cinema, where tax increases will erode our income, where “collectivism” is law, and where objections to such suppression will be forbidden.
The voice of the People will perish under such jackboot regime.
The rights and liberties our founding fathers created to protect and empower you and me are under threat of being stripped away. The putsch and the pogrom might be resurrected from history’s ashes. Only this time they will be used to harass and persecute Americans.
Is this the America you want to live in? If your answer is yes, then vote for Obama.
Just don’t complain that we conservatives never said, “We warned you!” when those raw, massive, pounding walls of insanity come crashing down on you.
It has not been Barack Obama per se (because I could never give him credit for being that clever) but rather the liberal mainstream media that have succeeded, as in no other presidential election, of drawing shut an impregnable iron curtain between Obama and the truth about Obama.
Their actions – their abject bias – have sparked another paroxysmal event … a turf war of the coldest nature: Americans for Obama openly and aggressively hostile to any and all Americans who are not.
The safety of the United States requires unity. But that unity is falling to pieces because of this new and very ugly cold war.
Leftists, liberals and democrats are married to, but cannot explain or justify, Obama’s brainstorm of an authoritarian agenda to fritter into a general government account Americans’ hard-earned, dream-realized income that will then be “redistributed.”
It’s no secret that some of some of this country’s super-rich, the famous, and the infamous have locked themselves inside the Obama sphere. Don’t they understand that they, too, would be subject to this redistribution plan (the taxable gross income for which has been reduced by Obama and Biden from $250,000 to $200,000, to now $150,000)? That is, unless, he intends to give them a pass.
In any event, they are completely under their candidate’s inexplicable mind-bending control. Under that control their thought processes are locked down tighter than a prison after a riot and have sunk lower than the orlop deck of HMS Titanic.
Conservatives are dedicated to detecting, uncovering and presenting truth. We strive moment-to-moment and day-by-day to correctly identify and bring to light emergent realities facing our country.
Our efforts are similar to those of seismologists who work round the clock gathering crucial data for when and where the next devastating earthquake or tsunami will strike and destroy.
Yet, no matter how many valid warnings conservatives have delivered to liberals or called upon them to acknowledge the perceived dangers, they pretend not to hear or feel the rumbling beneath their feet.
They deny that the current financial crisis was the result of the Democrats’ reckless tomfoolery, and turn their eyes away from the destruction yet on the horizon, which Obama will bring upon us.
Instead, they’re more concerned with seeing set loose that snarling beast called the Fairness Doctrine, which is meant to cut off conservative communications, because our researched opinions are, as much as possible, based in legitimacy.
If Obama reaches the Oval Office and is then able to execute the changes he has in mind, and on the basis of the data conservatives have gathered about him, this country will be hit with a tsunami of insanity, the likes of which this generation has only read about in books written about Socialist Europe and the American Civil War.
His supporters eventually will wake from the spell they’ve been under, which they allowed to be cast over them. They all will discover that they’ve been robbed of their senses and sense of direction, and wonder how they could’ve been so expertly conned.
But the burden of responsibility will be on their heads, because they chose to stand behind a losing proposition.
Only then will they realize that Republicans and conservatives were right, that we were not misguided or paranoid when we tried to do everything in our power to stop the oncoming insanity.
By that time, however, it might be too late, because the liberal mainstream media, via their nefarious dump-truck saturation reporting, had raised the bridge every time we attempted to cross over with the truth.
I’ll say the truth once more:
Barack Hussein Obama is not qualified to be President of the United States. He is desperately short of executive, legislative, leadership, foreign policy and relations, and military experience, because he is a walking, talking intellectual cul‑de‑sac.
America under Obama and a super-majority Democrat Congress could become like a Nazi Germany or a Stalinist Russia: a totalitarian state which controls everything that is written, printed and read, where all subjects are scrutinized and/or rejected before being produced for television and the cinema, where tax increases will erode our income, where “collectivism” is law, and where objections to such suppression will be forbidden.
The voice of the People will perish under such jackboot regime.
The rights and liberties our founding fathers created to protect and empower you and me are under threat of being stripped away. The putsch and the pogrom might be resurrected from history’s ashes. Only this time they will be used to harass and persecute Americans.
Is this the America you want to live in? If your answer is yes, then vote for Obama.
Just don’t complain that we conservatives never said, “We warned you!” when those raw, massive, pounding walls of insanity come crashing down on you.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Of Mice and Moose
By Julian Krasta
Glass ceilings notwithstanding, Gov. Sarah Palin is being accepted by America and other progressive nations as the new high-spirited Republican melody maker. Her in-tune communications, slowly but surely, are drowning out Obama’s bizarre ventriloquism, Joe Biden’s howlers (although I now must thank Sen. Biden for his public criticism of Obama), and the mainstream media’s pops and pings of their low-register gothic operas.
I admit I knew nothing about the lady, so when Sen. John McCain torpedoed the long-awaiting GOP with his announcement that he’d chosen Mrs. Palin as his running mate, I blurted (literally), “Who? But-but… what about Romney? Where’s Pawlenty?”
Once the conservative world had caught its breath, we scrambled like ants with road rage to bring ourselves up to speed and be informed about her as much as possible. What we learned was surprisingly uplifting, and encouraging. But encouraging and uplifting would not be enough for wary and weary Republicans. Our faith – our votes for John McCain – quite suddenly depended enormously on Mrs. Palin’s presentation of herself at the Republican convention, her message and delivery.
To put it plainly, when she finished speaking I had to find my socks. They were on the other side of the room, having been blown off by what I’d seen and heard.
As the balloons rained down on our nominees and ecstatic supporters, I concluded, with refreshed hopefulness, that Sen. McCain appeared to have done right with his choice.
In the weeks that have followed, and on the basis of hardnosed scrutiny, I came to recognize that Mrs. Palin not only has the head but the heart and constitution to assume the responsibilities of Vice President of the United States, to name a few: the hurdles, the sinkholes, and the sway of President of the Senate; the polluted power of Washington politics; and all that the second-in-command to the leader of what might be the last frontier of the free world must endure or may enjoy.
In addition, and with all due respect (I have to say this), it is my opinion that Mrs. Palin could easily be considered a candidate for U.S. Army Ranger: superincumbent point of convergence, fine sinew tone, her marksmanship with a hunting rifle, razor-sharp receptors, and she’s a flawless communicator. It’s probably why she is balls-out fearless in the face of twits wielding their toothless pitchforks and burned-out torches. Not too shabby for a mother of five.
As expected, from the moment she was named the Republicans’ vice presidential candidate, the cheese-eaters on the left went whacko, like a duck hit on the head. They didn’t just cross but leaped the line of civility and began – and continue – to snarl, spit and squawk some of the most reprehensible idioms against Sarah Palin.
They have squealed over and gnawed on everything from her pro-life position to her accession to the post of a city mayor and then governor of our largest state – even her husband and children.
They also have gone so far as to censure Mrs. Palin’s rightful choice not to abort her baby son, Trig, who had been diagnosed with Down syndrome prior to birth. (It’s one thing to push the envelope of criticism; it’s quite another, in this instance, to hammer nails in so deeply that they can never be retracted – and their contemptuous mockery of Mr. & Mrs. Palin’s faith-based decision not to terminate the life of their son, I assure you, will be neither forgotten nor forgiven.)
The liberal media (Obama’s Love Bombers: “You’re perfect just the way you are, Barack”), from top to bottom, and from the start, consciously and deliberately ignored the tenets of fairness and decency towards John McCain, and now Sarah Palin.
The most disturbing aspect is their shameless revelry in the destruction they are attempting to wreak on the Palin Family, particularly celebrities. I’m confident enough to say that they will never achieve their objective, and their words and actions will backfire in due course.
As an aside: On the topic of backfires, an example is what occurred during the Clinton administration. They bullied the banking industries into granting loans to unqualified purchasers. Approximately 30 years earlier, Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy browbeat a bill through the Senate to allow into our country a greater percentage of “the less fortunate” (i.e., from south of our borders and elsewhere), who comprise a significant (if not largest) amount of today’s unqualified purchasers. Both plans spearheaded by those two Democrats served as chief elements of the incubator in which was hatched this $700 billion T-Rex. Ironically, those screaming loudest “Save us!” are – you guessed it – liberal Democrats. End aside.
Nevertheless, the limousine liberals, who are enamored with the sound of their own voice (you listenin’ up their in your private jet, which is paid for by the People, Madam Speaker?), persist with their shrill insults at John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Mrs. Palin’s executive credentials and character, at every MSM opportunity and with serial ignorance.
At one point recently, I sat through the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan just for a respite. Thankfully, at about minute 18, I was able to turn down the volume on my TV because of the across-the-board news that two of the more vicious rodents (Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann) had both fallen victim to their own rat poison. Wait--didn’t I just say: “[…] their words and actions will backfire in due course”?
The catalog of gross offenders now also includes a certain David Kernell, a student who thought he was enrolling at Clown College (Harry Reid’s alma mater), but because Kernell, like Reid, probably failed basic comprehension instead scrawled his “X” on the University of Tennessee-Knoxville admission form. (Kernell is under investigation by the FBI and Secret Service for allegedly hacking into Sarah Palin’s electronic mail accounts.) Ditto my “backfire” comment (emphasis added).
William Shakespeare wrote: “Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.”
For Sarah Palin, she needn’t wish it – she simply is. I believe in Mrs. Palin, because she exemplifies decency and morality. True, she has a tough field to plow if she succeeds Dick Cheney, but she is clearly at least ten times smarter, stronger, and on the ball than today’s passel of Washington mutts.
Ever see moose stomp mice? Me neither. But I have a hunch we’re going to see just that, come November.
Glass ceilings notwithstanding, Gov. Sarah Palin is being accepted by America and other progressive nations as the new high-spirited Republican melody maker. Her in-tune communications, slowly but surely, are drowning out Obama’s bizarre ventriloquism, Joe Biden’s howlers (although I now must thank Sen. Biden for his public criticism of Obama), and the mainstream media’s pops and pings of their low-register gothic operas.
I admit I knew nothing about the lady, so when Sen. John McCain torpedoed the long-awaiting GOP with his announcement that he’d chosen Mrs. Palin as his running mate, I blurted (literally), “Who? But-but… what about Romney? Where’s Pawlenty?”
Once the conservative world had caught its breath, we scrambled like ants with road rage to bring ourselves up to speed and be informed about her as much as possible. What we learned was surprisingly uplifting, and encouraging. But encouraging and uplifting would not be enough for wary and weary Republicans. Our faith – our votes for John McCain – quite suddenly depended enormously on Mrs. Palin’s presentation of herself at the Republican convention, her message and delivery.
To put it plainly, when she finished speaking I had to find my socks. They were on the other side of the room, having been blown off by what I’d seen and heard.
As the balloons rained down on our nominees and ecstatic supporters, I concluded, with refreshed hopefulness, that Sen. McCain appeared to have done right with his choice.
In the weeks that have followed, and on the basis of hardnosed scrutiny, I came to recognize that Mrs. Palin not only has the head but the heart and constitution to assume the responsibilities of Vice President of the United States, to name a few: the hurdles, the sinkholes, and the sway of President of the Senate; the polluted power of Washington politics; and all that the second-in-command to the leader of what might be the last frontier of the free world must endure or may enjoy.
In addition, and with all due respect (I have to say this), it is my opinion that Mrs. Palin could easily be considered a candidate for U.S. Army Ranger: superincumbent point of convergence, fine sinew tone, her marksmanship with a hunting rifle, razor-sharp receptors, and she’s a flawless communicator. It’s probably why she is balls-out fearless in the face of twits wielding their toothless pitchforks and burned-out torches. Not too shabby for a mother of five.
As expected, from the moment she was named the Republicans’ vice presidential candidate, the cheese-eaters on the left went whacko, like a duck hit on the head. They didn’t just cross but leaped the line of civility and began – and continue – to snarl, spit and squawk some of the most reprehensible idioms against Sarah Palin.
They have squealed over and gnawed on everything from her pro-life position to her accession to the post of a city mayor and then governor of our largest state – even her husband and children.
They also have gone so far as to censure Mrs. Palin’s rightful choice not to abort her baby son, Trig, who had been diagnosed with Down syndrome prior to birth. (It’s one thing to push the envelope of criticism; it’s quite another, in this instance, to hammer nails in so deeply that they can never be retracted – and their contemptuous mockery of Mr. & Mrs. Palin’s faith-based decision not to terminate the life of their son, I assure you, will be neither forgotten nor forgiven.)
The liberal media (Obama’s Love Bombers: “You’re perfect just the way you are, Barack”), from top to bottom, and from the start, consciously and deliberately ignored the tenets of fairness and decency towards John McCain, and now Sarah Palin.
The most disturbing aspect is their shameless revelry in the destruction they are attempting to wreak on the Palin Family, particularly celebrities. I’m confident enough to say that they will never achieve their objective, and their words and actions will backfire in due course.
As an aside: On the topic of backfires, an example is what occurred during the Clinton administration. They bullied the banking industries into granting loans to unqualified purchasers. Approximately 30 years earlier, Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy browbeat a bill through the Senate to allow into our country a greater percentage of “the less fortunate” (i.e., from south of our borders and elsewhere), who comprise a significant (if not largest) amount of today’s unqualified purchasers. Both plans spearheaded by those two Democrats served as chief elements of the incubator in which was hatched this $700 billion T-Rex. Ironically, those screaming loudest “Save us!” are – you guessed it – liberal Democrats. End aside.
Nevertheless, the limousine liberals, who are enamored with the sound of their own voice (you listenin’ up their in your private jet, which is paid for by the People, Madam Speaker?), persist with their shrill insults at John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Mrs. Palin’s executive credentials and character, at every MSM opportunity and with serial ignorance.
At one point recently, I sat through the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan just for a respite. Thankfully, at about minute 18, I was able to turn down the volume on my TV because of the across-the-board news that two of the more vicious rodents (Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann) had both fallen victim to their own rat poison. Wait--didn’t I just say: “[…] their words and actions will backfire in due course”?
The catalog of gross offenders now also includes a certain David Kernell, a student who thought he was enrolling at Clown College (Harry Reid’s alma mater), but because Kernell, like Reid, probably failed basic comprehension instead scrawled his “X” on the University of Tennessee-Knoxville admission form. (Kernell is under investigation by the FBI and Secret Service for allegedly hacking into Sarah Palin’s electronic mail accounts.) Ditto my “backfire” comment (emphasis added).
William Shakespeare wrote: “Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.”
For Sarah Palin, she needn’t wish it – she simply is. I believe in Mrs. Palin, because she exemplifies decency and morality. True, she has a tough field to plow if she succeeds Dick Cheney, but she is clearly at least ten times smarter, stronger, and on the ball than today’s passel of Washington mutts.
Ever see moose stomp mice? Me neither. But I have a hunch we’re going to see just that, come November.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
The One Trick Phony
By Julian Krasta
First on the list of the Seven Deadly Sins is Pride. Barack Obama’s cup runneth over with SDS No. 1, so much so that his credibility – as well as the trustworthiness of the Democratic Party – is beginning to resemble the bottom of a birdcage.
As demonstrated during his excursion to the Middle East and Europe, Obama’s vainglory character has reached full feather: What we saw and heard was not a paradigm of intellectual prowess or the mountain-moving messiah the media are in desperation pitching the world to believe he is – quite the contrary.
In spite of every attempt to present himself as a deep thinker or an “every man,” the senator remains detached and unprincipled when it comes to giving full credit to our military. He is also cold and hostile, particularly when he is caught unawares by a journalist’s impromptu questions. Absent his teleprompter of pre-arranged homilies and dog-eared clichés, his remarks are a runoff of blatant inaccuracies, such as this “Berra-ism” that would make Yogi proud:
“Let me be perfectly clear: Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s” –
All of which are bells not even the power peacocks of the liberal mainstream media are able to un‑ring.
Fairness demands I give credit to Obama. The only credit I believe he deserves is for his flair for dramatic showmanship. Not since P.T. Barnum – spot-lit in the center ring, dressed in coattails and top hat – has anyone effectively impressed and entrapped the hearts, minds and chromosomes of so many.
Put more simply: Obama enchants and entertains children of all ages.
Those he electrifies eagerly dive for every pearl that slips from his lips. Unfortunately, their fascination with him is anything but academic (as compared to John McCain’s feet-on-the-ground, fact-demanding supporters, as well as his opponents).
One explanation might be that, once Obama’s gullible herds imbibe of his “wondrous waters,” they become similarly stricken – or further stricken – with his now-trademark languor (which might explain why, when I first heard them chanting “We want change!” I had thought they were actually yelling, “We want pain!”).
Was that fair enough?
Obama’s one trick is he has mastered the art of doling out only cryptic hints of the changes he intends to make if he is elected. Aside from holding to a pattern of delivering sprawling and irregular speeches (which I view as a tribute to Dr. Seuss: “I do not like them in a box. I do not like them with a fox. I do not like them in a house…” – You get the picture), he has yet to convey concrete exemplars of how he would achieve those changes.
More importantly, he has not explained – not even a speck – what those changes would unerringly entail, and just how such changes would diametrically affect Americans, though Republicans and conservatives already know what he has in mind:
It’s a given that Obama would raise taxes across the board in order to provoke the mysterious changes only he envisions. His grandiose illusions of himself have blinded him to the fact that stacking more financial stress on the American people and on American industries would only serve to fund a radical attack on our nation’s problems:
Job losses could skyrocket. Personal spending would plummet. The housing market (and residential and commercial development) could collapse entirely. And retirement, investment and savings accounts could go under – to name an important few.
Just those tied together could conceivably cause parents (one or both, or the only one) to hold down a second job in order to make ends meet, which, in turn, would rupture family unity.
Is that what Obama’s wife meant when she heatedly lectured:
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism … that you come out of your isolation. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved … uninformed”?
If that be true, then Obama aims to strip Americans of our freedom of choice. And if we were to lose freedom of choice, it would just be a matter of time before these, too, would be lost:
- Freedom of religion,
- Freedom of speech,
- Freedom of the press (in particular, the conservative press),
- Freedom of intellectual inquiry,
- Freedom of artistic expression, and
- Every other freedom that empowers the individual.
An equally serious setback would be this: If elected his conceit could initiate a power binge that would be a kick in the teeth to the Presidency. This is not a hypothetical in view of his track record of zero accomplishments, and his conspicuous immaturity.
His weaknesses are unlimited. His acuity is less than remarkable. In short: he would mitigate the muscle of the Commander-in-Chief and thereby exacerbate the broadening spectrum of critical issues facing this nation.
Obama wants so badly to be Le Premier Chef. He claims he has the perfect recipes, including the utensils and pots & pans, for everything he only imagines we need. The fact remains, however, that with every spurious comment he makes, including his brassbound insistence on delivering Swiss cheese answers to legitimate queries about the ingredients in his recipes, he proves he can’t even boil water.
First on the list of the Seven Deadly Sins is Pride. Barack Obama’s cup runneth over with SDS No. 1, so much so that his credibility – as well as the trustworthiness of the Democratic Party – is beginning to resemble the bottom of a birdcage.
As demonstrated during his excursion to the Middle East and Europe, Obama’s vainglory character has reached full feather: What we saw and heard was not a paradigm of intellectual prowess or the mountain-moving messiah the media are in desperation pitching the world to believe he is – quite the contrary.
In spite of every attempt to present himself as a deep thinker or an “every man,” the senator remains detached and unprincipled when it comes to giving full credit to our military. He is also cold and hostile, particularly when he is caught unawares by a journalist’s impromptu questions. Absent his teleprompter of pre-arranged homilies and dog-eared clichés, his remarks are a runoff of blatant inaccuracies, such as this “Berra-ism” that would make Yogi proud:
“Let me be perfectly clear: Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s” –
All of which are bells not even the power peacocks of the liberal mainstream media are able to un‑ring.
Fairness demands I give credit to Obama. The only credit I believe he deserves is for his flair for dramatic showmanship. Not since P.T. Barnum – spot-lit in the center ring, dressed in coattails and top hat – has anyone effectively impressed and entrapped the hearts, minds and chromosomes of so many.
Put more simply: Obama enchants and entertains children of all ages.
Those he electrifies eagerly dive for every pearl that slips from his lips. Unfortunately, their fascination with him is anything but academic (as compared to John McCain’s feet-on-the-ground, fact-demanding supporters, as well as his opponents).
One explanation might be that, once Obama’s gullible herds imbibe of his “wondrous waters,” they become similarly stricken – or further stricken – with his now-trademark languor (which might explain why, when I first heard them chanting “We want change!” I had thought they were actually yelling, “We want pain!”).
Was that fair enough?
Obama’s one trick is he has mastered the art of doling out only cryptic hints of the changes he intends to make if he is elected. Aside from holding to a pattern of delivering sprawling and irregular speeches (which I view as a tribute to Dr. Seuss: “I do not like them in a box. I do not like them with a fox. I do not like them in a house…” – You get the picture), he has yet to convey concrete exemplars of how he would achieve those changes.
More importantly, he has not explained – not even a speck – what those changes would unerringly entail, and just how such changes would diametrically affect Americans, though Republicans and conservatives already know what he has in mind:
It’s a given that Obama would raise taxes across the board in order to provoke the mysterious changes only he envisions. His grandiose illusions of himself have blinded him to the fact that stacking more financial stress on the American people and on American industries would only serve to fund a radical attack on our nation’s problems:
Job losses could skyrocket. Personal spending would plummet. The housing market (and residential and commercial development) could collapse entirely. And retirement, investment and savings accounts could go under – to name an important few.
Just those tied together could conceivably cause parents (one or both, or the only one) to hold down a second job in order to make ends meet, which, in turn, would rupture family unity.
Is that what Obama’s wife meant when she heatedly lectured:
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism … that you come out of your isolation. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved … uninformed”?
If that be true, then Obama aims to strip Americans of our freedom of choice. And if we were to lose freedom of choice, it would just be a matter of time before these, too, would be lost:
- Freedom of religion,
- Freedom of speech,
- Freedom of the press (in particular, the conservative press),
- Freedom of intellectual inquiry,
- Freedom of artistic expression, and
- Every other freedom that empowers the individual.
An equally serious setback would be this: If elected his conceit could initiate a power binge that would be a kick in the teeth to the Presidency. This is not a hypothetical in view of his track record of zero accomplishments, and his conspicuous immaturity.
His weaknesses are unlimited. His acuity is less than remarkable. In short: he would mitigate the muscle of the Commander-in-Chief and thereby exacerbate the broadening spectrum of critical issues facing this nation.
Obama wants so badly to be Le Premier Chef. He claims he has the perfect recipes, including the utensils and pots & pans, for everything he only imagines we need. The fact remains, however, that with every spurious comment he makes, including his brassbound insistence on delivering Swiss cheese answers to legitimate queries about the ingredients in his recipes, he proves he can’t even boil water.
Monday, July 07, 2008
The Trojan Horse Candidate
By Julian Krasta
The intellectual communities all over the world are waiting in an agony of suspense as to whether John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. The suspense is rooted in the hope for granite security and the prospect for lasting peace, which could altogether vanish if, in January 2009, the wrong man raises his hand and takes the oath.
Senator McCain is uncomplicated with respect to the leadership and defense of our country. His fearless patriotism was formed and hardened by an irrefutable fact: The American People’s collective resolve coupled with the actions of our awesome military, in their harshest terms, are proof to our enemies – of the past, present and, yes, future – that we play in a bigger and badder league than they could ever dream.
By stark contrast, Obama requires a daily diet of total compliance and idolization. His word salads are a gross national product of cants and fantasies, and is devoted to injecting chaos into the jellied minds of the crowds of people (here and in countries such as Syria) that play into his fantasies. He has successfully accomplished this because his is a cocktail personality, meaning: He senses other people’s vulnerabilities, he reads their personalities, and performs accordingly. It is the classic sign of a sociopath.
Liberals argue that Senator McCain might be too old, too hotheaded, and too off the mark (and some frustrated Republicans and core conservatives chime in with the fear that he is too liberal-minded). In some respects they are all correct – in some respects. There are even those who poke fun at his banal tone. Again, some of their levity is not entirely unjustified. My view of the Senator, which is shared by many, many other conservative advocates, is quite the opposite. To quote an old saying: “Still water runs deep.”
Moreover, John McCain has served our country faithfully as a Navy fighter pilot (a stone-cold truth not even (Ret.) Gen. Wesley Clark can deny or devalue (notwithstanding Clark’s cheap shots to discredit McCain’s leadership qualifications)). He endured horrible physical pain during his imprisonment in Viet Nam. Primarily, he is lock, stock and barrel more transparent than the Democrats’ candidate claims to be because, good, bad or indifferent, Senator McCain has no hidden agendas. Neither does he feign being anything other that what we see.
Barack has an impressive record of political ineptitude: He and his party strive to expand policies such as welfare (to ensure dependence on the government dole by those below the poverty line in order to fortify their votes). Obama opposes privatizing Social Security, which is supported by Senator McCain – a proposition that would be advantageous to taxpayers in that we would be able to invest and manage our benefits.
Obama opposes school vouchers (one means to the end of our children being short-changed in their education). He used the words “ugly and racist” to depict opponents of the 2007 comprehensive illegal immigration bill, yet it is commonplace (and widely accepted by his supporters and conveniently overlooked by the media) when he repeatedly brings into the fray the fact he is black. This comes from the chosen one of the party that went up against the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution (respectively: abolishing slavery, granting citizenship rights to newly-freed slaves, guaranteeing the right to vote for blacks – Thank you, Larry Elder).
Senator McCain has always been a proponent of nuclear power, and he is calling for no less than 45 nuclear power plants to be built by the year 2030. Barack has said that this might be worth investigating – until he decides to cast his vote in opposition.
Obama possesses a superego and is fully one-dimentional. He has (with the wholesale aid of the liberal mainstream media) caused his supporters, as well as al Qaida and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, to believe that there’s a wizard behind his curtain when, in fact, there is only a brick wall.
Islamist jihadists are determined to dominate this planet, by whatever force necessary, and become our supreme rulers. From the standpoint of their blood-lust adventurism, the very future of the freedoms of the human race has become the issue.
John McCain understands this. Without equivocation, but in peremptory tones, he has said plainly that he is as equally determined to use whatever force is necessary to prevent terrorists from gaining the upper hand and, as President, would not imprudently withdraw our troops from the hot zones.
Obama, on the other hand, is hedonistic with his [politically motivated] litany “I will end the war” and begin bringing our troops home if he becomes president. This move comes under the heading “Miscalculation and Maladroitness.” It would be as foolish as an impatient homeowner ordering the tent removed from his house before the poisoning process can fully and effectively destroy a vermin infestation “…because the tent is an eyesore.”
This smacks of arrogance and audacity. His myopic presumptions equate to reckless endangerment: gambling with our lives here at home as well as the country we call home to satisfy his aspirations – that is (using another analogy), no less irresponsible as when a parent or guardian leaves a baby or a pet locked in a hot car to go shopping.
Moreover, Obama’s ambition has blinded him to the fact that withdrawing our troops, reducing military spending, and suspending or cancelling defense programs would not only weaken the security of our homeland it would sharply increase domestic unemployment in all related sectors of private, public, and government businesses.
Furthermore, if we lose the strength in numbers of trained military personnel now – or a year or two from now – and our country is attacked again, three to four months would need to pass before capable replacement ground, sea, and air combat troops could be expected to reach required potency and supplant those who had been killed and injured. In that time, we could go beyond the crisis level and face unmitigated disaster because of a lack of trained manpower.
Our enemies could exploit this perceived weakness. They might attack, possibly with lethal chemical weapons, and destroy (but not be limited to) municipal and military communications centers and installations, commercial and military airfield complexes, fire, police and energy stations, water and food supplies, roads and railways, all personnel therein, and every civilian within specific radii of those areas.
John McCain is aware of the foregoing, because he is a long-horn, scarred, intemperate and veteran bull. Faith should be invested in him, in that he would exercise every power vested in him as President to go the distance and cut out the fanatic canker that threatens humanity and prevent such attacks.
Obama is a neophyte. His daydreaming has left him deficient of legislative and leadership experience. With neither to his credit, he wouldn’t be able to stop an asthma attack.
It would therefore come as no surprise to the GOP, conservatives or rational Democrats if, as president, he one day swings open the White House doors, flashes a smile at the beast looming above him (whose entrée into our land he helped engineer), and says:
“What a nice horsey – of course I’ll sign for it.”
The intellectual communities all over the world are waiting in an agony of suspense as to whether John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. The suspense is rooted in the hope for granite security and the prospect for lasting peace, which could altogether vanish if, in January 2009, the wrong man raises his hand and takes the oath.
Senator McCain is uncomplicated with respect to the leadership and defense of our country. His fearless patriotism was formed and hardened by an irrefutable fact: The American People’s collective resolve coupled with the actions of our awesome military, in their harshest terms, are proof to our enemies – of the past, present and, yes, future – that we play in a bigger and badder league than they could ever dream.
By stark contrast, Obama requires a daily diet of total compliance and idolization. His word salads are a gross national product of cants and fantasies, and is devoted to injecting chaos into the jellied minds of the crowds of people (here and in countries such as Syria) that play into his fantasies. He has successfully accomplished this because his is a cocktail personality, meaning: He senses other people’s vulnerabilities, he reads their personalities, and performs accordingly. It is the classic sign of a sociopath.
Liberals argue that Senator McCain might be too old, too hotheaded, and too off the mark (and some frustrated Republicans and core conservatives chime in with the fear that he is too liberal-minded). In some respects they are all correct – in some respects. There are even those who poke fun at his banal tone. Again, some of their levity is not entirely unjustified. My view of the Senator, which is shared by many, many other conservative advocates, is quite the opposite. To quote an old saying: “Still water runs deep.”
Moreover, John McCain has served our country faithfully as a Navy fighter pilot (a stone-cold truth not even (Ret.) Gen. Wesley Clark can deny or devalue (notwithstanding Clark’s cheap shots to discredit McCain’s leadership qualifications)). He endured horrible physical pain during his imprisonment in Viet Nam. Primarily, he is lock, stock and barrel more transparent than the Democrats’ candidate claims to be because, good, bad or indifferent, Senator McCain has no hidden agendas. Neither does he feign being anything other that what we see.
Barack has an impressive record of political ineptitude: He and his party strive to expand policies such as welfare (to ensure dependence on the government dole by those below the poverty line in order to fortify their votes). Obama opposes privatizing Social Security, which is supported by Senator McCain – a proposition that would be advantageous to taxpayers in that we would be able to invest and manage our benefits.
Obama opposes school vouchers (one means to the end of our children being short-changed in their education). He used the words “ugly and racist” to depict opponents of the 2007 comprehensive illegal immigration bill, yet it is commonplace (and widely accepted by his supporters and conveniently overlooked by the media) when he repeatedly brings into the fray the fact he is black. This comes from the chosen one of the party that went up against the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution (respectively: abolishing slavery, granting citizenship rights to newly-freed slaves, guaranteeing the right to vote for blacks – Thank you, Larry Elder).
Senator McCain has always been a proponent of nuclear power, and he is calling for no less than 45 nuclear power plants to be built by the year 2030. Barack has said that this might be worth investigating – until he decides to cast his vote in opposition.
Obama possesses a superego and is fully one-dimentional. He has (with the wholesale aid of the liberal mainstream media) caused his supporters, as well as al Qaida and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, to believe that there’s a wizard behind his curtain when, in fact, there is only a brick wall.
Islamist jihadists are determined to dominate this planet, by whatever force necessary, and become our supreme rulers. From the standpoint of their blood-lust adventurism, the very future of the freedoms of the human race has become the issue.
John McCain understands this. Without equivocation, but in peremptory tones, he has said plainly that he is as equally determined to use whatever force is necessary to prevent terrorists from gaining the upper hand and, as President, would not imprudently withdraw our troops from the hot zones.
Obama, on the other hand, is hedonistic with his [politically motivated] litany “I will end the war” and begin bringing our troops home if he becomes president. This move comes under the heading “Miscalculation and Maladroitness.” It would be as foolish as an impatient homeowner ordering the tent removed from his house before the poisoning process can fully and effectively destroy a vermin infestation “…because the tent is an eyesore.”
This smacks of arrogance and audacity. His myopic presumptions equate to reckless endangerment: gambling with our lives here at home as well as the country we call home to satisfy his aspirations – that is (using another analogy), no less irresponsible as when a parent or guardian leaves a baby or a pet locked in a hot car to go shopping.
Moreover, Obama’s ambition has blinded him to the fact that withdrawing our troops, reducing military spending, and suspending or cancelling defense programs would not only weaken the security of our homeland it would sharply increase domestic unemployment in all related sectors of private, public, and government businesses.
Furthermore, if we lose the strength in numbers of trained military personnel now – or a year or two from now – and our country is attacked again, three to four months would need to pass before capable replacement ground, sea, and air combat troops could be expected to reach required potency and supplant those who had been killed and injured. In that time, we could go beyond the crisis level and face unmitigated disaster because of a lack of trained manpower.
Our enemies could exploit this perceived weakness. They might attack, possibly with lethal chemical weapons, and destroy (but not be limited to) municipal and military communications centers and installations, commercial and military airfield complexes, fire, police and energy stations, water and food supplies, roads and railways, all personnel therein, and every civilian within specific radii of those areas.
John McCain is aware of the foregoing, because he is a long-horn, scarred, intemperate and veteran bull. Faith should be invested in him, in that he would exercise every power vested in him as President to go the distance and cut out the fanatic canker that threatens humanity and prevent such attacks.
Obama is a neophyte. His daydreaming has left him deficient of legislative and leadership experience. With neither to his credit, he wouldn’t be able to stop an asthma attack.
It would therefore come as no surprise to the GOP, conservatives or rational Democrats if, as president, he one day swings open the White House doors, flashes a smile at the beast looming above him (whose entrée into our land he helped engineer), and says:
“What a nice horsey – of course I’ll sign for it.”
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Politicians Do Not Own Us, "We" Own Them
By Julian Krasta
Now that the Democrats have, at long last, selected their nominee, “We” need to remind ourselves of long-standing facts concerning those persons we elected to public office. More importantly, the presidential candidates need to hear from us.
The United States is hovering closer to the thin edge of the wedge, because too large a percentage of the men and women we voted to represent our best interests – and those who will yet finagle to win our votes – are preoccupied in grudge matches for supremacy within their club quarters.
Elected civil servants mulishly persist in placing their hands on the wrong end of the stick with regard to their responsibilities to the American People. We need to jog their memories about their job function (the salaries of which we pay for):
Specifically, they, at all times, are to acquaint us with the best possible alternatives for how to shelter and maintain our basic human rights and our country’s integrity. If we do not agree, or find fault, with their proposals, we have the right to say no, and to repeat the word “no” pending acceptable answers and/or solutions.
It is common knowledge that, despite their campaign pledges (and the fact that we elected office holders on the basis of those pledges), they invariably present this wry comeback to our inquiries:
“I plan to set up a task force to look into the matter”
– which is code for “I have no intention of earning my keep.”
Earning their keep requires results, and results would be evidence that they deserve the position for which we elected them. So far, the only proof provided is the majority of those men and women we placed in government positions are all mouth and goiter.
For instance, there is a singular critical matter those elected abjectly refuse to work on and put right: the mounting pressure for America to, once and for all, release itself from its ties to foreign oil. It is far more appealing to members of Congress to stage a mock trial (at taxpayer expense) and drag over the coals American oil executives rather than admit to, and immediately act upon, an obvious way out: the U.S. territory designated ANWR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge).
The crude oil we very badly need is located in abundance within ANWR, in the remotest and uninhabited area, where none of God’s creatures (except mosquitoes) would suffer inconvenience in the exploration and capture of the resource.
A neighbor nation to the south, Brazil, has done this. They tapped into a mother lode oil field approximately 150 miles out at sea, which should help keep them supplied for a significant length of time. I recognize the value of ingenuity in the face of urgency, and am pleased to pass on good wishes to Brazil for taking the necessary steps to ensure their petroleum needs are fulfilled.
In light of Brazil’s achievement, it is lunacy on the part of our elected representatives to mandate that America not exploit every other potential advantage available within our own borders to re-energize our stockpile of fuel.
Meanwhile, the price per gallon to fill our cars’ fuel tanks is rapidly approaching $5.00. This is precisely what Shell Oil’s Chief Executive Officer, John Hofmeister, cautioned the House Committee in late May would come to pass unless and until Congress removes the shackles and allows Big Oil to responsibly explore and drill for oil.
Rather than a constructive debate, an ill-mannered response to Mr. Hofmeister’s statement was delivered by Maxine Waters-(D‑CA) in which she attempted to intimidate the CEO, saying the government would socialize [sic] the oil companies. Her clumsy threat was altogether an embarrassment to the office to which she was elected, counterproductive to those proceedings, and an insult to the People’s intelligence.
From Capitol Hill to our largest cities and smallest townships nationwide, scent of power has clouded common sense and sense of duty. Too many of the elected officials we chose to invest with our trust spend their terms in office undermining the laws specifically written to protect citizens. There are also those who, out of idleness, pursue – and needlessly squander taxpayer money on – phantom resolutions to unsubstantiated conundrums, such as the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Act.
Elected officials have wrecked the inner cities with their unaccountability and allowed schools to fall to ruin. As our education systems deteriorate, so goes our children’s literacy.
Fortunately, there are diehard educators out there who are determined to fight fire with fire. They want kids to be – as they should be – our number one priority. Unfortunately, this example is one of few exceptions. Suitably educating our youngsters in secure and healthy environments is no longer the blanket rule.
Politicians hamstring law enforcement agencies (as with the deleterious Special Order 40 in Los Angeles). And when such initiatives crash and burn leaving only scorched earth in their wake, they lay blame on the federal government. While the blame games go on, the record of men, women, teenagers and children killed and injured increases by the second. The cycle is vicious.
Once they assume office, elected officials engage a bizarre 4‑stage slant on central issues (e.g., national security precautions, economic stability, health and welfare, education, our country’s independence, protection of our constitutional privileges), which is directly linked to the countless problems we face today:
1. Nothing is going to happen.
2. Something might happen but we should do nothing about it.
3. Maybe we should do something but there’s nothing we can do.
4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
Example: It took three U.S. presidents to be assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley) before Congress finally authorized the Secret Service to assume the full-time responsibility of protecting our Commanders in Chief.
This same jumbled attitude pertains to the Senate’s points of view today with respect to the War on Terror. They (primarily the liberals amongst them) continue to be tightfisted in recognizing the positive effects of the Surge. They pay no heed to the Iraqi people’s remarkable endeavors – working side by side with our magnificent military – to liberate themselves from fanatic ideologues. Instead, Nancy Pelosi had the impudence to give the credit for the Iraqis’ achieved goals to Iran.
To say the Speaker’s remarks are disquieting would be an understatement. She is, in point of fact, encouraging Iran to be aggressive. Her statements were both precarious and immoral in view of the fact Mahmoud Admadinejad considers the North American continent and the State of Israel his personal kill zones.
On the basis of such recklessness, it is essential that the following be circulated to our elected politicians (above all to those yet to be elected), which is the People’s response to their abortive 4-stage strategy:
1. “We” are not confused adolescents.
2. “We” will not be placated.
3. “We” are not fools.
4. “We” are mature citizens who demand for our children and for ourselves protection from terrorists, street gangs, exploding numbers of illegal immigrants, the escalating cost of fuel, the pandemic of irresponsible and wasteful bureaucrats, and higher taxes.
With a shifty general election looming on the horizon, it is mordantly clear that we become unceasingly involved in our own destiny. This is no longer just optional. It is mandatory.
Serious citizen-voters must take the time, either by telephone, facsimile, U.S. mail or electronic mail, and extend straightforward rulings to our elected representatives on their performance, including imminent and wounding legislation. We must be relentless until they clean up their act and rescind radical propositions, from unconditional amnesty for illegals to a plan (dreamed up by the Democrats’ nominee) to distribute $845 BILLION taxpayer dollars outside the United States, the outcome of which could further weaken our fragile economy as well as break the backs of the American People.
“We” put them there. It is now time to dust off the weed whacker, which would serve as fitting notice to the incoming POTUS. That is:
“We, the People” take a backseat to no one, particularly politicians “We” vote into office.
Now that the Democrats have, at long last, selected their nominee, “We” need to remind ourselves of long-standing facts concerning those persons we elected to public office. More importantly, the presidential candidates need to hear from us.
The United States is hovering closer to the thin edge of the wedge, because too large a percentage of the men and women we voted to represent our best interests – and those who will yet finagle to win our votes – are preoccupied in grudge matches for supremacy within their club quarters.
Elected civil servants mulishly persist in placing their hands on the wrong end of the stick with regard to their responsibilities to the American People. We need to jog their memories about their job function (the salaries of which we pay for):
Specifically, they, at all times, are to acquaint us with the best possible alternatives for how to shelter and maintain our basic human rights and our country’s integrity. If we do not agree, or find fault, with their proposals, we have the right to say no, and to repeat the word “no” pending acceptable answers and/or solutions.
It is common knowledge that, despite their campaign pledges (and the fact that we elected office holders on the basis of those pledges), they invariably present this wry comeback to our inquiries:
“I plan to set up a task force to look into the matter”
– which is code for “I have no intention of earning my keep.”
Earning their keep requires results, and results would be evidence that they deserve the position for which we elected them. So far, the only proof provided is the majority of those men and women we placed in government positions are all mouth and goiter.
For instance, there is a singular critical matter those elected abjectly refuse to work on and put right: the mounting pressure for America to, once and for all, release itself from its ties to foreign oil. It is far more appealing to members of Congress to stage a mock trial (at taxpayer expense) and drag over the coals American oil executives rather than admit to, and immediately act upon, an obvious way out: the U.S. territory designated ANWR (Artic National Wildlife Refuge).
The crude oil we very badly need is located in abundance within ANWR, in the remotest and uninhabited area, where none of God’s creatures (except mosquitoes) would suffer inconvenience in the exploration and capture of the resource.
A neighbor nation to the south, Brazil, has done this. They tapped into a mother lode oil field approximately 150 miles out at sea, which should help keep them supplied for a significant length of time. I recognize the value of ingenuity in the face of urgency, and am pleased to pass on good wishes to Brazil for taking the necessary steps to ensure their petroleum needs are fulfilled.
In light of Brazil’s achievement, it is lunacy on the part of our elected representatives to mandate that America not exploit every other potential advantage available within our own borders to re-energize our stockpile of fuel.
Meanwhile, the price per gallon to fill our cars’ fuel tanks is rapidly approaching $5.00. This is precisely what Shell Oil’s Chief Executive Officer, John Hofmeister, cautioned the House Committee in late May would come to pass unless and until Congress removes the shackles and allows Big Oil to responsibly explore and drill for oil.
Rather than a constructive debate, an ill-mannered response to Mr. Hofmeister’s statement was delivered by Maxine Waters-(D‑CA) in which she attempted to intimidate the CEO, saying the government would socialize [sic] the oil companies. Her clumsy threat was altogether an embarrassment to the office to which she was elected, counterproductive to those proceedings, and an insult to the People’s intelligence.
From Capitol Hill to our largest cities and smallest townships nationwide, scent of power has clouded common sense and sense of duty. Too many of the elected officials we chose to invest with our trust spend their terms in office undermining the laws specifically written to protect citizens. There are also those who, out of idleness, pursue – and needlessly squander taxpayer money on – phantom resolutions to unsubstantiated conundrums, such as the Lieberman-Warner Climate Change Act.
Elected officials have wrecked the inner cities with their unaccountability and allowed schools to fall to ruin. As our education systems deteriorate, so goes our children’s literacy.
Fortunately, there are diehard educators out there who are determined to fight fire with fire. They want kids to be – as they should be – our number one priority. Unfortunately, this example is one of few exceptions. Suitably educating our youngsters in secure and healthy environments is no longer the blanket rule.
Politicians hamstring law enforcement agencies (as with the deleterious Special Order 40 in Los Angeles). And when such initiatives crash and burn leaving only scorched earth in their wake, they lay blame on the federal government. While the blame games go on, the record of men, women, teenagers and children killed and injured increases by the second. The cycle is vicious.
Once they assume office, elected officials engage a bizarre 4‑stage slant on central issues (e.g., national security precautions, economic stability, health and welfare, education, our country’s independence, protection of our constitutional privileges), which is directly linked to the countless problems we face today:
1. Nothing is going to happen.
2. Something might happen but we should do nothing about it.
3. Maybe we should do something but there’s nothing we can do.
4. Maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
Example: It took three U.S. presidents to be assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley) before Congress finally authorized the Secret Service to assume the full-time responsibility of protecting our Commanders in Chief.
This same jumbled attitude pertains to the Senate’s points of view today with respect to the War on Terror. They (primarily the liberals amongst them) continue to be tightfisted in recognizing the positive effects of the Surge. They pay no heed to the Iraqi people’s remarkable endeavors – working side by side with our magnificent military – to liberate themselves from fanatic ideologues. Instead, Nancy Pelosi had the impudence to give the credit for the Iraqis’ achieved goals to Iran.
To say the Speaker’s remarks are disquieting would be an understatement. She is, in point of fact, encouraging Iran to be aggressive. Her statements were both precarious and immoral in view of the fact Mahmoud Admadinejad considers the North American continent and the State of Israel his personal kill zones.
On the basis of such recklessness, it is essential that the following be circulated to our elected politicians (above all to those yet to be elected), which is the People’s response to their abortive 4-stage strategy:
1. “We” are not confused adolescents.
2. “We” will not be placated.
3. “We” are not fools.
4. “We” are mature citizens who demand for our children and for ourselves protection from terrorists, street gangs, exploding numbers of illegal immigrants, the escalating cost of fuel, the pandemic of irresponsible and wasteful bureaucrats, and higher taxes.
With a shifty general election looming on the horizon, it is mordantly clear that we become unceasingly involved in our own destiny. This is no longer just optional. It is mandatory.
Serious citizen-voters must take the time, either by telephone, facsimile, U.S. mail or electronic mail, and extend straightforward rulings to our elected representatives on their performance, including imminent and wounding legislation. We must be relentless until they clean up their act and rescind radical propositions, from unconditional amnesty for illegals to a plan (dreamed up by the Democrats’ nominee) to distribute $845 BILLION taxpayer dollars outside the United States, the outcome of which could further weaken our fragile economy as well as break the backs of the American People.
“We” put them there. It is now time to dust off the weed whacker, which would serve as fitting notice to the incoming POTUS. That is:
“We, the People” take a backseat to no one, particularly politicians “We” vote into office.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Fair Warning About Obama
By Julian Krasta
When he first stepped out on the world stage, Barack Hussein Obama seemed to most conservatives both beautiful and disturbing, as one might feel when casting a virgin glance upon a Salvador Dali painting: It makes no sense, it is a bit alarming, but the colors are pretty.
Ambitious politicians address expectant crowds often with “I can,” “I will,” or “I promise.” Typically, there are no images to go with their words.
B. Hussein, however, has, and with broad and uneven strokes, splashed a redesigned America on the blank canvases that are his supporters’ minds. The vision they have grabbed onto is, from a hot-air balloon, a color-blended Utopia. Up close, it is stark, very costly, divided, divisive, and unsafe.
Obama displayed painful earnestness when he proposed a change the people can believe in. Unfortunately for him, comments he made about his grandmother being a ‘typical white person’ – and his backpedaling to attempt to reverse its base meaning – has exposed two irrefutable facts: (1) The “change” is pure fiction, because (2) his pallette, by his own admission, is smeared with only two shades: black on the left, white on the right, which has brought out into the open his guilty secret:
He is a spoiled and bitter child.
In view of these inconsistencies, as well as his rambling discourse following the Wright bruhaha in which his deep-seated obsession over race tumbled out, conservatives and auspicious Democrats have watched his ascent and listened to his avowals with enhanced caution. As he spiraled higher, caution turned to concern, particularly after Wright’s frightful remarks and the ugly and hostile emergence of Michael Pfleger.
Frankly, I am relieved. It has all served to reconfirm that Obama is, underneath the surface shine, just another sloppy pop idol. Like all brat luminaries who are the darlings of the liberal media, he believes – or his puppeteers have led him to believe – that he can say or do anything and get away with it. For anyone to try to convince me Obama is qualified to lead this nation would be the same as trying to convince me Martin Bormann was an OK fella.
Obama, the official glamorizer of the liberals’ fractured philosophy, will go on with his lordly amusement of making outlandish conjectures about how he and he alone can cure America’s troubles. With no list of accomplishments to his credit since becoming a senator, this delinquent naïveté is fast becoming a point of great anxiety.
His most upsetting absurdity is to meet with Iran to discuss stabilizing Iraq. The spoiled child in him refuses to accept the fact that there is no chatting or negotiating with tyrants on any issue – ever.
Iran, a preeminent engine of killing, is flagrantly processing uranium. There is no doubt this uranium is being prepared for nuclear weapons. Yet, B. Hussein thinks he can leap tall buildings over to Tehran; that Admadinijad will crawl out of his sinkhole of iniquity, be waiting for him on the tarmac with open arms and – voilà! – lend a happy hand to the United States.
Obama’s immaturity is so tragic it is almost poetic.
The mainstream media will, as they always do, play down Obama’s numerous faux pas. Obama, in an attempt to maintain his artificial patina, will place the onus for his goof-ups on everyone else.
His resolute followers will write articles defending him and engage in blown reactor shouting matches with us “xenophobes” for our audacity to speak or print the truth about him. Nevertheless, this political ingénue’s words are out there for eternity.
Just as no earthly power can resurrect the dead, Obama can never change what he said.
Obama’s meteoric rise has unquestionably affected how he views his own mortality. Instead of window dressing for his mob of doting fans and highbrow supporters and voicing bizarre and self-congratulatory statements, he should re-register at Occidental College and take a crash course on Ancient Rome. Specifically:
When a general returned from a victorious campaign, he would enter Rome triumphantly in his chariot ahead of his legions wearing gold armor and electrum that flashed brightly in the sun. Thousands of exuberant citizens greeted him. They laid flowers before him and cheered wildly as if he were the god Apollo in human form. The moment must have been exhilarating.
Here is where Rome’s emperors were shrewd. They knew such adoration could easily cause the most sensible man to believe he is invincible and redoubtable – a god. With this in mind, they placed a solitary, unobtrusive man beside the general in his chariot. As they paraded past the adoring mob, the man’s sole duty was to repeat this warning in the general’s ear:
“You are only a man.”
In Barack Obama’s case, the repeated warning in everyone’s ears should be:
“He is only a child.”
When he first stepped out on the world stage, Barack Hussein Obama seemed to most conservatives both beautiful and disturbing, as one might feel when casting a virgin glance upon a Salvador Dali painting: It makes no sense, it is a bit alarming, but the colors are pretty.
Ambitious politicians address expectant crowds often with “I can,” “I will,” or “I promise.” Typically, there are no images to go with their words.
B. Hussein, however, has, and with broad and uneven strokes, splashed a redesigned America on the blank canvases that are his supporters’ minds. The vision they have grabbed onto is, from a hot-air balloon, a color-blended Utopia. Up close, it is stark, very costly, divided, divisive, and unsafe.
Obama displayed painful earnestness when he proposed a change the people can believe in. Unfortunately for him, comments he made about his grandmother being a ‘typical white person’ – and his backpedaling to attempt to reverse its base meaning – has exposed two irrefutable facts: (1) The “change” is pure fiction, because (2) his pallette, by his own admission, is smeared with only two shades: black on the left, white on the right, which has brought out into the open his guilty secret:
He is a spoiled and bitter child.
In view of these inconsistencies, as well as his rambling discourse following the Wright bruhaha in which his deep-seated obsession over race tumbled out, conservatives and auspicious Democrats have watched his ascent and listened to his avowals with enhanced caution. As he spiraled higher, caution turned to concern, particularly after Wright’s frightful remarks and the ugly and hostile emergence of Michael Pfleger.
Frankly, I am relieved. It has all served to reconfirm that Obama is, underneath the surface shine, just another sloppy pop idol. Like all brat luminaries who are the darlings of the liberal media, he believes – or his puppeteers have led him to believe – that he can say or do anything and get away with it. For anyone to try to convince me Obama is qualified to lead this nation would be the same as trying to convince me Martin Bormann was an OK fella.
Obama, the official glamorizer of the liberals’ fractured philosophy, will go on with his lordly amusement of making outlandish conjectures about how he and he alone can cure America’s troubles. With no list of accomplishments to his credit since becoming a senator, this delinquent naïveté is fast becoming a point of great anxiety.
His most upsetting absurdity is to meet with Iran to discuss stabilizing Iraq. The spoiled child in him refuses to accept the fact that there is no chatting or negotiating with tyrants on any issue – ever.
Iran, a preeminent engine of killing, is flagrantly processing uranium. There is no doubt this uranium is being prepared for nuclear weapons. Yet, B. Hussein thinks he can leap tall buildings over to Tehran; that Admadinijad will crawl out of his sinkhole of iniquity, be waiting for him on the tarmac with open arms and – voilà! – lend a happy hand to the United States.
Obama’s immaturity is so tragic it is almost poetic.
The mainstream media will, as they always do, play down Obama’s numerous faux pas. Obama, in an attempt to maintain his artificial patina, will place the onus for his goof-ups on everyone else.
His resolute followers will write articles defending him and engage in blown reactor shouting matches with us “xenophobes” for our audacity to speak or print the truth about him. Nevertheless, this political ingénue’s words are out there for eternity.
Just as no earthly power can resurrect the dead, Obama can never change what he said.
Obama’s meteoric rise has unquestionably affected how he views his own mortality. Instead of window dressing for his mob of doting fans and highbrow supporters and voicing bizarre and self-congratulatory statements, he should re-register at Occidental College and take a crash course on Ancient Rome. Specifically:
When a general returned from a victorious campaign, he would enter Rome triumphantly in his chariot ahead of his legions wearing gold armor and electrum that flashed brightly in the sun. Thousands of exuberant citizens greeted him. They laid flowers before him and cheered wildly as if he were the god Apollo in human form. The moment must have been exhilarating.
Here is where Rome’s emperors were shrewd. They knew such adoration could easily cause the most sensible man to believe he is invincible and redoubtable – a god. With this in mind, they placed a solitary, unobtrusive man beside the general in his chariot. As they paraded past the adoring mob, the man’s sole duty was to repeat this warning in the general’s ear:
“You are only a man.”
In Barack Obama’s case, the repeated warning in everyone’s ears should be:
“He is only a child.”
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Like It or Not, We Should Prepare for the Worst
by Julian Krasta
While the three presidential candidates scuttle towards the big prize, the real-time issue of national defense against terrorist aggressors here and abroad remains the front-row topic.
Since time in memorial, legions of men of fractured ambition have left carpets of corpses in their wake because of ill-conceived, all-consuming greed, envy and hate. These same neuroses survive today. The disparity now is, tormentors are equipped with weapons of mass destruction and are sway to deluded impulses to gun down and eviscerate the sleeping giant, America.
As this threat persists, two questions beg answers:
1. Is our nation suitably fortified?
2. Do Americans understand the lengths they need to go to be prepared for the worst?
The answer to both is “yes” – but also “no.”
“Yes” to the first, because America has the greatest concentration of ground, sea and air tactical forces in the world: courageous soldiers, sailors, marines and fighter pilots far from home, where they are placing their lives willingly in harm’s way in order to keep us here at home safe from harm. (Many have died. To each, which includes their families and friends, I say, Thank you… and God bless you.)
“No” to question No. 1 arises because our sitting Congress is a twisted mass of liberal red tape. The result is the safeguards necessary for our country’s protection have fallen far down their critical must-do list. Why, you ask? Because, while our homeland is busting at the seams from the countless numbers of illegal aliens for whom everything from soup to nuts is “On the House,” there are not enough of our valiant soldiers to defend cities and states if the worst occurs… again.
Additionally, the “no” to No. 1 has been exacerbated by Democrat members of the House of Representatives, particularly their leaders, on whose necks, in my opinion, the axe should fall without mercy come November. Their gross negligence in purposely allowing the Protect America Act to expire in February is a clear threat to every single American.
The Democrats did not act alone. They worked in concert with trial lawyers who use their “officer of the court” status as an apparatus to beguile specific legislation so that the outcome benefits only them. Those lobbyists won, or rather bought, their argument (and other outrageous conflict-ridden contretemps) by disgorging thousands of favor dollars into the Democrats’ honey pot.
The return on their cash investment was a succès fou. In plain “Americans lose” English, the trial lawyers, with malicious intent, triumphed ignominiously, in that they caused to be blocked all efforts on the part of House Republicans to reinstate the Protect America Act, which has been officially dead in the water as of February 16, 2008.
As for the over-powdered culprits in the House (who anoint themselves daily with the F‑word: “failure” [in Iraq]), by accepting tainted money they are indiscreetly admitting that a fatter party fund is more important to them than the lives and property of the present and future generations of Americans.
Naturally, Nancy Pelosi tidily explained the dismantling of this vital safety provision: “…to protect the financial interests of telecommunications companies and avoid judicial scrutiny of their warrantless wiretapping program…” – which is lawyer-speak for, The House of Representatives have no sense of right and wrong as we gaily parley better seats in hell for us all. (Bear in mind that most, if not all, members of the House share the same parentage with trial lawyers: law degrees. They therefore chat in the same corrupt patois and impart the same parsimonious principles – tied neatly together with strands of low-ethic DNA.)
Whom do you imagine is wedged in the passageways and dead ends of their money-changing labyrinth? You guessed it, the taxpayers. We comprise the low-, middle- and high-income filers and every mom & pop store, every multinational, transnational, public, private, commercial, boutique, average, conglomerate and mega-corporation.
Whether the liberals like to hear it or not, and they do not, it is we the taxpayers – not elected officials – who are the only legitimate body that shapes and keeps alive the amalgam we call America. Yet our hard work, our tax dollars, our earned interest, our safety is more shabbily regarded than the millions of revenue-gluttonous illegal immigrants.
Once again, it falls onto the taxpayers to be vigilant watchdogs for us and our children, and our children’s future. It is up to us to prepare and be ready for the worst, which is in no way difficult.
The answer to question No. 2, above, is this. For all potential large-scale emergencies, there are steps that are vital to ensure we get through the first drastic days. Many Internet sites are devoted to preparedness.
Below are three of the best of those Internet sites. Take the time to study their contents and make emergency lists, and stock up against those lists. You would be surprised (I know I was shocked) to learn just how “unprepared” at home we are once we looked at the drills and supplies essential to keep going when the going gets rough.
Pretend another Hurricane Katrina will be bearing down on your house in seven days’ time. Start now and go to whatever lengths necessary in order to be fully equipped.
It is senseless to depend on backbiting Senators and Congresspersons to protect us and our kids, our family members and pets, or our real property, especially since self-seekers within House chambers have demonstrated that their primary concern is over what brings them and their party political more booty.
(Los Angeles Fire Department Emergency Preparedness List)
(Being Ready)
(72-Hour Food Kit for Emergency Preparedness)
While the three presidential candidates scuttle towards the big prize, the real-time issue of national defense against terrorist aggressors here and abroad remains the front-row topic.
Since time in memorial, legions of men of fractured ambition have left carpets of corpses in their wake because of ill-conceived, all-consuming greed, envy and hate. These same neuroses survive today. The disparity now is, tormentors are equipped with weapons of mass destruction and are sway to deluded impulses to gun down and eviscerate the sleeping giant, America.
As this threat persists, two questions beg answers:
1. Is our nation suitably fortified?
2. Do Americans understand the lengths they need to go to be prepared for the worst?
The answer to both is “yes” – but also “no.”
“Yes” to the first, because America has the greatest concentration of ground, sea and air tactical forces in the world: courageous soldiers, sailors, marines and fighter pilots far from home, where they are placing their lives willingly in harm’s way in order to keep us here at home safe from harm. (Many have died. To each, which includes their families and friends, I say, Thank you… and God bless you.)
“No” to question No. 1 arises because our sitting Congress is a twisted mass of liberal red tape. The result is the safeguards necessary for our country’s protection have fallen far down their critical must-do list. Why, you ask? Because, while our homeland is busting at the seams from the countless numbers of illegal aliens for whom everything from soup to nuts is “On the House,” there are not enough of our valiant soldiers to defend cities and states if the worst occurs… again.
Additionally, the “no” to No. 1 has been exacerbated by Democrat members of the House of Representatives, particularly their leaders, on whose necks, in my opinion, the axe should fall without mercy come November. Their gross negligence in purposely allowing the Protect America Act to expire in February is a clear threat to every single American.
The Democrats did not act alone. They worked in concert with trial lawyers who use their “officer of the court” status as an apparatus to beguile specific legislation so that the outcome benefits only them. Those lobbyists won, or rather bought, their argument (and other outrageous conflict-ridden contretemps) by disgorging thousands of favor dollars into the Democrats’ honey pot.
The return on their cash investment was a succès fou. In plain “Americans lose” English, the trial lawyers, with malicious intent, triumphed ignominiously, in that they caused to be blocked all efforts on the part of House Republicans to reinstate the Protect America Act, which has been officially dead in the water as of February 16, 2008.
As for the over-powdered culprits in the House (who anoint themselves daily with the F‑word: “failure” [in Iraq]), by accepting tainted money they are indiscreetly admitting that a fatter party fund is more important to them than the lives and property of the present and future generations of Americans.
Naturally, Nancy Pelosi tidily explained the dismantling of this vital safety provision: “…to protect the financial interests of telecommunications companies and avoid judicial scrutiny of their warrantless wiretapping program…” – which is lawyer-speak for, The House of Representatives have no sense of right and wrong as we gaily parley better seats in hell for us all. (Bear in mind that most, if not all, members of the House share the same parentage with trial lawyers: law degrees. They therefore chat in the same corrupt patois and impart the same parsimonious principles – tied neatly together with strands of low-ethic DNA.)
Whom do you imagine is wedged in the passageways and dead ends of their money-changing labyrinth? You guessed it, the taxpayers. We comprise the low-, middle- and high-income filers and every mom & pop store, every multinational, transnational, public, private, commercial, boutique, average, conglomerate and mega-corporation.
Whether the liberals like to hear it or not, and they do not, it is we the taxpayers – not elected officials – who are the only legitimate body that shapes and keeps alive the amalgam we call America. Yet our hard work, our tax dollars, our earned interest, our safety is more shabbily regarded than the millions of revenue-gluttonous illegal immigrants.
Once again, it falls onto the taxpayers to be vigilant watchdogs for us and our children, and our children’s future. It is up to us to prepare and be ready for the worst, which is in no way difficult.
The answer to question No. 2, above, is this. For all potential large-scale emergencies, there are steps that are vital to ensure we get through the first drastic days. Many Internet sites are devoted to preparedness.
Below are three of the best of those Internet sites. Take the time to study their contents and make emergency lists, and stock up against those lists. You would be surprised (I know I was shocked) to learn just how “unprepared” at home we are once we looked at the drills and supplies essential to keep going when the going gets rough.
Pretend another Hurricane Katrina will be bearing down on your house in seven days’ time. Start now and go to whatever lengths necessary in order to be fully equipped.
It is senseless to depend on backbiting Senators and Congresspersons to protect us and our kids, our family members and pets, or our real property, especially since self-seekers within House chambers have demonstrated that their primary concern is over what brings them and their party political more booty.
(Los Angeles Fire Department Emergency Preparedness List)
(Being Ready)
(72-Hour Food Kit for Emergency Preparedness)
Monday, March 24, 2008
A Pose by Any Other Name
by Julian Krasta
The veneer is peeling, the wax is melting … and hell may indeed be freezing over – and after what appeared to be a near-perfect pitch campaign that reminded me of the flawlessly timed cadences of Johnny Mathis when he sang ‘Chances Are.’
From where I sit, the wunderkind’s façade has slipped, and what we might be seeing now is the tried and true Barack Obama. Like water seeking its own level, his principles, too, have bubbled up through the glossy surface – and they are appearing not so wunderbar.
Up to now, Obama – using fast & loose rhetoric – has gotten farther up the political ladder than any other non-Caucasian in American history. The devotion and cheering on of the African-American communities and, by enormous measure, the white communities, have aided in propelling him straight toward the most coveted, most powerful executive position this country has to offer.
He has played his role skillfully as he delivered, and continues to deliver, mile-long stretches of imaginative, albeit immature, speculation, which his followers eat up like free ice cream on a hot day. According to those adoring fans, there seems to be nothing he could ever say that is wide of the mark. One liberal lady friend even said to me, “If Barack Obama could sprout wings we’d see him fly!”
His ability to soar above the skyline notwithstanding, Obama’s long-term, personal association with a certain racist pastor has grounded him, at least for the time being. This close association might possibly cancel out a significant share of all the good will, trust, and hope for progress – and I am not talking just in terms of the Presidency. I include the ongoing, exhaustive and frustrating wars against racial prejudice in America in general, which we were winning…we were winning.
Each inch-by-bloody-inch victory broke more and more barriers down and Americans were growing closer. When you add up all those inches that we here in America have gained, no one could deny that we had in fact come a very long way.
I dare compare the nature of our contentions to the centuries-long vicious turmoil in the Middle East where countries are crying out for freedom from mullahs and terrorists – for democracy, for equality. This is a universal refrain everyone can hum in unison regardless of the differences in languages.
Then, just at the moment when evolution occurs, another hothead – another racial ‘jihadist’ – comes scurrying out of his hole and starts hurling verbal IEDs in every direction causing widespread damage. This hothead – this pastor in Christ – refuses to let go of the past, because he is not happy unless he dredges up old ghosts and shoots every good intention in the head to impede advancement.
The stage was set for his ignominious emergence (like an irascible first-time homeowner who purposely blows his leaves into a neighbor’s yard, “…because now I can.”). He must have been thinking that his chummy friendship with Obama gave him the right to platform farcical and hateful statements such as “The government invented AIDS to kill black people,” and “The government is building concentration camps for black people,” and “The government provides drugs to blacks to hold them down,” etcetera, ad nauseum.
When I had read the pastor’s rants I thought for a moment they were Stokely Carmichael’s words rising from his grave (about the cancer that took his life). Carmichael had said, it was “…given to me by the forces of American imperialism and others who conspired with them.” He further claimed that the FBI had put the disease in his body to assassinate him.
Oceans of water have passed since Carmichael was on the scene and sparked the term Black Power. His attitude nonetheless remains inured in the pastor’s heart and mind. He has proven without a shadow of doubt that he, and persons like himself (and certainly not all of them black) who perpetually and unnecessarily let fly the words ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ at our faces and into our collective consciousness, have no intention of changing one iota either their points of view or their off-color tune any time soon.
What I find disturbing is not so much what this pastor blurted but rather that Obama, who has been mentored by this person for over twenty years, claims he was not aware of his pastor’s intimate feelings (all unquestionably uber-radical), and has made clumsy excuses for the man and for what the man has said. Unlike Mitt Romney’s stirring speech concerning his Mormonism in which he emphasized his love and devotion for this country, Obama’s speech made no mention of patriotism or love for America. I welcome correction if I didn’t read it right.
Therefore, it is because of Obama’s obvious reluctance to put the pastor fully and equivocally in his place, and spending far too much time in his speech preaching about the good, bad, and ugly – and on and on and on and on – of race relations in America that I perceive a rapid withering of Obama’s perfect presentation of himself.
Strangely enough, I must thank the pastor for his horrid honesty. Until now, conservatives have decided to regard Obama’s spell over his followers as charming. No prima facie evidence we have presented to Democrats and liberals has been beefy enough to cause them to understand and accept the fact that he is not yet – I repeat: not yet – qualified or experienced to assume the mantle of Commander in Chief, particularly at this volatile time.
The pastor, however, quite possibly has single-handedly delivered the long-overdue hangover remedy the bloated masses of spellbound Obama followers have needed to sober up and face reality. That reality is, if their candidate cannot – or will not – take control over one person’s ravings, how can they expect him to control the White House?
The veneer is peeling, the wax is melting … and hell may indeed be freezing over – and after what appeared to be a near-perfect pitch campaign that reminded me of the flawlessly timed cadences of Johnny Mathis when he sang ‘Chances Are.’
From where I sit, the wunderkind’s façade has slipped, and what we might be seeing now is the tried and true Barack Obama. Like water seeking its own level, his principles, too, have bubbled up through the glossy surface – and they are appearing not so wunderbar.
Up to now, Obama – using fast & loose rhetoric – has gotten farther up the political ladder than any other non-Caucasian in American history. The devotion and cheering on of the African-American communities and, by enormous measure, the white communities, have aided in propelling him straight toward the most coveted, most powerful executive position this country has to offer.
He has played his role skillfully as he delivered, and continues to deliver, mile-long stretches of imaginative, albeit immature, speculation, which his followers eat up like free ice cream on a hot day. According to those adoring fans, there seems to be nothing he could ever say that is wide of the mark. One liberal lady friend even said to me, “If Barack Obama could sprout wings we’d see him fly!”
His ability to soar above the skyline notwithstanding, Obama’s long-term, personal association with a certain racist pastor has grounded him, at least for the time being. This close association might possibly cancel out a significant share of all the good will, trust, and hope for progress – and I am not talking just in terms of the Presidency. I include the ongoing, exhaustive and frustrating wars against racial prejudice in America in general, which we were winning…we were winning.
Each inch-by-bloody-inch victory broke more and more barriers down and Americans were growing closer. When you add up all those inches that we here in America have gained, no one could deny that we had in fact come a very long way.
I dare compare the nature of our contentions to the centuries-long vicious turmoil in the Middle East where countries are crying out for freedom from mullahs and terrorists – for democracy, for equality. This is a universal refrain everyone can hum in unison regardless of the differences in languages.
Then, just at the moment when evolution occurs, another hothead – another racial ‘jihadist’ – comes scurrying out of his hole and starts hurling verbal IEDs in every direction causing widespread damage. This hothead – this pastor in Christ – refuses to let go of the past, because he is not happy unless he dredges up old ghosts and shoots every good intention in the head to impede advancement.
The stage was set for his ignominious emergence (like an irascible first-time homeowner who purposely blows his leaves into a neighbor’s yard, “…because now I can.”). He must have been thinking that his chummy friendship with Obama gave him the right to platform farcical and hateful statements such as “The government invented AIDS to kill black people,” and “The government is building concentration camps for black people,” and “The government provides drugs to blacks to hold them down,” etcetera, ad nauseum.
When I had read the pastor’s rants I thought for a moment they were Stokely Carmichael’s words rising from his grave (about the cancer that took his life). Carmichael had said, it was “…given to me by the forces of American imperialism and others who conspired with them.” He further claimed that the FBI had put the disease in his body to assassinate him.
Oceans of water have passed since Carmichael was on the scene and sparked the term Black Power. His attitude nonetheless remains inured in the pastor’s heart and mind. He has proven without a shadow of doubt that he, and persons like himself (and certainly not all of them black) who perpetually and unnecessarily let fly the words ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ at our faces and into our collective consciousness, have no intention of changing one iota either their points of view or their off-color tune any time soon.
What I find disturbing is not so much what this pastor blurted but rather that Obama, who has been mentored by this person for over twenty years, claims he was not aware of his pastor’s intimate feelings (all unquestionably uber-radical), and has made clumsy excuses for the man and for what the man has said. Unlike Mitt Romney’s stirring speech concerning his Mormonism in which he emphasized his love and devotion for this country, Obama’s speech made no mention of patriotism or love for America. I welcome correction if I didn’t read it right.
Therefore, it is because of Obama’s obvious reluctance to put the pastor fully and equivocally in his place, and spending far too much time in his speech preaching about the good, bad, and ugly – and on and on and on and on – of race relations in America that I perceive a rapid withering of Obama’s perfect presentation of himself.
Strangely enough, I must thank the pastor for his horrid honesty. Until now, conservatives have decided to regard Obama’s spell over his followers as charming. No prima facie evidence we have presented to Democrats and liberals has been beefy enough to cause them to understand and accept the fact that he is not yet – I repeat: not yet – qualified or experienced to assume the mantle of Commander in Chief, particularly at this volatile time.
The pastor, however, quite possibly has single-handedly delivered the long-overdue hangover remedy the bloated masses of spellbound Obama followers have needed to sober up and face reality. That reality is, if their candidate cannot – or will not – take control over one person’s ravings, how can they expect him to control the White House?
The Damage Some Men's Dreams Can Do
by Julian Krasta
With proper upbringing, a boy can grow into a strong, self-reliant and sensible man. If that grown man is also well adjusted and has self-respect, he will neutralize deficiencies in his character (e.g., hubris, and that brother bugaboo “machismo”) to defray misgivings and ridicule by family, co-workers and friends – even his enemies. If a man behaves or speaks idiotically, someone eventually will call him on it.
Generally, men are dreamers … like our Founding Fathers were dreamers. It was upon their collective vision that the foundation of this great country was conceived and created where we live in blessed freedom, to achieve as much as we can in the short time given us – to be as great as we wish to be. I am always happy when trying to explain this to my liberal friends; and, if I am lucky, they will still not understand it and I will have to explain all over again.
But I digress.
I dream, too – of owning one of those ultimate driving machines, turning my baseball cap front to back and pushing the pedal to the metal. Realistically, I dream of owning a handsome house in a neighborhood where I can walk, shop, socialize, sleep and just breathe without feeling afraid – where the fellow next door is not secretly buying thousands of Uzis to ship to Iran.
There are dreamers like Mahmoud Admadinejad who, along with other rogue tyrants, refers to the United States as the Great Satan. If this were true, it would be fair of me to say he is the reincarnation of Josef Stalin, only without the whimsy.
As millions of witless Americans parade in intoxicated revelry over the frenetic campaigning by the Democratic candidates (in my opinion, by the weakest field I can recall), Admadinejad skulks in shadow, waiting restlessly to dare the United States into a confrontation, possibly nuclear. He did it once, almost a year ago – to test our patience and gauge our potential firepower – when he ordered the abduction of British sailors. It was only after his advisors informed him that President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of the USS Nimitz strike group into the Persian Gulf, and with all possible speed, that Admadinijad backed down and released the prisoners to England. Our Commander in Chief had called his bluff, because his ace was, and is, the might of the United States military.
I do not need to know him personally to recognize that Admadinijad’s behavior is the product of a twisted twilight zone for the pathological and squirrelly, which pushed me to wonder: “What dreams does this man have?”
I began my research with the virgins in paradise myth. Its explanation is straightforward (according to Muslim legend):
"The smallest reward for the people of heaven is an abode where there are eighty thousand servants and seventy two wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and ruby … etc. …"
The wives referred to in this narrative are purported to be black-eyed, voluptuously beautiful virgins awaiting “the faithful” (i.e., martyrs). Who are the martyrs? They are the wretched dreamers who strap explosives to their bodies, pull the cord and destroy the lives of innocent human beings (men, women, children … babies) so that they can catapult to their heaven and luxuriate in the attention of obedient maidens.
This fantasy worries me a great deal, because I suspect Admadinejad’s dreams are loftier – that they exceed the 72-virgin limit. Why do I presume this? My wise dad once told me:
“To know your enemy you must learn to think like him – to imagine every possible angle and move that runs through his mind, like a chess game.”
Armed with this counsel, I deduced the following:
If a couple of sticks of dynamite earns a murder-suicide bomber 72 chaste females, Mahmoud Admadinejad might believe (or is being led to believe by mullahs, or his own demons, or both) that he would be rewarded with a thousand, maybe a million, times the legal limit if he sets off a nuclear device. The incentive is there if he accepts as true his craven ideology’s party-line propaganda of being forever fondled by nubile nymphs.
He and others like him could avoid such razzle-dazzle if they instead bought a membership at the Emperor’s Club in New York, where Governor Eliot Spitzer had found his paradise – several times, according to the reports. There a man does not have to be blown to bloody bits in order to attain nirvana.
I have a second, even greater worry. It is about the liberals and Democrats amongst us, whose foresight is, at best, fanciful. They dismiss the fact that it was daring and enlightened dreams that built America – that Admadinejad’s blasphemous trances could propel him and others to destroy it.
On the bright side, if Hillary Clinton becomes president her political party should split in about four months. On the down side, if Barack Obama succeeds to the Presidency this country could split in four weeks. We would then not need to concern ourselves over what aggressions Admadinejad might or might not attempt, because we (“we” includes every Barack-head who thinks he or she is exempt from being hit with taxes that will sustain Obama’s dream changes) will be drowning in the muck of his sausage factory, oxymoronic statements, such as:
“My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join me as we try to change it.”
That is the same as saying, “The Rolls Royce is the most beautifully appointed, masterfully built automobile in the world. Come on down and join in on its transformation. And bring your hammer, duct tape and can of spray paint.”
If the next President of the United States turns out to be either fantasist Democrat (both guaranteeing to fulfill a campaign pledge to leave the Middle East militarily unattended), we might as well draw a pentagram on the ground, face Mecca and join hands, and chant:
“The door is open. Do your worst.”
With proper upbringing, a boy can grow into a strong, self-reliant and sensible man. If that grown man is also well adjusted and has self-respect, he will neutralize deficiencies in his character (e.g., hubris, and that brother bugaboo “machismo”) to defray misgivings and ridicule by family, co-workers and friends – even his enemies. If a man behaves or speaks idiotically, someone eventually will call him on it.
Generally, men are dreamers … like our Founding Fathers were dreamers. It was upon their collective vision that the foundation of this great country was conceived and created where we live in blessed freedom, to achieve as much as we can in the short time given us – to be as great as we wish to be. I am always happy when trying to explain this to my liberal friends; and, if I am lucky, they will still not understand it and I will have to explain all over again.
But I digress.
I dream, too – of owning one of those ultimate driving machines, turning my baseball cap front to back and pushing the pedal to the metal. Realistically, I dream of owning a handsome house in a neighborhood where I can walk, shop, socialize, sleep and just breathe without feeling afraid – where the fellow next door is not secretly buying thousands of Uzis to ship to Iran.
There are dreamers like Mahmoud Admadinejad who, along with other rogue tyrants, refers to the United States as the Great Satan. If this were true, it would be fair of me to say he is the reincarnation of Josef Stalin, only without the whimsy.
As millions of witless Americans parade in intoxicated revelry over the frenetic campaigning by the Democratic candidates (in my opinion, by the weakest field I can recall), Admadinejad skulks in shadow, waiting restlessly to dare the United States into a confrontation, possibly nuclear. He did it once, almost a year ago – to test our patience and gauge our potential firepower – when he ordered the abduction of British sailors. It was only after his advisors informed him that President George W. Bush ordered the deployment of the USS Nimitz strike group into the Persian Gulf, and with all possible speed, that Admadinijad backed down and released the prisoners to England. Our Commander in Chief had called his bluff, because his ace was, and is, the might of the United States military.
I do not need to know him personally to recognize that Admadinijad’s behavior is the product of a twisted twilight zone for the pathological and squirrelly, which pushed me to wonder: “What dreams does this man have?”
I began my research with the virgins in paradise myth. Its explanation is straightforward (according to Muslim legend):
"The smallest reward for the people of heaven is an abode where there are eighty thousand servants and seventy two wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and ruby … etc. …"
The wives referred to in this narrative are purported to be black-eyed, voluptuously beautiful virgins awaiting “the faithful” (i.e., martyrs). Who are the martyrs? They are the wretched dreamers who strap explosives to their bodies, pull the cord and destroy the lives of innocent human beings (men, women, children … babies) so that they can catapult to their heaven and luxuriate in the attention of obedient maidens.
This fantasy worries me a great deal, because I suspect Admadinejad’s dreams are loftier – that they exceed the 72-virgin limit. Why do I presume this? My wise dad once told me:
“To know your enemy you must learn to think like him – to imagine every possible angle and move that runs through his mind, like a chess game.”
Armed with this counsel, I deduced the following:
If a couple of sticks of dynamite earns a murder-suicide bomber 72 chaste females, Mahmoud Admadinejad might believe (or is being led to believe by mullahs, or his own demons, or both) that he would be rewarded with a thousand, maybe a million, times the legal limit if he sets off a nuclear device. The incentive is there if he accepts as true his craven ideology’s party-line propaganda of being forever fondled by nubile nymphs.
He and others like him could avoid such razzle-dazzle if they instead bought a membership at the Emperor’s Club in New York, where Governor Eliot Spitzer had found his paradise – several times, according to the reports. There a man does not have to be blown to bloody bits in order to attain nirvana.
I have a second, even greater worry. It is about the liberals and Democrats amongst us, whose foresight is, at best, fanciful. They dismiss the fact that it was daring and enlightened dreams that built America – that Admadinejad’s blasphemous trances could propel him and others to destroy it.
On the bright side, if Hillary Clinton becomes president her political party should split in about four months. On the down side, if Barack Obama succeeds to the Presidency this country could split in four weeks. We would then not need to concern ourselves over what aggressions Admadinejad might or might not attempt, because we (“we” includes every Barack-head who thinks he or she is exempt from being hit with taxes that will sustain Obama’s dream changes) will be drowning in the muck of his sausage factory, oxymoronic statements, such as:
“My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join me as we try to change it.”
That is the same as saying, “The Rolls Royce is the most beautifully appointed, masterfully built automobile in the world. Come on down and join in on its transformation. And bring your hammer, duct tape and can of spray paint.”
If the next President of the United States turns out to be either fantasist Democrat (both guaranteeing to fulfill a campaign pledge to leave the Middle East militarily unattended), we might as well draw a pentagram on the ground, face Mecca and join hands, and chant:
“The door is open. Do your worst.”
Friday, February 15, 2008
Missing WWII Airmen Are Identified
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 132-08
February 15, 2008
[Source]
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are 2nd Lt. John F. Lubben, of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.; Sgt. Albert A. Forgue, of North Providence, R.I.; and Sgt. Charles L. Spiegel, of Chicago, Ill.; all U.S. Army Air Forces. They will be buried on April 18 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.
On Dec. 12, 1944, these men crewed an A-20J Havoc aircraft departing from Coullomiers, France, to bomb enemy targets near Wollseifen, Germany. The aircraft was last seen entering a steep dive near Cologne, Germany. Several searches and investigations of this area and reviews of wartime documents failed to provide information concerning the incident.
In 1975, a German company clearing wartime mines and unexploded ordnance near Simmerath, Germany, reported the discovery of a gravesite northeast of Simmerath where American servicemembers were buried. U.S. officials evaluated the remains and determined they represented three individuals, but they could not make identifications at that time. The remains were subsequently buried as unknowns in the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium.
In 2003, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) was notified that a group of German citizens had information correlating the three servicemembers who were buried as unknowns with the crew from the 1944 A-20J crash. Based on that information, JPAC exhumed the three unknown graves from the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in 2005.
Among dental records, other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains.
For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1169.
No. 132-08
February 15, 2008
[Source]
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of three U.S. servicemen, missing from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
They are 2nd Lt. John F. Lubben, of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.; Sgt. Albert A. Forgue, of North Providence, R.I.; and Sgt. Charles L. Spiegel, of Chicago, Ill.; all U.S. Army Air Forces. They will be buried on April 18 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.
Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the Secretary of the Army.
On Dec. 12, 1944, these men crewed an A-20J Havoc aircraft departing from Coullomiers, France, to bomb enemy targets near Wollseifen, Germany. The aircraft was last seen entering a steep dive near Cologne, Germany. Several searches and investigations of this area and reviews of wartime documents failed to provide information concerning the incident.
In 1975, a German company clearing wartime mines and unexploded ordnance near Simmerath, Germany, reported the discovery of a gravesite northeast of Simmerath where American servicemembers were buried. U.S. officials evaluated the remains and determined they represented three individuals, but they could not make identifications at that time. The remains were subsequently buried as unknowns in the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium.
In 2003, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) was notified that a group of German citizens had information correlating the three servicemembers who were buried as unknowns with the crew from the 1944 A-20J crash. Based on that information, JPAC exhumed the three unknown graves from the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in 2005.
Among dental records, other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains.
For additional information on the Defense Department's mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/ or call (703) 699-1169.
WELCOME HOME, BOYS.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
"We, the People"
By Amil Imani
In the United States, the oath of office for the President of the United States is specified in the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1):
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
For other officials, including members of Congress, they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support the constitution." They must recite an oath to support and protect the United States citizens from her enemies:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will 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; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”
In an oath of office, no matter in what capacity one serves as a public servant, he or she must be reminded that everyone at all levels must first and foremost focus on the needs and the security of its citizens rather than on the desires of his or her services. With that in mind, one must be ready to follow the bylaws as his or her guide and exercise the functions of the office with which he or she is entrusted.
Democracy, by its accommodating and benign nature, is susceptible to corruption and even destruction by forces from within and from without. With this realization in mind, the founding fathers of the United States enshrined the Constitution to safeguard and protect the rule of the people.
While America opens its doors to the poor, the hungry and the oppressed of the world, Americans open their hearts to the less fortunate people of various lands by their unsurpassed generosity. No nation gives more aid to international charities, as a percentage of its gross domestic product, than the American people.
Recent migration of Muslims to non-Islamic lands began as a seemingly harmless, even useful, trickle of cheap and necessary labor. Before long, greater and greater numbers of Muslims deluged the new territories and as they gained in numbers—by high birth rate as well as new arrivals—Muslims began reverting to their intolerant ways by, for instance, demanding legal status for Sharia (Islamic laws), the type of draconian laws that, for the most part, resemble those of humanity’s barbaric past.
There is no need to belabor the point that Islam is not, and has never been, a religion of peace. Islamism has set a new record for brutality, contrary to the contention that there is no reason to worry about it. Jihadist Wahabism’s tentacles are reaching out from its cradle in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab Emirates. And murderous Shiism, led by the Islamic terrorist state in Iran, is racing to arm itself with the ultimate weapon, and is doing whatever it can to ensnare the world into Islam’s nation, the Ummeh.
President George W. Bush, on several occasions, has repeated the mantra and attributed the horrific violence committed under the banner of Islam to a small band of extremists. The President on his latest trip to Turkey said, "I think Turkey sets a fantastic example for nations around the world to see where it's possible to have a democracy coexist with a great religion like Islam and that's important.” Ironically, the Turkish Parliament voted on Saturday to amend the constitution to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic headscarves at Turkey's universities, despite fierce opposition from the secular establishment.
The President’s assertion is either based on ignorance of the facts about Islam or his attempt at political correctness. Perhaps the President’s reticence to speak on the true nature of Islam was due to his desire to avoid inflaming the already charged feelings of many about Islam. In any event, truth is sacrificed and the public continues to cling to the false notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. People who dare to disclose the true nature of Islam run the risk of being castigated as a bigot and a hatemonger.
Calling Islam a great religion and misrepresenting it is not simply a harmless gesture of goodwill and peacemaking. This is flaming the fire that has every intention of consuming us. Therefore, it is imperative that in November 2008, we choose the chief custodian of our constitution, the President, with great care. We must entrust the helm of our nation to the hands of a person of impeccable integrity who is unconditionally loyal to the constitution, who does not sacrifice principles and truth at the altar of expediency, and who is not shirking from what he must do to ensure our nation’s survival in the face of internal and external assaults.
The pundits, the analysts and the politicians indeed are doing a great disservice to the public, each segment for its own expedient reasons, by parroting the mantra regarding the peaceful nature of Islam. As a matter of fact, the so-called small band of Islamic extremists is the true face of Islam.
Islam is indeed misrepresented. Islam is not misrepresented by its “detractors.” It is misrepresented by Islamic mercenaries, organizations and individuals generously funded by states as well as wealthy believers who are making billions of dollars pumping and selling oil at astronomical prices. Prestigious universities in the West, always looking for handouts, are tripping over one another to establish Islamic studies programs staffed by professors who sing the praise of Islam. Newspapers are routinely intimidated by Islamic associations if they dare to print the truth about Islam. Legions of lawyers, both Muslims as well as hired guns, are on the lookout to intimidate and silence any voice speaking the truth about Islam. The media that falls in line may receive generous advertising and other incentives from Islamic lobbyists.
All extreme solutions, if unwise, are fraught with extreme dangers. During the presidential campaign of the Vietnam War, Barry Goldwater proclaimed, “Extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.” The collective wisdom of the American public prevailed and Goldwater didn’t get a chance to put his belief into practice. It is prudent to reserve extreme measures for extreme cases. Just as important, it is best to follow the less glamorous solutions of the problems as they gather momentum and diffuse them.
The U.S. government should, without delay, underwrite a massive program of making the nation energy independent so that the Islamic gas station nations will no longer be able to hold the country hostage for oil. Each citizen, in the meantime, must do everything possible to conserve energy and deny the flow of dollars to the coffers of the enemy.
The -- not-- so grateful world owes the U.S. an infinite debt of gratitude for defeating the evil of Nazism, and then the scourge of Soviet Communism. We all have to do what each one of us can to right the wrongs of this world. We don't have to be Einstein -- each one of us must do something according to his or her capacity. Once again, this champion nation of freedom is called upon to defeat the most tenacious and deadly enemy, Islamofascism.
In the United States, the oath of office for the President of the United States is specified in the U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1):
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
For other officials, including members of Congress, they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support the constitution." They must recite an oath to support and protect the United States citizens from her enemies:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will 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; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.”
In an oath of office, no matter in what capacity one serves as a public servant, he or she must be reminded that everyone at all levels must first and foremost focus on the needs and the security of its citizens rather than on the desires of his or her services. With that in mind, one must be ready to follow the bylaws as his or her guide and exercise the functions of the office with which he or she is entrusted.
Democracy, by its accommodating and benign nature, is susceptible to corruption and even destruction by forces from within and from without. With this realization in mind, the founding fathers of the United States enshrined the Constitution to safeguard and protect the rule of the people.
While America opens its doors to the poor, the hungry and the oppressed of the world, Americans open their hearts to the less fortunate people of various lands by their unsurpassed generosity. No nation gives more aid to international charities, as a percentage of its gross domestic product, than the American people.
Recent migration of Muslims to non-Islamic lands began as a seemingly harmless, even useful, trickle of cheap and necessary labor. Before long, greater and greater numbers of Muslims deluged the new territories and as they gained in numbers—by high birth rate as well as new arrivals—Muslims began reverting to their intolerant ways by, for instance, demanding legal status for Sharia (Islamic laws), the type of draconian laws that, for the most part, resemble those of humanity’s barbaric past.
There is no need to belabor the point that Islam is not, and has never been, a religion of peace. Islamism has set a new record for brutality, contrary to the contention that there is no reason to worry about it. Jihadist Wahabism’s tentacles are reaching out from its cradle in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf Arab Emirates. And murderous Shiism, led by the Islamic terrorist state in Iran, is racing to arm itself with the ultimate weapon, and is doing whatever it can to ensnare the world into Islam’s nation, the Ummeh.
President George W. Bush, on several occasions, has repeated the mantra and attributed the horrific violence committed under the banner of Islam to a small band of extremists. The President on his latest trip to Turkey said, "I think Turkey sets a fantastic example for nations around the world to see where it's possible to have a democracy coexist with a great religion like Islam and that's important.” Ironically, the Turkish Parliament voted on Saturday to amend the constitution to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic headscarves at Turkey's universities, despite fierce opposition from the secular establishment.
The President’s assertion is either based on ignorance of the facts about Islam or his attempt at political correctness. Perhaps the President’s reticence to speak on the true nature of Islam was due to his desire to avoid inflaming the already charged feelings of many about Islam. In any event, truth is sacrificed and the public continues to cling to the false notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. People who dare to disclose the true nature of Islam run the risk of being castigated as a bigot and a hatemonger.
Calling Islam a great religion and misrepresenting it is not simply a harmless gesture of goodwill and peacemaking. This is flaming the fire that has every intention of consuming us. Therefore, it is imperative that in November 2008, we choose the chief custodian of our constitution, the President, with great care. We must entrust the helm of our nation to the hands of a person of impeccable integrity who is unconditionally loyal to the constitution, who does not sacrifice principles and truth at the altar of expediency, and who is not shirking from what he must do to ensure our nation’s survival in the face of internal and external assaults.
The pundits, the analysts and the politicians indeed are doing a great disservice to the public, each segment for its own expedient reasons, by parroting the mantra regarding the peaceful nature of Islam. As a matter of fact, the so-called small band of Islamic extremists is the true face of Islam.
Islam is indeed misrepresented. Islam is not misrepresented by its “detractors.” It is misrepresented by Islamic mercenaries, organizations and individuals generously funded by states as well as wealthy believers who are making billions of dollars pumping and selling oil at astronomical prices. Prestigious universities in the West, always looking for handouts, are tripping over one another to establish Islamic studies programs staffed by professors who sing the praise of Islam. Newspapers are routinely intimidated by Islamic associations if they dare to print the truth about Islam. Legions of lawyers, both Muslims as well as hired guns, are on the lookout to intimidate and silence any voice speaking the truth about Islam. The media that falls in line may receive generous advertising and other incentives from Islamic lobbyists.
All extreme solutions, if unwise, are fraught with extreme dangers. During the presidential campaign of the Vietnam War, Barry Goldwater proclaimed, “Extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.” The collective wisdom of the American public prevailed and Goldwater didn’t get a chance to put his belief into practice. It is prudent to reserve extreme measures for extreme cases. Just as important, it is best to follow the less glamorous solutions of the problems as they gather momentum and diffuse them.
The U.S. government should, without delay, underwrite a massive program of making the nation energy independent so that the Islamic gas station nations will no longer be able to hold the country hostage for oil. Each citizen, in the meantime, must do everything possible to conserve energy and deny the flow of dollars to the coffers of the enemy.
The -- not-- so grateful world owes the U.S. an infinite debt of gratitude for defeating the evil of Nazism, and then the scourge of Soviet Communism. We all have to do what each one of us can to right the wrongs of this world. We don't have to be Einstein -- each one of us must do something according to his or her capacity. Once again, this champion nation of freedom is called upon to defeat the most tenacious and deadly enemy, Islamofascism.
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Homeless Conservative
By Lance Thompson
Ideally, voters join the party which most represents their views. Historically, the Republican party is more conservative, the Democrat party more liberal. Thus, conservatives make up a majority of the GOP, liberals a majority of the Democrats. These majorities constitute the "bases" of the parties–the stalwarts who contribute, volunteer, get out the vote, and sustain the party.
Having associated with the parties which most represent their views, the base voters in turn exert influence on the positions of their respective parties. The Democrats have been greatly influenced by the liberal base of their party, so much so that Hillary Clinton has had to backtrack and dissociate herself from her vote to authorize military force to remove Saddam, even though many other Democrats also voted for the authorization.
But what is a base voter to do when the party he or she supports no longer represents his or her views? Obviously, a voter will usually not agree with every item of a party’s plank, but there is ordinarily general agreement on a majority of issues. But party leaders will say, "We stand for most of the things you believe in, and certainly more of them than the other party stands for." In a two-party system, this is a compelling argument. The Presidential election always comes down to two choices, and a vote is cast for that candidate whose views are closer to that of the voter.
Conventional wisdom holds that parties cater to their bases during the primaries, when candidates are competing for the votes of their own parties, then try to appeal to a wider audience during the general election, hoping to attract more middle-of-the-roaders than the other side.
But if the party’s front-runner has never catered to the base, has always made a greater effort to accommodate the other side, and does not stand for the base’s issues, then that candidate risks alienating the base. For the GOP, John McCain is such a candidate.
The Republican party leadership encourages all Republicans to forget their differences and unite behind John McCain. After all, the alternative–Obama or Clinton–is surely more objectionable than a moderate Republican. And if we don’t support McCain, the Republicans risk losing the presidential election.
But if the party and its candidate no longer represent the principles and values of the party members, what claim can the party have to their votes? There are only two possible outcomes in a presidential election. If McCain, the Republican candidate who voted against Bush tax cuts because they favored the rich, wants to close Guantanamo Bay, voted to extend citizenship to illegal aliens, voted to limit free speech in political campaigns, voted to fund stem cell research with federal money, was a charter member of the Keating Five and the Gang of 14, wins the contest, what have we achieved? We have placed in the White House a candidate marginally more conservative than his liberal Democrat opponent.
A McCain victory will demonstrate to the Republican party that a moderate Republican can overcome either the heir to the last Democrat dynasty or a tremendously charismatic Senator from the new generation of Democrat leadership. Republican leaders will conclude that conservative credentials are not necessary to win a national election–they are, in fact, a hindrance. Candidates in subsequent elections will be required to show that they are bipartisan, moderate, and able to work with Democrats and see things from the Democrat point of view. This will set conservative values back for several election cycles.
It is also possible that McCain could lose to his Democrat opponent. This would result in a marginally more liberal president than McCain, who would probably also enjoy a majority in Congress. The liberal agenda could be enacted with dispatch–higher taxes, withdrawal from Iraq, socialized medicine, and amnesty for illegal aliens. This agenda could prove beneficial to the nation or, more likely, disastrous, and by the time the next election comes around, the nation will be ready for a change, as it was after four years of Jimmy Carter. The party of change would be the party that stands for conservative values. The GOP candidate would not be a middle-of-the-road accommodator, but a strong, proven conservative.
The GOP leadership will argue that we all want what’s best for the country, regardless of whether a moderate or conservative Republican wins. But if conservatives truly believe in their own principles, they must also believe those principles are best for the country. They must believe a liberal agenda, conversely, is bad for the country. And, on many if not most issues, John McCain stands for a liberal agenda. He is less liberal than his Democrat opponents, but only by degree, and not by nature.
The Republican party must not take its conservative base for granted, must not assume we will go along with any candidate because we fear the prospect of the Democrat alternative. None of us wants a Democrat in the White House. But a Republican who caters to Democrats is very little better, and self-defeating in the long run. If McCain enacts sixty, seventy, or even eighty percent of what the Democrats hope to accomplish, each vote for McCain is in equal percentage a vote for the Democrat agenda.
There is talk of the GOP "suicide voter," described as some one who disagrees so much with McCain that he or she plans to vote for the Democrat. I don’t know how many such voters are in the Republican ranks. But I do know that the conservative base of the party, the marrow of the GOP, has no passion for McCain. There is no enthusiasm on the GOP side to match the mesmerized crowds at Obama rallies, or the determined passion of the Clinton supporters. Only a true conservative can mobilize that base, and John McCain is not that candidate.
John McCain has enjoyed favorable press, including an endorsement from the New York Times. He has worked closely with Democrats in Congress, even considering a spot as John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. He has branded himself a maverick, willing to defy conservatives in Congress and in the White House. So in the coming election, let John McCain call upon his friends in the press, his moderate supporters, his colleagues "across the aisle" when he seeks campaign workers, volunteers, donations, and support. They may be hard to reach, however. Because when the general election comes, they will all be working for the real Democrat candidate.
Ideally, voters join the party which most represents their views. Historically, the Republican party is more conservative, the Democrat party more liberal. Thus, conservatives make up a majority of the GOP, liberals a majority of the Democrats. These majorities constitute the "bases" of the parties–the stalwarts who contribute, volunteer, get out the vote, and sustain the party.
Having associated with the parties which most represent their views, the base voters in turn exert influence on the positions of their respective parties. The Democrats have been greatly influenced by the liberal base of their party, so much so that Hillary Clinton has had to backtrack and dissociate herself from her vote to authorize military force to remove Saddam, even though many other Democrats also voted for the authorization.
But what is a base voter to do when the party he or she supports no longer represents his or her views? Obviously, a voter will usually not agree with every item of a party’s plank, but there is ordinarily general agreement on a majority of issues. But party leaders will say, "We stand for most of the things you believe in, and certainly more of them than the other party stands for." In a two-party system, this is a compelling argument. The Presidential election always comes down to two choices, and a vote is cast for that candidate whose views are closer to that of the voter.
Conventional wisdom holds that parties cater to their bases during the primaries, when candidates are competing for the votes of their own parties, then try to appeal to a wider audience during the general election, hoping to attract more middle-of-the-roaders than the other side.
But if the party’s front-runner has never catered to the base, has always made a greater effort to accommodate the other side, and does not stand for the base’s issues, then that candidate risks alienating the base. For the GOP, John McCain is such a candidate.
The Republican party leadership encourages all Republicans to forget their differences and unite behind John McCain. After all, the alternative–Obama or Clinton–is surely more objectionable than a moderate Republican. And if we don’t support McCain, the Republicans risk losing the presidential election.
But if the party and its candidate no longer represent the principles and values of the party members, what claim can the party have to their votes? There are only two possible outcomes in a presidential election. If McCain, the Republican candidate who voted against Bush tax cuts because they favored the rich, wants to close Guantanamo Bay, voted to extend citizenship to illegal aliens, voted to limit free speech in political campaigns, voted to fund stem cell research with federal money, was a charter member of the Keating Five and the Gang of 14, wins the contest, what have we achieved? We have placed in the White House a candidate marginally more conservative than his liberal Democrat opponent.
A McCain victory will demonstrate to the Republican party that a moderate Republican can overcome either the heir to the last Democrat dynasty or a tremendously charismatic Senator from the new generation of Democrat leadership. Republican leaders will conclude that conservative credentials are not necessary to win a national election–they are, in fact, a hindrance. Candidates in subsequent elections will be required to show that they are bipartisan, moderate, and able to work with Democrats and see things from the Democrat point of view. This will set conservative values back for several election cycles.
It is also possible that McCain could lose to his Democrat opponent. This would result in a marginally more liberal president than McCain, who would probably also enjoy a majority in Congress. The liberal agenda could be enacted with dispatch–higher taxes, withdrawal from Iraq, socialized medicine, and amnesty for illegal aliens. This agenda could prove beneficial to the nation or, more likely, disastrous, and by the time the next election comes around, the nation will be ready for a change, as it was after four years of Jimmy Carter. The party of change would be the party that stands for conservative values. The GOP candidate would not be a middle-of-the-road accommodator, but a strong, proven conservative.
The GOP leadership will argue that we all want what’s best for the country, regardless of whether a moderate or conservative Republican wins. But if conservatives truly believe in their own principles, they must also believe those principles are best for the country. They must believe a liberal agenda, conversely, is bad for the country. And, on many if not most issues, John McCain stands for a liberal agenda. He is less liberal than his Democrat opponents, but only by degree, and not by nature.
The Republican party must not take its conservative base for granted, must not assume we will go along with any candidate because we fear the prospect of the Democrat alternative. None of us wants a Democrat in the White House. But a Republican who caters to Democrats is very little better, and self-defeating in the long run. If McCain enacts sixty, seventy, or even eighty percent of what the Democrats hope to accomplish, each vote for McCain is in equal percentage a vote for the Democrat agenda.
There is talk of the GOP "suicide voter," described as some one who disagrees so much with McCain that he or she plans to vote for the Democrat. I don’t know how many such voters are in the Republican ranks. But I do know that the conservative base of the party, the marrow of the GOP, has no passion for McCain. There is no enthusiasm on the GOP side to match the mesmerized crowds at Obama rallies, or the determined passion of the Clinton supporters. Only a true conservative can mobilize that base, and John McCain is not that candidate.
John McCain has enjoyed favorable press, including an endorsement from the New York Times. He has worked closely with Democrats in Congress, even considering a spot as John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. He has branded himself a maverick, willing to defy conservatives in Congress and in the White House. So in the coming election, let John McCain call upon his friends in the press, his moderate supporters, his colleagues "across the aisle" when he seeks campaign workers, volunteers, donations, and support. They may be hard to reach, however. Because when the general election comes, they will all be working for the real Democrat candidate.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Book Report on Ronald Kessler's "The Terrorist Watch"
from Amil Imani
Ronald Kessler has written an extremely important book that discloses the inside story of the War on Terrorism. He takes a complex subject full of long functional names and leads the reader to relatively easy comprehension. He has exposed the incredibly difficult counterterrorism job of protecting this nation from Islamic extremists. This book was very difficult to write but Kessler has humanized the people of the FBI and CIA by telling their personal story as part of the massive efforts they undertook that overhauled our defenses from September 11, 2001 to today. There has not been a successful al Qaeda attack on American soil since 9/11. And these folks are entitled to our praise for their fine work. Along the way, Kessler reveals the distortions and harm that the left leaning media and especially the New York Times and Washington Post have done to the nation’s efforts to protect our citizens.
Mr. Kessler performed the difficult task of providing a documented and readable history of the seven-year period starting in 2000, but he reaches back in history when the circumstances require. There are no footnotes, but the work retains an academic documented quality by providing prolific actual quotes from interviews of the approximately 50 government employees, which Kessler interviewed to bring the story together.
Almost fiction like, the author starts the book with a Prologue, which brings the reader into the world of counter intelligence as it is today. He displays the immense power and cooperation between agencies that is being brought to bear now. Then he steps back in time and in conjunction with cases in progress involving the infamous names like Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Jose Padilla, Abu Zabaydah and others, he introduces the major stumbling blocks facing the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies that existed from 2001.
A most significant stumbling block in 2001 was the artificial legal “Chinese Wall” in place at each criminal investigative agency to isolate the crime enforcement personnel of the agency from the intelligence personnel. Kessler does a good job of explaining how that procedure came into being. It isn’t simple to explain but he does a good job. An attorney in the FBI Office of Intelligence Policy Review (OIPR) came up with the idea of using the mechanism of the Chinese Wall to be extra sure that a criminal indictment was never thrown out because the prosecutor had used information to make his criminal case where that information had been obtained under an investigation authorized under the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). This Wall procedure required the FBI to maintain separate files for Intelligence Investigations and Criminal Investigations and disallowed the Criminal prosecutors access to Intelligence files. This fear of overturn arose because evidence obtained in foreign electronic interception of a communication that originates outside US is not necessarily subject to the same Constitutional requirements for a search warrant as is an interception (search) in the US of a US person.
The above paragraph is to explain the problem to be addressed by the “Chinese Wall”. But it is understandable that most non-lawyers will still be confused. The Chinese wall mechanism is a well-known procedure in many other legal situations. But the above paragraph was simply the definition of the nature of the issue. Even more burdensome was the fact that there were rules set in place by the OIPR to handle exceptions. These rules were extraordinarily complex and were not generally understood even by the attorneys in the OIPR. Further, OIPR put out the word that anyone who violated the rules was going to be disciplined. So, as is the usual case with human beings, everyone in the agency opted to take the easy way out. The FBI, CIA and other Intelligence agencies adopted the practice of never permitting criminal prosecutors or intelligence investigators to see the other investigators files. Although this was an interpretation unwisely set in place by Attorney General Janet Reno and therefore was only applicable to the FBI and the Justice Department it was eventually adopted by the CIA as well. This “Chinese Wall” problem explains why the FBI was unaware that the CIA had intercepted several al Qaeda transmissions that might have related to the 9/11 plot including a message on 9/10/01 that stated “Tomorrow is zero day.” None of that information was shared with the FBI.
Immediately after 9/11/01 bombing, President Bush asked for an investigation of the “Wall” problem, which showed that no Court had ever thrown out a case because of the feared mixing of information. Unfortunately, the OIPR had adopted an overkill solution that was too complex for the problem and the work around was too easy. The “risk avoidance” or CYA solution was predictable. Every manager needs to be on guard because every perceived possible future problem is not necessarily a real problem, or the fix, as here, can be worse than the problem. FBI Director Mueller immediately withdrew the “Wall” requirement and Congress specifically removed any Wall requirement in the Patriot Act in 2003. As an aside, the Patriot Act amendment kicked off major left-leaning media objections to alleged expansion of governmental power and potential violations of the civil rights of American citizens.
The FBI and CIA immediately after 9/11/01 with President Bush’s full support attacked its other problems including its incredibly outdated computer record systems, diminished morale at the CIA because of President’s Clinton’s de-emphasis in counterterrorism, and inadequate human intelligence at the CIA.
Kessler provides the entire engaging story relating to the reliance by Secretary of State Powell on information from German intelligence in preparing his speech to the UN in which he asserted that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Powell had refused to use the US generated intelligence information and he independently reached the same conclusion. Ultimately the Iraqi source that had provided intel to German Intelligence was much later proven to be unreliable. He turned out to be a lower level Iraqi employee in the Saddam nuclear program that was seeking asylum in Germany. Again, the left media accused General Powell and the Bush Administration of intentionally lying in the run up to the Iraq war about Saddam’s possession of WMD.
The real facts underlying the Washington Post story of Dana Priest relating to alleged thousands of CIA’s prisoners being held in secret prisons around the world to enable the CIA to torture prisoners. This story earned her a Pulitzer Prize and caused many European nations to cease cooperating with the US in Afghanistan. The facts were that there were no secret prisons and fewer than 100 prisoners had been rendered to anti-terrorist agencies of countries cooperating with the US in the war on terror. Also many of those prisoners originated in those countries.
Kessler also related the embarrassing story about Brandon Mayfield. Brandon was a US attorney, a recent convert to Islam that had given funds indirectly to Hamas. His fingerprint had showed up on a plastic bag discovered in the Spanish train bombing and he was planning a trip to Barcelona. Multiple experts had confirmed the finger print match. Brandon was arrested but there was no other links. Ultimately, in a raid on the terrorist hideout in Spain, the Jihadists blew themselves up to escape capture and the authorities found a finger, the print of which perfectly matched the plastic bag print. Mayfield got $2M settlement and the FBI imposed a higher standard requiring a greater level of assurance on a finger print match.
There are many more interesting stories including the identity leak of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Although this investigation lead to the conviction of Vice President Chaney’s deputy for lying to the FBI, in the end, Richard Armatage, the ex-Deputy Sec. of State, a critic of the Bush Administration was revealed to be the leak to Robert Novak. Although both the Washington Post and NYT were on a daily rampage to show Chaney was the source of the Plame link, when the true identity of the leaker broke, the Washington Post ran it on Page 6 and the NYT ran it on Page 12. I find both those papers disgusting.
This book describes several investigations in minute detail. The manpower and the resources it takes to gather all the facts about the alleged actors and the potential links of their brothers, sisters and friends, the travels of each, schools of each, etc, etc mushrooms gigantically. Everyday the investigators evaluate the risk of the advancement of the plot to the point where continuation of the investigation risks injury to citizens and property. Sometimes where an investigation is centered abroad, and there are domestic actors linked to the plot, when we are warned by the foreign agency that it is going to roll up the plot in their country, the US must make the decision if it is better to place the US actors under 24/7 surveillance to see their response to the foreign arrest or to arrest them. How and where they respond when the branch of their plot is arrested is frequently revealing of the cell.
Home grown US terrorists are a new concern. Several networks have already been rolled up involving prison grown networks of Islamic extremists with serious plans of bombing and destruction. Fortunately these groups have not been sophisticated so far.
The public is aware of only the tip of the counter-terror iceberg. In 2007, there were 60-70 terror plots in US being investigated every day. Every morning in the NCTC at 8:00 AM the Threat Matrix involving these treats is evaluated. Vice Admiral Redd, NCTC, with his small group of representatives from all the security agencies prepares a list of 25-30, which list is further reduced to 10-20. These are brought into the daily videoconference involving the President, National Security Council, DHS, and National Intelligence Director. In 2004 alone, the Justice Department reported 379 convictions related to terrorism.
The NCTC is a 10,000 sq. ft. facility built like a TV network control center with 32 large screens and 350 computer stations. They operate a web page for 5000 worldwide intelligence analysts. They control the no-fly list, and they are available for instant communication countrywide access from police, customs or immigration officers having a suspicious incident involving a terror risk. Someone on the no-fly list, if stopped for a traffic violation, can be held for a surveillance interview. There are 400,000 names on the NCTC list of terrorist entities.
Kessler points out that a major concern of our all of counter-terror officials is the demoralizing effect of the attacks by the left leaning media. The effectiveness of the terror investigations depends to great degree on the assistance and cooperation of the public. To the extent that the left is successful in engendering suspicion of the counter efforts it will further damage our security. At the current level, even though less than 1% of the open tips actually have lead to a terrorist, they are a valuable eye on the ground that has been extremely important especially regarding the new home grown Jihadist threat.
This book is a MUST READ for all Americans. It contains stories of hundreds of specific events, arrests and convictions and hundreds of details that could not be mentioned in this report.
Ronald Kessler has written an extremely important book that discloses the inside story of the War on Terrorism. He takes a complex subject full of long functional names and leads the reader to relatively easy comprehension. He has exposed the incredibly difficult counterterrorism job of protecting this nation from Islamic extremists. This book was very difficult to write but Kessler has humanized the people of the FBI and CIA by telling their personal story as part of the massive efforts they undertook that overhauled our defenses from September 11, 2001 to today. There has not been a successful al Qaeda attack on American soil since 9/11. And these folks are entitled to our praise for their fine work. Along the way, Kessler reveals the distortions and harm that the left leaning media and especially the New York Times and Washington Post have done to the nation’s efforts to protect our citizens.
Mr. Kessler performed the difficult task of providing a documented and readable history of the seven-year period starting in 2000, but he reaches back in history when the circumstances require. There are no footnotes, but the work retains an academic documented quality by providing prolific actual quotes from interviews of the approximately 50 government employees, which Kessler interviewed to bring the story together.
Almost fiction like, the author starts the book with a Prologue, which brings the reader into the world of counter intelligence as it is today. He displays the immense power and cooperation between agencies that is being brought to bear now. Then he steps back in time and in conjunction with cases in progress involving the infamous names like Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Jose Padilla, Abu Zabaydah and others, he introduces the major stumbling blocks facing the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies that existed from 2001.
A most significant stumbling block in 2001 was the artificial legal “Chinese Wall” in place at each criminal investigative agency to isolate the crime enforcement personnel of the agency from the intelligence personnel. Kessler does a good job of explaining how that procedure came into being. It isn’t simple to explain but he does a good job. An attorney in the FBI Office of Intelligence Policy Review (OIPR) came up with the idea of using the mechanism of the Chinese Wall to be extra sure that a criminal indictment was never thrown out because the prosecutor had used information to make his criminal case where that information had been obtained under an investigation authorized under the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). This Wall procedure required the FBI to maintain separate files for Intelligence Investigations and Criminal Investigations and disallowed the Criminal prosecutors access to Intelligence files. This fear of overturn arose because evidence obtained in foreign electronic interception of a communication that originates outside US is not necessarily subject to the same Constitutional requirements for a search warrant as is an interception (search) in the US of a US person.
The above paragraph is to explain the problem to be addressed by the “Chinese Wall”. But it is understandable that most non-lawyers will still be confused. The Chinese wall mechanism is a well-known procedure in many other legal situations. But the above paragraph was simply the definition of the nature of the issue. Even more burdensome was the fact that there were rules set in place by the OIPR to handle exceptions. These rules were extraordinarily complex and were not generally understood even by the attorneys in the OIPR. Further, OIPR put out the word that anyone who violated the rules was going to be disciplined. So, as is the usual case with human beings, everyone in the agency opted to take the easy way out. The FBI, CIA and other Intelligence agencies adopted the practice of never permitting criminal prosecutors or intelligence investigators to see the other investigators files. Although this was an interpretation unwisely set in place by Attorney General Janet Reno and therefore was only applicable to the FBI and the Justice Department it was eventually adopted by the CIA as well. This “Chinese Wall” problem explains why the FBI was unaware that the CIA had intercepted several al Qaeda transmissions that might have related to the 9/11 plot including a message on 9/10/01 that stated “Tomorrow is zero day.” None of that information was shared with the FBI.
Immediately after 9/11/01 bombing, President Bush asked for an investigation of the “Wall” problem, which showed that no Court had ever thrown out a case because of the feared mixing of information. Unfortunately, the OIPR had adopted an overkill solution that was too complex for the problem and the work around was too easy. The “risk avoidance” or CYA solution was predictable. Every manager needs to be on guard because every perceived possible future problem is not necessarily a real problem, or the fix, as here, can be worse than the problem. FBI Director Mueller immediately withdrew the “Wall” requirement and Congress specifically removed any Wall requirement in the Patriot Act in 2003. As an aside, the Patriot Act amendment kicked off major left-leaning media objections to alleged expansion of governmental power and potential violations of the civil rights of American citizens.
The FBI and CIA immediately after 9/11/01 with President Bush’s full support attacked its other problems including its incredibly outdated computer record systems, diminished morale at the CIA because of President’s Clinton’s de-emphasis in counterterrorism, and inadequate human intelligence at the CIA.
Kessler provides the entire engaging story relating to the reliance by Secretary of State Powell on information from German intelligence in preparing his speech to the UN in which he asserted that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Powell had refused to use the US generated intelligence information and he independently reached the same conclusion. Ultimately the Iraqi source that had provided intel to German Intelligence was much later proven to be unreliable. He turned out to be a lower level Iraqi employee in the Saddam nuclear program that was seeking asylum in Germany. Again, the left media accused General Powell and the Bush Administration of intentionally lying in the run up to the Iraq war about Saddam’s possession of WMD.
The real facts underlying the Washington Post story of Dana Priest relating to alleged thousands of CIA’s prisoners being held in secret prisons around the world to enable the CIA to torture prisoners. This story earned her a Pulitzer Prize and caused many European nations to cease cooperating with the US in Afghanistan. The facts were that there were no secret prisons and fewer than 100 prisoners had been rendered to anti-terrorist agencies of countries cooperating with the US in the war on terror. Also many of those prisoners originated in those countries.
Kessler also related the embarrassing story about Brandon Mayfield. Brandon was a US attorney, a recent convert to Islam that had given funds indirectly to Hamas. His fingerprint had showed up on a plastic bag discovered in the Spanish train bombing and he was planning a trip to Barcelona. Multiple experts had confirmed the finger print match. Brandon was arrested but there was no other links. Ultimately, in a raid on the terrorist hideout in Spain, the Jihadists blew themselves up to escape capture and the authorities found a finger, the print of which perfectly matched the plastic bag print. Mayfield got $2M settlement and the FBI imposed a higher standard requiring a greater level of assurance on a finger print match.
There are many more interesting stories including the identity leak of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Although this investigation lead to the conviction of Vice President Chaney’s deputy for lying to the FBI, in the end, Richard Armatage, the ex-Deputy Sec. of State, a critic of the Bush Administration was revealed to be the leak to Robert Novak. Although both the Washington Post and NYT were on a daily rampage to show Chaney was the source of the Plame link, when the true identity of the leaker broke, the Washington Post ran it on Page 6 and the NYT ran it on Page 12. I find both those papers disgusting.
This book describes several investigations in minute detail. The manpower and the resources it takes to gather all the facts about the alleged actors and the potential links of their brothers, sisters and friends, the travels of each, schools of each, etc, etc mushrooms gigantically. Everyday the investigators evaluate the risk of the advancement of the plot to the point where continuation of the investigation risks injury to citizens and property. Sometimes where an investigation is centered abroad, and there are domestic actors linked to the plot, when we are warned by the foreign agency that it is going to roll up the plot in their country, the US must make the decision if it is better to place the US actors under 24/7 surveillance to see their response to the foreign arrest or to arrest them. How and where they respond when the branch of their plot is arrested is frequently revealing of the cell.
Home grown US terrorists are a new concern. Several networks have already been rolled up involving prison grown networks of Islamic extremists with serious plans of bombing and destruction. Fortunately these groups have not been sophisticated so far.
The public is aware of only the tip of the counter-terror iceberg. In 2007, there were 60-70 terror plots in US being investigated every day. Every morning in the NCTC at 8:00 AM the Threat Matrix involving these treats is evaluated. Vice Admiral Redd, NCTC, with his small group of representatives from all the security agencies prepares a list of 25-30, which list is further reduced to 10-20. These are brought into the daily videoconference involving the President, National Security Council, DHS, and National Intelligence Director. In 2004 alone, the Justice Department reported 379 convictions related to terrorism.
The NCTC is a 10,000 sq. ft. facility built like a TV network control center with 32 large screens and 350 computer stations. They operate a web page for 5000 worldwide intelligence analysts. They control the no-fly list, and they are available for instant communication countrywide access from police, customs or immigration officers having a suspicious incident involving a terror risk. Someone on the no-fly list, if stopped for a traffic violation, can be held for a surveillance interview. There are 400,000 names on the NCTC list of terrorist entities.
Kessler points out that a major concern of our all of counter-terror officials is the demoralizing effect of the attacks by the left leaning media. The effectiveness of the terror investigations depends to great degree on the assistance and cooperation of the public. To the extent that the left is successful in engendering suspicion of the counter efforts it will further damage our security. At the current level, even though less than 1% of the open tips actually have lead to a terrorist, they are a valuable eye on the ground that has been extremely important especially regarding the new home grown Jihadist threat.
This book is a MUST READ for all Americans. It contains stories of hundreds of specific events, arrests and convictions and hundreds of details that could not be mentioned in this report.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Rush Limbaugh on Super Tuesday
Limbaugh: Romney Is a 3 Legs Conservative
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 8:01 AM
By: Newsmax Staff
Reversing his previously stated belief that none of the Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination have all three legs of the conservative stool, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that Mitt Romney is indeed a three-leg conservative.
Describing the three legs as "national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives," Rush said, "The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way... The foreign policy crowd is obviously what it is. I don't think there's anybody on our side who doesn't care about national security."
"I think now, based on the way the campaign has shaken out, that there probably is a candidate on our side who does embody all three legs of the conservative stool, and that's Romney," the talk radio host added.
As for Mike Huckabee, Limbaugh pronounced, "You might just say the things he's saying about it represent an ignorance born of inexperience in the subject. I don't think Huckabee has any deleterious intentions about the country."
Turning to McCain, Rush said, "When it comes to the fiscal side, you cannot say -- you just cannot say -- that John McCain is interested. He's even admitted he's not interested in the social side. He's not interested in the economic side. He said this, and when he has spoken up about it, he sides more often with liberal Democrats on fiscal issues than he does with his own side.
"If I look at this roster of three candidates -- if I look at Hillary-Obama, about whom there's not a dime's worth of difference, because they're so far left it doesn't matter which one of them wins. If McCain adopts economic policies that sound very much like what you'd get from Hillary-Obama, and if I think those policies are going to take the country down the tubes I'd just as soon the Democrats take the hit for it, not us. Plain and simple."
His conclusion? "I think the one candidate of the three still out there on our side that matter (and, actually, it's just two, because Huckabee doesn't, in terms of a chance to win) is saying who more closely embodies all three legs of this conservative stool, you'd have to say that it's Mitt Romney. There's actually no choice in the matter. It certainly isn't Senator McCain."
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 8:01 AM
By: Newsmax Staff
Reversing his previously stated belief that none of the Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination have all three legs of the conservative stool, Rush Limbaugh told his listeners Monday that Mitt Romney is indeed a three-leg conservative.
Describing the three legs as "national security/foreign policy, the social conservatives, and the fiscal conservatives," Rush said, "The social conservatives are the cultural people. The fiscal conservatives are the economic crowd: low taxes, smaller government, get out of the way... The foreign policy crowd is obviously what it is. I don't think there's anybody on our side who doesn't care about national security."
"I think now, based on the way the campaign has shaken out, that there probably is a candidate on our side who does embody all three legs of the conservative stool, and that's Romney," the talk radio host added.
As for Mike Huckabee, Limbaugh pronounced, "You might just say the things he's saying about it represent an ignorance born of inexperience in the subject. I don't think Huckabee has any deleterious intentions about the country."
Turning to McCain, Rush said, "When it comes to the fiscal side, you cannot say -- you just cannot say -- that John McCain is interested. He's even admitted he's not interested in the social side. He's not interested in the economic side. He said this, and when he has spoken up about it, he sides more often with liberal Democrats on fiscal issues than he does with his own side.
"If I look at this roster of three candidates -- if I look at Hillary-Obama, about whom there's not a dime's worth of difference, because they're so far left it doesn't matter which one of them wins. If McCain adopts economic policies that sound very much like what you'd get from Hillary-Obama, and if I think those policies are going to take the country down the tubes I'd just as soon the Democrats take the hit for it, not us. Plain and simple."
His conclusion? "I think the one candidate of the three still out there on our side that matter (and, actually, it's just two, because Huckabee doesn't, in terms of a chance to win) is saying who more closely embodies all three legs of this conservative stool, you'd have to say that it's Mitt Romney. There's actually no choice in the matter. It certainly isn't Senator McCain."
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