Every price increase of just a dime per gallon of gasoline at the pump extracts approximately $5 billion from the pockets of U.S. consumers over the course of a year.

On top of killing family budgets, with a dollar per gallon jump at the pumps picking our pockets of $50 billion per year, there is on the macro level an inverse relationship between the price of oil and the overall health of the economy — oil price hikes deliver less job growth, less demand for labor, more unemployment, more poverty, more inequality, more inflation, lower real income increases, and smaller advances in the standard of living.

Additionally, higher oil prices directly cause greater amounts of U.S. capital to be exported, both to pay the higher prices and to pay for the growing levels of imported oil.

In 1985, the U.S. imported 25 percent of its oil usage. Today, it’s 61 percent. And still we are placing restrictions on increases in domestic production, both for oil and other sources of energy.

A few days back, President Obama, rather than sticking around a couple hours to explain to the American people or to the U.S. Congress why we were going to war in Libya, flew off to Brazil to hand out a permit to allow deep sea oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras. Capitalist companies in America need not apply.

This particular foreign deal was an especially snug and nostalgic fit for Obama. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is somewhat of a Latin form of Obama’s old Weather Underground chum Bernardine Dohrn.

In earlier days, Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla, was charged with running with a gang of redistributionists who accumulated revolutionary capital by way of kidnapping foreign diplomats for ransom.

A top priority for Rousseff today mirrors the “spread the wealth around” objective that Obama stated to Joe the plumber.

Dohrn, just home from a trip to Cuba in 1969 where she hoped to pick up some pointers on how to impose a “classless” society on the U.S., displayed her true psychopathic colors in a speech she made to the Weathermen’s “War Council.”

Speaking elatedly of the murders by the Charlie Manson gang of actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger and three other people, Dohrn proclaimed, “First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the victims’ stomachs! Wild!”

That’s the fully hateful Bernardine on public display, seeing herself as a new George Washington, a revolutionary fighter for a new nation. It’s the same role, except this founding mother was in serious need of a super-sized bottle of antipsychotic drugs and a super-tight straightjacket.

Of all the places for candidate Obama to kick off his political career in 1995 in his first run for the Illinois State Senate, he picked the living room of Bernardine Dohrn and husband Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground and, more recently, the national vice president for curriculum studies at the American Educational Research Association.

I’d have kept up my guard when Bernardine sashayed out of the kitchen and began circulating around with the hors d’oeuvres and metal forks.

In any case, it’s no surprise that things are coming apart, especially on energy. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can,” pronounced Obama during the presidential campaign. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

What’s the end game? “Suicide Mission Accomplished”?

HT: American Spectator

There are among the population of the country Barack Obama has been chosen to lead those who have experienced firsthand the iron fist of a dictatorial government and who have survived the bloodshed that resulted. Tens of millions died during the past century under dictators. Deep within their psyche, these survivors are extraordinarily attuned to those factors that gave rise to the devastation when dictators have their way.

They know that the first step along this path is the emergence of a leader willing to do or say anything to promote a destructive and failed political philosophy and to achieve power by manipulating the emotions, fears, and prejudices of the people. But above all, they are mindful that only by exposing those who are determined to undermine their society, without hesitation or fear, can their nation be saved.

Therefore, on behalf of those of us who have live through the worst of times, and based upon the president’s words and deeds, it must be stated that Mr. Obama is a liar and a demagogue.

This deception began during the presidential campaign. Falling sway to soothing rhetoric and a deliberately fraudulent campaign to promote moderate positions on the economy and government, many citizens in 2008 voted for Senator Obama. Further, they hoped that by electing a man of African descent, the long national nightmare of slavery and the long civil rights struggle would at last be relegated to the pages of history. Capitalizing on that hope, Mr. Obama campaigned on the theme that as a political moderate, he would bring all Americans together and end the divisive politics of the past, as well as control the scope and size of government.

In the intervening two years since the election, the president, his underlings in the administration, and the sycophantic members of Congress have repeatedly invoked the checkered past of this country in regard to civil rights and never missed an opportunity to remind the people of Mr. Obama skin color. This has been done in a willful effort to capitalize on so-called white guilt, thus keeping alive the tensions in the black community and muzzling dissent, while enacting radical policies anathema to the overwhelming majority of the American people.

There has been no compunction in exploiting race or racial incidents, such as Professor Gates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Department of Justice and the Black Panthers, or the references to slavery in recent speeches by the president, to sow dissent among the populace. Given numerous opportunities to denounce racial demagoguery by his supporters or the media, the president has chosen to remain silent, thus giving his tacit approval to the onslaught of racial divisiveness and manipulation.

Employing the crassest of political ploys, Mr. Obama has, with forethought, sought to exploit the issue of illegal immigration by making it a matter of race and not law. His opposition to the Arizona immigration law and the false and overheated rhetoric used by both him and his associates constituted a deliberate attempt to disseminate fear and loathing toward fellow citizens by the Hispanic population in order to capture Hispanic votes and ensure Obama’s and his party’s radical wing’s continued and expanded hold on power.

In a time of recession and apprehension about the future economic well-being of the country, President Obama has exploited one of the oldest of man’s failings: envy towards those perceived to have more. Whether it is allusions to “the fat cats” in corporate America or snide references to millionaires or the implication that all of the average citizen’s problems can be solved by taking away money from the rich (who supposedly achieved their wealth on the backs of the poor), it is an age-old tactic geared to distract the populace by inciting anger against their fellow citizens and to present the government as the final arbiter of “fairness,” which results in the massive expansion of governmental dominance.

In furtherance of these aims, the lies and misrepresentations by Barack Obama and his administration are legion. But none are as egregious as those made in order to pass the Health Care Reform Act. Among the lies were assurances that premiums would not rise, Medicare would not be cut, everyone would be able to keep his or her current doctor and insurance, abortion would not be funded, and national medical costs would be reduced. All were total fabrications used to pass the most insidious attack on personal freedom in the history of the country.

It is of no difference who may have written the bill or what it may have contained within its 2,400 pages or whether Barack Obama or the members of Congress had read it. These false claims by the president would still have been made, as his only concern was to take away liberty from the people and vest it in himself and the government.

No president of the United States, or leader of any other country, would have made his primary foreign policy to go about the world apologizing and denigrating his nation, thus mocking the enormous sacrifices generations of Americans have made to save countless millions of people over the past century. Barack Obama, in a grandiose display of narcissism, did so only as a means of ingratiating himself to others and elevating his stature as a world figure.

By his rhetoric and strategy, Mr. Obama has sunk to the same level as numerous demagogues over the past 150 years who employed these same tactics as a means of achieving personal and centralized power.

The United States is on the precipice of failure. It may follow the well-worn path taken by so many great powers over the centuries and become an entry in the list of the rise and fall of great nations. This country cannot sit idly by and allow a president (or any other national leader) whose guiding personal philosophy is “the end justifies the means” and is thus devoid of honor and integrity, to go unchallenged by being reluctant to confront his words and deeds.

The media, politicians, and general citizenry must not be intimidated by Mr. Obama’s skin color or the pall of “political correctness.” They must face the reality of who the president is and his radical objectives. Too much hangs in the balance not to speak out forcefully and without apprehension, even after the midterm election, regardless of the outcome, and not to trust or believe whatever the president may do or say in the future. After all, he has squandered all credibility by his actions to date.

HT: American Thinker

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Geithner, erstwhile cheerleader for the Obama economic team, announces that unemployment rates could rise “for a couple of months.” “Of course we want to do what we can,” says Geithner, but what we’re doing is just not working.

Still, “large parts of the private sector continue to strengthen,” Geithner wrote in the New York Times on August 3. Maybe Geithner wasn’t looking at the same data as the Federal Reserve, which one week later reported that the economy was weakening. Not only that, but the Fed backed up its opinion with a commitment to new monetary stimulus. Come to think of it, Geithner’s boss was not hesitant to sign a $26-billion stimulus bill designed to bail out teachers’ unions and state Medicaid programs. If Geithner is so sure the economy is expanding, why is he supporting another stimulus bill?

The truth is that Geithner knows, as does every reputable economist out there, that the U.S. economy is not recovering as it should following the severe recession of 2008-2009. The Obama economic policies are just not working, and no one in the administration seems to have a clue about what to do.

As for Geithner, he thinks that Americans haven’t been taxed enough. In an August 4 speech, Geithner suggested that the tax cuts that began during the Reagan administration and continued through the presidency of George W. Bush actually slowed the growth of the economy. Geithner is perhaps the only economist in the universe to believe that employment rates did not increase during the period from 1983 to 2008, following reductions in marginal rates, capital gains, and other taxes during the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II administrations. The Secretary is apparently incapable of reading a line chart, or of comprehending that the percentage of Americans employed rose from 57% in 1983 to 63% in 2008.

Geithner, of course, is saying these things only to defend the president. It is the president who plans to raise taxes on the rich, as he likes to call everyone earning more than $200,000 — even those who reinvest that money in small businesses and create new jobs. Somehow the president believes that robbing small businesses of every dime of profit is going to kick-start the economy. Once again, just about every economist except Paul Krugman disagrees with him. As Sen. Mitch McConnell pointed out on Aug. 4, the tax increases scheduled for Jan. 1, 2011 “will have a devastating impact” on the economy.

If the President really thinks that raising taxes will promote growth, why not raise taxes on everyone? More taxes, more growth. Why not let government take everything, as it already has, almost, in California and New York? If higher taxes produce jobs, where are the jobs in California and New York? Why were more new jobs created in low-tax Texas in 2009 than in the other 49 states combined?

Maybe it’s just that the Democrats have a different definition of “jobs” from most people’s. For Democrats, a job is not a job unless it’s “green.” A job need not be real — it can be “created or saved” or bought with stimulus spending. For Nancy Pelosi, collecting unemployment benefits is a job in itself. And for Tim Geithner, raising taxes on some is the precondition for putting others back to work.

The fact is that Obama’s economic policies have always been laughable. The $862-billion stimulus spending of 2009 distributed massive funding to welfare recipients, alternative energy boondoggles, environmental regulation enforcement, unionized education, and public service workers. But the spending bonanza was never intended to create jobs. It was designed to buy votes, as was the latest stimulus bill signed by the president on August 10.

Meanwhile, the economy overall has lost six million jobs since the recession began, most of them since the inauguration of Barack Obama; 14.6 million Americans are now out of work. Millions of ordinary Americans have been sacrificed so that the Democratic Party can retain the votes of welfare recipients, teachers, public service unions, and environmentalists — and what’s more important, the campaign contributions of unions, environmental groups, and trial lawyers.

If the president really wished to create jobs, he could do so in several ways. He could reduce marginal tax rates across the board, thereby returning billions of dollars to their rightful owners. He could cut capital gain, dividend, and interest taxes, thus increasing business investment and spurring expansion. He could promote tort reform and eliminate unnecessary environmental regulation. Most importantly, he could lower taxes on businesses and corporations.

Obama has done none of these things. The only “solution” he has proposed is raising taxes and distributing more stimulus funds to his key constituencies.

There are 14.6 million unemployed, and the president’s solution is to raise taxes so as to distribute more taxpayer money to his political supporters. Apparently Obama is so callous or so blind that he cannot comprehend what it means for 14.6 million families to lose a breadwinner. Everything that he has done, and that he continues to do, serves only his own interest. He appears to be ruthlessly intent on a single objective: securing his political base in advance of the 2012 election. No matter if fourteen or twenty or fifty million Americans go hungry.

HT: American Thinker

If she had, she would have seen that President Obama’s lack of cojones extends far beyond border security — it extends to our national security more broadly. President Obama, simply put, has no cojones when it comes to defending and protecting this nation from threats at home and abroad. His leadership style is more waxed chest and eyebrow trim than alpha male; he’s our first metrosexual president, an elitist who believes that sweet-talking and willful blindness to the nature of our enemies are a recipe for a success.

Being President of the United States is not an episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” where subtle commentary and snarky remarks produce results. It’s more like an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” where there are good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys need a roundhouse kick to the face. But President Obama is busy watching Bravo.

Nowhere is Obama’s lack of metaphoric testosterone clearer than in his tack with the Ground Zero mosque issue. Obama said that the mosque should be built because this is a simple “freedom of religion” issue, which of course is false — the mosque can be built anywhere, just not on the secular holy site that is Ground Zero. Obama’s bizarre argument is equivalent to stating that it would be a “freedom of speech” issue if the KKK wanted to build a grand headquarters on the assassination site of Martin Luther King, Jr. In both cases, the principles of freedom of religion/speech are not risked by utilizing basic common sense.

The real issue here is the one Obama did not address: the responsibility of Islamism for the 9/11 attacks, and the association between the Muslims backing the Ground Zero mosque and Islamist ideology. Obama doesn’t believe Islamism is responsible for 9/11; in Dreams From My Father, he instead blames terrorism on economic imbalances (a Marxist and eunuch-ian response to the most devastating attack on American soil in history). And so for him, this is an easy decision — by simply eliding the larger issue, he can turn this into a case of xenophobia by anti-Ground Zero mosque Americans.

It’s not happenstance that Obama’s stance on the Ground Zero mosque is the most politically convenient for him; if he acknowledged the nature of our enemies, he’d have to rethink his entire foreign policy framework. He’d have to recognize that precipitous pullouts in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t merely politically problematic, but also highly dangerous; he’d have to admit that the Muslims in the Middle East aren’t interested in making peace with the Jews in Israel; he’d have to see that the problem of Islamism isn’t merely a class or race problem, but a philosophical problem that crosses all borders. In short, he’d have to wake up to the fact that Islamism is a real threat at home and abroad.

But that wouldn’t go along with his blithe — dare we say feminine? — attitude toward our enemies, who he believes are tortured souls longing for American apologetics rather than cruel and brutal bastards bent on imposition of Shariah. In fact, Obama does Muslims a disservice by associating the imperialistic Islamism of the Ground Zero mosque — and yes, it is imperialistic — with Islam everywhere. There is a reason that Hamas has endorsed the Ground Zero mosque, and there is a reason the founder of the Ground Zero mosque refuses to disown terror against Israelis, and there is a reason he blames America for the attacks on 9/11. It’s because he’s a representative of an ideology that is political as much as it is religious, an ideology that seeks to overthrow the U.S. government and replace it with a barbaric tyranny. That Islamism should not be protected by the First Amendment in the first place.

Obama, as he has repeatedly informed us, was born and raised at least for part of his life a Muslim. He knows and thinks beautiful the call of the muezzin, he has said. That makes his ignorance of Islamism less pathetic than it is purposeful — purposeful and cojone-less. As our president, Obama must protect us from totalitarian ideologies. This is by far the most significant responsibility in his job description. He refused that responsibility this week.

We need a leader, not a womyn’s studies professor. Strike that — womyn’s studies professors are, by and large, twice as masculine as our current president. I would suggest that President Obama “cowboy up,” even though we already know what he thinks of cowboys. Unfortunately, his EZ-Bake Oven, Polly Pocket politics play right into the hands of our enemies.

HT: American Thinker

In what can only be described as a partisan, pro-Obama puff piece, The New York Times has now proclaimed on its Economix Blog that tax increases are the best way to “stimulate” our economy and help America reach “fiscal sustainability”:

The single biggest step our government could take this year to address the structural deficit would be to let the tax cuts expire. And a credible commitment to long-term fiscal sustainability should reduce interest rates today, helping to stimulate the economy.

Adopting the leftist fiction that Americans keeping more of their money is socially irresponsible and somehow cutting taxes “cost” the government, the authors warn that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts are too costly. They want to shame you into compliance. You see it’s not your money, it’s their money! It will be your fault if the government doesn’t collect the additional $2.3 trillion of your income it’s entitled to receive. It will be your fault when the national debt grows ever larger by 2018:

What do matter are taxes and entitlements. Therefore, the coming battle over the Bush tax cuts is of real importance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, extending the Bush tax cuts would add $2.3 trillion to the total 2018 debt.

Feigning objectivity, the writers briefly flirt with a one sentence counter-argument questioning the wisdom of increasing taxes while unemployment is still at an all time high. However, the sense of “balance” quickly dissipates as Americans are again faulted for the audacity to save their money, and therefore failing to stimulate the economy:

Critics say that this amounts to increasing taxes at a time of high unemployment, and that instead the tax cuts should be extended as a stimulus measure. This overlooks the fact that tax cuts are an inefficient form of stimulus, because many people choose to save their additional income instead of spending it.

The pièce de résistance however, is at the end of the blog article. Here the authors completely leave behind any semblance of economic and common sense and logic, and head for the hills of fantasy land. In this fictional world massive tax increases will “immediately” encourage growth and increased employment:

If the goal is to encourage growth and employment immediately, it would be better to let the tax cuts expire and dedicate some of the increased revenue to real stimulus programs.

Apparently the multi-trillion dollars government “stimulus” programs already passed with little economic benefit are not “real” enough for The New York Times. There’s still more work to be done with the additional $2.3 trillion of our money they must confiscate in order to “help” us.

Back in the real world, Ronald Reagan’s across-the-board tax cuts in the 1980s stand as a testament to true and effective economic and fiscal policies. His relentless pursuit of economic reforms and lower taxes lead to the “largest peacetime economic boom in American history and nearly 35 million more jobs,” while federal revenues doubled, increasing from $517 billion in 1980 to over $1 trillion in 1990. President Reagan proved what all sensible economists and logical individuals already know, that cutting taxes inevitably leads to economic growth and increased prosperity, which in turn creates jobs and provides the government with more revenues.

Luckily, we don’t have to go that far back in history for a lesson on economics and taxes. One has to look no further than the tax-dogging behavior of former Senator John Kerry, owner of a $7 million yacht, to realize that higher taxes always negatively influence economic activity, motivate individuals to avoid paying those taxes, and ultimately lead to reduced state revenues.

If that’s not convincing enough, maybe The New York Times can look to communist China for a clue on how to stimulate an economy and increase government revenues. While American companies now face an average combined income tax rate (federal + state taxes) of approximately 39.3% corporations in China pay only a 25% tax rate as of January 2008. The communists realized the dangers of the economic crisis spreading across the world and quickly moved to lower taxes to help their businesses and people. Our own Congress however, has done nothing about tax rates, choosing instead to let current rates increase on their own come January 1, 2011. If Obama and the Democrats allow this to happen, we will witness the once unthinkable: the “free-market” United States will tax its businesses and corporations at 46.2%, almost double the rate of communist China at 25%; even before ObamaCare’s new Medicare levy of 3.8% kicks in 2013, raising the marginal rates to 50%.

If The New York Times can’t learn this simple lesson from the actions of a quintessential limousine liberal or by looking at communist China, then no evidence will suffice to wake them up to reality.

Originally posted at American Thinker Blog and Chris Banescu.com

Tito Guirao-Aguilar

8/5/2010 – Dave Gibson -

Police in Williamsburg, Va., have arrested a juvenile, whose name is being withheld due to his age for repeatedly raping a 6-year-old girl. His arrest comes after two others, Tito Guirao-Aguilar, 39, and Samuel Eli Jacobo-Guirao, 20, were apprehended for victimizing the girl.

Guirao-Aguilar has been charged with three counts of aggravated sexual battery of a person under the age of 13, and Jacobo-Guirao is charged with one count of rape of a person under the age of 13 and two counts of aggravated sexual battery of a person under 13.

Both men are being held in the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail without bond. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also placed a hold on them.

The most popular tourist destination in the state, Williamsburg has a growing crime problem attributable to its illegal alien population, who are largely employed by the hotel and restaurant industry.

On June 10, Williamsburg police arrested illegal alien Raul Vasquez-Garcia, 33, in front of the same apartment complex where he allegedly shot a man, a week earlier.

On the night of June 4, police arrived at the Village of Woodshire apartments on Merrimac Trail, they found a man suffering from two gunshot wounds. According to police, the man and Vasquez-Garcia had been arguing over a woman.

The victim was taken to a local hospital, where he recovered from his wounds and has since been released.

Vasquez-Garcia is charged with attempted murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and assault.

HT: Examiner.com

A government report released today reveals that the Obama administration plans to drastically cut America’s nuclear arsenal by up to 40%. These massive reductions in the US nuclear stockpiles are to be implemented by the year 2021.

The news has gone from bad to worse regarding Obama’s desire to eliminate all US nuclear weapons. Last week I highlighted the Suicidal-in-Chief’s desire to drastically undermine America’s nuclear defense and strike capabilities is detailed in the president’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New-START) with Russia, that he signed in April of 2010. Today these ominous developments have come to light.

These enormous reductions are the next step in President Barack Obama’s reckless path to “eliminate all nuclear weapons.” The US now has about 5,113 nuclear warheads but Obama wants to reduce that number to around 3,000.

Unfortunately, Obama is doing nothing about China’s rapidly growing nuclear stockpiles and has already agreed that Russia will keep nearly all of its 10,000 nuclear warheads under the New-START agreement signed in April 2010.

In an increasingly dangerous and unstable world, with the threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorist attacks growing by the day, Obama continues to relentlessly pursue the destruction of America’s nuclear defense abilities. Obama is virtually guaranteeing the likelihood of future conflicts with terrorist and totalitarian regimes like Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or any other radical government that decides to take advantage of America’s severely weakened position.

As Ronald Reagan so wisely observed:

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong — Ronald Reagan

HT: FoxNews and AP

Barack Hussein Obama is not only the most radical, incompetent, and leftist president we’ve ever had, but he is also one of the most dangerous. His unilateral approach to drastically reduce America’s nuclear missiles arsenal and abandon key missile defense capabilities both in Europe and at home, are not just criminally reckless, but downright suicidal.

The latest attempt by Obama to destroy America’s nuclear defense and strike capabilities is detailed in the president’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New-START) with Russia, that he signed in April of 2010.

Mitt Romney concludes that “New-START gives Russia a massive nuclear weapon advantage over the United States.” The various provisions of this nuclear weapons “treaty” will not only undermine America’s nuclear capabilities, but also prevent America from properly developing its arsenal while giving Russia an overwhelming and unfair advantage. According to Mitt, the New-START agreement:

• impedes missile defense, our protection from nuclear-proliferating rogue states such as Iran and North Korea [or future unfriendly nuclear capable regimes]
• explicitly forbids the United States from converting intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos into missile defense sites
• permits Russia the right to walk away from the treaty if it believes that the United States has significantly increased its missile defense capability
• forces America to get Russia’s permission for any missile defense expansion, in order to preserve the treaty’s restrictions on Russia
• empowers a Bilateral Consultative Commission with broad latitude to amend the treaty with specific reference to missile defense [in essence giving Russia power over America's missile defense capabilities]
• lets Russia escape the limit on its number of strategic nuclear warheads. Loopholes and lapses – presumably carefully crafted by Moscow – provide a path to entirely avoid the advertised warhead-reduction targets
• forces the United States to drastically reduce its number of missile launchers while allowing Russia to maintain its current arsenal
• fails to apply the MIRV limits that were part of the prior START treaty, just as Russia is developing a new heavy-load, MIRV-capable ICBM
• forces America to reduce strategic weapons from approximately 2,200 to 1,550 but fails to mention that Russia will retain more than 10,000 nuclear warheads that are categorized as tactical because they are mounted on missiles that cannot reach the United States
• gives Russia a massive nuclear advantage over the United States, ignoring tactical nukes where Russia outnumbers us by as much as 10-to-1

What kind of president would do such a thing? Is Obama completely insane, or just suicidal?

Mitt concludes:

Whatever the reason for the treaty’s failings, it must not be ratified: The security of the United States is at stake. The only responsible course is for the Senate to demand and scrutinize the full diplomatic record underlying the treaty. Then it must insist that any linkage between the treaty and our missile defense system be eliminated. In a world where nuclear weapons are proliferating, America’s missile defense shield must not be compromised.

HT: Washington Post

Yesterday, Michelle Malkin issued a call to her blog readers to help create new NASA logos to “mock Team Obama’s Muslim-pandering makeover of the space program.” Some of the best logos submitted can be seen below.

The logo makeover contest was in response to the latest “Muslim friendly” NASA policies that Obama has foisted on America’s space exploration agency. Yes, this is no joke! Barack Hussein Obama has designated NASA’s new mission to “engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science.”

This information was revealed by NASA’s new Administrator Charles Bolden (appointed by Obama) in a recent interview with Al Jazeera. Bolden emphasized that strengthening ties with Muslim countries “was among the top tasks President Obama assigned him. He said better interaction with the Muslim world would ultimately advance space travel.”

Here are Bolden’s exact words:

“When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering,”

The response from Michelle Malkin’s readers was amazing! Here are some of the logos that were submitted:

From reader B. at The Snake on the Flag:

Joel Munn of Washington is Broke offered the Muslim Aeronautics and Space Administration:

There were also several several Burka themed suggestions.

Reader Sissy Willis idea:

From reader Fred Fry:

And also a sharia-compliant Space Shuttle from Sam:

For a full list of the re-designed NASA logos go to MichelleMalkin.com.

Wayne Allyn Root

7/4/2010 – Wayne Allyn Root -

As former President Ronald Reagan might have said, “Obama, there you go again.”

The current occupant of the White House claims to know how to create jobs. He claims jobs have been created. But so far the score is Great Obama Depression 2.2 million lost jobs, Obama 0 — a blowout.

Obama is as hopeless, helpless, clueless and bankrupt of good ideas as the manager of the Chicago Cubs in late September. This “community organizer” knows as much about private-sector jobs as Pamela Anderson knows about nuclear physics.

It’s time to call Obama what he is: The Great Jobs Killer. With his massive spending and tax hikes — rewarding big government and big unions, while punishing taxpayers and business owners — Obama has killed jobs, he has killed motivation to create new jobs, he has killed the motivation to invest in new businesses, or expand old ones. With all this killing, Obama should be given the top spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Meanwhile, he has kept the union workers of GM and Chrysler employed (with taxpayer money). He has made sure that most government employee union members got their annual raises for sleeping on the job (with taxpayer money). He made sure that his voters got handouts mislabeled as “tax cuts” even though they never paid taxes (with taxpayer money). And he made sure that major campaign contributors collected billions off government stimulus (with taxpayer money).

As far as the taxpayers — the people who actually take risks with our own money to create small businesses and jobs and pay most of the taxes — we require protection under the Endangered Species Act.

You won’t find proof of the damage Obama is doing on Wall Street, but rather on Main Street. My friends are all part of the economic engine of America: Small business. Small business creates 75 percent of new jobs (and a majority of all jobs). I called one friend who was a wealthy restaurant owner. He says business is off by 60 percent. He’s drowning in debt. He won’t last much longer. His wealth is gone.

I called another friend in the business of home improvement. He says business is off 90 percent from two years ago. My contractor just filed personal bankruptcy. She won’t be building any more homes. The hair salon where I’ve had my hair cut for years closed earlier this year. Bankrupt. But here’s the clincher — ESPN Zone just closed all their restaurants across the country. If they can’t make it selling cheap food and overpriced beer with 100 big screens blaring every sporting event on the planet to a sports-crazed society, we are all in deep, deep trouble.

I’ve polled all my friends who own small businesses — many of them in the Internet and high-tech fields. They all agree that in this new Obama world of high business taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, and workers compensation taxes, the key to success is to avoid employees. The only way to survive as a business owner today is by keeping the payroll very low and by hiring only independent contractors or part-time employees provided by temp agencies.

The days of jobs in the private sector with big salaries, full benefits, and pensions are over. We’ve all seen where those kinds of jobs get you as a business owner — in Bankruptcy Court or surviving on government welfare like GM and Chrysler. Or in the case of government itself — completely insolvent, but surviving by ripping off taxpayers and fraudulently running printing presses at the Fed all day and night to print money by the trillions.

Unfortunately, small businesses don’t have the power to impose taxes or print money. So unlike government, we’ll just have to cut employees and run lean and mean.

It has now become clear that, outside of the burgeoning field of Census takers, there will be no major increase in new jobs for years to come. Outside government, Obama has created a wasteland of economic ruin and depression that looks much like the landscape of Mel Gibson’s first movie “Mad Max.” Without a printing press in Obama’s world, you’re just plain out of luck.

The days of believing the Obama propaganda about a jobs recovery are over. The trillion-dollar corporate handouts (neatly named “stimulus”) may have kept big business in the money for the past 18 months, and artificially propped up the stock market, but small business is the real canary in the coal mine.

My small business-owning friends aren’t creating one job. Not one. They are shedding jobs. They are learning to do more with fewer employees. They are creating high-tech businesses that don’t need employees. And many business owners are making plans to leave the country. In a high-tech world where businesses can be run from anywhere, Obama has a problem. His one-trick pony — raise taxes, raise taxes, raising taxes — is chasing away the business owners he desperately needs to pay his bills.

So who is going to pay Obama’s taxes? Not his voters. They want government to pay them. Who is going to create Obama’s jobs? Not his voters — they’ve never created a job in their lives.

So what is Obama going to do? Maybe he can get Pamela Anderson on the line.

Wayne Allyn Root, a former vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, writes from Henderson. His column appears every other week.

HT: Las Vegas Review Journal

But Who Will Pay the Piper?

6/8/2010 – B. Chrysostom -

Another campaign is on the way in Arizona to wake the country to the financial disaster and economic nightmare Obama is foisting on America’s future. A very large billboard ad created by an anonymous advertiser shows President Obama’s face overlaid on a mock U.S. $100,000,000,000,000 (100 TRILLION dollars) bill with the message “But Who Will Pay the Piper?”

The powerful advertisement easily makes the point. It is us, our children, and grand-children, the American people and taxpayers, who will have to make the enormous sacrifices to pay down this astronomical debt made that much worse by Obama and the Democrat Congress in the last year and a half.

The CNS article also points out more information regarding the ad:

Chuck Perrine of Jones Outdoor advertising in Tucson, Ariz., confirmed to CNSNews.com that his company created the 10 ft- by-40 ft. billboard, which he said “went up within the last month.”

Perrine said the sign is located “near Linden (Ariz.),” but said that the advertiser is “not interested” in disclosing any further information about his identity–or his reason for purchasing the ad. …

The billboard, which was rented for an undisclosed sum, will remain up for an undisclosed period of time, Perrine said

The other alarming part of the worsening situation facing America is also highlighted in the piece:

The Office of Management and Budget in Obama’s White House estimates that the federal deficit this year will be 10.6% of GDP, making fiscal 2010 the first fiscal year since the end of World War II that the federal deficit has reached double digits as a share of GDP.

Leave it to the people of Arizona to again lead the country in bringing attention to the looming disaster facing the country. Kudos to the anonymous advertiser with the guts and conviction to speak the truth and pronounce it so loudly.

We need another 10,000 of these billboards put up around the country!

HT: CNSNews

Barack Obama is poised to be the first president to leave America at the mercy of its enemies. President Obama’s recent decision to begin announcing once-secret U.S. missile tests and satellite launches is just the first of many subversive acts carried out by the Obama administration against America’s defense.

Obama also chose to unilaterally end a crucial strategic practice called “calculated ambiguity” by publicizing the exact number of warheads in America’s arsenal. His pledges to “de-MIRV” all American ICBMs, dramatically reducing options if an exchange ever took place between the United States and Russia, as there were some three thousand strategic targets listed in the former Soviet Union as of 2000. Even if it were assumed that the American arsenal carried enough heat to cause significant economic damage to the Russians, this assumes a Western mentality, an attachment to human life or possessions that has since the advent of Communism been absent in the Russian bear. America cannot afford even the prospect of failure in a nuclear exchange. We get only one shot.

At present, the U.S. nuclear arsenal is capable of devastating one nuclear adversary, but this capability began to dwindle under the Bush administration, when fifty ICBMs were retired from service. After these reductions, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists estimated that the U.S. would be unable to eliminate every potentially hostile WMD facility worldwide. To the average American, this means that if Russia and China, or some other coalition of nuclear states, decided to blackmail the United States, America would be unable under current conditions to repel the ensuing Holocaust. The facts suggest the world may be nearing such an encounter. As part of the new Shanghai Cooperation Organization — a Warsaw Pact for the new century — both Russia and China frequently engage in joint nuclear exercises in which they practice varying modes of attack against the United States[i].

And with the loss of the brand new Ground Based Interceptors (GBIs) developed during the Bush years, with an 80 percent accuracy rating, America is completely exposed to any would-be aggressor, as are America’s allies once dependent on this technology. In a move reminiscent of JFK’s decision to sell out Italy and Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Obama betrayed Eastern European allies for Russian promises of collaboration on Iran.

It is because of the fragile state in which America finds its nuclear posture that we should be terrified at President Obama’s bold decision to slash the U.S. arsenal by 50 percent as part of a broad arms reduction deal with the Russians. When Obama’s comparable actions are considered — e.g., posting the TSA playbook online for the world to see, attempting to give self-declared foreign terrorists civilian trials with the rights of citizens, and advocating the goals of the controversial Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas — his latest move simply forms part of a pattern of anti-American and overtly treasonous behavior. Any other president would have long ago entered the realm of impeachment. President Clinton was impeached for much less. Even President Nixon’s impeachment didn’t center on such serious offenses.

What is clear is that President Obama’s chief concern is not the security of the American people.

Moreover, America has never verified Russia’s compliance with previous arms reduction agreements. In fact, Russians have consistently refused access to facilities slated for inspection, leaving America in the dark. How safe is it for America to honor its obligations with no certainty of reciprocation on the other side? Ronald Reagan famously uttered the words, “Trust but verify.” America has been very trusting, but where Russia is concerned, verification has been impossible.

As it stands right now, Russian nuclear firepower could still reach Cold War levels. Available statistics are not adequate to determine the actual size of Russia’s arsenal. In the Cold War, it was not uncommon for Russia to field warheads of 50 megatons (MT). A single 1-MT warhead, if detonated in Detroit, would destroy any civilized life out to eleven miles, according to the U.S. Office of Technology. Imagine what a few 50-MT warheads would do to the West Coast, or the Eastern Seaboard. To get an idea of just how alarming it is that Russia may be packing a Cold War-sized punch, consider that at the height of the Cold War, the American arsenal alone was equivalent to 1,400,000 Hiroshimas. Now, imagine that Russia may have never really disarmed. The very thought should be spine-chilling.

The signs are everywhere. While America is talking disarmament, Russia is developing ever more deadly nuclear weapons, and all in public view. What are we doing? Are we completely insane, or just suicidal? It cannot escape President Obama, with access to intricate defense data and top-notch advisors, that his proposed reductions will leave America helpless, the servant of those nations with bigger arsenals. Why, then, would he, with full knowledge of this reality, choose to weaken America so devastatingly? This question answers itself.

America is a superpower whether President Obama likes it or not, but those days will come to an end if President Obama is allowed to sabotage America’s means of defense. Let’s stop pretending Obama is our friend.

HT: American Thinker

The Obama administration is poised to ban offshore oil drilling on the outer continental shelf until 2012 or beyond. Meanwhile, Russia is making a bold strategic leap to begin drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. While the United States attempts to shift gears to alternative fuels to battle the purported evils of carbon emissions, Russia will erect oil derricks off the Cuban coast.

Offshore oil production makes economic sense. It creates jobs and helps fulfill America’s vast energy needs. It contributes to the gross domestic product and does not increase the trade deficit. Higher oil supply helps keep a lid on rising prices, and greater American production gives the United States more influence over the global market.

Drilling is also wildly popular with the public. A Pew Research Center poll from February showed 63 percent support for offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Americans understand the fundamental points: The oil is there, and we need it. If we don’t drill it out, we have to buy it from other countries. Last year, the U.S. government even helped Brazil underwrite offshore drilling in the Tupi oil field near Rio de Janeiro. The current price of oil makes drilling economically feasible, so why not let the private sector go ahead and get our oil?

The Obama administration, however, views energy policy through green eyeshades. Every aspect of its approach to energy is subordinated to radical environmental concerns. This unprecedented lack of balance is placing offshore oil resources off-limits. The O Force would prefer the country shift its energy production to alternative sources, such as nuclear, solar and wind power. In theory, there’s nothing wrong with that, in the long run, assuming technology can catch up to demand. But we have not yet reached the green utopia, we won’t get there anytime soon, and America needs more oil now.

Russia more sensibly views energy primarily as a strategic resource. Energy is critical to Russia’s economy, as fuel and as a source of profit through export. Russia also has used energy as a coercive diplomatic tool, shutting off natural gas piped to Eastern Europe in the middle of winter to make a point about how dependent the countries are that do business with the Russians.

Now Russia is using oil exploration to establish a new presence in the Western Hemisphere. It recently concluded four contracts securing oil-exploration rights in Cuba’s economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. A Russian-Cuban joint partnership will exploit oil found in the deep waters of the Gulf.

Cuba has rights to the area in which drilling will be conducted under an agreement the Carter administration recognized. From Russia’s perspective, this is another way to gain leverage inside what traditionally has been America’s sphere of influence. It may not be as dramatic as the Soviet Union attempting to use Cuba as a missile platform, but in the energy wars, the message is the same. Russia is projecting power into the Western Hemisphere while the United States retreats. The world will not tolerate a superpower that acts like a sidekick much longer.

HT: Washington Times

Obama's unilateral disarmament policies endangering our safety.

American Thinker | by Rick Moran | Mar. 1, 2010

They won’t call what they’re doing disarmament, of course. We will still have a couple of thousand nuclear weapons once Obama is through cutting them.

But what the Obama administration is discussing internally with regard to our nuclear policy will have the same effect; a dramatic, radical departure from past US policy that gives our potential nuclear foes everything they can dream of without Obama asking one, single thing in return.

I would love to play poker with this guy. He likes to surrender advantages without getting anything in return. Note our Iran policy where we have guaranteed the sovereignty of the Iranian regime by giving a virtual “no attack” pledge. And his constant moving of nuclear goalposts, as the “deadline” for Iranian compliance with UN resolution somehow keeps slipping. What, praytell, have the mullahs vouchsafed us in return?

Time after time during his first year in office, President Obama gave our foes little signals by unilaterally giving them what they want without asking for anything in return. It is madness, of course.

Anyone with any awareness of how our opponents have been acting the last decade or so would have been able to tell the president (and the idiots at the State Department who never met a unilateral gesture they didn’t approve of) that such a policy was doomed to make the US look weak in the eyes of our adversaries. Ahmadinejad mocks us. Chavez laughs at us. Putin is agog at Obama’s naivete. Yes, but it sure makes Obama’s far left base feel real good about themselves, doesn’t it?

Now the administration is talking about scrapping “thousands” of our warheads in an effort to convince our adversaries that we are serious about building a world with no nukes. David Sanger and Thom Shanker in the New York Times flesh out Obama’s deep thoughts on how to make the world a more dangerous place:

Mr. Obama’s new strategy – which would annul or reverse several initiatives by the Bush administration – will be contained in a nearly completed document called the Nuclear Posture Review, which all presidents undertake. Aides said Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates will present Mr. Obama with several options on Monday to address unresolved issues in that document, which have been hotly debated within the administration.First among them is the question of whether, and how, to narrow the circumstances under which the United States will declare it might use nuclear weapons – a key element of nuclear deterrence since the cold war.

Thankfully, Obama isn’t stupid enough to forswear the first use of nuclear weapons. Since the start of the nuclear age we have never done so and for several good reasons, not the least of which is that a mass casualty attack using non nuclear WMD might necessitate a nuclear response. Or will it?

Mr. Obama’s decisions on nuclear weapons come as conflicting pressures in his defense policy are intensifying. His critics argue that his embrace of a new movement to eliminate nuclear weapons around the world is naïve and dangerous, especially at a time of new nuclear threats, particularly from Iran and North Korea. But many of his supporters fear that over the past year he has moved too cautiously, and worry that he will retain the existing American policy by leaving open the possibility that the United States might use nuclear weapons in response to a biological or chemical attack, perhaps against a nation that does not possess a nuclear arsenal.

That is one of the central debates Mr. Obama must resolve in the next few weeks, his aides say.

Despite the fact that we are currently negotiating a replacement to the START II treaty with the Russians where we will pledge to reduce our nuclear arsenal by about 1500 warheads, the administration may seek to further reductions without any corresponding reductions from Russia or China. Those reductions would be in our tactical nuclear stockpile, guaranteeing that any nuclear crisis would automatically escalate to the use of ICBM’s:

As President Obama begins making final decisions on a broad new nuclear strategy for the United States, senior aides say he will permanently reduce America’s arsenal by thousands of weapons.

No new designs for nuclear weapons. A changed policy that may include a declaration that we would not respond with nukes if attacked by chemical or biological weapons. A unilateral cut of thousands of weapons. A new nuclear posture in Europe where we would remove our tactical weapons. A pie in the sky reliance on the good intentions of nations like Russia, China, and even North Korea and Iran. A naive belief that if we don’t build any new nukes, other nations will follow.

And a plan to substitute nuclear warheads for conventional explosives on ICBM’s:

Mr. Obama’s reliance on new, non-nuclear Prompt Global Strike weapons is bound to be contentious. As described by advocates within the Pentagon and in the military, the new weapons could achieve the effects of a nuclear weapon, without turning a conventional war into a nuclear one. As a result, the administration believes it could create a new form of deterrence – a way to contain countries that possess or hope to develop nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, without resorting to a nuclear option.

Let’s call this policy “The Non-deterrence, Deterrence” policy. I’ll bet the mullahs and NoKo’s are quaking in their jackboots.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised given the president’s statements as a candidate. In fact, we have a lot more of the same to look forward to with our conventional forces. The president has made it absolutely clear he thinks our military is too big and too effective – it’s just not fair that we have such a qualitative and quantitative lead relative to our adversaries and potential opponents.

As with everything else in his presidency, Obama is seeking to level the playing field and redistribute wealth. In this case, it is our sizable advantage in nuclear weaponry.

The different world our president envisions with this new policy will be more dangerous because it will be more uncertain. It makes it more likely that nuclear war will break out, not less. Meanwhile, our naive president continues with developing a policy the consequences of which cannot even be guessed.

HT: American Thinker