The nauseating comments by the leftists overlords of NPR about the Tea Party show how much these leftists hate and fear us. The indecent firing of Juan Williams was more evidence of the willingness of the intolerant left to fight without scruple against anyone who does not slavishly follow the party line — even those who still sincerely believe some bits and pieces of leftist mythology. The scurrying Democrats from the Wisconsin Senate show contempt not just for Republicans, but also for the voters who elect them. The thuggish behavior of Wisconsin schoolteachers shows that we cannot assume that these hirelings are honorable.

Do we really need more evidence of just how bad the left is? The blatant appeal to hatred, the naked pursuit of power, the wholly unsavory smell of deceit — the absence of the tiniest fig leaf of respectability — are apparent in everything the left does these days. Its bullying can be met only two ways: with surrender or with resistance. The wise course, resistance, cannot be done halfheartedly. All those who stand in the way of leftists face the same gallows in the end. President Reagan, noting the foolishness of timidity in fighting the left, put it well: “What are they going to do? Hang us from a higher tree?” (Recall that this same great American summed up his Cold War strategy thus: “How about this? We win. They lose.”)

This is the long heritage of defiant courage in the face of oppression. It is William Wallace at Stirling Bridge reminding Scots that they will die but that they need not die as slaves. It is Patrick Henry in the House of Burgesses telling his fellow Virginians that “[t]he gentlemen cry ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace: the war has already begun.” It is Churchill’s pugnacity after France fell, telling Hitler and Britons that “[w]e shall never surrender.” It is Solzhenitsyn, alone and threatened in the maw of Marxist tyranny, using his pen to embolden the world against the Evil Empire.

Those who lie, those who lust for power, and those with whom no honorable compromise is possible — these enemies of liberty — must simply be defeated. What does Rush tell his listeners every day? “My goal is to defeat liberalism.” His defiance is like General Jackson in the Civil War at Manassas: fleeing Confederates stopped, looked, and turned around. One of them, famously, told us why: “There stands Jackson like a stone wall.” Courage in war — and we are very much in a war — is contagious (and so is cowardice). There is no substitute for victory in our war. Those lions who stand up in the face of wickedness inspire others, while those mice who try to do business with the hopelessly corrupt fall within the malign spell of the left or end up, as Reagan reminds us, hung from a lower branch.

What does this mean in practice today? Republicans should push “right to work” everywhere as hard as their political muscle will let them. Labor unions, as much a dinosaur as Marxism, are the enemy of the working man, the enemy of government economy, the enemy of jobs, and the mortal enemy of every Republican. Fight also that horror called “public education,” which is a slave to leftist dogma and a vast hole in every state budget: privatize the instruction of our future. Tackle entitlements not meekly with an eye to the latest poll data, but as if these interconnected Ponzi schemes — public employee pensions, Medicare, Social Security, and the rest — are vast frauds which will leave us all poor and afraid. The stench of corruption in ACORN, Planned Parenthood, and sibling monsters must be recorded, exposed, and pressed relentlessly.

Each apology for doing what is right is simple surrender. All vain efforts to peel off “moderate” Democrats blur those distinctions which we want to be crystal-clear. Every poll-driven statement by Republican leaders to capture the imaginary center shows that these Republicans are in fact not “leaders,” but dupes. If our ends are honorable and good, then sheepishness about pursuing those ends is not just immoral, but vastly unwise. We are fighting for our country, for all the good that it is and that it can be, and for all the heroes before us who gave us this land. Like them, we must be bold.

HT: American Thinker

With a bold political announcement, President Barack Obama has completed the trifecta — de facto coups which bring into his White House the powers and functions of the other two branches, as outlined in our Constitution.

That document assigns the legislative function to Congress, but the Executive Branch blithely and routinely co-opts that power by run-arounds and choosing to enforce or not enforce duly passed laws of the Legislature.

Notable examples in the scant couple of years The One has been in office include: refusal to enforce voting laws against intimidation at the polls in Chicago, efforts to use the regulatory functions of the EPA to circumvent the specific legislation of Congress to ban cap-and-trade, refusal to enforce immigration laws, and attempts by the FCC to regulate matters banned from its jurisdiction by law.

We need not even mention the undemocratic parliamentary tactics and outright bribery used by Obama and his allies to ram through the unpopular and clearly unconstitutional ObamaCare bill — without it even having been read by most Congress members.

On the judiciary side, we witness the executive ignoring a Federal Court ruling on ObamaCare’s unconstitutionality, the refusal — to the point where an order of compliance had to be issued from the bench — to refrain from imposing an illegal moratorium on oil drilling; and, now the clearest and most blatant power grab of all. Obama has arrogated to himself, in the matter of DOMA, the power to declare that law unconstitutional and order his Justice Department not to contest lawsuits challenging it.

In the meantime, while usurping and/or undercutting the legitimate powers and functions of the other two branches, in the three areas for which the Executive does have power and responsibility — faithfully executing the laws, conducting foreign policy, and commanding the armed forces — this megalomaniacal narcissist has proven a spectacular failure.

What have we allowed to happen to the American concept of separation of powers? Are we abandoning this unique and hallowed concept for a tinpot dictatorship dressed up in a fancy suit and fancy oratory? Where and how do we stop this train to ruination?

HT: American Thinker

As I pondered the direction our government had taken over the previous year, I looked at the definition of socialism by typing “define: socialism” into Google. The first definition presented was from Princeton’s wordnet and read as follows: “a political theory advocating state ownership of industry.” The definition feels woefully lacking.

Ownership denotes control, and the state is certainly getting into the business of controlling industry. Our government has exerted control over enterprise via legislative fiat more over the last year than at any other time since FDR’s power-grab during the Great Depression. From the thousands of pages of ObamaCare to the thousands of pages of the Dodd-Frank “financial reform” bill, government power is firmly entrenched in business, and it is expanding. The more regulations the state adds, the more control it exerts.

Can a business be considered a free enterprise when there are thousands of pages of rules that dictate its every move, from how much it can pay employees to how much profit it can make? Is a business free when the rule of law is not honored and the state can summarily declare that some contracts are valid and will be honored while others are and will not? Can stockholders or owners say that they run a company when the state makes such important decisions and keeps most of the profits?

Since the Gulf oil spill was voted the top story of 2010, let’s take a look at the petroleum industry. Several left-wing pundits opined that it was a lack of regulation that caused the disaster. That seems odd considering the amount of government red tape involved in the process of getting oil out of the ground and to market.

Big oil has long been the favorite whipping boy of grandstanding, self-righteous politicians. The petroleum industry can’t drill, refine, or sell without the government deeply involved in every aspect of the business. A petroleum company’s pain begins with the search and acquisition of raw crude oil. If a company wants to drill, it has to get permits from the government. This has become a painful process. After the recent Gulf oil spill, it has become longer and even more arduous. The Gulf of Mexico, one of the few places left to drill legally, has been essentially made off-limits via the permitting process. Where to drill isn’t dictated by science, economics, or even common sense. Drilling in the United States is dictated by the state.

If a company is lucky enough to get the oil out of the ground, it then runs into the next problem: refining. Thanks to lawsuits and over-regulation, the last new refinery built in the United States was built in Garyville, Louisiana, when Carter was president. At that time, the United States used 6,978,000 barrels of gasoline per day. By 2007 the U.S. was consuming 9,286,000 barrels per day. In that same period of time, gasoline has gone from a fairly standardized product used in all states to a very complex product that requires very precise reformulations to meet the ever-expanding set of government rules. This patchwork of state and federal regulation is so varied that some call the process of creating gasoline “creating boutique fuels.”

So while demand for refining capacity has continuously increased, our production capacity has barely been able to grow enough to meet demand. Most refineries are running at nearly 100 percent capacity around the clock. This is why small disruptions cause massive price swings.

Leftists continue to make spurious claims that neither regulation nor lawsuits have prevented the building of a single refinery. Such groups like to point to the Arizona Clean Fuels refinery that the EPA permitted in 2004 after years of work. Ironically, no shovel has moved a single piece of earth in the building of the refinery, which was supposed to be online in 2010. The legal and regulatory battle has brought us more than six years into the future without any danger of a new refinery being built.

Once a company has cleared all of the hurdles of getting the oil out of the ground and turning it into a product for market, the tax man comes. For every gallon of gasoline, the government collects between 30 to 50 cents in taxes (18 to the feds, on average 22 to the states, and, quite often, 2 to 5 cents to a local municipality). In 2007, Exxon made $40 billion in profit, but it paid $100 billion in taxes and royalties. In other words, government made 2.5 times more from Exxon’s oil production than Exxon and its shareholders did.

Who needs state ownership when the government can make 2.5 times more profit from an enterprise than the enterprise makes itself? Since the company is allowed to make a profit, it doesn’t fit the strict definition of socialism. Instead, we have a system of over-regulation that gives a large amount of control over and profit from a business to the state, while allowing the company to keep some share of profit for itself. I call this system regulationism. People who believe in over-regulation and state control of businesses are regulationists.

Regulationism often brings disastrous results. In some cases, monopolies are granted by the state; in others, competitors aren’t allowed to compete. The costs of air travel and phone service, for example, were once astronomical. Thankfully the Reagan revolution helped tear down the regulationism in place. If the regulations from the ’70s were still in place, we wouldn’t have cheap air travel, ubiquitous cell phones, or a host of other advances that a competitive marketplace offers.

The goals of regulationism and socialism are the same: control over a company or business. The end result of regulationism and socialism is also the same: a lifeless economy filled with uncompetitive businesses. November’s election wasn’t just a rejection of a political party or a fight over personal taxes; it was also the rejection of regulationism.

In the next election, President Obama should have two labels to avoid: socialist and regulationist. Being in either camp is equally poisonous in American politics.

HT: American Thinker

President Obama called the Democrats’ November 2 loss of sixty-one House seats a “shellacking.” Yet in a day-after press conference, Obama sported a self-absorbed manner, contrived reflection, and a basic misread of the American people. In a “60 Minutes” interview aired four days later, he denied that voters had repudiated his agenda. The president doesn’t understand why a center-right nation would reject a left-wing Obama. This man will not “move to the center.”

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. In early 2008, Senator Obama accused businesses of having cultures “rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed.” Only ten months shy of establishing a federal regime rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and greed, the senator also warned that America’s “real problem is … that the corporation you work for will ship [your job] overseas for nothing more than a profit.”

Obama’s implicit suggestion that companies should bleed dollars to keep people employed revealed his blindness to economic reality. The practice of demonizing capitalists and the free market has become an Obama favorite. So goes the “progressive” mentality. So goes Barack Obama.

Obama destroys. Wearing the cape of savior, he destroys the resolve of people seeking to be saved. Abusing the office of president, Obama destroys American prosperity. He genuinely believes that government creates wealth. But Obama’s policies and pontifications scare the hell out of the machine that creates all wealth: private enterprise.

The president makes a show of caring about private enterprise, about people. But he is in love with big government, with ideas. Almighty central planning is progressivism’s dearest idea. Barack Obama’s idea, too. Obama clings to the notion that government legislates progress. He cannot see that society progresses when doers do profitable things that improve people’s lives, an endeavor called “business.” Remove the profit motive, and action fades. Without action, no business. Without business, no progress. Yet Obama doesn’t get it. Our president is an ideologue.

Since 1900, in America as in Europe, progressive ideologues like Obama have dominated a ruling class that focuses government on one overarching pursuit: political patronage. Today, snowballing organizations like George Soros’s Open Society Institute and Tides Foundation, “green” advocacy groups; climate alarmists; social, economic, and environmental justice zealots; multiculturalism preachers; and victimhood-mongers of all kinds vie for government backing to push agendas.

In Bought and Paid For, Charlie Gasparino shows how the chummiest kowtowers to Obama’s favor, Wall Street “fat cats,” push agendas of personal profit. The president’s rhetoric and policies ooze contempt for the general idea of business, but business writ large across Lower Manhattan draws only pseudo-threats that camouflage friendly policies. The double standard subjects honest, traditional, small-business entrepreneurs to a baked-in disadvantage: omission from Obama’s corporatist gift list.

Corporatism does create prosperity, but mainly for businesses that play the game. Widespread prosperity arises when anyone with a legal business idea gets an unimpeded shot at trying out that idea in the marketplace without playing games. Entrepreneurs must be free to direct talent and money into products and services that people want.

Today’s business leaders instead navigate a maze of flagrant political patronage tailored to accommodate a chosen few. Among the few are the Wall Street fat cats, as well as “green” and “alternative energy” interests. EPA overregulation will, for instance, force consumers to buy green electricity at jacked-up prices and pay mark-ups on anything that requires electricity to produce — in other words, everything.

Barack Obama presides over this abuse while hyping the need for vision, the need to help fellow Americans. The opposite side of the presidential mouth vilifies visionary people whose business revenues do help Americans by providing jobs. Obama paints these traditional business people as coldhearted, bigoted, nature-hating Ebenezer Scrooges. What else could traditionalists be? Anyone opposing the visionary, compassionate, planet-saving Obama is obviously a Neanderthal.

The president locks out Neanderthals. The presidential network accommodates only enlightened beings who push, Kool-Aid drinkers who accept, and savvy partners who profit from fundamental transformation. It will be no surprise when Obama keeps the unenlightened Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, on the fringes of the network. Barack Obama will tolerate nothing resembling Republican accomplishments over the next two years.

Neither will the president mothball his anti-business ideology. The stunting economic effects will be insidious. Markets create maximum wealth when businesspeople move about freely, developing and ending relationships across various social networks. In those networks lie common interests, and in the interests, needs. When entrepreneurs decide to fulfill the needs, businesses are born. Entrepreneurs benefit. Networks benefit. Other entrepreneurs replicate the process. Society thrives. Prosperity grows.

Barack Obama abhors this natural order.

Obama the progressive views himself as a socioeconomic engineer. Although the free market’s health depends on government respecting citizens’ right to freely and randomly associate with each other, our control-obsessed president cannot stand for something so serendipitous derailing his brilliantly planned economy. Progressives know better. Progressives must dictate. The free market’s smooth functioning also depends on respect for the rule of law. But Obama displays staggering disregard for the law. The president has anointed dozens of policy-making “czars” accountable only to him. Halting America’s fundamental transformation now hinges on the GOP finding ways to stop vast amounts of czar-initiated backdoor regulation.

If Barack Obama cares about being reelected, he might try something new: admitting his faults. The president might reflect on how he contributed to two years of economic misery, caused the electoral slaughter of his political party, and lost the trust of Americans, who said, “No, no, no!” as he kept saying, “Yes we can!” He might try adopting the proposals of Capitol Hill conservatives and setting America’s businesses free. The private sector will produce an economic recovery for which ideologue Obama would take credit. The president’s drool-soaked media toadies would eagerly sell the claim.

But Obama is an ideologue — and a man addicted to demonizing his opponents. So the president will play ugly games with a recharged GOP. He will agree to extend the Bush tax cuts. But the left-winger will cling to left-wing dogma and choose ever sneakier routes that will burden American business. The ideologue and his czars and agency bosses will try to circumvent Congress and the Constitution to bring about state-controlled capitalism.

God give the Republicans the courage to rediscover integrity and sane economic principle. For the sake of Americans living today and Americans not yet born, may voters continue to awaken between now and November 2012 and finish the purge that was started in November 2010.

HT: American Thinker

It is Europe’s autumn of discontent. All across the continent, people are taking to the streets to protest the austerity measures of their governments. The governments have to cut for a simple reason: They are broke. They no longer have the money to sponsor the kind of padded lifestyles to which their citizens have grown accustomed. This in turn makes the citizens angry — so much so that they are willing to turn their countries upside-down in order to obtain benefits their governments simply cannot provide.

In France, where the deeply unpopular President Sarkozy is trying to raise the retirement age of 60, things have turned decidedly unpretty. Across the country, cars are getting burned, shop windows are getting smashed, garbage is left uncollected, roads are being blocked, and people are getting beaten up. Nearly one fourth of France’s twelve thousand-plus gasoline stations are suffering shortages. Even secondary schools are being blocked and disrupted.

Across the border in Belgium, a rail workers’ strike halted rail transport across the country. Only in the northern region of Flanders — which is the less socialistic part of Belgium — were some trains running intermittently last week. According to Agence France-Presse, “the strike triggered massive traffic jams on Belgian roads and also disrupted the services of the Eurostar train line which links London, Paris and Brussels.”

Late last month, a strike in Spain shut down much of the country’s industry and paralyzed transportation services. As many as 70 percent of Spain’s workforce walked off their jobs. “The strike has been an undoubted success,” gloated a union leader.

Greece now seems to be in a perpetual state of unrest and protest. Two weeks ago, protesters — mostly government workers — besieged and then occupied parts of the ancient Acropolis. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, rail workers and students marched on the Greek parliament. Even though it is bankrupt and dysfunctional, the Greek government still managed to rally the riot police to beat up on the state’s hapless wards.

The Frenchmen’s sense entitlement to Big Brother’s dough is truly staggering. It apparently makes itself felt early in life, as evidenced by Laura Tanniou, a 22-year-old student, who probably spoke for many in her generation when she said, “We may be only students now, but we still want to make the most of our retirement.” What she actually meant by the word “retirement” was state-provided retirement.

In the past, students used to dream about how they would become rich and make it big through their talents and efforts. But now, under the welfare state, they are fantasizing about how they will retire on generous government pensions. In light of the young lady’s statement, the expression “forward-looking young people” gains an entirely new meaning.

While the youth of France is dreaming about easy retirement, some of their mature compatriots think that work may pose a danger to health. Véro Du Cheyron, 51-year-old social worker, said this to a reporter: “They say that people are living longer so they have to work longer, but they don’t say anything about the health problems that come by doing that.”

This is a strange claim, especially when coming from France, where people are not known to overextend themselves during their working years. By law, they enjoy a 35-hour working week, which they tackle, for the most part, at a less-than-breakneck pace. Their blasé attitude toward work is not surprising, given that more than half of Frenchmen work either directly for government or in government-related jobs. Yet there are people in France who think that adding two more years of this to a person’s work-life could endanger their health.

What we see happening in France and across Europe are the devastating effects of the welfare state. We see a citizenry whose work ethic, morals, power of reason, and grasp on reality have been grievously damaged. They balk at hard work, yet they want to enjoy lives of plenty and ease. Their governments are bankrupt, but they still keep demanding benefits that are impossible to deliver. And while they refuse to engage in hard labor themselves, they see nothing wrong with living at someone else’s expense.

The welfare state — once the pride and glory of European democracies — has become a curse. This sad situation should have not come as a surprise. The outcome was predictable, given what we know about human nature and the workings of government. More than two hundred years ago, John Adams warned of welfarism’s pernicious effects:

Like a cancer; it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole of society.

Adams’ words describe the disposition of the contemporary western welfare state almost to a T. One could only perhaps add “widespread amentia” to Adam’s list of afflictions.

If they were clear-thinking, the Europeans would protest against the criminal waste and recklessness of their governments and demand that they shape up. They would call for the resignation and prosecution of those politicians responsible for their bankruptcy. They would insist that the fiscal house be put in order. But they never do that. On the contrary, they march and demand even more spending. Instead of demonstrating against those who brought on their fiscal ruin, they protest those who try to do something about it.

In one respect, America is still very different from Europe. It is the only Western country where people march against the bankrupting policies of their government. We have seen this in numerous Tea Party rallies across the land. It is encouraging to see this reaction, especially since such thinking is completely alien to most people in the rest of the developed world.

But even in America, welfarism has exerted its devastating effects. Even though many in this country are angry about our fiscal plight, they are unwilling to support the kind of measures necessary to bring about remedy. Anyone who looks at the budget and long-term spending trends will quickly realize that it is entitlements that account for the bulk of the federal fiscal burden. The much-talked-about national debt — large though it is — represents only a small portion of the government’s overall obligations. To avoid the fiscal train wreck that lies ahead, drastic cuts will have to be made in entitlement programs. But this is precisely what the vast majority of the American people — including those who are upset about our national bankruptcy — refuse to accept.

We saw a striking demonstration of this last week when Carly Fiorina, a California Senate candidate, appeared on “Fox News Sunday.” One of the themes of Fiorina’s campaign has been reinstating financial sanity in Washington, D.C. — so much so that she recently even issued a budget plan intended to bolster her fiscal hawk credentials. But when asked by the host to name a single entitlement benefit she would cut or reduce, she refused to answer. When pressed on the point, she accused her interlocutor of “asking a typical political question.”

Some would say that Fiorina’s evasiveness is indicative of a lack of political will to make the hard choices. But this is not the case. Fiorina’s attitude is, in fact, reflective of a lack of popular will. Had she said that she would cut entitlements, her chances of getting elected would have effectively dropped to zero.

Nor is Fiorina’s quandary peculiar to left-leaning California. As far as this writer is aware, no Tea Party candidate for federal office has publicly advocated deep cuts in entitlement programs. In fact, according to research by James Ostrowski, not one Tea Party-favored senatorial candidate is calling for significant reductions in even the over-bloated federal agencies. To say, as Fiorina did, that she plans to cut waste will simply not do. For one thing, the savings from what is officially termed waste would be too small to make any real difference. But the larger point is that most federal spending is a waste in the first place, not to mention the fact that it is also unconstitutional.

What the concerned Americans need to realize is that we cannot have it both ways: We cannot gripe about the size of the federal cake while munching on it all the while. Until we resolve this contradiction in our hearts and minds, we cannot be fiscally cured.

HT: American Thinker

That’s the personal catechism of Obama and his gang. Or, to put it more honestly, “Your property is theft. My property is untouchable.”

Gimme that Air Force One. Gimme that trillion-dollar slush fund. Gimme that vacation in Spain at taxpayer expense. It’s mine! The Clintons even took the White House silverware, remember?

Some people have a monstrous appetite for power and privilege, but they always claim to do what they do from compassion for the little people. Kim Jong-Il in North Korea is starving his people from love of the people. He’s got a Stalinist propaganda apparatus and real concentration camps to make sure that the people actually go along with that. North Korea has the only permanent diet plan in the world that actually works. Has anybody told Michelle?

But forget Stalinism. In the European Union, the power class are so locked in that they don’t bother with real elections anymore. The “elected” EU Parliament makes no real laws, and the real lawmakers are not elected. It’s a big socialist front, a bureaucratic coup d’état.

It was Newsweek magazine that recently proclaimed, “We Are All Socialists Now.” The readers didn’t seem to go for that, actually, and Newsweek has just been sold for $1.00.

Which kind of tells the story.

Newsweek elevated Evan Thomas to its top ranks. Mr. Thomas is the grandson of Norman Thomas, the longtime capo di capi of the Democratic Socialists of America. The acorn has not fallen far from the oak, either. Which means that the WaPoCo drove Newsweek into the ground by appointing a socialist to run it — on the assumption, I suppose, that Americans could be forced to love being robbed of the fruits of their labor. What Newsweek meant by We Are All Socialists Now was that Obama got elected, and we’re takin’ over.

Evan Thomas knew perfectly well who Obama was. But he forgot to tell his readers before the election. Then he celebrated with his headline We Are All Socialists Now! and his readers said, Whatever, baby!

Now Newsweek is a nonprofit, albeit involuntarily.

Which is fine, as long as Newsweek can get enough leftist billionaires to pay the high salaries its propaganda artists demand. Or maybe Obama will find a few billion bucks for those obedient JournoLists? You can bet they are trying to figure out how. They have to, because without their propaganda apparatus, they are gone.

Ever since that triumphalist Newsweek headline, the Democrats have been trying to boogie away from self-proclaimed socialism, but they can’t. Reality gets in the way.

Affirmative action is racial socialism. ObamaCare is the worst kind of medical socialism. One point three trillion additional dollars of deficit spending over one year is socialist socialism. If it smells like it, by golly, it probably is.

Newsweek is all but out of business, but Obama and his gang believe that ordinary people still shouldn’t be allowed to decide where their money goes. Which is why you pay for PBS, NPR, and the National Endowment for Offending All Religions Except Islam. It is America’s official leftist Ministry of Propaganda, something any self-respecting tyranny has had for the last six thousand years, ever since the imperial powers of Sumer, Egypt, and Beijing.

Egypt had its priesthood to propagandize for the Pharaohs and to all make the lowly slaves worship the State. The Left calls itself Progressive, but it’s just a throwback to ancient times. The Left is as Retro as Retro gets.

So the question of theft and property turns out to be — surprise, surprise! — a question of Us versus Them. Deep in his bones, Obama knows with Pharaoh-like certainty that it’s Us, the victim groups from Harvard Law, who deserve all the goodies they can extort; which is what the IRS does, after all.

Still, a lot of Americans think they own the fruits of their labor.

Property is theft.

Socialism is theft.

Who wins that one?

That’s the struggle today. The next few elections will decide. That means you, buster! Stay home come election time, and Obama wins. Forever.

HT: American Thinker

Socialism has led to extraordinary human suffering whenever and wherever it has been tried. There is no reason to think an experiment with socialism here in the United States would be any different. It is our unique system of government which allowed Americans to become a great, kind, magnanimous people.

[...]

I live in a ragged white and gray farmhouse that has stood two and a half centuries’ vigil over the farming tracts of southern Pennsylvania. Located 75 miles from Washington, District of Columbia, my wife and I (along with our four young children) made the two-hour drive to attend Saturday’s progressive “One Nation Working Together” rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

I was unsure what to expect when attending this rally, and we made no effort either to fit in or to stand out. Initially I had worried that we might be identified as outsiders to be mistreated, but this did not happen. As we expected, there were many people dressed in bizarre costumes or carrying signs which displayed obscenities and other unsavory proclamations, but these were in the minority. From our perspective, the crowd was orderly and had a generally pleasant demeanor. The rally area was not densely packed, and there were no lines for the port-a-johns.

We started out at the rally in a spot very near the Lincoln Memorial itself, on the north side of the reflecting pool. This would be on the right side of the pool, as observed from the Washington Monument in this photo. As the rally proceeded, we moved away from the Lincoln Memorial and towards the World War II Memorial, pictured at the bottom of the aforementioned photo. Interestingly, the information booths which were set up became increasingly radical (and there was far more garbage on the ground) as we approached the rear of the rally. By the time we got to the World War II Memorial, I was talking to actual socialists and communists who were displaying pictures of Marx and the Red Star. These were not the American communists of the 1960s — they were clean, well-mannered, and did not become unhinged when having their ideas challenged. This is not something to be relieved about.

I was stunned by the amount of obviously Bolshevik imagery that riddled the entire length of the One Nation rally. Such imagery has become a staple of the American Progressive movement — in particular the image of the raised fist of the worker. The worker’s fist was shamelessly displayed upon thousands of signs and t-shirts, and I am certain that the vast majority of those carrying it were unaware of its origins and meaning. The fact that thousands of decent Americans, regardless of their political stripe, can be convinced to march around, wittingly or unwittingly, with Bolshevik images, demanding the implementation of socialist programs, is deeply troubling. When recent onetime presidential candidate Al Sharpton takes the stage and declares, “This is what America looks like,” it is even worse.

If al-Qaeda can come to the understanding that sawing someone’s head off and putting the resulting video on YouTube creates a brand image problem, so too can the socialist movement realize Americans might take issue with unhygienic, flag-stomping Marxists yelling, “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home. Kill your parents.”

The socialist brand image problem has been mostly corrected, although progressives refuse to acknowledge that their agenda is one and the same with socialism. KFC may be the result of a name change, but it is still selling Kentucky Fried Chicken. The same is true of socialism — same product, different name, and bad for your health.

While it is deeply saddening to see the increasing polarization of America along ideological lines, it cannot be honestly argued that progressives represent the ideals of our Founding Fathers — namely due to progressive notions of positive rights (such as health care and education) which necessarily discard Natural Law. Based on his recent appointment of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court and (either deliberate or accidental) omission of the word “Creator” when citing the Declaration of Independence, it can be fairly surmised that President Obama believes that Natural Law as a philosophical construct impedes the ability of government to solve problems on the people’s behalf. If President Obama, like Elena Kagan, does not “have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution,” he and his progressive base must say so if they wish to be seen as truthful.

Based on the speeches given, along with the abundant signs and available literature, I would say there were four main themes at the One Nation rally — the right to a job with a living wage, the right to education, the right to health care, and (to a lesser extent) the right to housing. These ideas are thoroughly socialist and completely alien to the American Constitution.

HT: American Thinker – more…

Vladimir Lenin had a much simpler time of it. Following the October Revolution, he swiftly nationalized nearly all industry, commerce, and agriculture in the Soviet Union. Those who opposed the takeovers, such as those millions of small landowners known as the kulaks, were executed or sent to die in Siberia.

American leftists are far more civilized. Rather than send landowners and stockowners to Siberia, they simply raise federal and state taxes to combined marginal rates of 60% and subject the rest to estate taxes after the owner dies. If the owner fails to pay up, he is marched off to prison. Meanwhile, corporations are subject to another form of control: the tyranny of activists on government agencies that view the private sector as the means of social change.

The August 25 vote by the Security and Exchange Commission to allow large shareholders access to proxy nominations for board members is a perfect example. In effect, the new regulation encourages environmentalist and human rights groups, as well as institutional investors, labor unions, and hedge funds, to nominate their own representatives for corporate boards. If elected, many of these board members would promote activist agendas that conflict with the interests of the stockholders. Instead of voting to maximize profits, such representatives would support narrow ideological goals. How would it be possible for a representative of a coalition of Greenpeace and other environmentalist groups to serve on the board of Chevron or Massey Energy? Such a representative would probably not be aligned with shareholder interests.

Perhaps this is the intention of the SEC in passing the proxy ruling. After all, liberal Democrats have been trying for decades to seize the profits of the more successful American corporations. The Carter “windfall profits tax” was just one such attempt. The long-running Clinton-era lawsuit against Microsoft was another. In 2007, Hillary Clinton famously screeched that she’d “like to seize the profits of Exxon Mobil” and redistribute them to alternative energy companies. Now not even Google is safe.

Proxy reform is just one among scores of anti-business initiatives being carried out by unelected bureaucrats within government agencies. Thousands of other changes are buried in the fine print of the recently passed health care and financial regulation acts. By design, none of these policy changes have received an adequate public airing.

One example is an obscure rule appended to the financial regulation bill passed in July. With no discussion or public comment, Democrats slipped in a requirement that energy and mining companies disclose payments to foreign countries for oil or mineral rights. This requirement puts American companies at a disadvantage to others because it hampers their ability to bid competitively on foreign leases.

Most of the world’s large, undeveloped oil fields are controlled by the governments of developing countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. There is fierce competition between American oil companies and those of China, as well as those of Europe, India, and Latin America, for these prized lease rights. Why would Congress pass a law that puts our companies at a disadvantage when they negotiate for drilling rights? There is only one answer: the Democratic Congress does not really care about the success of American corporations. Or if it does care, it cares only about bringing them to heel.

It is not just energy companies that are the target of Washington’s activists. Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission won a consent decree forcing Intel to pay a billion dollars in fines and potentially hampering that company’s competitiveness in the global technology market. Like Exxon and Massey Energy, Intel is one of America’s most successful corporations. That may well be the reason it was targeted by the left.

The irony is that even as the Obama administration has unleashed activist regulators on American corporations, that same administration is grumbling that corporations are not doing enough to spur economic growth. It’s like cutting someone’s throat and complaining when they don’t speak up.

The truth is that the current administration is not really interested in creating jobs, nor is it interested in promoting economic growth or the corporate profits upon which growth depends. The Obama administration is dominated by leftist ideologues whose obsession is regulation of the private sector. The ideologues who now manage the EPA, FTC, FCC, and SEC are guided by a single purpose: to establish state control of the entire U.S. economy, and to do so at whatever cost to the American people. In order to achieve this goal, they are willing to accept a 17% real unemployment rate as the “new normal.” They are willing to see foreign competitors, China in particular, overtake American leadership in the technology, health care, and energy sectors. They are not just willing to accept the decline of American power, but they are intent on bringing it about.

For those who fantasize about “one world” living in “harmony with nature,” the crippling of American business may seem like a good plan. In place of spacious suburban homes, they advocate densely packed urban dwellings. In place of cars and SUVs, they promote biking or walking. Instead of treating diseases with new drugs and surgical procedures, they endorse second-generation generics or just letting patients die. Instead of defending ourselves with modern weapons, they speak of negotiating with our enemies, as if North Korea or Iran has shown a genuine interest in negotiation. This, in essence, is the left’s vision of America in the 21st century.

The left cannot understand why the American people do not share their vision of national decline. Those who resist ObamaCare are labeled “obstructionists.” Those who resist Islamification are called “racists.” Those who question global warming are called “deniers,” as if opposition to the fiction of man-made global warming were somehow akin to denial of the historical fact of the Holocaust. The left believes that its own agenda — the eradication of private property and the destruction of America as a global superpower — is a moral crusade of overwhelming importance. This is why individuals such as Nancy Pelosi become practically apoplectic (“Are you serious?” she responded, when asked about the constitutionality of ObamaCare) when their behavior is questioned.

For conservatives, there is only one rational response to the current assault on American liberty. That is to remove all leftists from office and to guard against their return. Every American needs to understand that the left is not simply attempting to “reform” our institutions: it is swiftly transforming America from a capitalist democracy into a Marxist totalitarian state. Only a complete repudiation at the polls will stop them.

Dr. Jeffrey Folks taught for thirty years in universities in Europe, America, and Japan. He has published many books and articles on American culture and politics.

HT: American Thinker

An insufficient number of Republican leaders provide a message that appeals to a broad enough public. The Tea Party defines itself as in favor of more limited government, but the progressives are slandering it as a racist movement. Given the media’s acquiescence in the budding collective tyranny of the progressives’ New Regime, the opposition message is distorted, muffled, and too often unclear. The challenge for those of us who want America to continue as a nation of free people, with a free and robust economy, is to get across to people in the progressives’ targeted constituencies the idea that they are being and will continue to be exploited.

The self-styled progressive Democrats are oblivious to a multitude of personal liberties protected by the Constitution. Their core tactic is to say they seek only the ideal of “equality.” They then twist the ideal to put themselves in the position to define “equality,” regardless of the Constitution and the individual rights and immunities from government it preserves. Behind that fiendishly misleading banner, they would impose on us stifling uniformity and strict government control that will degrade all of our futures, whether we are rich or poor. They are willing to ditch the liberty of all for their government enforced visions. In so doing, they have warped the American and classic “liberal” concept of equality — namely, individual equality before the law and equality of opportunity.

The abuse of personal liberties that the New Regime is initiating threatens all Americans, of all colors, creeds, sexual orientations, and religious persuasions. Importantly, however, part of the power base of the New Regime comes from people who have been induced to see their personal liberties as threatened by Republicans, Tea Partiers, other self-styled conservatives, and capitalism. These are people caught up and motivated to vote as a group based on gay rights and other sexual preference issues, racial and ethnic discrimination issues, age, poverty, and abortion-related issues.

Most people in the special constituency groups miss the cynicism behind this elitist effort to acquire power in exchange for favors. To African-Americans, the false message is that there are jobs ahead in the new, government-directed economic future. To Latinos, it is to stick with us while we wink at immigration and cut you in on the swag. To the elderly, overtly, it is that we care about you, while covertly it is that we control your health care and income, so you had better cooperate. And to the poor and members of unions, it is the falsehood that government creates jobs. Each of these pitches is based on economic fantasies and denigration of traditional values of hard work, education, self-reliance, and honesty. In reality, they are making the individuals within each of these constituencies into modern-day serfs. Republicans and Tea Party candidates need to show members of these targeted groups that they will lose their individual self-respect and future of true personal freedom as Americans if they continue to follow the progressive design. They will only gain a new master: Big Government.

Republicans and Tea Partiers must clearly avow that we owe each other respect for our individuality and freedom to choose. Our liberty under law depends on this. Ronald Reagan himself, in explaining the core meaning of America to the Chinese in 1984, said,

We believe in the dignity of each man, woman, and child. Our entire system is founded on an appreciation of the special genius of each individual, and of his special right to make his own decisions and lead his own life[i].

Many Americans within the targeted constituencies understand the need for fiscal responsibility, strong defense, respect for the rule of law, and a lean and limited federal government. Even though they may not be “traditional” in their lifestyle, they can vote Republican or Tea Party without fear of losing their dignity or right to choose if their liberty is respected. Similarly, even poor people will vote for an economy that can grow and provide opportunity or competitive health costs instead of one that is bound to fail.

On race relations, Republicans — and their party principles that declared slavery unacceptable — should have the upper hand. Until handouts became the tools of Democrat vote-getting, African-Americans voted mostly Republican. To this day, Republicans speak to each other — black, brown, yellow, and white alike — in terms of government providing fair opportunity to succeed to individuals. We need to do a more vigorous job of that, denouncing the plantation politics of the big-city Democrats that have put poor blacks into dependency and fear for their daily safety on the city streets. Plainer and more outspoken rededication of the Republicans to civil rights will start attracting thoughtful black voters. Add to that a hard-nosed effort to end the tolerance of gangs and violence in the inner cities. Demand freedom for all to have and choose a quality education and couple with it creative efforts to reduce the “underclass” and unemployed by serious job training, and a surprising number of people of color will start voting Republican to end their dependency status.

A broader point is that in some respects, civil rights regarding race have a common foundation with privacy and property rights: the right to be respected and “pursue happiness” as an individual. While one’s race is not a choice, outlawing race discrimination is not sufficient to prevent government from indiscriminate interference in everyone’s life. It is essential to a free people that individual choices in a variety of subjects be kept free and given meaningful room.

We cannot risk imposing our moral choices on someone through government without risking the imposition of choices by a tyrannical majority upon ourselves. It is dangerous for a conservative, a liberal, or any other American not to insist on a zone of private liberty from the United States or other government.

Too many conservatives have unwittingly developed a serious blind spot regarding the importance of personal liberty in the Constitution. Personal space and freedom is essential to liberty in modern society. The Founders believed this fervently. A zone of freedom from government intrusion enables each of us to enjoy our individual versions of the pursuit of happiness. Whether they involve use and sale of property, rights of contract, decisions of lifestyle, sex partner and residence, choice of friends and physicians, pursuit of learning or career, or many other choices we make, our personal right to decide for ourselves must be protected in order for our nation to remain the great free land that it is.

Indifference to these unspecified but preserved rights by the progressives should alarm every thinking American. These “natural rights” are fundamental. James Wilson, one of the key Founders, said that “there are very few who understand the whole of these rights … nor can you find … complete enumeration[ii]. In 1798, a Supreme Court Justice wrote that “there are certain vital principles in our free republican governments which will determine and overrule an apparent and flagrant abuse of legislative power … to take away that security of personal liberty, for the protection whereof the government was established” (Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. 386, 388). Ensuring the preservation of these rights by the Bill of Rights was a condition to the adoption of the Constitution by most of the thirteen original states.

In a nation of over 300 million, I would much rather let some many thousands make a poor moral choice themselves than cede to government the role of imposing its will on intimate questions. If we have unalienable rights, they include the right to make mistakes, provided public health and safety are not threatened.

In short, Republican and Tea Party candidates need to retune their message so that individual rights and freedoms are as prominent and important to preserve as market freedom and property rights. By doing that, they will recover an important part of their heritage. They will also get through to more thinking Democrats and independents among the special constituencies the progressive ruling class rewards and manipulates. After making their dedication to an individual’s zone of freedom clear, they can then more effectively ask questions like: Do you really trust the government to look after you? Is dependency the kind of future you seek for your children? Don’t you want to exercise your personal freedom in a safe community and a successful economy?

HT: American Thinker

People are asking, “Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?”

Pruning the power of government begins with the imperial presidency.

Too many overreaching laws give the president too much discretion to make too many open-ended rules controlling too many aspects of our lives. There’s no end to the harm an out-of-control president can do.

Bill Clinton lowered the culture, moral tone and strength of the nation — and left America vulnerable to attack. When it came, George W. Bush stood up for America, albeit sometimes clumsily.

Barack Obama, however, has pulled off the ultimate switcheroo: He’s diminishing America from within — so far, successfully.

He may soon bankrupt us and replace our big merit-based capitalist economy with a small government-directed one of his own design.

He is undermining our constitutional traditions: The rule of law and our Anglo-Saxon concepts of private property hang in the balance. Obama may be the most “consequential” president ever.

The Wall Street Journal’s steadfast Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote that Barack Obama is “an alien in the White House.”

His bullying and offenses against the economy and job creation are so outrageous that CEOs in the Business Roundtable finally mustered the courage to call him “anti-business.” Veteran Democrat Sen. Max Baucus blurted out that Obama is engineering the biggest government-forced “redistribution of income” in history.

Fear and uncertainty stalk the land. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says America’s financial future is “unusually uncertain.”

A Wall Street “fear gauge” based on predicted market volatility is flashing long-term panic. New data on the federal budget confirm that record-setting deficits in the $1.4 trillion range are now endemic.

Obama is building an imperium of public debt and crushing taxes, contrary to George Washington’s wise farewell admonition: “cherish public credit … use it as sparingly as possible … avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt … bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue, that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not … inconvenient and unpleasant … .”

Opinion polls suggest that in the November mid-term elections, voters will replace the present Democratic majority in Congress with opposition Republicans — but that will not necessarily stop Obama.

A President Obama intent on achieving his transformative goals despite the disagreement of the American people has powerful weapons within reach. In one hand, he will have a veto pen to stop a new Republican Congress from repealing ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank takeover of banks.

In the other, he will have a fistful of executive orders, regulations and Obama-made fiats that have the force of law.

Under ObamaCare, he can issue new rules and regulations so insidiously powerful in their effect that higher-priced, lower-quality and rationed health care will quickly become ingrained, leaving a permanent stain.

Under Dodd-Frank, he and his agents will control all credit and financial transactions, rewarding friends and punishing opponents, discriminating on the basis of race, gender and political affiliation. Credit and liquidity may be choked by bureaucracy and politics — and the economy will suffer.

He and the EPA may try to impose by “regulatory” fiats many parts of the cap-and-trade and other climate legislation that failed in the Congress.

And by executive orders and the in terrorem effect of an industrywide “boot on the neck” policy, he can continue to diminish energy production in the United States.

By the trick of letting current-law tax rates “expire,” he can impose a $3.5 trillion 10-year tax increase that damages job-creating capital investment in an economy struggling to recover. And by failing to enforce the law and leaving America’s borders open, he can continue to repopulate America with unfortunate illegals whose skill and education levels are low and whose political attitudes are often not congenial to American-style democracy.

A wounded rampaging president can do much damage — and, like Caesar, the evil he does will live long after he leaves office, whenever that may be.

The overgrown, un-pruned power of the presidency to reward, punish and intimidate may now be so overwhelming that his re-election in 2012 is already assured — Chicago-style.

HT: IBD

The first battlefront: immigration. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats rejected a GOP amendment banning the use of federal funds to participate in any litigation against the new Arizona immigration enforcement law.

“Our federal government should be doing its job to secure our borders rather than trying to bully and intimidate the people of Arizona,” argued Republican amendment sponsor Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. “We should not be suing and really hassling the people of Arizona for doing what we should be doing here, and that’s protecting the citizenry.”

All but five Senate Democrats (Indiana’s Evan Bayh took a pass and didn’t vote) sided with the anti-Arizona Obama administration – and against not only a majority of Arizonans, but a majority of Americans who support the state’s effort to restore order on the chaotic southern border and protect American workers facing double-digit unemployment.

Several House Democrats have actively lobbied to boycott Arizona and crush its economy – most notably, southern Arizona’s own Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva, who urged civic, religious and political groups to take their convention dollars elsewhere.

“Do not do business with this state,” Grijalva told open-borders zealots bent on punishing law-abiding citizens to “send a message.”

For its part, the Obama Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has targeted Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio for more than a year over his strict enforcement policies against illegal alien criminals. The hell-bent Civil Rights Division is helmed by veteran illegal immigration advocate Thomas Perez, who has lobbied for driver’s licenses, in-state tuition discounts and blanket amnesty for millions of border-jumpers, visa overstayers and deportation fugitives.

Arizona’s neighbor to the north, Utah, is under fire by a different set of left-wing bureaucrats. When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar isn’t busy destroying jobs through his radical offshore drilling moratorium, he’s been blocking onshore development and wreaking havoc on the Beehive State’s energy industry.

Last week, Salazar defended pulling 77 oil lease contracts granted in the final days of the George W. Bush administration. Salazar’s inspector general concluded that there was no evidence of any rush to auction off the parcels – as baselessly claimed by environmental groups and Salazar himself. In fact, the leases were granted only after seven full years of rigorous study and debate.

That makes two Salazar job-destroying bans based off bogus eco-claims. (Remember: Loathsome cowboy Salazar was behind the shameless doctoring of a scientific report to bolster the Obama administration’s devastating offshore drilling ban.)

Uintah County, Utah, officials have sued the Interior Department over the rescinded leases, which have cost the state untold millions of dollars and countless jobs in a tough economy. Not to mention the court expenses, legal morass and regulatory uncertainty.

Other Western states are reeling as a result of the Democrats’ eco-radicalism – and the rest of America is paying a high price, too. Salazar was a leading opponent of oil shale development when he served in the U.S. Senate for Colorado.

There are an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone – enough to potentially free us from Saudi oil dependence.

Yet as Obama’s interior secretary, Salazar has wielded his power to halt plans to lease oil shale rights in the West. In addition, Obama’s Bureau of Land Management is dragging its feet on more than $100 million in unissued oil and gas leases in Wyoming.

These resources remain untapped thanks to militant greenies who pay lip service to energy independence while blocking all practical means of achieving it.

At a partisan rally on Monday to crusade for endless unemployment insurance benefits extensions, President Obama lectured Republicans to “stop holding workers hostage to politics.” Speak for yourself, pal.

HT: CNS News

Aliza Davidovit

6/30/2010 – Aliza Davidovit –

The other day I incidentally drove by the Apple store in Manhattan and was really amused and disheartened by the long line of thousands of people waiting to pick up their iphone 4Gs. As this country is falling apart, it becomes evermore clear to me why: We are still living in La La Land. I questioned when the last time was New Yorkers formed such a queue to protest a government wrongdoing and lined up outside their congressman’s door.

Undoubtedly, these hoarders of high-tech phones have seen a news flash or two and are aware that times are no good and are spiraling quickly downward. So why don’t they get it? Why don’t they realize that they are standing in the “wrong” line? And it dawned on me: It’s because we are a society and a generation reared on Hollywood endings. Things will be OK; things will work out; America will bounce back.

But, my dear readers, as the president and his administration proceed to fundamentally transform America as he promised, the floor under our feet, the one we were hoping to bounce back from, is being shattered. There is a dark deep abyss beneath, an unknown that those not blinded by the happy-ending syndrome believe is a socialist agenda at best, one that will destroy the United States of America.

Please tell me, if the president doesn’t believe in exceptionalism for our country, which succeeded in being great because of its freedoms and unparalleled system, why does he believe in personal exceptionalism? Why did he rise to the top and become a president and not remain a community organizer? Is he the only one allowed to reach for the top, to be exceptional, while the rest of us peons have to wait until he and his mammoth and ever-growing government doles us out what they think we deserve?

We all know the numbers. The stimulus and bailouts, punishing the rich and businesses with higher tax burdens, the universal health-care bill and cap-and-trade are all means of overtaxing the system and redistributing the wealth. In addition to the unsustainable stress on our economy, let’s not pretend redistribution is governmental philanthropy – it is plain-outgovernment theft. If it is my body that’s in the gym every morning at 6 a.m., is it fair that you should be accruing the muscles that I’m working so hard for?

The second step after controlling the purse strings is controlling the masses, which then leaves little surprise that this administration is so accommodating to illegal immigrants, even criminal ones. There is power in numbers.

Sometimes I wonder if Obama is trying so hard to implode the system that maybe, just maybe, there will never be a 2012 election. Maybe a revolution is already in place, but it is starting from the top down instead of by the people.

Yes, this country, the leader of the free world, has gone through deep crises in the past, but the one factor that gave us optimism and hope was the integrity of the structure, i.e., our Constitution and the certainty that this was a democratic and capitalistic country that was respected by its allies and respected them in turn. Even our fallings and failings were surefooted because America would always be America. Don’t count on that anymore.

My friends, as you show off your new iPhones with more applications than you could ever use in a lifetime, I urge you to tune into its built-in alarm clock and WAKE UP. The challenges we now face are unprecedented. I cannot help but think of the biblical story of Pinchas, where one sole man saw the threat to his nation and alone took action to save the day. Of course, I’m not calling for violence, but I am calling for action. Are you doing all you can do, my fellow Americans, to save this great nation? Which line are you standing in? Are you a lawyer? A writer? A speaker? A singer?

Whatever you are, take the talent God gave you and use it to fight to save this great country right now before it’s too late and they lay the yellow tape around the map of America to demarcate the greatest crime scene and slaughtering of liberty the world has ever known.

HT: WND

A newly released video exposes the radical left’s malevolent strategy to overwhelm America’s system of government, undermine our Constitution, and destroy our free-market economy. The YouTube clip highlights the tactics known as the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” designed to hasten the collapse of capitalism and our democratic system via manufactured crisis and impossible demands on our social structures. These diabolical schemes are already being deployed by Obama and the Democrats to foster fear, fuel instability, and spread chaos and misery across the nation.

The video begins with an ominous warning that most conservatives already know and understand, but many still don’t seem to get or want to believe:

“President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recover, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite in fact.”

It then proceeds to highlight “The Cloward-Piven Strategy” detailed by James Simpson back in September of 2008 in the article “Barrack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis“:

The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

The flood of different crisis and large-scale oppressive initiatives that keep on coming from Washington are yet more signs of the perverse tactics the left uses to overwhelm the American public. They are not wasting any opportunity to shove their Marxist ideology forward regardless of consequences.

The President and this Congress simply do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emanuel said, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” (2:42 in video)

Furthermore, the constant barrage of new legislation, regulations, taxes, and executive orders are not haphazard. “They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power” and continually push America into deeper crisis and further chaos. They also serve a malicious purpose: to distract and demoralize the middle class and beat them down into submission.

In addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Barney Frank said, “the middle class will be too distracted to fight.” (2:55 in video)

The prophetic expose by James Simpson back in September 2008 turned out to be accurate. He understood what and who were are dealing with: “They are all radicals, firmly bedded in the anti-American, communist, socialist, radical leftist mesh.”

Let’s just hope that James’ call and prayer can still be heeded by enough men and women of sufficient character, integrity, and courage to challenge the insanity in Washington. We need them now more than ever to stop these malevolent radicals and their suicidal agendas:

God grant those few responsible yet remaining in Washington, DC the strength to prevent this massive fraud from occurring. God grant them the courage to stand up in the face of this Marxist tidal wave.

We are in a constitutional crisis on many levels but today the First Amendment right to free speech has been trampled by Democrats who are hanging on with their fingernails.

The Democrat-controlled House has pulled another fast one in a blatant, desperate attempt to shut down the voices of opposition prior to this November’s elections.

The House has just voted to criminalize speech by grassroots groups. There are criminal provisions in this bill which will can put people in jail for opposing points of view. Let me repeat, there are criminal provisions in this bill which include JAIL for expressing political views and not following the byzantine reporting rules which noone will be able to understand.

The so-called “Disclose Act” is about anything BUT disclosure; it is about placing impossible, confusing and punishing controls on grassroots organizations such as the Tea Party movement, and other conservative groups. The Supreme Court ruled last year on a case which allowed corporations the same right to take out ads for political candidates as individuals and as you recall, President Obama “called out” Supreme Court justices on their decision to their faces during his state of the union speech this year. He is a Chicago thugga who is attempting to break down every legal and society safety net we have.

You can read below that the Disclose Act was passed by only one vote…with the help of two God-forsaken House Republicans, Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware ( who voted for cap and trade and TARP) , and the Louisiana weenie Rep. “Anh” Cao (R-La.), who also was a critical swing vote on health care reform in December.

If there is any doubt in your mind that this bill was passed to keep Republicans from getting elected this fall….listen to this video of Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) who blatantly said from the House floor today exactly what the agenda is.

This bill now goes to the Senate and it must absolutely be stopped or there may be no chance to win back the Congress this fall. The mainstream media in this country are not going to be covering this story widely because it doesn’t affect them and they are in the bag for the Democrats. Thus, do NOT be lulled into thinking this is not a “big deal” because you aren’t hearing about it on the networks….you will NOT. This is happening quickly. There is literally a counter-revolution going on right now to cause chaos in the next few months, to scare these groups into silence for fear of being prosecuted. This could not be more serious. Call your senator to filibuster and stop this bill. Vote these House members out, God help us, if we have a chance.

LifeSiteNews.com Article
June 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With a political audacity that has become characteristic since the caustic health care debates, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted Thursday to approve a campaign finance disclosure bill that critics on both the left and the right say will disable grassroots political voices – including the nascent “Tea Party” movement that has been looking to sweep away liberal incumbents in November.

At approximately 4:30 p.m., the House voted 219-206 to approve H.R. 5175, the “Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act,” which the National Right to Life Committee, other pro-life, pro-family groups, and even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have condemned as a threat to free speech and free participation in the political process. (See how your representative voted here)

The Act would force grassroots organizations to release the names of donors and members of their organizations into a publicly searchable database maintained by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). Opponents of the bill say it would frustrate the ability of grassroots entities to communicate effectively with the public about public policy.

“This is a blatant attack on our organizations, members, and donors,” said Douglas Johnson, NRLC’s Legislative Director. “National Right to Life will do everything possible to keep this bill from coming out of the Senate.”

Johnson said that stopping the Senate from approving its version (S 3295) of the DISCLOSE Act is “a jump ball.”

“I think we have to take it very seriously. There are already 50 cosponsors of the bill in the Senate. But as you know, the Senate has different rules, and we will certainly do our best to persuade any Senator who will listen that this bill is unconstitutional, unprincipled, and nakedly partisan.”

Should the Senate approve the DISCLOSE Act, and should it be signed into law by President Barack Obama, the act would take effect in 30 days, even if the Federal Elections Commission has not yet crafted new guidelines – just in time for the mid-term elections in November.

During the one-hour debate on the bill, Rep. Dan Lungren expressed outrage that unlike every other campaign finance bill passed by the House, this bill has no provision for expedited judicial review. He said the lack of such a provision makes it clear the DISCLOSE Act is meant to influence the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections.

He also expressed frustration that so little time was given the House to debate a matter impacting Americans’ First Amendment rights.

“We have spent 40 hours in this Congress naming post offices. Can’t we spend a little time protecting the Constitution of the United States?” Lungren exclaimed.

“We’re talking about political speech: the essence of the First Amendment.”

Under the bill, all groups subject to the law’s requirements – including most 501(c)4, 501(c)5, 501(c)6, and 527 groups – would have to list all donors of $600 or more with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Groups must also post a hyperlink on their website to the FEC, where a list of the names of their donors can be accessed.

But the DISCLOSE Act exempts large 501(c)4 groups – like the 4 million strong NRA and 750,000 member Sierra Club – from having to report their donors if they have at least 500,000 members, over 10 years of existence, chapters in all 50 states, and receive no more than 15% of total contributions from corporations.

Unions also have significant exemptions. Most union dues are under $600 dollars, and so do not have to be reported. Union to union transfers of money also do not have to be disclosed.

In a letter to Congress, the ACLU noted the irony that a bill ostensibly dedicated to uprooting corruption in the political process would exempt entrenched “mainstream” political interests from its reporting requirements, while “smaller organizations and those just starting out would have to disclose their donors in order to engage in political speech.”

“Those groups not challenging the status quo would be protected; those challenging the status quo would be suppressed,” they concluded.

House members had virtually no time to read the final version of the bill approved yesterday behind closed doors by the House Rules Committee. Instead of waiting for Congressmen and their staff to analyze the final bill, the Democrat leadership forced through today’s vote today by invoking a “Martial Law Rule.”

The Martial Law Rule dispenses with a longstanding House rule (Rule XIII(6)(a)) intended to give U.S. Representatives and the public enough time to understand significant legislation. The rule requires that there be at least one day between a bill’s unveiling and the House floor vote, and can only be suspended if two-thirds of the House agrees – but the Martial Law Rule dispenses with that process entirely.

Critics on both the left and the right have denounced the tactic, saying it empowers a party’s leadership to act in an authoritarian manner and endangers democratic self-government by forcing members to vote blind on measures demanded by their leaders.

The bill requires that every time an organization runs a campaign ad, its CEO must appear in the ad and twice state his name and the organization’s name. The top five funders of the organization behind the ad – even if they had nothing to do with the ad’s funding – must also have their names listed in the ad.

In addition, the most “significant” donor to the organization must list his name, rank, and organization three times in the ad.

Critics of the bill say that the disclaimers effectively devour valuable airtime bought by these groups that would otherwise be used to inform voters about a candidate’s record.

“We’re getting a little silly here. We’re talking about making disclaimers that are going to take the entire time of a commercial,” stated Rep. Lungren during debate.

He also expressed grave concern that individuals – with names and addresses publicly available – would be subject to reprisals for making a political statement. He pointed to the situation in California, where supporters of Proposition 8 have been victims of reprisals by homosexualist activists.

“We are chilling speech already, and now we are getting into direct intimidation by requiring the residence of people living there,” he said.

Other affected entities under the bill will likely include vocal liberal and conservative groups that communicate through the internet. While traditional media organizations like newspapers and television stations are exempt from the bill, bloggers, the vanguard of the “new media,” are not.

How representatives voted – click here.

Contact information for the U.S. House of Representatives - click here.

Contact information for the U.S. Senate - click here.

HT: Uncoverage.net and LifeSiteNews.com

Thomas Sowell

6/21/2010 – Thomas Sowell –

When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.

Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler’s rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions. “Useful idiots” was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.

Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.

In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.

The president’s poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.

Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.

And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP’s oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.

But our government is supposed to be “a government of laws and not of men.”

If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.

But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without “due process of law.”

Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.

With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.

If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don’t believe in constitutional government.

And, without constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a “crisis” — which, as the president’s chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to “go to waste” as an opportunity to expand the government’s power.

That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt arbitrarily took the United States off the gold standard, he cited a law passed during the First World War to prevent trading with the country’s wartime enemies. But there was no war when FDR ended the gold standard’s restrictions on the printing of money.

At about the same time, during the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law “for the relief of the German people.”

That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people — indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others.

If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.

The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP’s money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed “czars” controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.

Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power — vs. the rule of law and the preservation of freedom — are the “useful idiots” of our time. But useful to whom?

HT: IBD