Merry Christmas from Harry Reid

Resign! Repeal! Renew!

By Alan Caruba

The salvation of America now depends on forcing President Barack Obama to resign, repealing the appalling healthcare bill that is now the law of the land, and renewing a full measure of financial prudence to the conduct of the nation’s public affairs and obligations.

The numbers are now irrefutable. The huge debt the United States faces, along with the collapse of Social Security (now paying out more than it takes in) and Medicare, will sink our ship of state unless reversed and quickly.

The deadly trio of Obama, Pelosi and Reid, along with the brain-dead Democrats in Congress threaten the very existence of the nation. I am concerned that waiting until the November elections will be to wait too long. I no longer believe their agenda to be merely partisan politics. I believe theirs is a deliberate effort to destroy the nation.

The practical actions that must be pursued as soon as possible include a legal challenge to the president’s place of birth, an effort he has reportedly fought with an expenditure exceeding a million dollars. A challenge must be made to the healthcare bill which legal scholars deem to be clearly unconstitutional.

The trio cited is preparing to pass a Cap-and-Trade act, a huge tax on all energy use, and an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. The result of this will be to create a surge of more illegals and an even greater burden on all public services and welfare programs.

Porter Stanford, publisher of an investment advisory, has issued a frightening analysis. “My concern is the U.S. already has more debt than it can afford, which puts it at an enormous risk of a debt and currency collapse.”

Discussing debt service, the amount of interest that must be paid on borrowed funds, Stanford warned that, “Right now, the federal government takes in roughly $1 trillion in income taxes and a much smaller amount of money in other fees, duties, etc. The government takes in another $1 trillion from Social Security and Medicare taxes, but it spends more currently on these programs than it takes in. So, as a result, this revenue can’t factor into our analysis of debt service.”

Noting that the official number regarding federal debt at the end of 2009 was $11.8 trillion, Stanford predicts that “By the end of Obama’s first presidency (2013), I believe the U.S. will owe roughly $17.8 trillion in federal debt, $2 trillion in GSE debt/guarantees, $500 billion in FDIC obligations, and $500 billion in FHA obligations. My only big assumption is $1.5 trillion in additional deficits each year, which is what the president’s budget also predicts.”

Just to meet the debt service, “That would equal $1 trillion in interest payments due, per year. That’s 100% of all income taxes paid in 2009.”

The vast majority of Americans are already well aware of the financial crisis that is being deliberately brought about at the direction of the president. The results of a USA Today/Gallup poll released on March 30 revealed that “Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government’s role in health care too far.”

Robert Samuelson, writing on March 29th in The Washington Post, noted that on March 15th Moody’s Investors Service, a bond rating agency, warned that “The exploding U.S. government debt could cause a downgrade of Treasury bonds.” Despite this, the House of Representatives passed the costly health care legislation a week later! “Obama and his allies sowed the seeds (of financial collapse) because they ignored conspicuous warnings.”

“Let’s be clear,” wrote Samuelson, “A ‘budget crisis’ is not some minor accounting exercise. It’s a wrenching political, social and economic upheaval.”

By whatever legal means possible, the president must be required to resign, the healthcare legislation must be repealed, steps must be taken to salvage Social Security and Medicare, and the nation’s debt crisis must be addressed before the U.S. is forced to default.

When that happens, there will be worldwide repercussions that portend a global financial armageddon.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

Reconciliation!

America Rising!

Saying No to Emperor Obama

By Alan Caruba

Yes, it’s true. The emperor has no clothes. Even in a State where you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a dozen Democrats, the voters said “No.”

“We don’t want your odious Medicare 'reform'. We don’t want to be forced to buy insurance. We don’t want a bill that exists only because every sweetheart deal and other form of bribery was used to get it to this point in the Senate.” And, ignored by the media, it was no to amnesty for illegal aliens as well, another issue of Scott Brown's race.

The significance of the Massachusetts victory for Scott Brown is the repudiation of Barack Hussein Obama, his policies, and his performance in office.

It wasn’t the first time the voters sent the White House this message. They told him to buzz off in Virginia and they told him to get lost in New Jersey. This is a tangible voter backlash against profligate spending and excessive taxation.

Come November, the voters, Democrats, Republicans, and independents will come together to clean house in Washington, D.C. It takes no great punditry to see that coming. If the midterms were held tomorrow, the result would be the same.

It is almost beyond comprehension how Obama could have engineered a failed presidency within the space of just one year. He got a lot of help from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as mendacious and imperious an individual to have ever held that office. He got a lot of help from Majority Leader Harry Reid, a scowling, malicious cockroach whom the voters of Nevada will remove in November.

Obama’s narcissism and arrogance will blind him to the message of the Massachusetts victory. He and his press secretary, Robert “Glib” Gibbs, will put out a statement that will dismiss the historic event as just an aberration, but the aberration is Obama!

So, stand up and take a bow, Massachusetts!

Home to the Pilgrims;
home to the Boston massacre when British troops fired on protesters in 1770;
home to the 1773 tea party to protest taxes; and
birthplace of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Sam Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Josiah Bartlett, Roger Sherman, and John Hancock, signers of the Declaration of Independence!

Those first Americans led the resistance to the greatest power of their day, Great Britain, and its king.

For all the years Obama taught the U.S. Constitution at the University of Chicago Law School, he either never really understood it or never believed it means what it says.

He never understood that real Americans will not be pushed around, cheated of their Constitutional birthright, or be lied to.

They will push back.

A former emperor, Napoleon of France, spent his last days as an exile on St. Helena. It would not surprise me if Emperor Obama spends his on one of Hawaii’s islands.

Distracted by Stupidity

By Alan Caruba

I have a friend who lives with his blind Malamute dog, Boris, in a cabin deep in the Missouri woods. He is as self-sufficient as one can be, but he is not one of those survivalists who are waiting for the Homeland Security to show up. He has to go into town to get dog food and pipe tobacco, although he has been brewing his own hard cider of late. It’s his latest hobby.

He is hardly cut off from the world and that seems to be his main complaint because he is of the opinion that it is largely populated by stupid people and, frankly, it is hard to disagree. As a result, we are both richly rewarded with evidence on a daily basis.

For example, it is abundantly clear (except to stupid people) that a majority of voters in 2008 elected a fool to be President of the United States of America and the presumed “leader of the free world.” Do not ask the presidents of France or Russia, or the Prime Minister of England for their opinions of him. For that matter, don’t ask former President Bill Clinton, who’s still waiting for his cup of coffee.

One of Obama’s first official acts was to dispatch Air Force One to do a low fly-by of New York City for a photo. For some reason, that scared the hell out of New Yorkers.

It is hard enough to get through life when most people around you have concluded that you are a dunce, but when it is America being judged as stupid, led by stupid people, and populated by too many stupid people, it is hard to get other nations to cooperate.

My own email and comments on my blog suggest that there are still plenty of very smart people in America and I think the Tea Party movement is evidence of that because these folks are looking for a home that is neither Democrat, nor Republican, but just sensible and a place where someone has actually read the U.S. Constitution.

As we close in on the anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration (remember the nearly two million folks that showed up in the freezing cold, thrilled to be a part of the hopey-changey thing?), but even by the kindest standards of judgment, it is clear that he is utterly clueless in an over-educated way that reeks of condescension.

You get the feeling that he has Tele-Prompters at the breakfast and dinner table in order to provide him with small talk. Without them, listeners begin to wonder if, at some point, he suffered some form of brain damage.

Worse, the next in succession is a Vice President who recently held a closed-door meeting on “transparency” in government. Behind him wait the Wicked Witch of San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi, who burns through $60,000 of jet fuel each way to and from the capital every week. Next in line is the Nevada troll, Harry Reid.

You have to be spectacularly stupid to blow billions of taxpayer dollars “bailing out” General Motors and Chrysler when the ordinary bankruptcy process would have spared us the insanity of owning a failed auto company. Capitalism rewards success and scorns failure, but those in power these days think capitalism is a bad thing.

Given the pathetic performance of other government-owned entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac and the fact that they have been exempted from the “financial responsibility” taxes Obama wants to impose on banks, it comes as no surprise that their executives collected multi-million dollar bonuses at the same time some government official was railing against similar bonuses for Wall Street bankers and investment executives.

In the midst of the worst financial crisis this nation has faced since the 1930s, how stupid do you have to be to try to “reform” Medicare in ways that slash billions from it while adding more people to its rolls? By what stretch of the imagination does Congress think it has the power to require people to buy insurance they do not want? And, it turns out, exclusively from the government.

What ever happened to the free marketplace where competition determined prices? There’s a reason insurance companies run all those TV commercials. Didn’t anyone in Congress or the White House ever take Economics 101?

The Founding Fathers said over and over again that the only way a republic such as ours can survive is if it is led by men (and now women) of “virtue”, by which they meant people that weren’t in public service to plunder the treasury. They knew those elected to public office would not all be angels, so they put together a legislative process that slows the passage of laws to a crawl. All manner of impediments exist and we should be very happy that they do.

I grew up in an era before television when newspapers, radio, and the Movietone News were the main sources. This may seem odd to today’s generation, but during World War Two the media did not compete with one another to be the first to tell the Nazis when and where D-Day would occur or which island in the Pacific would be invaded next.

This is a far cry from Walter Cronkite telling Americans that our troops lost the Tet Offensive in Vietnam when we had actually killed thousands of the enemy, rendering them a terrific blow. That was the first war of the modern era which the media wanted the U.S. to lose. It has since been followed by both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

Well before 9/11 America was locked into a war with al Qaeda even if no one in the White House wanted to give it much thought. By treating the 1993 bombing of the Twin Towers as a criminal act, the U.S. set in motion its final destruction. Now we have a government that wants to extend the protection of the U.S. Constitution to captured terrorists and try them in the heart of New York City. Do not tell me that is not stupid!

Just what do you do with an overweight, slovenly, Muslim U.S. Army Major who was also engaged in a lively exchange of emails with a jihadist mullah in Yemen? You give him his discharge papers. When you don’t, you end up with thirteen dead soldiers while he stands around yelling “Allahu Akbar!” Today’s military is so politically correct the rules of engagement on the battlefield include offering candy and soft drinks to the enemy before actually shooting at them.

Putting an idiot like Janet Napolitano in charge of Homeland Security aptly fits the description of stupid, but a close look at the monkey cage of loonies attached to the Oval Office reveals more social misfits than you could find in a Beverly Hills rehabilitation center.

We are stuck with Obama and his merry band of morons until 2012, but we can begin to clean house in Congress in November 2010 thanks to the midterm elections.

It’s up to the people with common sense and good judgment to take charge of this nation through participation in all manner of civic and political organizations, through a constant deluge of Congress to stop Obamacare, immigration “reform” (how I hate that word!), and the strangling of the free market economy that has enriched those willing to actually hold a job and lucky enough to have one.

Race and Politics in America

By Alan Caruba

Politics in America has always been about race. It began with the writing of the Constitution and the compromises made by the Founding Fathers in order to keep the southern states in the fold.

It can be found in the very first Article that makes reference to the “respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of ten years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.”

Those “other persons” were black slaves.

On June 21, 1788, the Constitution became effective when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it. In 1861, seventy-three years later, the Civil War began and lasted until 1865. Despite amendments passed after the war to enfranchise the freed slaves, it was not until 1964 that a comprehensive Civil Rights Bill was passed that ensured the enforcement of measures to bring about a measure of actual equality.

Then President Lyndon Johnson reportedly said to his then aide, Bill Moyers, that in signing the bill, the Democrats had forfeited the South and he was right. In the years that followed, the southern States became red states.

When Republican Majority leader, Trent Lott, revealed his inner racist while celebrating Sen. Strom Thurman’s 100th birthday, the calls for his resignation were loudest among Democrats and now, another Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is in trouble for calling the President a “Negro” and complimenting him on the fact that he does not have a dialect widely associated with the black community. Sadly for Reid, leading race-baiters, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both have run for the presidency in the past and have dialects that are easily imitated.

Racism in America is not a one-way street, nor is it restricted to the black-white divide. In the “melting pot” of America, we all mock each other to the endless amusement or annoyance of the groups involved.

One of the classic Saturday Night Live segments pitted Chevy Chase against Richard Pryor in an exchange of racially charged slurs. It probably did more for race relations than all the laws on the books because it revealed that racism is part of the fabric of our society.

The revelation about Sen. Reid may get him dislodged from his position as Senate Majority Leader even though the White House immediately made it known that President Obama had forgiven him and accepted his apology. It is no small irony that Hispanic Americans now outnumber black Americans, ensuring its minority status for the future.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama was initially seen as indication that the bad old days of racism were behind us. While more than 90% of the black community understandably voted for him, he needed a significant margin of white/Hispanic votes to get elected.

Voters were so obsessed with former President Bush’s two terms that they ignored the fact that he selected Colin Powell to be the first black Secretary of State and that Powell was succeeded in that office by the first black woman, Condoleeza Rice. Bush’s father had elevated Powell to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

By comparison, President Obama’s selection of Eric Holder as the first black Attorney General has generated a huge backlash for his decision to extend the full rights of the Constitution to admitted enemy combatants.

I am not given to predictions, but I will suggest that Barack Obama will be the last black President for a very long time.

Obama has performed so poorly in his first year in office that he has made it impossible for future generations of Americans to disassociate his race from the disappointment he has engendered.

If it turns out that Obama was never eligible to run for and hold the office, he will have compounded his failures and harmed the interests of black Americans in public life for a very long time to come.

Questions, Questions, Questions

By Alan Caruba

I am frequently asked how I come up with something new to write about every day, but in fact I write about the same things, the Constitution, energy issues, the global warming fraud, education, immigration, et cetera. There is, however, always something new to address within these and other ongoing topics.

As another weekend beckons, I have any number of questions rambling around in my brain about current events.

Is 2010 the year in which global warming will be officially declared dead?

How is it that the Obama administration can announce it is ready to give $10 BILLION DOLLARS a year to developing nations to help them cope with climate change? First of all, the U.S. is for all intents and purposes broke. We exist off of the billions we have to BORROW DAILY just to function and meet enormous obligations such as Medicare and Social Security payments, pensions, the entire U.S. military, and countless pork projects. We don’t have the money to give and climate change has been around 4.5 billion years.

Why can’t these so-called developing nations—which have been developing since I was born over seventy years ago—start developing a few things themselves, like water purification programs, supporting agriculture through the use of genetically modified seeds so crops can resist drought or insect depredation, or just ensuring that, in some cases, the riches from oil royalties actually gets used to build some schools, health clinics, et cetera?

Friends of the Earth put out a letter to their members saying, “Since day one of the Copenhagen climate summit, our Friends of the Earth delegation has stood with people from African nations, small island states, and other poor countries in demanding climate justice.” What exactly is “climate justice”? The climate is the climate. It has nothing to do with justice. Unless, of course, you think rich countries are responsible for the reason poor countries are poor. In which case, you’re just nuts.

Is it possible that the Democrat Party and its leadership, President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are either stark raving mad or just such dedicated Marxists that they believe the U.S. must be bankrupted with a bizarre healthcare “reform”, taxes on all forms of energy use, and the regulation of the second most vital gas on planet Earth, carbon dioxide, as a “pollutant” that is “harmful” to public health?

Where is the Constitution at work these days except for the extension of its Bill of Rights to foreign combatants who are self-admitted Islamic terrorists that engaged in an act of war called 9/11? Since when do we try war criminals in anything other than military tribunals? The answer is and was never.

How long will it take Iran to launch a missile at Israel after it has put together a nuclear warhead? My guess is about five minutes because the ayatollahs who have been in charge since 1979 see such an act as possibly the sole reason for their Islamic Revolution.

Here’s another random thought. If the Constitution expressly says “No person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” And just what is the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize and how much money comes with the shiny medal, if not a present and emolument? If Congress passed a resolution of consent, I didn’t hear about it.

Monday marks the beginning of winter. For all those global warming enthusiasts, it is a period of deep denial about the fact that the Earth gets particularly cold for several months. To make it worse, having been in a cooling cycle since 1998 winter may stick around longer in the coming decade or two. During the last Little Ice Age, the Thames froze over regularly from 1300 to 1850. Here in America, soldiers billeted at Valley Forge had to endure bitter cold.

By the way, four inches of snow fell on Copenhagen in the last few days. This is considered a blizzard by the Danes because it is an unusual amount for that city.

Santa will arrive next week. I have been a very good little boy.

Harry Reid as Ebenezer Scrooge

By Alan Caruba

Is it my imagination or does Harry Reid, Majority Leader of the Senate, resemble Ebenezer Scrooge saying “Bah! Humbug!” whenever anyone suggests that Obamacare is possibly the worst piece of legislation in decades?

As of this writing, Harry cannot find enough DEMOCRAT votes to pass this horror. He doesn’t need Republican votes, but like his counterpart, Nancy Pelosi, he is being forced to find millions with which to bribe those hold-out Senators to vote for a bill that exceeds two thousand pages and creates a literal madhouse of new bureaucracies.

For old people—-and that includes me—-it is a virtual death sentence in the event we become ill and, for most older people, that is a virtual certainty.

As Mortimer B. Zuckerman, Editor-in-Chief of US News & World Report, had to say this month, “Save the cheers for the looming healthcare ‘reform.’ It looks more and more like something that will take us over a cliff. None of the proposals offer credible solutions for reining in the runaway cost inflation that is crippling us.”

Zuckerman went on to write that, “The new programs being proposed in Congress will increase our health insurance premiums for the typical family by more than $1,200 a year and roughly double healthcare spending in the next decade from approximately $2.2 trillion, or 16.2 percent of the estimated GDP in 2009 to over $4.3 trillion, or 20.3 percent of the estimated GDP by 2019” just ten years from now.

But there may not be any GDP or health insurance programs by then because the United States will be in default, unable to pay back the money it has borrowed; not unlike a lot of Americans who charged too much on their credit cards or took out mortgage loans they could not afford.

Moody’s Investors Services just announced that both the United States and Britain must take action soon to get their public finances in order if they are to avoid being downgraded from their top triple-A credit ratings.

Let me put it this way, the United States of America cannot afford a healthcare “reform” in its present form and cannot afford a “Cap-and-Trade” bill that would tax all energy use. It is impossible to add people to Medicare at the same time it is approaching insolvency. When you make energy more expensive, manufacturers move to places where it is affordable. Places like China where they are opening a new coal-fired plant every ten days to generate electricity.

Terence P. Jeffrey of Cybercast News Service put it quite accurately and quite bluntly in early December when he wrote that Obama will bankrupt America. Citing figures developed by former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, Jeffrey reported that the total value of the federal government’s ‘unfunded liabilities’ stood at $56.4 trillion. The nation’s annual GDP is about $14 trillion and we are in the hole by a factor of 4.

The financial crisis has been stabilized. Much of the TARP funds have been is returned by the banks, some of whom were literally forced to take it, and Obama’s “solution” is to borrow from TARP for more bogus “job stimulus”, even though the law expressly forbids it

Jeffries noted that, “In 2008, President Bush’s last year in office, the federal government spent $2.983 trillion. Under Obama’s plan, according to the Congressional Budget Office, annual federal spending will climb to $4,982 trillion by 2019.” Over the next decade “Obama’s plan would increase the national debt by a total of $7.137 trillion, running deficits averaging $713.7 billion per year.”

And I haven’t even discussed what a horror Obamacare is! Americans would be in absolute bondage to the proposed healthcare system that Harry Reid is trying to pass.

A government committee would decide what treatments you would receive.

Healthcare would be provided to all non-U.S. citizens, illegal or otherwise.

A National ID Health card will be issued and government will have real-time access to your financial records.

No company could sue the government for price-fixing. There would be no “judicial review” against a government monopoly.

An employer must enroll employees into the public option plan and must pay for healthcare for part-time employees and their families!

Any individual who doesn’t have an acceptable healthcare plan according to the government will be taxed 2.5% of their income.

This kind of tyranny goes on for two thousand or more pages. It is worse than you can even imagine.

And Ebenezer…er…Harry Reid, doesn’t care. Neither did Nancy Pelosi and, since it is one of his key legislative initiatives, neither does President Obama.

“Apre moi, le deluge” said Louis XV of France as he watched the end of the monarchy that led to a bloody revolution. President Obama may well say something similar, but for him it will be said in triumph.

A Political Who's Who of Global Warming Liars

By Alan Caruba

As the global warming fraud unravels, it’s a good time to look at the politicians who have been some of the most outspoken advocates, using global warming/climate change to advance “Cap-and-Trade” legislation and other related laws and regulations.

Top of the list is President Barack Obama who has made many references to “climate change” and “global warming” to further this national and international fraud. He’ll pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in December; the same one given to Al Gore and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a few years back. Further proof of his mendacity will be his attendance at the UN Climate Change Conference in Denmark.

Speaking on World Environment Day last June, Obama said of global warming, “We’re going to have to make some tough decisions and take concrete actions if we are going to deal with a potentially cataclysmic disaster.” This mirrors years of similar doomsday statements by former Vice President Al Gore.

This is the kind of drivel Americans and others around the world have heard from their supposed “leaders” for far too long.

As we move through the congressional hierarchy, one of the biggest prevaricators about global warming/climate change has been Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-C) and her counterpart in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), manages to wheeze about it from time to time.

Former presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, (D-MA) has been leading the fight for “Cap-and-Trade” but after much reflection former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) concluded his support of global warming was a mistake.

Sen. Kerry said that failure to pass the Senate version of “Cap-and-Trade” (of greenhouse gas emission credits) would be comparable to another 9/11. He also has blamed tornadoes on global warming. The man is a complete idiot.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has uttered every global warming falsehood and has been joined by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). All three have played a critical role in advancing the “Cap-and-Trade” bill despite the fact that it is a massive tax on energy use and based on a lie.

Writing for the Huffington Post in October, Sen. Boxer said, “Global Warming is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. Addressing this challenge also represents enormous opportunities for economic recovery and long term prosperity.” Her commentary was titled, “Telling the Whole Story on Global Warming”!

Never mind that global warming has been the excuse environmental groups have used to stop the building of coal-fired plants, nuclear plants, drilling for oil offshore in our continental shelf, et cetera. There’s no economic recovery to be found in so-called “green jobs” and prosperity is a small light at the end of a very long tunnel as the result of the Obama administration’s investments in “renewable energy” and massive increase of our national debt.

Among the other politicians hovering around Cap-and-Trade have been Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.VA), Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont), and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). Sen. Bingaman is a big fan of “renewable energy” (solar and wind) and proposed a nationwide renewable electricity standard even though it provides barely one percent of all the electricity Americans need and use every day.

Among the nation’s prominent governors, California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger has been vocal about environmental issues, many of which have left Californians trapped by idiotic measures ranging from restrictions on fireplaces in new homes or the purchase of large screen television sets. California’s failure to anticipate its growing need for electricity has left it dependent on importing it from other states.

Meanwhile, over at the Environmental Protection Agency, they are using global warming to justify securing the right to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, claiming that they “cause” a global warming. The expose of the phony “scientific” data behind this massive fraud should, if truth mattered, end this power grab. The ability to regulate CO2 is the ability to control the use of all energy in the nation. That should be stopped!

Alone among his colleagues, Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma (R) has been the one outstanding voice for reason and for truth about global warming. The odds are that history will not give his courageous effort to expose the massive fraud the recognition he deserves. The nation owes him a debt of gratitude.

The lesson we can draw from this is that the next time any U.S. Senator or Representative, let alone the President and any member of his Cabinet, says anything positive about “global warming” or refers to “climate change” to justify some action, they are lying to you.

Watching Democrats Commit Political Suicide

By Alan Caruba

I don’t venture much into political prognostication. I follow politics, but not so much to comment on the day-to-day madness of Washington, D.C., but because the legislation that does get passed often has long term penalties for Americans and for our economy.

All that legislation that began so long ago that inserted the government into the mortgage loan and banking business ultimately resulted in the bubble that came close to wreaking the economy. It all stemmed from the liberal notion of “social justice” that included a hitherto unknown “right” to own a home even if you clearly could not afford to.

Out of that came Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, the “securitization” of masses of bad loans they owned and sold. And out of that came the destruction of investment houses and banks. As usual, the U.S. taxpayer picked up the cost because it is our billions that were spread around Wall Street and used to “bail out” General Motors, et cetera.

The bizarre “reform” of Medicare and the nation’s healthcare system, a private enterprise at this point, is another aspect of “social justice” because its advocates keep claiming that people who cannot afford health insurance should be provided with it by the rest of us.

It turns out that people who do have a health insurance plan like their plan and do not want the federal government to mess with it or to get between them, their doctors, and the provision of medical and healthcare services.

I have not written about the machinations of Madame “crazy eyes” Pelosi, the Lord High Executioner, Harry Reid, or the other rascals in Congress trying to merge five different versions of a bill that the American people do not want.

The worst of it is that few in Congress have even read the proposed legislation, nor are likely to do so before voting on it. The best of it is that they will all be Democrats.

When you add in the carbon/energy tax that the Democrats are also trying to impose, along with the most astonishing imposition of communism in the form of a proposed federal “zoning” provision that would shift control, if not ownership, of every square inch of America to the federal government, you have two of the most horrid pieces of legislation ever proposed in the modern era.

It’s not like the Democrats don’t know that these proposed new laws are widely and vocally hated.

The Tea Parties that spontaneously occurred early in the year, followed by the huge rally in Washington on September 12 would, one might suppose, cause Democrats to show some caution, but it is abundantly clear that the Democrats in Congress don’t give a crap about the voters/citizens of the United States of America.

There are some “blue dog” Democrats expressing opposition, but that herd of brain-dead, power-obsessed elected “leaders” has waited since 2008 to turn the ship of state around and head for the socialist paradise that began so many years ago with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was ten years into the Great Depression without once having figured out what he was doing wrong. Only the advent of World War Two saved him.

I will not predict what will happen with either piece of legislation. I think the Democrats will pass some version of both and that is very bad news for the economy and the rest of us.

It is, however, very good news insofar as it will constitute the political suicide of the Democrat Party. It will ensure that Republicans will regain control of Congress next year when the midterm elections are held.

The Republican Party has been declared dead in the past and, at one point, split apart allowing Woodrow Wilson to get elected. It is about to come roaring back to life.

When that happens, the questionable presidency of the former Indonesian citizen, Barack Hussein Obama, will become a lame duck in which his dreams of becoming the next Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez will be nullified.

Obama does not have the political smarts of “Slick Willy” Clinton. Faced with a Republican Congress, Clinton tacked to the center and even to the right a bit. Obama is a “red diaper baby” whose communism is so deeply imprinted on his brain he will be unable to do that.

And the bonus is that Pelosi, Reid, and the Democrat chairpersons of congressional committees will be out of power.

A chastened Republican Party may actually return to its central principles of fiscal prudence, a strong national defense, and support for the dollar. That is, at least, my hope.

The Fine Art of American Protest

By Alan Caruba

There have been many mass marches on Washington, D.C., so the locals know how to make plans to anticipate the congestion and the police are polite and skillful in the science of crowd control. They can afford to be polite because the crowds, no matter how large, are too.

Oh, sure, they shout a lot, but that’s what a protest march is all about. Back in April 1894 unemployed workers known as “Coxey’s Army” showed up to demand that Congress do something. It was the second year of an economic depression that would last another two years, but it was the worst that had hit the nation barely three decades since the end of the Civil War.

Americans know where to head when they are at odds with their government and most know or suspect that the source of their problems can be found in Washington, D.C. and they are always right.

Bloodshed has been extremely rare at such events. On June 17, 1932 a “Bonus Army”, some 20,000 World War One veterans and their families massed in the Capitol seeking advance payment of bonuses from the Hoover administration. The year is significant. It was four years passed the beginning of the Great Depression that began in 1929.

Orders were given to disburse them and to destroy the shanties they had built. An Army General named Douglas McArthur led the troops. Several of the veterans were killed. Hoover’s reputation never recovered from that march.

Americans tend to march to protest economic issues and/or wars. Some social issues draw crowds such as the March 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which most people remember because Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech, “I have a dream.”

The 1960s were punctuated by many marches to protest the Vietnam War. The crowds massed in 1965, 1966, 1967, and1969. They kept coming back as in 1971. In April 1974 some ten thousand gathered to demand the impeachment of Richard Nixon. On August 10, 1974 Nixon resigned; the first and only President to do so, the final act of the Watergate scandal.

The 1980s had a smattering of smaller marches, but they were about things like lesbian and gay rights or global nuclear disarmament. It wasn’t until another war that a lot of Americans got on the buses to Washington, D.C. again. The Gulf War ginned up a crowd estimated at 75,000. The 1990s saw a handful of marches of not much consequence.

The war in Iraq stirred familiar passions and the first protest march was on September 24, 2005. By 2007 the pace picked up, but while the war was unpopular with many Americans, it did not generate the kind of anger that Vietnam did. Barely ten thousand showed up in July 2008 and, by Washington, D.C. standards, that was small.

What is significant about the Saturday, September 12, 2009 march was the totally grassroots nature of the event. It was billed as a “Tea Party”, a name taken from the rather spontaneous tea party events that occurred shortly after Congress went insane and started spending billions of taxpayer dollars on bailouts, the takeover of General Motors, ownership of an insurance company, and a huge so-called “Stimulus” bill.

With the economy heading south, Americans quickly and correctly concluded that the Democrat controlled Congress and the new President were taking the nation over the cliff with their spending, borrowing, and printing of dollars.

September 12, 2009, however, was a protest against President Barack Obama.

Second and third in line for public protest were Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Having achieved total political power, the President and Congress had generated a massive grassroots resistance barely seven months into his term.

On Saturday Americans from around the nation gathered in Washington, D.C. to demand that the U.S. Constitution be obeyed!

The U.S. press initially described the crowd as “tens of thousands.” It was so big that, by evening, even the Capitol police had not yet released an estimate of its size, but British press observers pegged it at two million!

America was born in protest and a new generation is carrying on the tradition. It is not an idle thing. They could have gone to a football or baseball game. Instead, they came to Washington, D.C.

Only fools would dare ignore them.

For some great photos you won't find in the mainstream media, go here: http://www.usasurvival.org/12sept09dc.html

Taxing Cows

By Alan Caruba

Just how crazed is the Environmental Protection Agency? When I say “crazed”, I mean just how far out of touch with reality, with science, with the economy, with common sense, and with the American people is the EPA?

Ever since the Supreme Court made one of the greatest blunders since the Dred Scott case, declaring carbon dioxide (CO2) a “pollutant” that could be regulated by the EPA, that deranged agency has been pushing a tax on CO2 emissions from cows, pigs, and other farm animals on which we depend for milk and meat at the local supermarket.

According to Encarta, in 2005 there were an estimated 95,848,000 cows in the United States. Presumably, there are comparable numbers of pigs, goats, and other critters that emit belches and farts sufficient to destroy the Earth with the CO2 they emit. Nor should we overlook the six pounds of CO2 that the 307 million Americans exhale daily.

Since there is NO global warming and the Earth has been cooling for the past decade, the proposal that these farm animals be taxed constitutes a criminal act, devoid of any justification.

Since CO2 plays virtually no role whatever in so-called “climate change”, taxing farm animals is a violation of the known science and an assault on the economy in the name of the greatest hoax of the modern age.

It is not, however, a matter of “saving the Earth” so far as the EPA and the rest of the Obama administration is concerned. It is MONEY. And money is POWER.

The proposal, floated in late 2008, would impose a per-cow tax on any farm or ranch with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs that would require a payment of about $175 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle, and $20 for each hog.

Suffice it to say that dairy farmers across the U.S. are being forced to send many of their herd to the slaughter house because the price of milk has fallen to the point where it is unprofitable to maintain them. Owners of even a modest-sized cattle ranch would face additional costs of $30,000 to $40,000 a year. Add a tax on cows and you end up with a nation that has to import more milk than oil.

Taxing farm animals is a great way to bankrupt dairy farmers and cattle ranchers, along with all those who raise hogs. After that, it is only a matter of time before Americans would all have to become vegetarians because the cost of meat would put an end to that part of our diet.

As bizarre as the EPA proposal is, the effort by the Democrat-controlled Congress to impose a Cap-and-Trade bill on the nation in the name of reducing CO2 emissions dwarfs the farm and ranch proposal.

The Heritage Foundation has crunched the numbers on Cap-and-Trade concluding that job losses would exceed 800,000 annually for several years. Durable-manufacturing employment would decrease by 28 percent. Machinery-manufacturing job losses would exceed 57 percent. The same would hold true for textile-mills, electrical equipment and appliance manufacturers, paper and paper product jobs, and jobs involving plastic and rubber products.

Cap-and-Trade isn’t just a job-killer, American Solutions estimates that it would increase gasoline prices by 74 percent, electricity rates by 90 percent, natural gas prices by 55 percent, and add $1,600 a year to the cost of living of a typical household.

The result would be to make the Great Depression look like a day at the park, but minus the hot dogs and ice cream.

This is what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have planned and they want the bill passed before Congress goes home for its summer recess.

At that point, the destruction of the U.S. economy would be complete and there would be no reason for Congress to return.

Does this seem an extreme conclusion to you? No, it is the reality the nation faces.

What's the Rush, Obama?

By Alan Caruba

At first I thought it was just my imagination, but three prime time press conferences in three months, several overseas events, and the seemingly daily announcement that new billions would be spent on stimulus packages, bailouts and new programs has become a dizzying onslaught.

The Obama administration is, in so many ways, the culmination of efforts dating back to the middle of the last century to render Americans so docile, so illiterate, so prepared to blame themselves, that a really big push is on to ram through programs that would be the fulfillment of liberal dreams for decades.

The emergence of “Tea Parties” and other expressions of widespread protest must have taken Obama and the intellectual dunces around him by surprise. The opposition to gay marriage, the continued resistance to abortion-on-demand, and other social issues suggest that Americans are not as dumbed-down as liberals had hoped. They especially pay attention when told their taxes will rise and more taxes will be imposed on everything they purchase.

As the cost of a First Class postage stamp becomes forty-four cents and the cost of a pack of cigarettes apparently will be the equivalent of a porterhouse steak, life in Obama’s America is going to become prohibitively expensive. Consumers are already beginning to hold back on purchases of all kinds. If Obama’s secret agenda is to crash the economy, he’s succeeding.

Then there is the legislation in the pipeline. The Waxman-Markey bill would introduce a cap-and-trade program to tax the emission of CO2, carbon dioxide, the other most vital gas for all life on the planet. It would drive up the cost of any and all energy use. Since energy is the single most vital resource for a thriving economy, one wonders why the White House and Democrats would want to support and advance such madness.

There’s a bill in the Senate that would give full control over all the waters of the United States to the federal government and the States be damned. Every drop of water would be regulated and that’s bad news for farmers who depend on water to raise their crops because it could be turned off for many of them on the whim of some bureaucrat. And, of course, fewer crops mean higher food costs. Everybody else who drinks or uses water should be equally alarmed.

The worst of it at the present time is the push, the rush to institute a government controlled health system under the guise of ensuring that everyone can get access to medical care. Well, ask any hospital anywhere whether they ever turn away anyone. They are forbidden by federal law from doing so. In some States, the influx of illegal aliens forced some hospitals to close their emergency rooms or just go out of business entirely.

Americans rejected the government takeover of our healthcare system during the Clinton administration and, hopefully, they will tell their elected representatives to do so again.

The takeover of auto companies has some people nervous and the takeover of the entire banking system, those with or without TARP money, is making even more people nervous.

Apparently it is not enough that the banking system is among the most heavily regulated in the nation, being able to actually run all the banks is the aim of this administration that has made it known it wants to set levels of compensation for all bank officers, bailed out or not.

What Did She Know and When Did She Know It?

Then we have the inevitable missteps that usually have a political cost. When Republican Trent Lott was Senate Majority Leader he had some kind words for the aging Strom Thurman and the firestorm that resulted got him swiftly booted from that job. Contrast that with the fact that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been caught in a huge lie. There are, however, no calls within the Democrat Party for her to step down. Meanwhile, she continues to tell lies about “clean energy” and “energy independence.”

Likewise, in what would otherwise be deemed a treasonous statement during a time of war, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who declared the conflict in Iraq “lost”, remains in office.

And why are the Democrats still fighting against an Iraq War that is essentially over? Obama won in part by virtue of his opposition to the war, yet his administration’s justification for everything it’s doing is to blame the Bush administration.

During a recent commencement speech, Obama actually embraced the fact that he has far less experience and credentials for the Presidency than his predecessors. He likes the on-the-job training that accompanies being President because every day is a new, exciting learning experience.

He has learned, for example, that releasing memos that suggest we spent much of the last eight years torturing terrorists may not have been a good idea. He has stepped back from the release of comparable photos, most of which are reportedly quite benign.

Never mind that the terrorists we’re fighting routinely cut off people’s heads or blow up fellow Muslims while they are at prayer in mosques. Never mind that all wars have involved torture to some extent to save lives.

All this and more is giving lots of people pause. His fervent supporters appear to be having buyer’s remorse as the details of what “change” he has in mind for them begin to emerge.

Everyone is beginning to ask, “What’s the rush?”

The answer is that, unless this Democrat Congress can push through some of these truly horrid pieces of legislation and unless the White House can “transform” America through fear and intimidation, they may suffer significant losses in the midterm elections that are less than a year and a half away.

The Democrat Comic Opera

By Alan Caruba

The Democrats have lusted for total power for eight long years since the departure of Bill (the meaning of 'is') Clinton, disbarred lawyer, adulterer, and former President of the United States. Since 2000 they passed their time blaming everything on George W. Bush, including acts of God such as Hurricane Katrina.

By 2006, President Bush had exhausted whatever political capital he thought he had and the Democrats grabbed a thin margin in Congress, but enough to elevate geniuses like Barney Frank, an Elmer Fudd impersonator and, like Sergeant Schultz in “Hogan’s Heroes”, someone who saw nothing going terribly wrong at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Also rising to power were Harry Reid in the Senate and Nancy Pelosi in the House. For two years they and their fellow Democrats have accomplished…what?

By 2008, the messiah in the person of Sen. Barack Obama smiled upon them and, along with lots of other Democrats, laid claim to both the White House and Congress. Reid and Pelosi embraced, everyone broke open the champagne, and then things began to go horribly wrong.

The economy tanked. Furious efforts ensued to throw billions at the credit liquidity problems brought on by Democrat “social justice” programs that actually required banks and lending institutions to make bad loans to people who could not pay them. The Detroit auto makers came to Washington, D.C., to beg for a loan that everyone knew was a waste of taxpayer’s money. Labor unions, one of the mainstays of the Democrat Party, glowered at any thought of not paying members not to work.

Then the Governor of Illinois, a State in which the Chicago political machine is located, was arrested for allegedly trying to sell Sen. Obama’s seat for political advantage. Caught on tape, he denied everything and appointed an Afro-American, Roland Burris, to the seat. This caught the Democrat Party off guard because “Blago” was actually doing something legal. Harry Reid’s first instinct was to deny Burris a seat in the Senate, thus alienating countless Afro-Americans who voted for Obama and other Democrats.

If the Chicago shenanigans weren’t sufficient, there was the prospect of a comedian—would I kid you—Al Franken being “elected” under the most dubious circumstances to the Senate as, of course, a Democrat. Having essentially failed at all previous pursuits, Franken naturally aspired to politics. His status remains in limbo because of all the votes that suddenly occurred after the election which his opponent won. In Minnesota votes found at the bottom of wells and under piles of leaves count if they are cast for a Democrat.

It is well to pause and note that EVERYBODY knows that the Democrats are attempting to STEAL the Minnesota Senate seat. Just as EVERYBODY knows that the appointment of Burris is Blago’s way of sticking it to his fellow Democrats, some of whom are suggesting that there should be a “black” seat in the Senate. There are, of course, many Afro-Americans in Congress and many have managed to disgrace themselves with the same alacrity as their white counterparts.

If matters could not get much worse (and they will) for the Democrats, New Mexico Governor Richardson, a designee for an Obama cabinet post, withdrew himself from consideration due to an investigation of alleged pay-for-play tactics. So far, Obama’s choices have proven less than stellar. Most are drawn from the former Clinton administration, including the wife of the former President.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has no apparent credentials to head up the Homeland Security Department, suggesting that the war on terror is not a top priority for the incoming Obama administration. This perception is heightened by the designation of Leon Panetta, the former chief of staff for Clinton, selected to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Given the fact that the CIA has operated as a stealth agent for the Democrat Party throughout the course of the Bush administration, Panetta’s selection makes perfectly good sense. It was the Agency that consistently leaked “news” to The New York Times and anyone else that could rush into print to decry the horror of actually waging a war on Islamic terrorism. It is hard to criticize the appointment, however, given that Bush41 was once a CIA director and their headquarters is actually named for him.

The most recent news is that the President-elect wants to deal in part with the unemployment problem by hiring hundreds of people to serve in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That way Americans can feel even safer in a nation that threatens to become a police state where we will all have to carry a government-issued ID card in order to drive a car, board an airplane, do any banking, et cetera.

Other bizarre ideas include taxing every cow, goat, horse, and chicken in America for the crime of emitting greenhouse gases.

The Great Obama Anti-Recession Plan is likely to end up looking like the failed FDR plan of the 1930s. The government will become the employer of last resort and, with any luck, absolutely nothing will get done. Even the disgraced former New York Governor, Elliot Spitzer, attacked it!

I suspect that few Americans will be laughing much by the next elections in 2010. That is not good news for Democrats.