News Note: 900+ Members

Warning Signs has reached more than 900 members over the weekend. I want to welcome our new members and thank all members for your interest and support. This blog shows growth in terms of the many visitors it has monthly--averaging more than 100,000 visits--and through its members. Special thanks must go to those who have donated to the blog and continue to do so each month.

Comparing Two Inaugural Speeches, Reagan's and Obama's

By Alan Caruba

A comparison between Ronald Reagan’s and Barack Obama’s first inauguration speeches reveals the gap between their understanding of the role of government and how much America has declined from January 1981 and January 2009.

In 1981 Reagan told Americans that “These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions.  We suffer from one of the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people.”

In 2009, the nation was reeling from the financial crisis brought on by two government entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who had not merely purchased mortgages of dubious value, but had pressured banks to make such loans. It was a crisis made by the government, based on liberal programs intended to ensure that even people who could not afford a home, could have one.

In 1981, there was another burden as well. Reagan told Americans that as “great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present.” He warned that “to continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.” Those upheavals arrived in 2008, requiring the government to bail out banks and other financial institutions with billions of public funds.

In 2009, Americans could not have even imagined that the Obama administration would increase the national debt by six trillion dollars or that it would grow to $16 trillion within a scant four year’s time.

Obama told Americans that the economy “is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some”, by which he meant the victims of government programs and policies—the nation’s banking system—but he also blamed “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.” We now know that his “new age” was a shift to a socialist approach in which government would select winners and losers in the previous free market, the failure to reform “entitlement” programs going broke,  and the vast expansion of government programs that would put nearly half the population on the public dole.

Reagan had warned against this in 1981. “You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?” Obama would be the first President to see the nation’s credit rating, the best in the world, reduced.

Reagan said, “We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows no signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”

Today we have a Congress held in a historically low regard by the governed and one in gridlock due to the obstinate refusal of the Democratic Party to cooperate, to compromise, to negotiate, to address the threat of economic collapse as the result of excessive spending at the same time the President insists and gets higher and higher taxes. In 2009, Obama said, “On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for too long have strangled our politics.” He personifies the very thing he condemned.

How prescient Reagan was in 1981 when he said, “It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government.”

In Obama’s first term, his signature legislation called Obamacare not only imposed many new taxes, but challenged freedom of religion as well. It effectively nationalized twenty percent of the nation’s economy. It put government in between patients and their physicians.

Obama’s first inaugural speech was sprinkled with signs of his intentions. Ignoring the fact that government does not create jobs—the private sector does that—but he promised “to create new jobs.” Despite the failure of his energy policies that saw government waste billions in loans to failed solar and other green energy companies, Obama said, “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”

“The question we ask today,” said Obama, “is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works…” In 2013 the government is not working. There are 26 million Americans out of work after four years in which the official unemployment rate has barely dropped below eight percent. “And those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day.”

Obama was not held to account by enough Americans and has been reelected to continue policies that have not avoided the “fiscal cliff” because of his refusal to work with the Republican Party that has sent one bill after another to address our economic crisis only to see them kept from a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate. His administration has operated without a budget for three years at this point.

In the arena of foreign affairs, in 2009 Obama said, “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” That policy has been a complete and utter failure.

The challenges in 1981 were not that unlike those in 2009. History records that Reagan met those challenges, lifted our spirits, and did his best to reduce the size of government. It also records that Obama has exacerbated our problems and done his best to increase the size of government and its intrusion into our lives.

Obama’s legacy thus far has been a polarized society based on class warfare; a society in which millions more Americans are purchasing guns in anticipation of an attack on the Second Amendment, and a government that menaces the Constitution. His second inaugural speech will be as filled with false promises and failed policies as his first.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

Cartoon Round Up

Obama Could Not Pass a Background Check

By Alan Caruba

President Barack Obama could not pass a background check if he was applying for a gun permit or a job. Why has this man been allowed to remain in office or take the oath for a second time?

During the 2008 campaign, it was known that:

His official, long form birth records were SEALED.

His Occidental College records were SEALED.

His Columbia College records were SEALED.

His Harvard College records were SEALED.

His College thesis – SEALED.

His Harvard Law Review articles – SEALED.

His Indonesian adoption records – SEALED.

His passport file – SEALED.

His medical records – Unavailable

His baptism records – Unavailable

His papers from his service in the Illinois legislature – Unavailable

His Illinois State Bar Association records - Unavailable

The birth certificate that the White House released is reputed by document experts to be false.

The Social Security number he has used was issued to someone else. He could not pass an E-Verify test. The first three numbers of his Social Security ID are reserved for applicants with Connecticut addresses, 040-049. The number was issued between 1977 and 1979. Obama’s earliest employment reportedly was in 1975 at a Baskin-Robbins in Oahu, Hawaii.

Many of the “facts” he cited in his two memoirs have turned out to be questionable, if not outright lies; particularly as regards his birth father, a citizen of Kenya at the time of his birth.

A job applicant with Obama’s paper trail would not even pass the smell test, but this man was elected and reelected. The role of journalism is to vet the credentials of anyone running for public office, let alone the highest office in the land. Instead, he has been protected against all inquiries and those making them have been called “birthers” or simply ignored.

Obama so routinely lies that keeping track of them would require a team of full-time archivists.

In August 2009 he said, “I have not said I was a single-payer supporter”, but in June 2003, as an Illinois state senator, he said, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care system.”

In March 2006, he said “Leadership means the buck stops here…I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” He is now into his second political battle to raise the debt limit. In July 2011, he said “It is not acceptable for us not to raise the debt ceiling and to allow the U.S. government to default.”

In response to a 1996 questionnaire he said “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages, but in November 2008 he said, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”

He spent his first term blaming the nation’s economic ills on his predecessor, George W. Bush, saying in July 2008, that “he added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion in debt that we are going to have to pay back. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” Today, the debt stands at more than $16 trillion because Obama added more to the debt than all previous presidents combined. For the first time in U.S. history, our credit rating was reduced and rating services are warning they will reduce it again.

He has a record of using executive orders to bypass the constitutional powers and duties of Congress. His most recent effort was 23 such orders regarding gun control at the same time Americans are buying guns as fast as they can, fearing the loss of the right to own and bear arms. This is the same President who just signed a law granting him and his family lifetime Secret Service protection.

He used “executive privilege” to cover-up the “Fast and Furious” scandal in which guns were allowed to be purchased and transported for use by Mexican drug cartel members.

He lied about the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and encouraged members of his staff to spread the lie that it was “spontaneous” and the result of a video no one has seen.

He and the Democratic Party imposed “Obamacare” on the nation and its passage is already undermining the provision of healthcare services, driving up the cost of health insurance, and causing physicians and the providers of testing and other services to leave the profession and close their doors.

He no longer can blame President Bush, so now he blames the Republican Party that has offered solutions to the nation’s economic crisis that has worsened every day he has been in office. His foreign policy has consisted of apologizing for America and standing aside while one nation after another in the Middle East and northern Africa has fallen under the control of Islamist radicals. He is doing nothing to avoid the sequestration cuts that would harm national defense and a range of other government functions.

He has failed us. Congress has failed us.

 It has taken four years for a case challenging his right to hold office and the Supreme Court has scheduled a “conference” in February that might decide to ignore a current case.

The mainstream media has failed us and we only hope the courts will not fail us.

He should not be administered the oath of office for a second time.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

Our Soldier-Scholar Generals

By Alan Caruba

Two examples of our soldier-scholar generals have a lot to say about the men who have risen to lead our military these days. They also reflect how politicized that leadership has become.

Gen. David Petraeus, the most honored among the generals who fought our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan retired and was appointed as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He fell from grace when it was revealed he had had an affair with his biographer. He resigned and a lifetime of service to the nation was forever besmirched by his moral failure and lack of judgment.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, leading the war in Afghanistan was brought down by a Rolling Stone article that reported indiscreet comments by members of his staff. He tendered his resignation to the President and retired from service.

Both represented what most people regard as the best and the brightest of the men currently leading our military these days. Even so, I recalled General Douglas MacArthur, a hero of World War II and a man behind the strategic and successful attack on Inchon during the Korean conflict. He was sacked by President Truman when his ego and ambition got the best of him while advocating widening the conflict to attack Red China. An earlier general, George B. McClellan, General of the Army of the Potomac with similar presidential ambitions, was sacked by Lincoln when he failed to vigorously pursue the Civil War. 

Politics has always played a role in the waging of war and defense. For a very long time, Americans elected either generals or men who had led troops in battles of one sort or another. In recent times, we have had a draft-dodger, Bill Clinton, as President and the current Commander-in-Chief has never served in uniform, nor gives any indication he has any knowledge of military affairs. He is free to over-ride the advice of his generals.

Gen. McChrystal is making the rounds on television talk shows promoting his new book, “My Share of the Task.” He resigned because his role as a leader had been compromised by the Rolling Stone article and because a leader must take responsibility for the actions of his aides even if he was not a party to them.

The son of a West Pointer, a general, McChrystal wrote “I was raised to respect soldiers, leaders, and heroes. They were what I wanted to be. They were why I was there.” The man he respected and revered most was his father.

His autobiography is long and detailed, not the easiest reading experience, but one that reveals what brings young men (and now women) to West Point to pursue a career in the U.S. Army. The same holds true for those who enter Annapolis and the Air Force Academy. This is where they learn the history and strategies of war.

America is at a crossroads of determining whether to downsize our military—at this point in response to a draconian reduction in its budget that may or may not be reversed by Congress. We have done this before. The success of World War II came only after that war had been going on in Europe since 1939. Only after the homeland was attacked by Japan in 1941 America was all in. It is as if we have learned nothing from this and other elements of our history.

The first priority of government is the defense of the nation and we are getting ready to leave ourselves defenseless in a dangerous world in the wake of the continued hollowing out of our armed forces.

The Air Force’s fleet of planes; some of which have been in service since the Vietnam War. Others have flown thousands of sorties in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our Navy has fewer ships than we had at the end of World War I. Between those in for repairs and those in port for R&R that leaves about 90 vessels to patrol the seven seas to protect and project American interests. Our services are staffed by volunteers; a small army of civilians ensures that the service personnel are free to concentrate on their mission. Sequestration cuts would force the Pentagon to initiate monthly furloughs among 791,000 civilian force.

Under agreements made by President Bush our military is out of Iraq and that nation is wracked by attacks from insurgent radical Islamists, often aided by Iran. In Afghanistan, after approving a limited surge against the Taliban, President Obama has made it clear he intends to withdraw our troops by the end of 2014 if not sooner.

Americans are understandably asking whether either conflict was worth the blood and treasure they consumed. There are more than a few military observers who think we have failed in Afghanistan just as the Russians learned to their regret.

Meanwhile, we are led by a White House filled with people who are reluctant to link the words “Islam” and “terrorism” despite 9/11 and its aftermath. We are led by a President who says all the right things about terrorism, but whose policies will allow Islamic terrorists to take control of nations like Afghanistan and possibly Iraq where we fought to free them from despotism. The current administration is reluctant to be drawn into conflicts that might expand, such as Libya or the new conflict in Mali where the French are taking the lead.

Both Generals Petraeus and McChrystal were regarded as the masters of counter-terrorism on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the new way wars are fought these days. It is long and slow, and it is a response to the rise of fanatical Islam throughout the Middle East and in other parts of the world such as the northern tier of Africa and elsewhere on that continent. It is made more difficult by the corrupt leadership in those nations.

As McChrystal notes in his book, “After Iraq, ‘nation building’ was an unpopular term, but our assessment had concluded that Afghanistan’s inherent weakness in governance was the core of the problem. Security had to come first, or else the government could not function. But absent legitimate governance, real progress was impossible.” Real progress has proven impossible. We have spent billions to train and equip an Afghani army and police. Their allegiance to the government is unreliable at best.

What is never mentioned is the way  U.S. generals were transitioned in and out of Afghanistan every year, never there long enough to do more than deal with the bureaucracy back in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.

Two of our generals are now removed from positions of leadership, one through a personal failing and the other through the happenstance of an article in a leftist publication. This hardly seems the way to wage war abroad or to protect the nation at home.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

Obama is Begging for Impeachment

By Alan Caruba

According to Wikipedia: “United States Presidents issue executive orders to help officers and agencies of the executive branch manage the operations within the federal government itself. Executive orders have the full force of law,^[1] since issuances are typically made in pursuance of certain Acts of Congress, some of which specifically delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation), or are believed to take authority from a power granted directly to the Executive by the Constitution.”

“However, these perceived justifications cited by Presidents when authoring Executive Orders have come under criticism for exceeding executive authority; at various times throughout U.S. history, challenges to the legal validity or justification for an order have resulted in legal proceedings.”

I am not a Constitutional scholar, but I am aware of the consequences of past executive orders. The nation now has a rogue government agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, by virtue of an executive order by President Nixon. Later, President Carter reorganized the executive branch and created a separate Department of Education. Currently, executive orders permit the President to seize control of the entire nation in the event of an attack or the declaration of a national emergency.

Now we are told that President Obama is planning to issue up to nineteen executive orders to do an end run around Congress and the Second amendment on the issue of gun control. Whereas Social Security was often referred to as “the third rail” if presidents or Congress attempted to reform it, it would appear that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is the new third raid and touching it is likely to enflame both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

Former Attorney General, Edwin Meese, recently went on record to say that the proposed executive orders would be an “impeachable offense.” There is a growing chorus of resistance to Obama’s “imperial presidency”, but whether it is the executive orders or a judgment rendered by a forthcoming Supreme Court conference, it would appear that Obama has over-reached.

The Supreme Court has scheduled a conference—not a hearing—regarding a case that challenges President Obama’s eligibility to be President. Court observers believe this will lead nowhere. If the justices were to favor elevating the case to a hearing that found Obama guilty, he could face impeachment hearings or possibly be summarily removed from office by Congress.

The Constitution says (Article II, Section 4) “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The scheduling of a Supreme Court conference to discuss a lower court case has gone virtually unreported. The case is led by an attorney, Orly Taitz, and is called Noonan,Judd, MacLaren, Taitz v Bowen. Having made it to the highest court in the land, the Taitz asserts it will provide evidence to prove that “Barack Obama using a last name not legally his, forged a Selective Service application, forged a long form and short form birth certificate, and a Connecticut Social Security number, 042-68-4425, which was never assigned to him according to E-Verify and SSNVS.”

The conference is scheduled for February 15, 2013. Obama will be sworn into office on January 21 and will deliver a State of the Union speech on February 12.

The conference arises out of a Fifth Circuit court of Appeals decision to agree to hear a petition for a Writ of mandamus to expedite a default judgment and post judgment discovery against the Commissioner of Social Security Administration, Michael J. Astrue, resulting from a previously filed case. Commissioner Astrue did not reply to Taitz’s inquiry.

If the Court finds that the evidence of forged Social Security numbers Obama is alleged to have used over the years is valid and irrefutable, it would be scheduled for a hearing, but conferences are often meetings in which cases are returned to a lower court. It has taken four years just to be discussed in conference. Despite the weight of the evidence, it may go no where.

A hearing could generate a Constitutional crisis that could lead to Obama’s impeachment and removal. It would mean that Obama was ineligible to run for office for both terms and would render his previous executive orders and the laws that he signed null and void.

Former President Nixon saw impeachment proceedings initiated in the wake of the Watergate scandal and resigned to avoid that fate. He was later pardoned by Gerald Ford.  President Clinton faced an impeachment in the wake of the Lewinski affair, but Congress gave him a pass on it.

This year could initiate a political tsunami that would engulf the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidency.

For many the Supreme Court is seen as a politicized entity. The failure to take up the case regarding Obama’s eligibility would damage the integrity of the Court in the same way the ruling that Obamacare was a “tax” evoked a loss of faith in its judgment—or  it might go unreported and the public remain unaware of it.

A constitutional crisis is looming. Only the Congress has the power to pass laws. If the President ignores Congress and issues executive orders that impose new restrictions on the Second Amendment, the people of the United States will have lost the power of the Constitution to protect them. There are already legislators prepared to initiate impeachment proceedings if he does.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

NY Times Environmental Desk Goes the Way of Global Warming

By Alan Caruba

“What’s in worse shape””, asked the Heartland Institute’s Director of Communications, Jim Lakely, in a January 11^th blog post. “The state of the Earth’s climate? Or the state of the New York Times? Global temperatures are not rising all that quickly, so the Earth is doing fine. Meanwhile, the Old Gray Lady is shutting down its Environmental Desk.”

The Heartland Institute has cause to celebrate because it has led the effort to debunk the global warming hoax, sponsoring international conferences that brought together the world’s leading scientists and others to demonstrate how specious the alleged “science” of global warming was and is. It did so in the face of a United Nations agenda to advance the hoax and a compliant and cooperative media that did nothing to dispute it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been an unpaid policy advisor to The Heartland Institute for many years, only once receiving a small grant many years ago to help fund research involving the global warming hoax. These days donations to my blog help sustain the effort.

As the planet enters its seventeenth year in which temperatures have been steadily falling in response to a natural cooling cycle, the result of reduced solar radiation, the global warming hoax is finally being revealed as an instrument of the United Nations and individual governments, including our own, to impose “carbon taxes” that would raise billions of dollars for everyone involved.

The New York Times with its vaunted reputation has been suffering the same fate as many daily newspapers in the U.S., as well as news magazines such as Newsweek and Time. The rise of the Internet has bled off advertising revenue, but I maintain that as alternative sources of information became available, the Times and the mainstream media has suffered a loss of credibility across the spectrum of news topics.

In the case of the Times, however, their journalistic sins were much worse than others because it led the global warming hoax from its beginning, never failing to fill its pages about rising sea levels (they’re not rising precipitously), declining polar bear populations (they’ve increased), and using every weather event from hurricanes to tornadoes to droughts (all cyclical and natural) to shout about a “global warming” caused by carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gas emissions” that had nothing whatever to do with a non-existent threat to the nation and the planet.

Bluntly stated, the Times lied about global warming—now called “climate change”—on a daily basis.

The Times Environmental Desk had a team of editors and reporters that never lost an opportunity to further the greatest hoax of the modern era and one can only hope that reporters like Andrew Revkin will be reassigned to cover high school football and soccer games in the tri-state area. On his Facebook page, Revkin said he was never a fan of the desk even though he worked for it and lamented the elimination of an environmental editor. It is doubtful, however, that the Times will eliminate its editors and teams that cover the White House, Congress, and other activities of interest to readers, including sports.

Maybe it was just serendipitous—the Times has been cutting back on staff for quite some time now—but I believe the news that the poster boy of global warming, Al Gore, had sold his television channel, Current, to al Jazeera, a notably anti-American channel that gained fame broadcasting Osama bin Laden’s rants, was the “final straw” that led to the decision to shut down its Environmental Desk.

In a January 11^th Wall Street Journal commentary, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., wrote that “Mr. Gore and his allies wore out their welcome with their exaggerations, their self-righteousness, and their perfectly foolish insistence that a plurality of voters could be morally bullied into giving up their self-interest if chastised long and loudly enough by Mr. Gore.” His commentary took to task the lies of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that extrapolated from 1.58% of the Earth surface—the lower 48 U.S. states—to suggest a global warming phenomenon.

The public did not rush to purchase electric cars, nor did they install expensive solar panels on the roofs of their homes. Instead they worried about the price of gasoline and the rising cost of electricity and other expenses whose costs have been increased by extraordinary bad “environmental” laws and regulations such as the requirement that ethanol be added to each gallon, increasing is cost while decreasing mileage, and destroying the engines under the hoods of millions of automobiles. As forty percent of the nation’s corn crop was siphoned off to make ethanol the cost of most food items at the supermarket increased as well.

The good news is that there will not be an environmental editor or deputy environmental editor at the Times, nor seven reporters whose sole job was to report lies intended to advance and bolster the agenda of the Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA, and the agendas of heavily funded environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wildlife Federation.

The “newspaper of record” has debased itself and the profession of journalism for too long as a leading participant in the progressive movement’s effort to impose socialism on the greatest example of the power of capitalism and the free market—the United States—the world has ever known.

© Alan Caruba, 2013