I Did Not Vote for Barack Obama

By Alan Caruba

Whenever I am feeling a bit despondent and need to shake off the mood, I remind myself that I did not vote for Barack Hussein Obama.

The other day, feeling buyer’s remorse, I returned an item I had purchased and requested credit. It looked so good in the catalog, but turned out to be a bad idea. While those who voted for Obama are said to still regard him quite fondly, one suspects large numbers of them are experiencing the same feeling. I, however, did not vote for Barack Hussein Obama.

I did not vote for the feckless lad who sent Air Force One to buzz New York City, accompanied by a fighter jet, neglectful of the panic that would ensue among people who had a sudden frightening flashback to 9/11.

I did not vote for the man whose choices for his cabinet and advisors included tax cheats and others who have been an on-going succession of embarrassments. His science advisor went on record suggesting we shoot stuff into the atmosphere to stop global warming. His Environmental Advisor and EPA Director want to regulate carbon dioxide as “a pollutant” and threat to health. (We each exhale about six pounds of CO2 every day.)

I did not vote for the man whose Energy Secretary was gleeful over the prospect of $8-a-gallon gasoline prices or whose Homeland Security choice thinks entering the United States illegally is not a crime and returning veterans of the Iraq War are potential “extremists.”

I did not vote for the man whose constant use of a TelePrompter has become a running joke, accurately revealing that he is frequently unable to communicate well without one.

I did not vote for the man who, in the first three months of office, has requested three prime time televised press conferences. The ratings for each successive one dipped precipitously while he droned on providing “answers” that mostly blamed the previous administration for everything.

I did not vote for the man who has essentially thrown Poland, Tibet, and Israel under the bus while opening the door to Cuba. His globe-trotting rapidly became known as “The Apology Tour.” At one point, in Turkey, he announced that America was not “a Christian nation” when any reading of history reveals it was founded by Christians, all its Presidents have been Christians (until now?), and the vast bulk of the population are Christians.

I did not vote for the man who signed a “stimulus” bill with 8,570 “earmarks” after having campaigned against wasteful spending. He deemed it “imperfect.”

I did not vote for the man whose budget, by Congressional Budget Office calculations, would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year in red ink over 2010-2019; about $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade; more than four times the deficits of the Bush presidency.

I did not vote for the man who has taken control of Chrysler and General Motors while handing majority ownership of the former to the United Auto Workers union. At the same time, he denounced “hedge funds” who act as the fiduciaries for pensioners, teacher’s credit unions, personal retiree accounts, college endowments, etc. It is these investments which by law should receive first consideration that Obama dismisses.

I did not vote for the man who precipitously closed “Gitmo” but had no idea where to transfer its current detainees, nor did I vote for the man who released memos concerning “enhanced” interrogation techniques, depicting the nation as one that endorsed torture. On average, the detainees have gained twenty pounds during their stay and some of those previously released have gone back to their terrorist trade.

I did not vote for the man who thinks Afghanistan is the new “front” in the global war on terror, ignoring the defeat that caused the former Soviet Union to collapse.

I did not vote for the man whose Interior and Energy Secretaries have rescinded the move to open up our offshore continental shelf to exploration and extraction of what is estimated to be billions of barrels of oil and even greater volumes of natural gas while at the same time restricting the mining of new, vast deposits of coal.

I did not vote for the man who refuses to release his birth certificate and a list of other documents that would ordinarily be available for public perusal.

The list of reasons why I did not vote for Obama is growing daily and, despite his current personal popularity, is generating grave misgivings among the same public for his policies and the legislative agenda of the Democrat Party, much of which is an attack on talk radio, the Internet, and private enterprise.

My conclusion is that Obama, for all his academic credentials, is either very stupid or very anti-American, or both.

Die, Global Warming, Die!

By Alan Caruba

Ever since the “global warming” lie began, for at least two decades or more, I have been writing about what a huge hoax it was and is. For all that time I believed that if the truth got out and reached enough people, they would conclude it was a lie.

The entire credibility of major so-called environmental organizations and institutions such as the United Nations rests on whether there ever was a greater than natural warming cycle; one that would cause harm to the world. Patiently I pointed out that the most recent natural warming cycle had begun around 1850 following a lengthy little ice age of some five hundred years duration.

In the United States, despite all the braying about warmest years and such, the height of the warming cycle appears to have been in the 1930s, causing havoc among farmers, particularly in the Midwest. In 1998, meteorologists and climatologists began to take note of a cooling cycle. It has been gaining momentum since then. Yes, the Earth is cooling, not warming.

Despite this, the White House and the U.S. Congress—at least its Democrats—have been telling everyone that, because of global warming, the United States government must impose draconian regulations and restrictions on “greenhouse gas” emissions, by which they primarily mean carbon dioxide (CO2). The claim, utterly false, is that CO2 is “forcing” a warming that will kill us all if we don’t reduce energy and other emissions.

The utterly vile politicians advancing this—I will not name them because the very act causes nausea—had better begin to pay some attention to public opinion on the subject because the Gallup, Zogby and Rasmussen polling organizations all are reporting that large majorities of people no longer believe their lies.

In a recent edition of U.S. News & World Report, one of the three weekly newsmagazines, all of whom have slavishly repeated lies about global warming, Paul Bedard who writes “Washington Whispers” risked unemployment by reporting that Al Gore’s vast, self-enriching campaign to advance the lies about global warming is losing out to the truth.

“They have failed,” said Gallup Poll editor, Frank Newport. “Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore’s losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned.”

Turns out that people are more concerned about the economy. And well they should be given the insanity being perpetrated by the White House and Congress. If there is a God in Heaven, there has to be a huge backlash in the 2010 midterm elections.

As Newport points out, “some 41% believe global warming claims are exaggerated,” adding “that’s the highest we’ve seen.” Zogby and Rasmussen report comparable results, give or take some percentage points.

Zogby asked people what they thought of the “cap-and-trade” legislation that would regulate CO2 emissions and got the following results: Support 30% Oppose 57% Not sure 13%.

In late April, Rasmussen reported that, “Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.”

The “Political Class” is the enemy. They are the scoundrels that stand to line their pockets by investing in companies that will benefit from “cap-and-trade” and Obama’s lies about “clean energy.” They are buying into solar and wind energy companies that are receiving billions in federal subsidies and grants. Anybody who invested in ethanol production has already lost their shirt.

The Waxman-Markey Climate Bill should make of their names the equivalent of Benedict Arnold because both are advancing legislation that would destroy the nation’s economy. The bill requires the nation to reduce its CO2 emissions by 2050 by 82% below current levels. That means a vast reduction in energy use, i.e. coal, natural gas, and oil.

Why would they advocate reducing emissions to avoid a global warming that is not happening? Why are so many in Congress wedded to this hoax? And will Americans permit them to get away with this?

Instead of doing everything possible to encourage energy companies to find and extract the energy reserves the United States requires to function and grow, the White House and Congress is doing everything in its power to restrict energy use.

Die, global warming, die! If this greatest hoax does not die, the United States will be forced to commit economic suicide.

A Christian Nation

By Alan Caruba

My areas of expertise are, generally speaking, energy, environmentalism, education, immigration, and anything else that I find of interest which, to be candid, is just about everything.

I got to thinking about this while doing an hour’s radio Tuesday morning with Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, along with his co-host, Marvin Sanders. The program is aired by the Christian Radio Network on more than 200 stations in 34 states, 19 affiliates, and in Canada.

I have been doing radio for some twenty-five years, so I have a finely tuned antenna for the mood and style of radio hosts. These two fellows were as relaxed about their Christianity as one could find. It wasn’t something they had to prove. It wasn’t something they felt compelled to talk about all the time. I was not there to discuss religion, but energy issues.

At one point, a caller asked some arcane question about American and Christian values. My first thought was that they are one and the same. It has never been a question or an issue for me that America was and is a Christian nation. It was founded by men who were profoundly influenced by Christianity, but like Benjamin Franklin were also interested in the sciences and natural world.

One cannot take a walk around the nation’s capital without reading inscriptions or finding statuary everywhere that reflect the religiosity of the founders and those who followed in their footsteps.

To those who insist that we must make all determinations by numbers, it is clear that more Americans describe themselves as Christian than any other faith. Sadly, a growing percentage of Americans self-describe themselves as no longer believing in God or any specific faith.

This lack of faith, the acceptance of mushy morals, has led some in the nation to accept things like people of the same sex marrying one another. The issue of abortion will not go away so long as there are people whose faith has taught them that killing babies is murder and a sin. An X-rated society is a society in decline.

As they wrestled with the larger issues of the question that was asked, Wildmon and his co-host seemed a bit hesitant to affirm the proposition that America was “a Christian nation” so I did it for them.

Then I asked how we have come to have a President who, in Turkey, told the entire Islamic world that America is not a Christian nation, but rather some amorphous collection of creeds and values. I answered my own question by saying that someone named Barack Hussein Obama might have his own reasons for saying something that appallingly stupid.

If America were not a Christian nation, a tolerant nation, Obama would not be President. His twenty years or so of listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright spew hatred for America hardly qualifies him to call himself a Christian.

It is no accident that the very First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” First among the protections cited in our Bill of Rights was freedom of religion!

You won’t find such laws in many Islamic nations. You won’t find much or any tolerance either, yet despite 9/11 America’s Muslims have not had to concern themselves for a moment about the practice of their faith.

Sadly, Christianity is under attack in America these days. Frankly, I wish more Christians would be more outspoken in the defense of their faith. Christmas is not “Festus”, it’s Christmas, damn it! Christians have got to stop apologizing for being Christian.

At this point, it would be a good idea to confess that for many years I have not stepped foot in a church or synagogue except to attend the funeral services of people I have loved.

Am I less religious because of this? No, I carry my religion around with me in my genes. It was passed to me by countless generations and by grandparents who had the good sense and great courage to get on a boat and come to America.

The Flu By Any Name

By Alan Caruba

First of all, it’s not the “Swine flu”, it’s the Mexican flu. That’s the nation where it mutated into a combination of swine, avian and just plain flu. Mexico is a place that exports people, drugs, and now this new strain of flu.

Second, you can avoid it by washing your hands. In fact, washing your hands is one of the best ways to avoid any virus or bacteria that might have bad intentions. Not all bacteria are bad however because our bodies teem with bacteria that perform very useful functions.

Third, pay as little attention to the media as possible. While in the process of dying from a total lack of credibility newspapers, along with much of the broadcast media, have been doing their best to frighten everyone with reports of worldwide pandemics that we are assured will kill thousands, if not millions.

From 1918 to 1920, there was a flu pandemic that spread all around the world and killed a lot of people. Back then, however, you mostly learned about the flu when your neighbor died and then your neighbor’s neighbor died. Today, if someone sneezes on an airplane they land at the nearest airport.

Fourth, just plain, ordinary flu kills about 36,000 Americans every year according to people who keep track of such things. This new strain will no doubt kill off the very young or very old, but hardly in great numbers thanks to various quarantines and other measures. And let’s not forget that pharmaceuticals like Tamiflu are available from your local pharmacy. If necessary, a new vaccine can be created and, within months, be available to Americans.

What we have learned at this point is that viruses are forever mutating in order to find some human and/or animal hosts. Pigs can catch the flu. Birds, too. Most people are unaware that a great way to get Salmonella is to kiss your pet.

Simply put, Mother Nature has a nasty streak that is forever looking for ways to kill off people and other critters. As often as not, she uses a variety of insect and rodent pests to spread so many diseases that, if I began to list them, you would never leave the house.

This is, for example, tick season which is another way of saying this is Lyme Disease season. Ticks also spread babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, bartonella or tularemia. So, lots of luck the next time you go hiking or camping. Or just let the kids play in the back yard.

Then there are the mosquitoes that spread West Nile Fever, Dengue Fever, and Malaria, among others. West Nile Fever first was detected in New York City in 1999. It only took five years for it to spread to the West Coast. When New York initially used pesticides to knock down the mosquito population to stop the spread of the disease, the first people to object were, of course, the environmentalists who reasoned that “only old people” would likely to die from it.

Cockroaches which keep themselves very clean nonetheless spread disease. Rodents like mice and rats defecate everywhere they go. I have friends in the pest management industry who will not dine in a restaurant they themselves have not personally treated!

WASH YOUR HANDS!

There are some who believe the most dangerous creature on Earth is the human species. It delights in killing its own kind. These days, its favorite means are beheadings and suicide bombings. Whole armies exist for the sole purpose of keeping other armies from killing the citizens of their nation when those citizens are not routinely killing one another. (Check your local evening news or daily newspaper.)

There is no place to hide from humans.

Serving Up More U.S. Hostages to Iran

By Alan Caruba

If there is one thing Americans know about Iran it is that Iran takes hostages.

Iran did so from November 4, 1979 until January 20, 1981, holding fifty-two United States diplomats as the Islamic revolution swept over that nation, replacing the Shah with a handful of fanatical ayatollahs preparing the way for the return of a mythical twelfth imam. The scenario for that is the equivalent of Armageddon, involving massive conflicts and death.

The Islamic Revolution that has been roiling the Middle East as a resistance movement to everything modern does not recognize any kind of international laws. Its weapon of choice is terror. The international immunity extended to diplomats is one that is conspicuously ignored by Muslim terrorists.

In 1973, the Saudi embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, was stormed by Palestinian Fatah terrorists who took U.S. ambassador Cleo Noel and the embassy’s charge d’affaires, George Curtis Moore, hostage. On the orders of Yassir Arafat, both were murdered.

To this day, successive U.S. administrations insist that Fatah is the only Palestinian group with whom either the U.S. or Israel should negotiate peace. Peace is not Fatah’s goal, nor ever was. It is an illusion and has proved a very deadly one.

The greatest illusion, however, is to negotiate with Iran in the belief that it will ever keep its word and yet DEBKAfile, an Israeli news agency that has proven a reliable source of information, reports that the Obama administration is either preparing to negotiate or is already in back door negotiations with Iran “to permit the passage to Afghanistan of fresh U.S. troops, weapons, and supplies across Iranian territory.”

By air and by sea, the Obama administration is proposing that Iranians permit over-flights from the U.S. air base at Al Udeid in Qutar and a sea route that would pass by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s main naval base at Chah-Bahar, situated on the Arabian Sea near Iran’s border with Pakistan.

Barely two years ago the Iranians took fifteen British Royal Navy personnel hostage for two weeks in April 2007. The object was to “encourage” the British to remove their forces from southern Iraq. They’re gone now.

Though it has received conspicuously little coverage, Roxanna Saberi, an American journalist, sits in an Iranian jail as this is written, recently found guilty of espionage. It is, of course, a lie. She is a hostage.

The idea of putting U.S. troops, by air or sea, within the easy grasp of Iranian borders on madness.

“DEBKAfile’s sources ask how much leverage against Iran’s drive for a nuclear bomb will be left to Washington when the U.S. becomes dependent on Tehran for its war supplies to Afghanistan.”

If the Obama administration could find a more simple-minded and dangerous option to take with Iran, it is the proposed movement of our troops and supplies with the permission of a nation that regards America as its greatest enemy and has made repeated threats of annihilation against our ally Israel.

A full court U.S. diplomatic effort is being made with nations in the Middle East to convince them that this proposal to seek Iran’s cooperation does not threaten U.S. relations with them, but neither Egypt, nor Saudi Arabia is convinced, nor should they be. Iran’s openly acknowledged antipathy to both those nations gives them cause.

A nuclear-armed Iran is not just a threat to Israel. It is a threat to the entire Middle East and, on the top of long-range missiles, a threat to Europe and India as well.

This proposal is an invitation for Iran to take U.S. military and weapons hostage at their pleasure. It is a plan that is doomed to failure and worse. It reeks of a Machiavellian plan to neutralize our power to influence events in the Middle East.

Read the DEBKAfile story at:

http://debka.com/headline.php?hid=6048

Pakistan Implodes

By Alan Caruba

The wars going on in the Middle East will soon be the entire world’s next war as the fanatic Islamists throughout the region threaten to take over Pakistan and Afghanistan while continuing to wage war in Iraq. If they’re successful, India will be dragged into the full scale battle against the Taliban and al Qaeda. Where it spreads from there is anyone’s guess.

It is a battle between the seventh century of Islam and the twenty-first century of the rest of the world. It is a battle between men who believe that Allah demands it and they are prepared to spend as much time as necessary to achieve victory.

It is a battle in which the United States has been an unwilling participant for a very long time. The jihadists drew blood in Beirut, Lebanon during the Reagan years in the 80s and again when they blew up two U.S. embassies in Africa during the Clinton years. Tellingly, it included an abortive effort to destroy the Twin Towers in 1993.

After September 11, 2001, Americans applauded the vigorous response of the Bush administration in Afghanistan, but in point of fact al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri easily moved across the border into Pakistan and intelligence services believe they have been there ever since.

This enemy senses serious weakness in the new President. Obama has chosen Afghanistan, the worst place to fight a war, as his new “front” while at the same time announcing he is withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. The increase of bombings in Iraq is no accident. It is an al Qaeda calling card. The worst of the news is the potential collapse of Pakistan as Taliban factions acquire more and more territory in what has always been a very poor excuse for a nation.

As Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, recently said in an editorial, “…the Taliban are no longer a threat, but a grotesque reality,” noting that “The writ of the government weakens by the hour, while the terrorists are steadily emboldened. Yet the state and its institutions—including the military—have so far shown an appalling lack of commitment or wherewithal to force back the swarm.”

This is a newspaper in a Muslim nation, written by Muslims, who call the Taliban “grotesque.” And they should know! The editorial warned that, “The time in which to turn back the tide is fast running out.”

One of the most brilliant analysts of Middle Eastern affairs is Walid Phares, the Director of the Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “As the U.S. administration and its allies are devising a new strategy for the next steps in Afghanistan, the jihadists have already begun their next move—but this time it’s inside Pakistan.”

“If Washington and its allies fail to see the big picture in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda,” wrote Phares, “which unfortunately may be the case now, the rapidly deteriorating situation will soon exceed the northwestern provinces of Pakistan to spill over to both Afghanistan and India.”

Simply put, you cannot negotiate with the Taliban or al Qaeda. Their promises mean nothing because they operate under taqiyya, an Arab/Muslim term that terrorism expert, Douglas Farah tells us is “embraced by radical Islamists. It blesses the concept of disguising one’s beliefs, intentions, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions or strategies from the enemy and the infidel.”

“In practical terms,” says Farah, “it is manifested as dissimulation, lying, deceiving, vexing and confounding with the intention of deflecting attention, foiling or pre-emptive blocking.”

In an excellent Policy Analysis published by the Cato Institute on April 13, Malou Innocent shared her observations after having recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Pakistan.

Just how bad is the situation there? All of the seven tribal agencies administered by the Pakistan government are either under the de facto control or threatened by the Taliban movement. A recent truce between the government and the Taliban is of no real substance and should not be treated as such. As Ms. Innocent notes, “the military agreed not to launch operations without consulting tribal elders…(but) the army is more inclined to fight India, not a civil war within its borders.”

That is extremely bad news, but Pakistan has been a nation of extremes since it came into being after breaking away from the newly independent India in 1947 to become an Islamic state. The army—currently some 600,000 soldiers—has been the only stable element and has provided a number of presidents or rulers via coups.

Elements within the government such as its intelligence service have leaned favorably toward the Taliban and al Qaeda. Even so, “U.S. officials acknowledge, however, that the Pakistani government has captured more terrorists and committed more troops than almost any other nation in the ‘war on terror’.”

In its urban, modern cities and areas, there appears to be a genuine desire for real democracy, but the Taliban threatens to drag Pakistan back to the seventh century in its quest for a new caliphate. While the nation has remained focused on war with India since its founding, the real threat has always been the growth of fundamentalist Islam and it now poses the potential overthrow of the government.

Should that government fail, you will watch India go to full battle-ready status. Afghanistan’s government will likely fail despite the presence of U.S./NATO forces and the momentum to continue the jihad into all the nations of the region would pose a grave threat to the West. It could only be solved only by combat.

And the question everyone is wondering, if not asking, is whether Barack Obama will make the tough decisions necessary to keep Pakistan from falling to the Taliban or is willing, as George W. Bush was, to drive out a tyrannical regime?

Obama's Big Lies and Small

By Alan Caruba

Watching President Obama’s third prime time press conference in three months, I found myself wondering how the White House press corps had been reduced to a bunch of bit players in the great drama of Barack Hussein Obama. They are absolutely in love and enthralled.

He, of course, knew exactly who he was going to call on so it hardly mattered that the other reporters even showed up. They were just part of the scenery. Those who were called upon did not ask anything that evoked anything more than his typical long response designed, I suspect, to bore everyone to the point where the original question was forgotten. There were no follow-up questions. The New York Times reporter was pathetic, an embarrassment to the profession of journalism.

Notably, this third press conference attracted far fewer viewers than numbers one and two. After the first hundred days of White House orchestrated massive media exposure, people have experienced Too Much Obama.

All this, however, probably wouldn’t matter were not for the fact that the President of the United States is telling some very big lies and not being called on them. From my personal perspective, Obama seems to lie about everything all the time. On the campaign trail a certain amount of hyperbole is expected, but when the liar is the President, it becomes a serious matter.


In remarks in Arnold, Missouri on April 30, released by the White House Press Office, the President said, “The average person problem thinks, yes, climate change, that’s kind of a drag, but it’s not one of my top priorities—because you don’t really see it or feel it, it doesn’t hit your pocketbook, it doesn’t have to do with your job directly. And so the tendency is just to kind of push it off. People think, well, this just has to do with polar bears, and I feel bad about polar bears, but I’ve got other things to worry about.”

For the record, the polar bear population is just fine and has been expanding for decades since the 1950s.

“I don’t think people fully appreciate the potential damage—economic damage, as well as environmental damage—that could be done if we are not serious in dealing with this problem,” said Obama. “If the temperature goes up a couple of degrees, well, it will change weather patterns pretty significantly. It could create droughts in places where we haven’t had drought; it could bring insect-born diseases up into places like Missouri that we haven’t seen before.”

Obama went to say, “You’re now looking at huge, cataclysmic hurricanes, complete changes in weather patterns. Some places will get hotter, some places will get colder. Our economy would be disrupted by tens of trillions of dollars. So this is no joke. And the science shows that the planet is getting warmer faster than people expected.”

Just about everything Obama said is a flat-out lie. It begins with the biggest lie of all; that human beings have any control or influence over the weather. When I say weather, I mean what is happening outside right now. When I say climate, I am talking about trends that involve hundreds of years.

To claim that the Earth “is getting warmer faster than people expected” is a more specific lie. The Earth has been in a cooling cycle for a decade. No doubt the President will, at some point, say he received poor information, but the truth is he knows full well that “global warming” is the vast hoax that underpins the justification for his administration to impose a punishing, needless tax on all energy use via the “cap and trade” legislation making its way through Congress. It is a so-called “carbon tax” and it will do more harm to the nation’s economy than anything anyone can imagine.

Earth to Obama! All the recent polls regarding “global warming” demonstrate that most Americans know it is a pile of crap. A Zogby survey found that only 30% support “cap-and-trade” of emissions, while 57% oppose it and 13% were not sure. In February, a Rasmussen telephone survey revealed that 54% of U.S. voters said the news media “make global warming appear worse than it really is. Only 21% say the media present an accurate picture.”

So the President is lying about something most Americans distrust and don’t believe. Meanwhile, the lapdog media continues to report “global warming” despite the fact that more than half the voters have concluded they are just hyping it. And that’s exactly what they and the President are doing.

A voter backlash is coming, but those living in the D.C. bubble and drinking deeply of the Potomac waters have no clue.