20 Examples Of How America Is Rapidly Going Down The Toilet (via The American Dream)

WesternFront America

While the nation tries to come to grips with the cascade of scandals involving the Obama administration, a significant phenomenon has been occurring. It is the demise of the global warming/climate change hoax that has driven national and international policies since the 1980s.

Directed from within the bowels of the most corrupt international organization on planet Earth, the United Nations, the hoax originally generated the Kyoto Protocols in December 1997 to set limits on the generation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The UN’s climate charlatans claimed that CO2 was causing the Earth to dramatically warm. It was a lie. The U.S. Senate unanimously refused to ratify it and, in 2011, Canada withdrew from it.

As reported by Craig Rucker, Executive Director of CFACT, fast-forward to the recent UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, and news that Russia, joined by Ukraine and Belarus, blocked the adoption of the agenda of the “Subsidiary Body for Implementation”, part of the standard fast-tracking toward a 2015 Climate Treaty scheduled to be adopted and signed in Paris. Part of the treaty is a scheme to redistribute the wealth of developed nations to those less developed.

The Russians were fed up with the usual behind-closed-doors proceedings that create such treaties, but no doubt they were well aware that the treaty would empower the UN to govern a large portion of economic activity around the world. All UN treaties require nations to surrender some aspect of their national sovereignty.

There is clearly a backlash against the global warming hoax, particularly from nations that have discovered the costs to their economies that idiotic “renewable” energy schemes and emissions reductions incur. In the real world, they are experiencing longer, harsher winters as the result of the cooling cycle the Earth has been in for the last seventeen years!

Despite President Obama’s incessant claims that the Earth is heating, scientists in both Russia and China have been publishing data from scientific studies disputing the Big Lie of global warming/climate change.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences—50,000 members strong—recently published “Climate Change Reconsidered and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report”, two hefty volumes with more than 1,200 pages of peer-reviewed data on climate change published by The Heartland Institute in 2009 and 2011.

In May, Marc Morano, publisher of ClimateDepot.com and a former member of the staff of the U.S. Senate Environmental & Public Works Committee submitted written testimony to the committee.

“The scientific reality is that on virtually every claim—from A-Z—the claims of the promoters of man-made climate fears are failing,” wrote Morano, “and in many instances the claims are moving in the opposite direction. The global warming movement is suffering the scientific death of a thousand cuts.”

“There is no evidence,” wrote Morano, “we are currently having any unusual weather.” Weather events such as the Moore, Oklahoma tornado and the sub-tropical storm Sandy that hit the northeast are normal occurrences despite the damage they inflicted.

In The Wall Street Journal in May, Princeton University physicist Dr. William Happer and NASA moonwalker and geologist, Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt wrote that “Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That’s simply not the case.”

Literally thousands of scientists around the world have disputed the IPCC “science” and many former “warmists” have reversed their former beliefs. Dr. Lennart Bengtsson, a top Swedish climate scientist, formerly affiliated with the IPCC, said in February “We are creating great anxiety without it being justified…there are no indications that the warming is so severe that we need to panic…

“The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that, if we didn’t have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it, we wouldn’t have noticed it at all.”

The threat facing Americans is posed by the Environmental Protection Agency that clings to the Big Lie about CO2 and uses it as the basis for a flood of regulations that are doing great harm to economic recovery and development.

The same holds true for the Departments of Energy and the Interior that deny access to the nation’s huge reserves of energy resources and, in the case of coal, act to destroy its mining industry and plants using it for the generation of electricity.

The global warming/climate change hoax continues to be widely taught in the nation’s schools and that should end. Now.

It continues to be reported as truth by the mainstream media and as fodder for Hollywood movies and for television programs such as those on the National Geographic Channel.

Despite the lies surrounding global warming/climate change, the hoax is in its final death throes and has been for many years. That’s the good news.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

WesternFront America

The Washington Post finally got its primary and in typical leftist fashion, they approved of the candidate selection method that was both inefficient and cost taxpayers the most. Earlier this year the Posties criticized Republicans for using the convention method to choose their nominees — even though Lincoln was chosen by a convention and the Constitution was written at one.

The Post complained the 8,000 delegates that attended the Richmond convention were less than one percent of registered Republicans in the Commonwealth. And in fact, the editorial page was in such a snit over the Republican’s choice of a convention the page “did not make endorsements.” (Which explains all the black armbands on the convention floor being worn by former Bolling supporters.)

But an expensive Democrat primary where less than 3 percent of the voters bothered to make it to the polls is considered a triumph of participatory democracy on the Post editorial page. So now Virginia voters face the daunting prospect of a campaign spent listening to a lily–white ticket, composed of three middle–aged males that are obsessed with women’s reproductive organs.

And that’s just the Democrats!

Republicans in their “closed convention” somehow managed to choose the only minority on either statewide ticket, while a majority of Democrat primary voters refused to select either the Indian running for lieutenant governor (the sub–continent kind, not the Lone Ranger kind) or the black running for attorney general.

And talk about your social issue fanatics! Ralph Northam, the Democrat pick for lieutenant governor, ran a commercial before the primary where all he talks about is abortion. Northam declares, “There is no reason that a group of legislators, mostly men, should be telling women what they should and shouldn’t be doing with their bodies.”

Well that’s pretty definitive. But I have to ask: Does Northam’s declaration cover prostitution? Underage sex? Incest? Female–teacher–on–underage–male sex abuse? Flashing? Where, exactly does Northam draw the line?

Northam supporters keep mentioning that “he is the only physician in the VA Senate” as if that gives him special standing. But Northam is one of those doctors who has a loose interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath: First, do no harm. In Northam’s office you have to be large enough to hand over the co–pay before you are accorded the rights of a human being.

While Republicans Ken Cuccinelli and E. W. Jackson are talking about creating jobs and growing the economy, Northam advocates de–regulating abortion clinics and fighting passage of a bill that would grant “personhood” status to an unborn baby.

Northam’s ‘an abortion in every pot’ platform is particularly relevant when one remembers that the Posties have declared war on Jackson — who happens to be of the black persuasion — for his accurate, completely true remark that Planned Parenthood has been “far more lethal to black lives” than the Ku Klux Klan.

The WaPost responds by analogizing that, “Abortion rates in the United States are higher for African Americans and Hispanics than for other groups. That reflects the fact that those groups tend to have higher rates of unwanted pregnancies. To blame the incidence of abortion on the clinics that provide abortion services is like blaming stores that sell cigarettes for the fact that too many Americans smoke.”

This analogy is only accurate if the government is buying smokes for the underage and poor, while simultaneously discouraging abstinence.

At the victory celebration, Northam came this close to talking about an issue that would attract independents and soft Republicans, before he lapsed into pube–speak, “This state, in order to have business, in order to welcome people, we need to be inclusive. That starts with stopping the attack on women, the assault on the (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) community.”

Northam’s obsession with divisive social issues, instead of pocketbook issues, means that if you’re looking for a job in an abortion mill, Northam’s your man, otherwise it’s time to start listening to the Republicans.

Mark my words, during this election the Republican ticket will be talking about jobs, taxes and transportation, while the Democrats travel the state brandishing the bloody coat hanger and accusing the GOP of concentrating on “divisive social issues.” Psychiatrists call it projection.

Meanwhile the WaPost will be doing it’s best to drive E.W. Jackson out of the race. Right now the focus is on financial problems. Jackson was behind on his taxes and has filed for bankruptcy in the past. He is now current on all his tax bills, which puts him ahead of the 1,289 Treasury Department employees who collectively owe $9.3 million in back taxes.

Jackson also regrets his bankruptcy, “It was painful. It was difficult. It was embarrassing. I don’t like the idea of not paying off debts.” Compare Jackson’s situation to that of Democrat nominee for governor, Terry McAuliffe. He convinced the taxpayers of Mississippi to give his GreenTech company $7 million in “growth and prosperity” tax exemptions and another $8 million in grants, loans and land in return for building a factory, creating jobs and manufacturing “green” cars.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “…GreenTech looks to be a lemon…there is no evidence the company is manufacturing any cars…(it) has yet to begin building its flagship factory in Tunica. GreenTech is the latest proof…the political class is adept at hooking up cronies and investors with taxpayer dollars. But creating jobs? No can do.”

Rather than be tied down by bad publicity and previous commitments, McAuliffe resigned from GreenTech and walked away from all obligations, while Jackson stayed to face his.

But Jackson’s real sin, as far as the Posties are concerned, is that he’s a Tea Party conservative. Jackson has escaped the Democrat Leftist plantation, once again pointing out the need for the Fugitive Minority Act (co–sponsored by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid) that would return ideological escapees to the Democrats for re–education and relieve the media of dealing with off–message minorities that do not support amnesty, abortion and alternate lifestyles.

Michael R. Shannon

WesternFront America

America will celebrate her 237^th birthday this year, and…..

The Sesquicentennial “150^th Anniversary” of the War Between the States continues in remembrance of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson who died in May 1863 and the men of Blue and Gray who fought at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Georgia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans commemorates the memory of the Confederate soldier. Read more at: http://www.150wbts.org/

Fifty years had passed since the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1st- 3rd, 1863, when the Veterans of the North and South braved again the summer heat to meet at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

One hundred years have passed since….

President Woodrow Wilson, a son of Virginia, summarized the spirit of this historic event with his July 4, 1913 Gettysburg Reunion Address by saying: quote “We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten—except that we shall not forget the splendid valor.” unquote

From June 29 to July 4, 1913, 53,407 Confederate and Union Veterans of the War Between the States came to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania for a Reunion and encampment. Veterans came from 47 of the 48 states of the Union and the Chief Surgeon said of the event, quote “Never before in the world’s history had so great a number of men advanced in years been assembled under field conditions” unquote.

It was the largest combined reunion of War Between the States Veterans.

Do you know who Gen. Robert Edward Lee, Major Gen. George Edward Pickett and Major Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain are who met at Gettysburg in July 1863?

“Comrades and friends, these splendid statues of marble and granite and bronze shall finally crumble to dust, and in the ages to come, will perhaps be forgotten, but the spirit that has called this great assembly of our people together, on this field, shall live forever.” —–Dr. Nathaniel D. Cox at 1913 Gettysburg Reunion

The youngest Veteran was reported to be 61 and the oldest was 112 years young.

The United States and Confederate flags flew side by side at the Gettysburg soldier’s reunion of honored men who had been enemies on the field of battle.

The State of Pennsylvania hosted the 1913 reunion at the insisting of state Governor John K. Tener. Tener also encouraged other states to arrange rail transportation for the participants. Down South in Dixie, the United Daughters of the Confederacy helped raise money for the transportation and uniforms for their Confederate Veterans.

The soldiers of Blue and Gray, Black and White, came with heads held high and full of war stories. It is written that the hosts did not count on Black Confederates attending the meeting and had no place to put them but the White Confederates made room for their Southern brothers. Black Union veterans also attended this event.

It is written that nearly 700,000 meals were served that included fried chicken, roast pork sandwiches, ice cream and Georgia watermelon. The temperature soared to 100 degrees and almost 10,000 veterans were treated for heat exhaustion and several hundred more were hospitalized. The United States Army was also present in support and it’s written that the old men loved the attention.

A highlight of the reunion was the Confederate Veterans walk on the path of Gen. George Pickett’s charge that was greeted, this time, by a handshake from the Union Veterans.

Let’s not forget!

Calvin E. Johnson, Jr., Speaker, Writer of short stories, Author of book “When America stood for God, Family and Country” and Chairman of the National and Georgia Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Confederate History and Heritage Month committee. http://www.facebook.com/ConfederateHeritageMonth

WesternFront America

The Obama Administration has been excellent at keeping a crisis of some kind ongoing in the US while they continue to get their crash socialist programs through the Congress and made into law before the American people figure out what hit us. It’s called “misdirection.”  Magicians use it all the time.  The reason Magicians and politicians use it  – because it works!

We warned some time ago that when the Obama people run out of crises and the smoke clears a little and the American people begin to get a look through the low hanging mist, there would  be a lot of jaws dropping and dragging the floor. Well, those “thumps” you’ve been hearing in the past few weeks are the sound of those aforementioned jaws hitting the floor. Yep, it has finally begun.

It is sometimes known as “Buyer’s Remorse.”  You know, it’s that sinking feeling you get after you get home from a shopping trip with something that you felt — at the time the salesman was pitching it to you — that you absolutely had to have.  Now that you are home with that item, which is now ALL YOURS, you realize, you really didn’t need it at all!  In fact, you don’t even want the “cussed thing”, but. – Now you OWN IT! THAT is “Buyer’s Remorse.”

That is what a lot of Obama supporters are feeling these days.  It is certainly not because we conservatives didn’t warn them, we did, loud and clear and long, we warned them. Too late, they discovered we actually DID know what we were talking about.  But, as I said, it is now too late.

Hopefully, enough of those misdirected voters will clear their heads in time to help those of us already in the trenches stop Obama’s attempt to grant amnesty to the nearly, what, 30 million (?), or so, illegal immigrants in the US.  Yes, it is the illegal immigration amnesty program now referred to as Immigration Reform.   It’s nothing more than a new effort to get that Illegal Immigrant Amnesty Program pushed through a socialist Congress.

It will not be easy to stop immigration reform in the US Senate.  In fact, it will probably pass the Senate. But, we expect to stop it with an all out effort in the US House of Representatives. 

Is it time to close the Golden Door and out lady Liberty’s Torch?  I think it is… at least for a time.  We desperately need to get a handle on immigration. 

The US is being overrun with immigrants, legal and illegal.  So many are coming in that we can no longer keep up with them… and as a result, we haven’t a clue who is here… and what their intentions are.  Granted the recession has slowed the invasion, for a time, but that won’t last forever and, soon, those numbers will begin climbing again.

Now we are in serious danger of losing our country. 

Consider this:  Three immigrants babies are born for every baby born to a US Citizen.  See what I mean?  See how the numbers are against us?  Those babies, born of immigrant parents, become an American citizen at the moment of birth.  In a few years, that same young American citizen can sponsor other members of his, or her, family and bring them to live in the US, as well.

Something has to be done… and quickly.

We need to shut down legal immigration for a few years… a moratorium, if you will,  on immigration.  That will allow us to catch our national breath.  And then we need to close, and seal, the southern, and northern, borders of the US.

We must also understand that terrorists find our wide-open southern border an open invitation to enter through their enemy’s soft underbelly and deal death and destruction to the citizens of this once great country. We know this because we have caught at least a few of them.

We must ask the troubling question: “For those terrorists we caught… how many got through?”  That should keep you up tonight!

A country must be able to control its borders, or it is doomed.  There is no such thing as a nation without borders.  That is a leftist pipe dream. If a nation cannot, or will not, control its borders, it will cease to exist as a nation. 

Sorry to say, I do not see the will in our elected officials, including the President, to take the nations security seriously and close and seal those borders.  See, those folks stealing across that border look very much like democrat voters to the democrat/socialists now running the US  government.

Please don’t tell me it can’t be done. DO NOT TRY to tell me we cannot close and seal that border with Mexico. We have US troops patrolling the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and we have US troops patrolling the border between North and South Korea.  It is even rumored that we have US troops overseeing the Syrian/Jordan border.   But, we have no US troops patrolling the borders between the US and Mexico and the US and Canada.  Does that make any sort of sense to you?  Because it, sure as heck, does not make sense to me!

Sealing the border(s) can be done.  But, one thing is missing.  The political will to do it.  This is another point at which “the governed” and “the governors” differ in the US.  Again, I fear the explanation is simply – votes for the Democrat/Socialists and a cheap labor pool for the GOP.

I am convinced the American people would like to preserve their identity and their national security.  Unfortunately, our legislators seem interested only in securing more and more power for themselves… and if that means allowing illegal, and legal, immigrants into this country in hopes of persuading them to align themselves with one, or both, of our political parties, then so be it.  (And, as noted above, there, in a nutshell, is the problem.)

When the 2016 political campaigns swing into high gear, in a few months, I’d like to see this problem front and center on the list of things the candidates need to address and actually do something about!  I doubt it will be on that list, but if we push long enough, and loud enough, we will, at some point, get their attention.  If we don’t speak up, if we don’t rattle their cages, we are going to be steam-rolled by the democrat/socialist juggernaut.

Look. Until we are ready to colonize the stars we are going to have to make a home for ourselves here… on THIS planet.  As in 15th, and 16th, century Europe, many of us are ready to pull out and go establish ourselves another society. We haven’t the means, yet.  But in the future we will, and the stars will really be our homes. But, ‘til then, we must do everything in our power to secure the place on this planet we call home. We can begin by sealing our borders – especially the southern border with Mexico.

J. D. Longstreet

WesternFront America

Yes, I fear that rare gem, Columbia,  is gone. Sunk beneath the waves of soft communism she has drowned in her own ignorance and apathy.

As I speak with more and more conservatives — and a few liberals — it is becoming clear that a growing number of Americans now believe that America is irretrievably lost.  The American optimist has finally been mugged by reality and, for the first time, can see clearly what we realists have been shouting from the rooftops for many years.

Already, freedom is in its death throes in America. The constitution, the very foundation of America, has been shredded, and kicked to the curb as the thundering sound of leftist jackboots reverberate off the marble halls of what used to be the seat of a government of, by, and for the people.

America has gone from “free state” to “police state” almost overnight.

Even as I write these few words I am cognizant that the government will snatch it right out of the ether and store it in a secret cavernous complex where it will remain for centuries –  just in case they decide to prosecute me for exercising what used to be speech protected under the First Amendment to the constitution,  But that was before we entered the Post Constitution Era in America. Now freedom is whatever the person in power over me says it is — and nothing more.

I am become as chattel.

A great chasm has opened between those of us who treasure freedom and liberty and what used to be OUR government.  It is a gorge to wide to be bridged and to deep to be filled. It is a permanent reminder that we are “persona non grata.”

In the early days of the deconstruction of America some of us held out hope that Americans would rise up and protect the constitution.  Sadly, we overestimated the patriotism of modern Americans. It hasn’t happened — and try as I might, I can find no sincere indication that it ever will happen.

Here on the Internet, the last outpost of free speech, conservative writers are sensing the gathering of leftist forces intent on wiping them/us out, stopping our voices, wresting control of our words from us through intimidation, old fashioned scare tactics,  and misusing the law against us.  None of this would be possible IF the Constitution was still the law of the land.  But it isn’t.

Ignorance and apathy have done America in.

There was genuine surprise when Americans learned that various departments of government have been using their power against Americans who dared have a different political philosophy than that of the political left.  That ignorance was shocking to those of us who have been writing of just those violations of our constitutional rights by the government for years and years and years.   Like a white sail on an ocean of black it could not have been more obvious.  And yet there was surprise.

The apathy of those who admit to knowledge of a government gone rogue but whine as how they have no power to change anything so they just don’t get involved was — and is — a cop-out that has — or will — cost us our freedom and force us into serfdom and slavery to the state.

Ayn Rand once said that “freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion.”  Even Helen Keller could see that THAT freedom is non-existent in America today.

America was to have been a “moral” country. Our government was to be built on Individual rights.  Individual rights are now gone and in their place we have socialist “collective” rights. Our national morality is even lower than that of Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah.  This tends to happen when a people replace God with the state.

It has been said that “Free Stuff” did America in. There is much to be said in favor of that viewpoint.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, N.J., some time ago, wrote an analysis of the 2012 presidential election.  In it he said: “It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won. Romney lost because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate. The notion of the ‘Reagan Democrat’ is one cliché that should be permanently retired. Ronald Reagan himself could not win an election in today’s America. The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.”  SOURCE: http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/the-end-of-america-why-romney-lost/

Ayn Rand also said: “Traditionally and historically, the American people can be pushed so far, and then they stop it.”   I would counter with Rabbi Pruzansky’s words from above: “It is a different world, and a different America.”

One is tempted to raise a glass in a farewell salute to a people so arrogant in their ignorance that they committed national suicide while still in their infancy — not even 250 years old.

As I enter the winter of my life, I had hoped to have the satisfaction of leaving my country a better place for my progeny.  In that — I have failed — utterly.   As an old  southerner from the Carolinas, it is a part of my ingrown “Noblesse Oblige” to work hard, contribute to the betterment of society, maintain my honor ( and that of my family), and be generous in all things.  And yes, I know how high-faluting that must sound in this day and age, but in my day, no matter one’s socio-economic standing in a southern community, one understood — clearly — that one had the OBLIGATION to attempt to live up to the Noblesse Oblige creed.  And, in my opinion, we were a better community, county, state, and nation for it.

Alas, it has come to naught. The “Shining City’s” shining hour is spent.  The “Grand Experiment” has failed.

“O, Columbia, the gem of the ocean,
The home of the brave and the free,
The shrine if each patriot’s devotion,
A world offers homage to thee.
Thy mandates make heroes assemble
When Liberty’s form stands in view;
Thy banners make tyranny tremble
When borne by the Red, White and Blue!
When borne by the Red, White and Blue!”

Here’s to the legend of America!  We truly mourn your passing.

© J. D. Longstreet

WesternFront America

By David Huntwork

The outrage is palpable and the sudden realization by the average American that they really, truly are now living in an Orwellian surveillance state has been an eye-opening experience for many across the fruited plain. The once mocked conspiracy theory of the all-knowing Big Brother state has shown itself to be far more of an ugly reality than a silly fantasy. He who has called the War on Terror basically over has now been forced to admit that his administration has vastly expanded the concept of the security state in the name of ‘public safety.’ The ‘trust us’ stance of government is no longer a working defense for such actions as this administration, and the federal agencies under its control, have shown that they simply cannot be trusted. Therein lies the true dilemma for the Obama administration as it seeks to calm the rising storm.

We already have proof that powerful agencies of the federal government deliberately, under orders from Washington, harassed and targeted specific people and groups that were ideological opponents of the current administration. The vast powers of the state were used as political weapons against its enemies on a wide scale and possibly affected the outcome of the last presidential election. Such things should not be taken lightly.

The fact that basically every phone call, FB post, internet search, website visit, email written, and picture posted online is being sucked up by Big Brother without regards to privacy concerns, constitutional protections, or the concept of personal liberty goes against everything America should stand for. It is state of affairs that should raise a cry of outrage in every throat and force a fundamental change in what we will tolerate from our government. The fact that leading tech companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple were participating in a secret surveillance program on the citizenry known as PRISM should (but will not necessarily) lead to a complete collapse of public trust in the current administration and our current concept of government in general. What has not been explained away is why the administration has assembled the most powerful and intrusive systems of surveillance ever conceived. The Founding Fathers would not have stood for such things for one second and neither should we.

Such policies can have a chilling effect on political speech and free speech in general. There are those who argue that liberals have successfully seized the State just as they have academia, education, the media, the entertainment industry and increasingly the military. And this may be just another tool and tactic for those seeking to monitor, track, and eventually silence those who oppose their utopian, socialistic, nanny-state agenda.

Mr. Obama stated “I think it’s important to recognize that you can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience. We’re going to have to make some choices as a society.” But if it comes down to a choice between the two I choose privacy. We should always, always choose a free state over a police state even if the latter provides slightly more security from the random Boston bomber or occasional crazy. As Americans we should not be forced to live with a camera on every pole, a bug in every phone, and an internal security officer on every corner. That illusion of safety in reality then merely becomes the mask for eventual tyranny and oppression in the name of the ‘common good’ and societal safety. For as Ben Franklin put it, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Liberty should be the goal of government, not the antithesis of it. The Republic exists to secure such liberties for its citizens, not to be the opponent of such. We’ve now traveled far down the wrong path and we may have to pay a high price to restore the Republic and regain true liberty for our children, and our children’s children.

Below are a few videos that cover the ‘interesting’ related events of the last week.

Rush Limbaugh: “We are in the Midst of a Coup Taking Place” – Audio 6/7/13

The Obama IRS Targeting Scandal in Five Minutes – Unbelievable Abuse of Power

Obama: If you can’t trust us, we’re going to have some problems

And frankly, you are right Mr. President. The fact that we can’t trust you, your cronies, the agencies under your control, and the “oversight” of stacked secret courts or the congress who has been complaining, but doing nothing, about such policies means we are going to have some serious “problems.”

David Huntwork is a conservative activist, blogger, and columnist and the proud father of three daughters. The son, grandson, and great-grandson of Ministers of the Gospel he brings a unique blended background of theology and ideology to the great debates of the day. He believes that Faith, Family, and Freedom is the formula for success and the key to a good life and a healthy nation. David blogs and serves as the site editor for Constitutionclub.org. You can contact him at Davehuntwork@juno.com.

WesternFront America

You have to wonder why all the data gathering by the National Security Agency, Homeland Security, and the FBI failed to identify and surveil the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing? When even the Russians warned national security authorities about the Chechen brothers, Dzhokan and Tamerlan Tsaraev, they were reportedly interviewed and then ignored.

“Are you planning to make bombs to kill infidels?” “No, sir.” “Okay, have a nice day.”

It is useful to recall the extraordinary fear that the 9/11 attacks generated. Americans were ready to accept any means possible to avoid further attacks. The Patriot Act came off the shelf and was enacted swiftly even though most members of Congress barely had time or perhaps even made the effort to read it.

On June 6, an unidentified “senior administration spokesman” said, “Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.” The latest revelations about the scope of that intelligence gathering, combined with those about the misuse of data by the Internal Revenue Service, led The New York Times to say of the reassurances being offered—just trust us—“The administration has now lost all credibility”; amending that shortly after to “…on this issue.” Too late. You told the truth the first time.

The Times, along with many conservatives, was wary of the Patriot Act, saying it was “reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.”

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution says “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath and affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

S.T. Karnick, the Director of Research for The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based, free market think tank, said, “The audacity of monitoring everyone’s phone calls in hopes of catching a small number of terrorists demonstrated the unconstitutionality and self-contradiction at the heart of the mass government surveillance. There is no probable cause for which to search any particular individual’s call records, merely a probability that someone somewhere used a telephone to assist in the planning or commission of a crime.”

A report in The Guardian, a British newspaper, of the gathering of all phone data was followed on June 6 by a report in The Washington Post that “The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track one target or trace a whole network of associates, according to a top secret document obtained by The Washington Post.”

That document was leaked and if it were not for such leaks to the news media we would not know even a fraction of what the current and past administrations have been doing with regard to the invasion of the constitutionally protected privacy of Americans.

Dr. Yuri N. Maltsev, PhD, professor of economics at the A.W. Clausen Center for World Business of Carthage College, responded to a Heartland Institute invitation to address this issue saying, “Our Constitution is openly and brazenly violated and it reminds me of how Russians, Chinese, Cubans, and many many others lost their freedom and paid dearly with tens of millions of innocent lives.”

Seton Motley, president of Less Government and, like myself, a Heartland policy advisor, also responded to the invitation, saying, “This is just the latest example—but maybe the worst—of the Obama administration’s complete disregard for the Constitution and the freedom from government overreach it guarantees us. Here’s hoping the stunning totality of all we’ve lost will cause us to rise up and demand that it all be restored.”

We have learned that we now all live in a government fishbowl.

In the aftermath of 9/11 the Bush administration did what it thought must be done to avoid a comparable attack, but the Obama administration has turned the Patriot Act into an excuse to ignore the Constitution and impose a potential police state on all of us.

In a June 6 Wall Street Journal opinion by Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, warned that “The most tangible problem is the invasion of American’s privacy. The so-called metadata collected by the NSA includes information about our calls, such as the numbers we call, the numbers of those who call us, when the calls were made, and for how long. This information may seem relatively trivial at first blush. Yet, pieced together, these details can paint a detailed and sensitive picture of our private lives and our associations.”

Add in the information gained from surveillance of our data on the Internet and you have NO privacy whatever.

It is time to increase restrictions on the way the IRS can use the information we are required by law or regulatory fiat to provide. Indeed, it is time to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a Fair Tax. It is time to remove the IRS from the enforcement of Obamacare and to repeal this noxious law.

It is time to overhaul the Patriot Act and to put strong limits on the capacity of the federal government to indiscriminately gather information on every U.S. citizen with massive data gathering systems in the name of national security.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

WesternFront America

Prince William County, VA — where I live — has an official seal that’s been in use since 1854. But that seal — or logo, to use up–to–date terminology — just wasn’t happenin’ for the county staff. Staff evidently felt a balance scale held over a bunch of tobacco leaves just screams 19th century. Plus the tobacco is a big problem. Who wants a logo that can only be displayed 25 feet from a building entrance and never in a bus shelter?

So the staff hired a firm based in the People’s Republic of Maryland to design a modern logo for the county. Something the economic development staff could use in their marketing efforts. A new design in keeping with the county’s prosperity, potential for job creation and spectacular rush hour gridlock.

There were probably a few simple guidelines for the designer on what not to include. No stars and bars allowed and no cotton. If the design incorporates a Civil War reference, the symbol must be limited to either a nurse or a female impersonating a soldier, preferably unarmed, or maybe wounded and suffering from PTSD. The staff certainly wouldn’t want the public to think they’re in favor of guns or violence.

Other than that, the county has a wide range of sites and events that have shaped its history. To name just a few: two major Civil War battles, Quantico Marine Base, the largest number of foreclosed homes in VA, the only Northern Virginia county to take up an anti–illegal ordinance (some overlap in the last two), a shooting site from the Beltway Sniper rampage, John Bobbitt’s bobbed penis, a George Mason University satellite campus, innumerable cul–de–sacs that make it impossible to get there from here and jam packed I–95 (more overlap).

So what did taxpayers get for their money? A shiny dark blue square surrounded on three sides by a shiny lighter–blue square and even though the design just screams “Prince William County,” the designer still put ‘Prince William County, Virginia’ in all caps below the squares . As you can see from the accompanying photo, it’s bland, boring and bureaucratic — all the modifiers a politician wants associated with his jurisdiction. What’s more, it has no relation to the county other than the fact we paid for it.

On the other hand, my wife thought the shiny blue sheen on the logo was reminiscent of aluminum siding and harkened back to the county’s previous image of a region inhabited by trailer park rednecks.

In an online comment a gentleman named Tom Fitzpatrick explained that while his first impression of the logo was negative, “Now that I’ve had a chance to settle down, I realize I’m not really being fair. I’ve just learned that the County’s first choice was a dead on representation – 8 clowns sitting around a table deciding how much to cut taxes by raising them a little less. However, there were copyright issues with Ringling Brothers, the catered lunch was already eaten, and it was time for another international trip by the members. So, this is what they came up with, within those constraints.”

County spokesman Jason Grant defended the “design” choice, “The brand is the connotation, it’s not a literal meaning. It is a new logo. The connotation isn’t there because it’s not affiliated with anything yet. . . . Does it literally represent Prince William County? No. That’s not the type of logo we designed. It shows there’s a sense of place, there’s a cornerstone, it’s corporate, all these things that people will fill in.”

That droning you hear in the background while Grant speaks is not cicadas, it’s corporate buzzwords. Hint for government flacks: any time your explanation would not look out of place in a Dilbert speech bubble, you are losing the argument.

According to Tom Jackman in the Washington Post, Grant claimed the staff was borrowing a marketing strategy from Madison Avenue. Grant said Nike’s swoosh logo doesn’t look like a shoe or Lance Armstrong injecting dope, but over time it comes to be associated with the brand and all its products.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s also one of the most consistent indications of incompetence. Besides borrowing strategy from Nike, the county is also going to have to borrow some money to make this logo penetrate the marketplace. Nike’s annual marketing budget of $2.7 billion is double PWC’s entire annual budget of $1.2 billion. By my calculations, at that rate of spending in 159 years the double boxes logo still won’t have the market identity of the current county seal.

The staff claims the logo only cost $750, while the website Sheriff of Nottingham in Prince William County asserts the logo design was part of a redesign contract that cost between $9,500 and $11,000. Either way taxpayers would have received more positive benefit if they’d just sent the money to the IRS and told them to have a party.

You could have gotten better design work and made at least one PWC family happy if the staff had solicited logos from high school or college art & design classes.

But now the bureaucracy has dug in it’s heels and it appears we may be stuck with this collection of right angles. So in the spirit of public service, I’ve come up with a few slogans to use with the logo at no cost to the county.

         Prince William County Where — Every Square Peg Has a Square Hole

         Prince William County — You’ll Love Having Your Company Absorbed by the Borg

         Prince William County — Land of Boxy Houses and Boxy People

         Prince William County — Home of the Square

         Prince William County — Where the Cube Farm Is Our Identity

         Prince William County — Embracing Boredom Since 2013

Michael R. Shannon

WesternFront America

I am one of those hapless Verizon customers the government is snooping on … and I don’t like it — at all!

Look.  We Americans simply MUST realize we have a government gone rogue!   Corruption has now overtaken the bureaucrats and they have forsaken their green eye shades for whips and chains and shackles — of the electronic sort, of course.

“Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right, allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinion calculated to embarrass the government?” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Read the original report on this latest US government atrocity here:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order

Americans today are experiencing an unprecedented erosion of civil liberties and a blatant disregard for transparency at all levels of government. And it is only going to get worse.

Consider the following: “Despite his clear and popular promises to the contrary, President Obama has not shifted the balance between security and freedom to a more natural state—one not blinded by worst fears and tarred by power grabs. If anything, things have gotten worse.

    Killing civilians and U.S. citizens via drone.

Seizing telephone records at the Associated Press in violation of Justice Department guidelines.

Accusing a respected Fox News reporter of engaging in a conspiracy to commit treason for doing his job.

Detaining terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, despite promises to end the ill-considered Bush policy.

Even the IRS scandal, while not a matter of foreign policy, strikes at the heart of growing concerns among Americans that their privacy is government’s playpen.

And now this: The Guardian newspaper (Of the UK) reports that the National Security Agency is collecting telephone records of tens of millions of customers of one of the nation’s largest phone companies, Verizon.”  SOURCE:  http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/welcome-to-the-bush-obama-white-house-they-re-spying-on-us-20130606

It appears to have finally come down to the government against the people in America.  All this simply means — Americans are no longer free.

Just as an aside, does anyone else sense the irony that we Americans have a “black” American President creating the new American plantation upon which ALL Americans are slaves???  Is this some kind of cruel joke?  Hardly.

What did you expect, those of you who voted for Obama?  He plainly told you he planned to fundamentally change America — and he HAS!

You cheered and applauded when he said:  “     It’s been a long time coming.

But tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.” — President Barack Obama, November 5, 2008.

And so, dear reader, the police state was ushered in to America — not so much ushered in as elbowed in.

You know, as I think back to my high school days, when we actually studied the US Constitution, I recall that the Founders of the US warned us that the constitution would only work for a  “virtuous and moral” people.  If that is, in fact, the case, then all this chaos in our government today was inevitable.  I mean, we Americans are a lot of things but today’s American is NOT a  “virtuous and moral” character.  Nosiree!  Anyone of our major cities would make Sodom and Gomorrah look like a monastery.

Just so we are clear — the constitution did not fail us.  No.  WE failed the constitution!

Today we can look back and say the Founders of America were naive.  Perhaps they were. But — they were honorable men and often honorable men tend to be a bit naive.

Maybe the Founding Fathers assumed that America would always see to it that only honorable men would hold national elective office.  Well, that didn’t last long.  In less than one hundred years the first President to be impeached, Andrew Johnson, was impeached AND acquitted in 1868.  And it has been, pretty much, down hill from there.

The plain and simple truth is, dear reader, we Americans have done this to ourselves.  It will only be undone if we suck it up and do whatever is necessary to right the ship of state and return America to the course set for her by those honorable men two hundred and thirty some odd years ago.

The longer we wait the more difficult our task will become.  Some feel we have already waited too long.  My personal assessment is that we are on the cusp of having waited too long.  There is a window, left slightly ajar, for a reform movement to take America back, but — realistically — it is closing rapidly.

This latest atrocity by our power hungry government is just a symptom of the disease rotting the heart from our formerly great country.  It is even more frightening to wonder WHAT ELSE the government is doing. 

Finally, for this scribe, the most troubling part of all is the lack of interest shown by so many Americans today concerning the loss of freedom.

For Americans less than 50 or 60 years of age,  a loss of freedom is unfathomable.   They have no clue what we “old fogies” are yelling about.  They were born into an America in which American freedom was already greatly curtailed and they have never known the freedom, personal freedom, and liberty my generation had the great good fortune to enjoy.  They don’t miss it because they never had it!

Today, I think it has been made clear that the American police state we have been awaiting, arrived, already. We are just now becoming aware of it.

Sadly, those of my generation, those who see so clearly what America has lost are, due to the limitations of age and health, unable to do little more than enlighten the masses through our writing, and vocal protestations.  We can only make available the truth and hope that a spark will ignite the love of freedom once again in the breasts of the citizens of the once great America and rouse them to action with the determination to rescue their country from the jaws of a socialist dictatorship so deeply entrenched in our halls of government.

Look.  A world without America in a leadership position is a dangerous place.  Just look at the globe-scape today.  We are racing toward Armageddon.   We are stumbling and bumbling our way into a world-wide conflagration.  Only one nation can lead the world out of certain disaster — AMERICA.  Unfortunately, America’s leaders have chosen NOT TO LEAD.

America must be rescued and restored.  And it must be done quickly.  Time really IS running out.

© J. D. Longstreet

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WesternFront America