In 1991, the Soviet Union, arguably the greatest experiment in Communism, collapsed. After Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors moved to shift its Communist economy to one that embraced Capitalism while retaining centralized government control.

Following World War Two, the recovering nations of Europe were rescued from Communism by the Marshall Plan, but adopted Communism-Light in the form of Socialism. The U.S. was already headed in that direction, creating programs that we now call “entitlements.” For most of the nation’s history, such “entitlements” did not exist.

What binds together the financial problems of the West is the common thread of infantile behavior and thought. One might call it wishful thinking. Instead of encouraging people to provide for old age and possible illness, politicians decided to turn government into Big Daddy, the eternal source of money for everything.

Need to go to college, start a business, or plan for retirement? Government would be there to help. All this ignored the need to actually pay for these programs. In the case of Social Security Congress began to dip into its funding to pay for other programs! This is what children do.

One can look around the world and see what a failure both Communism and Socialism have been. Governments spending more than their tax and other revenues have suffered grievously from this path to default and that includes the United States of America. It can be argued that, with few exceptions–the Reagan years come to mind—Presidents have been poorly served by their economic advisors.

Politicians make poor economists because, in America, members of the House must think of getting reelected every two years and Senators every six. Moreover, being politicians, they believe that the more federal largess they can bring back to their State and then brag about is the one true path to reelection.

At the very beginning of the nation, Thomas Jefferson said it best. “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

How many commissions and special committees have earnestly produced reports intended to deal with a government grown too large? At the federal level, some two million or more Americans are employed promulgating a deluge of regulations and pushing paper.

Now President Obama says he wants to streamline the federal government.
The real issue is not “streamlining” government agencies by gathering them together under one roof and one administrator, but the failure to end government departments and agencies that no longer serve a useful purpose and whose removal would also remove countless obstacles to economic growth.

In April 2011, Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute warned that “the federal government is on track to spend more than $3.5 trillion this year. What most people don’t know is that government actually costs about 50% more than what it spends. That’s because complying with federal regulations costs an additional $1.75 trillion—nearly an eighth of GDP. And almost none of that cost appears on the budget.”
The United States of America, the greatest engine of wealth the world has ever seen, is bankrupt. The national debt exceeds the Gross Domestic Product, the sum total of all revenue generated by goods and services.

The President has asked that the debt ceiling be raised another trillion or so and Congress will comply. That, I submit, is insane.

I also submit that, since Barack Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009, the nation has been witness to the economic insanity personified in the man and in the Democrat-controlled Congress that was his partner until 2010 when the control of the House of Representatives was wrested away by the Tea Party movement and its support for Republican candidates.

The only constant in life is change. America’s demography has changed. We have, thanks to medical care and other advantages, a much older segment of the population than ever before, but the nation from the 1930s to the 1960s had committed itself to ensure they would have Medicare and Medicaid at a time when people more often than not died in their 50’s and 60’s. We now have an average life expectancy of 78 years. My parents lived into their 90s.

Politics, not economics, continues to make it impossible to revise and restructure both Medicare and Social Security to reflect this reality. Instead, we had Obamacare foisted upon us which took trillions from Medicare and imposes rules that will let elderly heart attack or stroke victims die rather than pay for a level of care to which they contributed during their working years.

If the Supreme Court declares Obamacare unconstitutional it will go away. If we elect a Republican Senate, the repeal already passed in the House will be passed and it will go away.

But America’s economic problems will not go away until Americans insist that the shackles of Big Government be cut loose to enable the growth of an energy industry that can not only make the nation energy independent, but produce billions in revenue as far as the eye can see into the future.

The tax system with its thousands of pages must be revised to a simpler, fairer program. It makes no sense that forty percent of Americans pay no taxes at all.
It’s not that we don’t know what must be done. Conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, The Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and others have spelled out programs that can and will save America, but the nation must be led by a president who understands that Capitalism involves budgeting, planning, hard work, and—yes—risk.

The federal government is running on “continuing resolutions.” It has not had a formal budget since Obama arrived. This is no way to run the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. America is on a suicide watch and we are just an election away from saving it.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

 

WesternFront America

Personal preferences are a reliable method of distinguishing between conservatives and Democrats. Conservatives believe personal preferences are just that: personal and particular to the individual. When others don’t share his preferences a conservative looks for more congenial companions or surroundings. Sometimes he even takes the initiative and creates a like–minded opportunity in the private sector.

Democrats believe their personal preferences are so noteworthy and have such a significant bearing on the future of society that it’s only fair these indispensible preferences be imposed on the public by force of law.

Which brings us to Democrat Alvin Tillman, a third–term member of the council in Terrebonne Parish, LA, who evidently does not have enough to occupy his time. Tillman is personally offended by the chroma culprits who paint their family tombs anything but white, which is Tillman’s preferred color.

“We want to stop this before it gets out of hand,” Tillman was quoted by the Associated Press. “Before you know it you’ll go out there and the cemetery will look like Mardi Gras.”
Since this is Louisiana — where being dead is no bar to exercising the franchise in favor of Democrats on election day — it could be that Tillman is simply responding to the wishes of his electoral base.

So he intends to persuade the council to pass a law. Unfortunately for his finely–tuned sense of aesthetics, his law will only apply to public cemeteries that are government–owned.

No only will Tillman ban future non–white paint jobs, he won’t grandfather, so to speak, tombs that have already been painted. Those owners will be required to repaint their tombs, much like cab owners in DC will be required to repaint their cabs a uniform white if Councilwoman Mary Cheh, another Democrat member of the Color Police, gets her way.

In the South there is bad precedent for government intrusion in cemetery management. When local government was under Klan influence, it wasn’t concerned so much about the color of the tomb as it was focused on the color of the customer. In many marble orchards the tombs and the dead were uniformly white.

Tillman may be personally biased against tombs–of–color, but Louisiana has a long history of using paint to customize family tombs. The AP story also quotes an expert who observes, “Historically, the limewash used on family tombs was colored in shades of yellow, ochre, pink, gray and red.”

White on the outside, instead of the inside, is a recent development.

Personally, I think a tomb of almost any color beats the soggy Teddy Bear and defeated balloon piles dotting the roadside that pass for memorials here in Prince William County. At least in Terrebonne Parish the decoration is in close proximity to the deceased.

Judge Gideon Tucker once said, “No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session.” But in Louisiana you don’t even have to be alive to be at the mercy of a politician’s whims.

— + —

Finally, before the write–by date passes, I want to revisit the Sulaimon Brown scandal in DC. Brown is the former candidate for mayor who claims Mayor Vincent Gray (D – Comatose) promised him a job after the election if he continued his attacks on then Mayor Adrian Fenty during the campaign. He also says the Gray operation illegally paid him under the table to keep his campaign afloat.

Gray claims this is untrue and that he only promised Brown an interview after the election.

So let’s give Gray the benefit of the doubt. Brown continues his unhinged attacks on Fenty during the campaign. Fenty loses. After the election Gray’s administration gives Brown the promised interview.

During the process the crack Gray transition team carefully evaluates Brown just like any other applicant for a job in the new administration. His qualifications include an attempted murder charge as a teenager, a poor credit history and an otherwise questionable resume.

Then, after careful deliberation, the Gray administration GIVES HIM A JOB!

Brown lands a $110,000–a–year spot in the Department of Health Care Finance. Sulaimon is fired in less than a month after repeated outbursts in the office and the discovery of a restraining order on file against him by the mother of a 13–year–old girl.

I don’t find it reassuring, if you believe Gray, that instead of Brown being hired as political payback, this manic was hired on his own merits.

Only in the District of Columbia, run since the beginning of home rule by Democrats, is gross incompetence considered positive spin to rebut a charge of breaking the law.

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at
michael-shannon@comcast.net.

Michael R. Shannon
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http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-washington-dc/michael-shannon

 

WesternFront America

I have determined the time has come to examine the last few decades of American History, do some analysis, and ask some poignant questions to allow the reader to draw some conclusions and to question some presumptions.

Let’s start with the 60s.  A time when racism was common, segregation, discrimination and bigotry were institutional, and “the man” truly was keeping the black community down.

But “the man” wasn’t your typical right-wing conservative!  It was primarily the DEMOCRATS!

The early civil right movement was supported and encouraged by the GOP and conservatives.  Civil rights legislation was OPPOSED and even filibustered not by those evil right-wing conservatives, but by the LEFT WING Democrats!  (The filibuster of the Civil Rights Act was led by 18 Democrats and a lone Republican, and the HIGHLIGHT of the show was Senator Robert Byrd!)

Bull Connor, whose name is practically synonymous with racism and civil-rights opposition, was not only a Democrat; he was Democratic National Committeeman for Alabama!  He ran for Governor on the Democrat ticket.  He led the Alabama delegation to the 1948 Democratic National Convention to walk out over a civil-rights plank in the platform!

Another iconic Democrat, George Wallace, served as Governor of Alabama.  In his INAUGURAL SPEECH he made the following statement:  “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”

Lyndon Johnson is hailed today as a liberal pioneer and champion of civil rights, but Johnson himself was a notorious racist and no lover of our black brethren.  He did, however, view them as a malleable resource.  He did not oppose civil rights legislation  (which, by the way, was supported by the GOP and opposed by many democrats, and would never have passed without the GOP).  Instead he supported it as a means of securing power for Democrats.  He is famously quoted as saying “I’ll have these (n-words) voting Democrat for the next 100 years!”  He was right!  For the last half of that predicted century – the black community has been a monolithic voting bloc, supporting democrats about 97%.

How’s that workin’ out for ya?

Johnson doubled down on Civil Rights – sensible, reasonable, moral and appropriate legislation – and ushered in the “War on Poverty”.

Vastly expanding on FDR’s New Deal Welfare State, Johnson ushered in a whole new culture, creating generational dependency and a paradigm of the entitlement mentality.

By providing a bare subsistence, but requiring nothing from the recipients; by subsidizing out of wedlock childbearing; by setting the “soft bigotry of low expectations”; a new “system” was created and the “underprivileged” soon learned the rules of the game to receive a meager but adequate living at government expense… without having to learn, earn or contribute to their own subsistence.  Add to this the deference to the Educational Cabal which promoted the teaching unions and denied vouchers and school choice, and the urban schools became cesspools where thriving educationally was virtually impossible.  A new dependency class was born – and could be counted on to vote for their “benefactors”.

How’s that workin’ out for ya?

The “war on poverty” is lost!  More people live near or below the poverty line than when the programs were started.  And for the record, there are as many poor whites as blacks, gaming the same system.  There are as many whites on assistance or food stamps today as blacks.  The “dependency culture” is not melanin specific!

Now let’s look at the 70s

Carter instituted the “Community Reinvestment Act” – ostensibly ending the banking practice of “redlining” which essentially declared entire neighborhoods to be bad loan risks.  A laudable purpose… but the real result of the Act was to force banks to abandon sound underwriting principles and risk assessment, and to make unwise loans to those who were at high risk of default.  This was the beginning of the “Sub Prime” Housing Debacle!

Nevermind that Carter’s other leftist policies drove the country to a “malaise” that brought us to the brink of another 30s style depression.  The CRA (and Clinton’s doubling down on it under the direction of ACORN in the 90s) set in motion the mortgage crisis, the Fannie/Freddie crisis, the banking crisis and ultimately all the economic woes currently being blamed on George Bush!

So how’s THAT workin’ out for ya?

The 80s saw a brief respite!  Reagan’s tax cuts DOUBLED revenues and spurred economic growth unparalleled in at least 30 years!  Despite the Tip O’Neal Congress increasing spending $1.84 for every dollar in new revenue, thus creating the so-called “Reagan Deficits”… the economy generally thrived and expanded.  Unemployment was down.  Interest rates came down.  Inflation came down.  Standards of living went up.  There was optimism in America.

Are you old enough to remember?  Do you miss those days?

The 90s were a mixed bag.  Clinton strengthened and expanded the Community Reinvestment Act – placing even more odious regulations on the banks and essentially telling them they MUST make loans to people who can’t afford them.  The mentality that homeownership is a right superseded the notion that Americans have a right to purchase any home they can afford!  The stage was set for collapse, and collapse it did in the latter half of Bush’s 2^nd term.  But remember that it was the Bush Administration and the GOP in Congress who raised the red flag in 2005, with the Fannie Freddie Hearings (check ‘em out on YouTube!) They sought to curb the problem while it WAS addressable…while the powerful Dems – Dodd, Frank, Waters, Clay etc. all stood up to defend Fannie/Freddie and it’s leadership.  “Nope, no problems here!  Nothing to see here, folks, move along.  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

How’s THAT workin’ out for ya?

Still there was a silver lining to the 90s.  In 1994 the Gingrich Revolution and the Contract With America swept the GOP into power in the Congress.  With Newt at the helm, Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming to a balanced budget and the first actual SURPLUSSES in 50 years – which of course Clinton took credit for, and which the complicit press has turned into accepted fact over the subsequent decade!  The positive numbers continued until 9/11 and the War on Terror.

The millennial decade is largely misunderstood.  Bush is touted by the left as the worst president ever.  They blame him and the wars for our economic difficulties at the end of his presidency.  But the reality is different from the narrative.

It’s true that the dot-com bubble burst, 9/11 and the wars took a toll on the economy.  We fell from surplus to deficit as we ramped up military action.

Still, Bush’s WORST deficit in his first 6 years (while he had a GOP Congress) was around $430 Billion in 2003.  Yup, His WORST deficit was around half the cost of the Obama Stimulus alone!  Still, that was a big number for its time.  So what did Bush do?  He instituted the Bush Tax Cuts that are once again in the news today!  The result?  3 consecutive years of reducing deficits!  The last year with a GOP Congress, the deficit was cut to only $120 Billion, a reduction of nearly 2/3 in 3 years.  Still, six years into his presidency, Bush was soundly and rightly criticized four raising our 4 Trillion Dollar National Debt by 50% to 6 Trillion.  And the reins of Congress were turned over to Pelosi/Reid.  By the time Obama took office, Pelosi/Reid had added a TRILLION to our annual deficit, and 3 more Trillion to the Debt!  NOTICE that in 2 years Pelosi and Company added 3 Trillion, while it took Bush and the GOP 6 years to add 2 Trillion.

So Obama comes into office with a 9 Trillion dollar debt.  In his time occupying the White House, we’ve seen the debt balloon from 9 Trillion to 15 Trillion… more than a 50% growth in 3 years!

How’s THAT workin’ out for ya?

Are you starting to notice a pattern here?

It’s been said that if you tax something, you get less of it.  If you subsidize something you get more of it.  Why, then, do we tax success and subsidize failure?

How’s that workin’ out for ya?

Copyright © 2011 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political analyst and commentator, writes for the St Louis Examiner, at http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-st-louis/doug-edelman and was a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice.  His work has appeared on ChronWatch, Western Front American, Small Government Times, Western Journalism, News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House and more. Mr. Edelman is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com

 

WesternFront America

There are few opportunities for legislation that holds the prospect of gain for EVERYONE who supports it, regardless of party or ideology – but amazingly, the repeal of ObamaCare offers that very opportunity, if our elected officials would but examine the possibilities!!

First and foremost, the majority of America rejects ObamaCare and supports its repeal.  So you’ve got popular support.  For the Democrats, that majority thing ought to be a biggie.  After all, they’re all about direct democracy, aren’t they?  Majority rules, right?

But as I’ve been quick to point out on many occasions, not everything that’s popular is right, and not everything that’s right is popular, so let’s look at some other motivations that might move our members of Congress to action.

Dems should consider that ObamaCare is about to undergo a major review by the Supreme Court.  Even with Kagan participating and not (properly) recusing herself from the case – there is a very strong possibility that at least some part of ObamaCare will be struck down – if not in its entirety!  This would deal a major blow to the party that rammed it through without a single GOP vote, after arm twisting and bribery by Pelosi, generally UNREAD, which had to be PASSED so we could know what’s in it!  Not only was it bad law, passed in an unscrupulous manner against the will of the people, but SCOTUS will also give the slap of unconstitutionality to at least part of it.  That stings.

Why not get out in front of this and defuse it by repealing ObamaCare and making a SCOTUS review moot?

And likewise, GOP, what if SCOTUS only finds PART of ObamaCare unconstitutional?  Do you want to HAVE to live with any part they find legit enough not to strike down?  Are you confident that Kennedy will hang tough with the conservatives on the Court ENOUGH to do away with ObamaCare?  What kind of mixed bag of upheld and struck down provisions might we have to contend with?

But hey, Republicans, here’s the BEST reason to move on repeal.  YOU PROMISED TO!  You were ELECTED to!  The whole point of the Mid-Term Elections was to put you in a position to.  And you’ve forgotten all about it.  That will not sit well come primary season!

Back to the Dems.  Since you took the reins of Congress in January 2007, we watched the deficit climb from 120 Billion at the end of GOP control of Congress, to nearly 15 times that amount at 1.7 Trillion.  We watched the National debt climb from 6 Trillion after 6 years of Bush and 2 wars to nearly 14 Trillion in 4 years of Pelosi/Reid.  So whatever Bush Bashing you may do, and however much you seek to blame Bush and say Obama INHERITED his problems… the American People understand that you are the party of spending with reckless abandon.  A reality, and a perception you may do well to strive to reverse!

The Super-Committee is charged with finding a Trillion in cuts over 10 years.  A pittance!  That’s really only 100 Billion a year… and they can’t do it!  If the automatic cuts kick in, the military will be slashed, and lefty ideologues aside (as they represent only around 20% of the population) the people of America DO NOT want to see the military slashed by 500 Billion!

Repealing ObamaCare will save TRILLIONS over a decade.  All by itself.  Your precious spending programs don’t even have to be touched, and you can claim victory in achieving the spending reduction!

For the GOP, repealing ObamaCare is a victory fiscally, and ideologically, protecting individual rights, reigning in an egregious over-reach by the federal oligarchy.

For all of you.  Repeal would result in an economic recovery far exceeding the wildest dreams or expectations of any program or stimulus the Administration has considered, offered or implemented!  Companies, freed from the shackles of ObamaCare, would loosen the hiring constraints.  Jobs, production, GDP and tax revenues would all climb – and true to Reagan’s quote… a rising tide does indeed lift all boats.  And you could all claim credit for stimulating the economy out of the worst “recession” (depression) in our lifetimes at least!

Back to the Dems.  Are you REALLY supportive of affordable healthcare for people?  Then realize how many companies are ready to ABANDON providing care when ObamaCare is fully implemented!!  I know many of you are idealogically committed to Single-Payer healthcare, and such a collapse of the private and employer provided market would leave a vacuum that you’d feel compelled to fill with Government care… but America resoundingly doesn’t want it!  Given the choice between the private enterprise Hospitals like Barnes, Mayo, Mt Sinai, or Hopkins, and government care like say, a VA hospital, which do you think most Americans would opt for?  Even if they pay for private insurance?

If ObamaCare is SO GOOD for people, why the waivers for so many FOD’s (Friends of Democrats)?  And why is Congress exempt?

ObamaCare is a boondoggle.  It’s an embarrassment to the Dems and CAUSED the massacre of 2010.  It’s impractical.  It’s unsustainable.  And eliminating it will save TRILLIONS.

Truly.  WHAT are y’all waiting for?  How about a nice Christmas present THIS year?  America said THANK YOU for Pelosi’s Christmas Present of 2009 with the November 2010 elections.  Repeal for Christmas 2011 would be a present America would TRULY appreciate!

Copyright © 2011 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political analyst and commentator, writes for the St Louis Examiner, at http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-st-louis/doug-edelman and was a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice.  His work has appeared on ChronWatch, Western Front American, Small Government Times, Western Journalism, News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House and more. Mr. Edelman is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com.

 

WesternFront America

In the movie, “Cool Hand Luke” the warden of a prison camp utters the now famous line, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” The decision of the Democratic members of the Congressional Super Committee to refuse further discussion of revenue issues is a failure to negotiate.

I have a friend, Jim Camp, who is one of the world’s authorities on negotiation, a coach to international corporations and others that engage in multi-million dollar deals requiring major negotiation skills. When the news was reported on Wednesday that the Democratic members had walked away from the negotiation table, I picked up the phone to ask for his reaction.

“We live in an era when the conventional wisdom is that compromise is the goal,” said Camp. “The real goal is a valid mission and purpose. What’s missing is that the committee as a whole is not focused on the real mission which is the best result for the American people and the nation. Instead, their goal is political gamesmanship, a massive over-reach by both parties to the negotiation.”

Based on more than twenty years of coaching negotiations, Camp said “Tactics do nothing more than create conflict.” The news media reports on tactics, but Camp said “Neither party is negotiating to the benefit of the American people.”

What is at stake? It’s not whether Democrats or Republicans “win” the Super Committee negotiation.

Created under the Budget act of 2011, the law was passed the first two days of August when the nation’s $14.294 trillion debt ceiling was raised to avoid a potential national default. It was the fourth increase of the mandatory borrowing cap during President Obama’s first term; one that saw the first down-grade of the nation’s top credit rating in its history.

Consisting of six members each from the House and Senate, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, the official name for the Super Committee is the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The amount of debt is comparable to the annual Gross Domestic Product, meaning that every dollar the economy earns is equal to the amount of debt that exists.

In the basic terms, Democrats want to raise revenue through taxation to address the debt and permit for more spending. Republicans have committed themselves to avoid such an increase during a period of recession.

The decision to walk away from the negotiation reflects one of Camp’s major warnings. “To act according to how you think the other side will react to you and your actions creates great conflict. To think you know what someone is going to do or say based on how you impact them is to attempt suicide.”

It would be naive to think that the Democrat and Republican members of the Super Committee are not negotiating with an eye on the 2012 elections. As a November 10 Wall Street Journal editorial notes, Republicans have offered a plan “to raise revenues by $500 billion over 10 years as part of a tax reform that would lock in lower rates in return for giving up deductions. Democrats have rejected it, which is puzzling since it would achieve so many of their stated goals.”

Refusing to negotiate makes sense only if Democrats are positioning themselves to blame the Republicans for the failure to avoid another potential down-grade of the nation’s credit rating. It’s not the truth, but the truth is often a rare commodity in politics.

“What we are witnessing,” said Camp, “is a textbook definition of incompetence.”

All negotiation, says Camp, is based on emotion. When both sides share a vision of the end result of the negotiation it can move forward. When emotions blind one or both sides, it is doomed.

As a recent Los Angeles Times editorial noted, in order to slash federal borrowing by at least $1.2 trillion over the coming decade, “members will have to bridge a deep partisan divide over taxes, spending programs, and the effect of government spending on the economy.”

That is the mission, the purpose of the Super Committee, and the editorial warned that “If they have any doubts about the need to cut a deal, however, they should turn their attention to what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic.”

The turmoil in Europe, based on decades of excessive borrowing and spending by several nation-states, is a reflection of how critical it is for the Super Committee to achieve its mission.

Automatic cuts, not guided by the need, for example, of maintaining our military strength could have disastrous consequences if the U.S. was perceived as weakened and vulnerable by its enemies. Diminishing our military capabilities at this time is not an option.

The Super Committee is an admission of the failure of the U.S. Congress to fulfill its responsibility to conduct the nation’s borrowing and spending in a prudent fashion and it’s been a failure in which both Parties have participated for a very long time.

The deadline for the Super Committee to reach agreement is November 23, the day before Thanksgiving and one side has walked away from the table.

I wish the Super Committee could bring Jim Camp in to help resolve the impasse. Simply stated, failure is not an option.

Editor’s note: Jim Camp is the founder of the Camp Negotiation Institute and the author of “Start with No” and “No, the Only Negotiating System You Need for Work and Home” which has been translated into twelve languages.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

WesternFront America

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, (i.e., the “business cycle”) the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
- Thomas Jefferson

U.S. Senators Mike Lee (R) Utah and Charles Schumer, (D) New York have proposed giving visas to foreigners who buy American homes worth $500,000. This “brilliant” proposal suborns treason, as it neatly delivers the divine birthright of the American people, on a golden platter to Red Chinese nationals and Mexican drug lords.

“International buyers accounted for around $82 billion in U.S. residential real-estate sales for the year ending in March, up from $66 billion during the previous year period, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Foreign buyers accounted for at least 5.5% of all home sales in Miami and 4.3% of Phoenix home sales during the month of July, according to MDA DataQuick.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203752604576641421449…

The lawmakers who comprise this “Company of the Witless,” are ostensibly responsible for the national security, but their actions betray the fact that they answer only to the bankers by this insane proposal, more worthy of a Mad Hatter tea party.

If anything stands as a glaring testament to the collusion of lawmakers in promoting economic treason against the American people; this is the definitive textbook example.

What gives these senators the right to sell-off the birthright of the American people, when the duty of their posts obligates them to protect American interests, not defend the rights of banks and corporations to run their financial steed, roughshod over the tilled fields of the American people?

There should be an amendment to the Constitution, which strictly forbids the owning outright of any American asset by a foreigner. These foreign nationals should only be allowed to lease and NEVER OWN what belongs exclusively to the American people.

This must be a Tea Party principle of our Second American Revolution and it must include the provision for the abolishment of the Rothschild central bank, with the fictitious business name “Fed.”

This country is NOT the property of the United Nations, even though that entity now claims ownership over our national parks, as “biosphere reserves” and other fancy-sounding titles, like “world cultural heritage site.”

The American people are still waiting for an explanation from former president George H.W. Bush as to why we should “henceforth pledge allegiance” to the phony storefront of the international bankers; the United Nations.

“This is not a cure-all, but it could be part of the solution to the housing crisis and won’t cost the government a nickel,” said Senator Schumer.

Just like Senator Edward M. Kennedy promised his Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 would not flood our nation with third world riffraff. Americans no longer believe what this government tells them and indeed they pray for the day of regime change on Capitol Hill, when the carpetbaggers are sent packing.

Then these “capable lawmakers” came up with the “brilliant idea” that illegal alien Mexican nationals should somehow qualify for American Social Security benefits, even though they ship billions of dollars out of the country.

This fantastic notion and many others–including Nancy Pelosi’s advice to Americans to quit their jobs to explore their creativity as an artist and then the state would foot the bill under the watchful eye of “Dear Leader Obama” and his Obamacare.

Many of the lawmakers on Capitol Hill are treasonous and insane–as exhibited by their utterances– and it would probably be best for the United States military to initiate a coup, to topple the communist government on Capitol Hill, which is destroying America.

This would ensure proper presidential elections in 2012, free from the interference of voter intimidation at the hands of the New Black Panther Party and the transparent voter fraud of ACORN.

The American people, however, ARE looking for a permanent cure-all and they see it in the dissolution and taxing of the Federal Reserve out of existence—NOT redistributing the wealth of the rich, nor enabling further foreign domination of American industrial assets and real estate. Americans would reverse this ruinous trend through the Tea Party agenda for restoring the stolen strength of America.

The sheer lunacy of the proposal by these two madcap senators, is a “fuzzy math” formula at best, for it fails to take into account the reality of a Mexican crime wave, spilling over the border into sovereign American territory. Further, it is an irresponsible action, considering that this nation is in a state of war with jihadistan, which most assuredly has manifested in the breaching of our porous borders by Al-Qaeda operatives.

The cost of this ludicrous proposal, will be far in excess of a nickel, for it will deliver the home of the American people to the international bankers and criminal elements from all points of the globe, who have the assets to buy a half-a-million dollar home.

These banking swindlers have already tried to shotgun- marry our nation to Mexico, behind closed doors, in the vain attempt to “harmonize” our nation away into a “common security perimeter” with a failed, third world, narco-terrorist state, which is Mexico.

Let this writer paint a picture for the American people. The scene will look something like this; imagine an entire beachfront of prime California real estate being gobbled up by Red Chinese nationals, with lots of “Little China” enclaves sprouting up across the American landscape.

When Americans factor in the never-forgotten, cheeky threat made by Red China to nuke our country, along with the Chinese statement that they are a superior race in search of lebensraum; they realize that is what our leaders should be focusing on–the power of words– NOT selling our country off to the highest bidder.

When one considers the shortage of women in China, where there are 400 million excess males who cannot find wives; it is safe to say that Chinese nationals buying real estate in this country, are going to represent the vanguard of a massive Chinese invasion of America.

The Red Chinese will be looking for blonde, Aryan trophy wives or concubines, here in America. This is not scare-mongering, but a simple statement of fact.

The Chinese see how a peasant army from Mexico easily annexed major portions of the country, through a Mexican Lebensborn movement of pulling a switcheroo of anchor baby eggs for American eggs in the national nest.

China has observed the success of Mexican nationals in challenging a major superpower, through the stealth warfare of simply sneaking across the border, to drop their spawn, who then automatically become “dual citizens.”

Imagine the American public having to come to terms with the fact that access is now restricted to their old haunts and that their children may no longer play on the beach, because it is owned by Red China (PRC).

This is not a stretch of the imagination, for American police have already been restricted from going into Muslim neighborhoods and areas near the Mexican border post warning signs that prohibit Americans from traversing their own country. The precedent has already been established.

Rip Van Republican—to coin a term from Patrick J. Buchanan—had better do the math and wake up to the reality that our degenerate lawmakers are engaged in a fire sale of this republic and for this outrage, they must be held accountable as quislings.

The proposal of these two senators would greatly contribute to an accelerated process of balkanization for our republic and directly lead to its ultimate demise. These two soft-in-the-head “senators” need to be put out to pasture with nosebags, for their effectiveness on behalf of the American people is a total jinx.

Do these clueless senators not realize that they have just rolled out the welcome mat for Mexican drug lords, to set up command and control operations in the land of “Leave it to Beaver?”

“How did you ever get command of a ship? I realize in wartime they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, but where did they ever scrape you up?”
Henry Fonda in the film, “ Mr. Roberts.”

Given the fact that our national forests now serve to grow illicit marijuana for these Mexican criminal cartels; it does not take too much imagination to connect the dots of why American real estate is the perfect choice for Mexican drug lords, Russian mafia, fanatical jihadists, Asian tongs, Columbian drug cartels and other nefarious elements to expand and consolidate their criminal empire in America.

Here’s what happens when foreign nationals are allowed to own any American asset; enemy agents gain a toehold within the gates of Fortress America.

Do Americans really need more Saudi nationals in their neighborhoods anymore, especially since America was attacked on 9-11-2001 by “American citizens” from Saudi Arabia?

This nation is in the midst of a war for our national survival and yet lawmakers insist on doing everything in their power to circumvent the will of the people for border security.

These ropers for the New World Order would deliver this nation to the tender mercies of a feudal order, once again. They would have foreign overlords live among us, in a state of splendor, while the average American lives in a squalid “multicultural” cess pit from which he cannot escape, known as “the melting pot.”

Given the worldwide announcement of the utter failure of so-called “multiculturalism” in Europe by numerous European heads of state; why do American lawmakers remain stuck on stupid?

Is it really in the national interest to surrender any further inroads to the tangle of squabbling nationalities which already infests our shores? Do we not already have enough social “diversity” and the myriad of problems created by such a half-baked philosophy, spewed by tolerance romantics?

Blacks and Mexicans are in a state of open warfare in the streets of Los Angeles, according to L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca.

The last time blacks burned L.A., it was Korean immigrants who suffered in that race war.

What impoverished young American male really wants to see the son of some Arab sheik, “living the life of Riley” on American turf and sporting an American woman around in his fancy Trans Am car, while he is consigned to riding the bus to look for jobs that don’t exist?

These two senators are not interested in the welfare of the American people; they are stooges, in service to the “New World Order,” like so many of our lawmakers, who need to be deposed, forthwith.

“Capital must protect itself in every way…Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”
- Taken from the Civil Servants’ Year Book, “The Organizer,” January 1934

Clint Eastwood got together with some friends a few years back in Carmel, CA, to buy back a Japanese-owned golf course and return this little piece of America back to the American people.

The national consciousness exhibited by Mr. Eastwood, should be the national paradigm for not only the return of American real estate, but also an agenda set to ensure the return of our factors of production from Red China, India, Mexico and other nations.

These senators should be talking about the plan for a return of American industry to our shores and the enaction of tariffs against Red China. They should also be discussing how best to rein-in the corporations, which have hijacked the wealth and self-determination of the American people.

“I have never seen more Senators express discontent with their jobs…I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices in doing something terrible and unforgiveable to our wonderful country. Deep down in our heart, we know that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected.”
- Senator John Danforth

The sentiment the American people hold for those in a position of trust, who abdicate their responsibility in favor of greed, can be summed up in these words:
“Let his days be few and let another take his office.”
Psalm 109:8

American real estate belongs to the American people, not the world. This concept is worth dying for and many have already paid that ultimate price.

Let us honor their memory and the hopes and aspirations of future generations of Americans, by preserving this country for the descendants of those who wrested it away from Great Britain.

“The individual is handicapped coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous, he cannot believe it exists.”

– J. Edgar Hoover

Thor H. Asgardson

 

WesternFront America

This week Obama is once again firing up his Canadian–built Magical Mystery Bus and driving through North Carolina and Virginia as his re–election campaign begins on the taxpayer dime. Somehow the symbolism of Obama back in the bus is supposed to inspire Congress to pass his contemptible “jobs bill” and at the same time convince the rubes that Obama has the common touch.

Here in Northern Virginia the impact of the tour will mostly be felt by motorists who are likely to see, and be inconvenienced by, impromptu road barriers blocking portions of the highway. Strangely enough, these barriers will not have been erected by the Secret Service to bar potential assassins.

On the contrary, the burning tires and hijacked Jersey barriers are the product of panicked House and Senate Democrat candidates, desperate to avoid being associated with the Obamatross a little over two weeks before the November election.

And no wonder, currently Obama’s disapproval rating in Virginia is 52 percent, which puts him somewhere between Dan Snyder and E. coli. Yet, like the professor who doesn’t realize it’s his halitosis and not his intellect that intimidates students, Obama originally intended to have his 2011 Vanishing Jobs Tour stop in Danville, Newport News, Charlottesville and Fredericksburg.

Evidently his vaunted White House political operation was unaware that while North Carolina and Virginia are crucial to his personal re–election; VA Dems are clinging to a slim 22 to 18 majority in the Senate that they would like to retain. So far VA Dems have done everything but rub soy blood on door lintels in the hope Obama will pass over without killing their chances in November.

Even Senate candidate Tim Kaine — a man personally selected by Obama to be chairman of the Democrat National Committee and who’s election is not until next year — can’t seem to find time to work the President into his schedule, although there are rumors Kaine plans to text The One while he’s in the state.

But at least Kaine is doing his shunning in silence. The same can’t be said for other Democrats who are desperately trying to wash the scarlet ‘O’ from their foreheads. Sen. Phillip Puckett, according to the WaPost, is the first Dem to publicly declare he won’t vote for Obama in 2012. The Democrat leader of the House of Delegates, Ward Armstrong, raised the ante and is broadcasting a TV commercial that denies he has any ties to Obama, political or otherwise. And Senators William Reynolds, Edward Houck, George Baker and Toddy Puller all take the 5th Amendment (just like the Solyndra executives!) when asked if they will be voting for Obama.

Rather than be trampled by Democrats heading for the exits, the crack White House political team revised the itinerary for the I Can’t Get No Respect Tour. Now in an effort to do something that will have a positive impact on Virginian’s lives, Obama will re–open a closed rest stop on I–81 and install a child safety seat during a visit to Chesterfield County firehouse.

What’s striking in all this scheduling and re–scheduling that one of the few elected officials who will agree to be seen in public with him is Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, who doesn’t appear to believe short term proximity to the President will damage his Vice Presidential prospects as much as employment under Obama had torpedoed Jon Huntsman’s.

I can’t help but think this whole visit is particularly ill–timed for the Senate Democrat Caucus. Just last week it was announced the caucus raised a total of $2.1 million in the third quarter from occupy protesters in Wall Street, Richmond and DC. Oops, my mistake. It seems there is not a lot of demand for zombie costumes and paper–mäché puppets. Instead large contributions actually came from those nasty one percenters who revel in their inequality.

The possession of this tidy bankroll now puts the Senate Dems in the awkward position of being just another wealthy group of insiders sitting on their cash, hoping Obama’s bad policies and elitist incompetents won’t do them too much damage.

Call me suspicious, but I’m wondering if Monday’s theft of the truck containing $200,000 worth of TOTUS (teleprompter of the United States), Obama’s podium with seal, audio equipment and assorted other Presidential show biz items from the parking lot of a Henrico County Marriott wasn’t a futile, last ditch attempt by local Dems to derail the visit.
If I were the FBI, I’d be asking where Armstrong, Barker and Puckett were on Sunday night.

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at
michael-shannon@comcast.net.

Michael R. Shannon
MANDATE: Message, Media & Public Relations
703-583-6277
571-969-1995 Google Voice
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrshannon
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-washington-dc/michael-shannon

 

WesternFront America

As far back as 2007 this scribe was warning that if times got rough for democrats America might see elections suspended in order to keep the dems in office.  After the 2010 avalanche of votes for republicans many conservatives began to worry about the possibility that democrats in charge of the White House might, in fact, make such a move.

Look.  A national emergency is all that is needed.  One could certainly argue that the US is currently suffering a national emergency – the near collapse of our financial system. On the other hand, some of us would argue that democratic control of our government IS the national emergency.

In any event, reading some commentator’s postulation concerning the suspension of elections may be worrisome, but to hear those words from a serving democratic governor of one of the largest states in the union is truly stunning.

That said, what’s worse is to be a conservative republican resident of the state that governor purportedly serves!

I write this commentary from the great state of North Carolina.  Allow me, if you will, to express my embarrassment at the governor’s words. I hasten to add that I am not surprised at what Gov. Purdue said. She is, after all, a machine democrat.  Unfortunately, she was not up for reelection in 2010 when Tar Heels cleaned the state legislature of the democratic machine and, for the first time in 150 years, gained control of both houses of the NC General Assembly.  Had Purdue been on the ballot, we would have had a republican governor, as well.  As it is, we have to wait until November of 2012 to “banish Bev” and place a republican in the governor’s office.

I once saw a sign in a broadcast studio, which said:  “Be sure brain is engaged before putting mouth in gear.”  Maybe Bev ought to have that sign posted in the governor’s office.

In an article by Rob Christensen and John Frank in The (Raleigh) News & Observer entitled: “N.C. Gov. Perdue’s remark strikes nerve with GOP pundits” the paper says:  “When Perdue is off script, it is often an adventure. While visiting SAS’s solar farm in Cary where sheep graze, she commented to co-founder John Sall: “If we only had that ram, John, we could mate and have fun.”

Or while appearing at a state employees health fare, Perdue talked about her decision to give up smoking cigarettes and eating a bag of Doritos at the end of each week when she thought she was having a stroke.

“My head popped open, and I said, ‘Dear God, if you let me live, I’ll quit.’ And I quit. I didn’t quit for me. I quit because I thought about my kids not having momma or a daddy.”

Or there was the time, when a television cameraman, offered a lascivious “All Right,” after Perdue said she would “undress” from the TV microphone that was clipped to her jacket. ” I’m an old woman,” Perdue said. “You are a pervert.”

She has publicly acknowledged in speeches – as she is about to go off script – that her staff has urged her to stay on script. And she runs through communications staff like water – David Kochman, Tim Crowley, Justin Guillory, Pearse Edwards and Chrissy Pearson are all former communications staffers no longer on the governor’s staff.”  (You may read the entire article at the Raleigh News and Observer’s website HERE.)

The governor’s staff has been “backing and filling” since the Gov made her remarks and, frankly, they have only made matters worse.

In the event you may have missed those sage remarks made by my governor here they are”

“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

First, the democrats claimed it was a joke.  All one has to do is read the words above and you quickly see it was anything but a joke.

Then they claimed it was hyperbole. Nah.  That didn’t work either.  Consider the context.

Then came the excuse that it was sarcasm. It was so clearly NOT sarcasm, especially when you hear the words delivered in Purdue’s own voice, that the sarcasm excuse crashed and burned immediately.

This whole incident is simply another reminder that the democrats view the US Constitution as a speed bump rather than a stop sign to government’s power.

That must be corrected in November of 2012.

J. D. Longstreet

 

WesternFront America

From a land use, economic, environmental or raw materials perspective, wind is unsustainable.

President Obama and a chorus of environmentalists, politicians, corporate executives and bureaucrats are perennially bullish on wind power as the bellwether of our “clean energy economy of the future.”

In reality, wind energy may well be the least sustainable and least eco-friendly of all electricity options. Its shortcomings are legion, but the biggest ones can be grouped into eight categories.

Land. As American humorist and philosopher Will Rogers observed, “They ain’t making any more of it.” Wind turbine installations impact vast amounts of land, far more than traditional power plants.

Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant generates 3,750 megwatts of electricity from a 4,000-acre site. The 600-MW John Turk ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in Arkansas covers part of 2,900 acres; two 600-MW coal-fired units in India use just 600 acres. Gas-fired units like Calpine’s 560-MW Fox Energy Center in Wisconsin require several hundred acres. All generate reliable power 90-95% of the year.

By contrast, the 600-MW Fowler Ridge wind installation (355 turbines) spans 50,000 acres of farm country along Indiana’s I-65 corridor. The 782-MW Roscoe project in Texas (627 turbines) sprawls across 100,000 acres. Oregon’s Shepherds Flat project (338 gigantic 2.5 MW turbines) covers nearly 80,000 wildlife and scenic acres along the Columbia River Gorge, for a “rated capacity” of 845 MW.

The Chokecherry-Sierra Madre project will blanket some 320,000 acres of sage grouse habitat and BLM land in Wyoming with 1,000 monstrous 3-MW turbines, to generate zero to 3,000 MW of intermittent power. That’s eight times the size of Washington, DC, to get an average annual output one-fourth of what Palo Verde generates 90% of the time. But C-SM has already received preliminary approval from BLM.

To replace just 20% of the United States’ 995,000 MW of total installed generating capacity, we would need to blanket an area the size of Kansas with wind turbines, and then add nearly a thousand 600-MW gas-fired backup generators … and thousands of miles of new high voltage transmission lines.

Raw materials. Wind turbine installations require vast amounts of steel, copper, rare earth metals, fiberglass, concrete, rebar and other materials for the turbines, towers and bases.

A single 1.7 MW wind turbine, like 315 of the Fowler Ridge units, involves some 365 tons of materials for the turbine assembly and tower, plus nearly 1100 tons of concrete and rebar for the foundation. Bigger units require substantially more materials. Grand total for the entire Fowler wind installation: some 515,000 tons; for Roscoe, 752,000 tons; for Shepherds Flat, 575,000 tons; for Chokecherry, perhaps 2,000,000 tons. Offshore installations need far more raw materials.

To all that must be added millions of tons of steel, copper, concrete and rebar for thousands of miles of transmission lines – and still more for mostly gas-fired generators to back up every megawatt of wind power and generate electricity the 17 hours of each average day that the wind doesn’t blow.

Money. Taxpayers and consumers must provide perpetual subsidies to prop up wind projects, which cannot survive without steady infusions of cash via feed-in tariffs, tax breaks and direct payments.

Transmission lines cost $1.0 million to $2.5 million per mile. Landowners get $5,000+ per turbine, plus royalties on all energy produced from the turbine, plus payments for every foot of access road and transmission lines. However, taxpayers pay more, while the landowners’ neighbors suffer property devaluation, scenic disruption, noise, health problems and interference with crop spraying, but no monetary compensation. Direct federal wind energy subsidies to help cover this totaled $5 billion in FY 2010; state support added billions more; still more billions were added to consumers’ electric bills.

The Other People’s Money well is running dry. The “manmade catastrophic climate change” thesis behind the wind energy campaign is in shambles. Voters and consumers are understandably fed up.

Energy. Mining, quarrying, drilling, milling, refining, smelting and manufacturing operations make the production of metals, concrete, fiberglass and resins, turbines, and heavy equipment to do all of the above very energy-intensive. Ditto for transporting and installing turbines, towers, backups and transmission lines. That takes real energy: abundant, reliable, affordable – not what comes from wind turbines.

In fact, it probably requires more energy to manufacture, haul and install these monstrous Cuisinarts of the air and their transmission systems than they will generate in their lifetimes. However, no cradle-to-grave analysis has ever been conducted, for the energy inputs or pollution outputs. We need one now.

Health. Whereas environmentalists garner scary headlines over wildly speculative claims about health dangers from hydraulic fracturing (to extract abundant natural gas for wind turbine backup generators), they ignore and dismiss a growing body of evidence that wind turbines cause significant health problems.

Principal health issues are associated with noise – not just annoying audible noise, but inaudible, low-frequency “infrasound” that causes headache, dizziness, “deep nervous fatigue” and symptoms akin to seasickness. “Wind turbine syndrome” also includes irritability, depression, and concentration and sleep problems. Others include “shadow flicker” or “strobe effect” from whirling blades, which can trigger seizures in epileptics, “vibroacoustic” effects on the heart and lungs, and non-lethal harm to animals. Serious lung, heart, cancer and other problems have been documented from rare earth mining, smelting and manufacturing in China, under its less rigorous health, workplace and environmental regulations.

To date, however, very few health assessments have been required or conducted prior to permit approval, even for major wind turbine installations. Perhaps the trial lawyers’ guild could redress that oversight.

Environment. Raptors, bats and other beautiful flying creatures continue to be sliced and diced by wind turbines. Thankfully, the Bureau of Land Management has included an “avian radar system” to track the slaughter within its 500-square-mile Chokecherry region – and banned mining among the turbines.

Wind turbines are supposed to reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. But because backup generators must repeatedly surge to full power and back to standby, as wind speed rises and falls, they operate inefficiently, use more fuel and emit more – much like cars forced to stop repeatedly on freeways.

Jobs. The myth of “green jobs” is hitting the brick wall of reality. While the turbines are installed in the USA and EU, far more numerous mining and manufacturing jobs are in China, where they are hardly “green.” As Spanish and Scottish analysts have documented, the “green” installer and maintenance jobs cost up to $750,000 apiece – and kill 2.2 to 3.7 traditional jobs for every “eco-friendly” job created.

Electricity costs and reliability. Even huge subsidies cannot cure wind power’s biggest defects: its electricity costs far more than coal, gas or nuclear alternatives – and its intermittent nature wreaks havoc on power grids and consumers. The problem is worst on hot summer afternoons, when demand is highest and breezes are minimal. Unable to compete against cheap Chinese and Indian electricity and labor, energy-intensive industries increasingly face the prospect of sending operations and jobs overseas. Bayer Chemical’s warning that it may have to close its German facilities is just the tip of the iceberg.

When it comes to wind, Nat King Cole might have sung: “Unsustainable that’s what you are, unsustainable though near or far. Unsustainable in every way, and forever more that’s how you’ll stay.” Maybe not forever, but certainly for the foreseeable future, especially compared to increasingly abundant natural gas.

So take a hint from Spoon’s lively tune and “cut out the middleman.” Forge a direct relationship with energy you can afford, energy that works nearly 24/7/365, energy that causes the least ecological damage and is far more sustainable than wind power: the hydrocarbon, hydroelectric and nuclear power that have sustained our society and brought unprecedented health, prosperity and living standards to billions.

Then help the planet’s least fortunate people to do likewise.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

 

WesternFront America

Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress concerning jobs is nothing more that a campaign speech.  This is more of Obama abusing the powers of the Office of the President and conservatives in the Congress should boycott it.  It is just high political theatre and frankly it is another tasteless move by the White House.

Scheduling the speech on the same evening as the GOP debate at the Reagan Library (the first debate in which Rick Perry will take part) is a deliberate maneuver to create a press boycott of the debate.  It is juvenile and heavy handed.  It is beneath the Office of the Presidency.  As we folks down south say:  “It is tacky!”

The White House’s explanation that the scheduling was merely a coincidence is pure bovine scatology!  See, the President, and his coterie of imps, continue to believe that you and I are so dumb we will believe that sort of elementary school pabulum.  It is out and out nonsense.

I urge the House of Representatives to refuse passage of the resolution allowing the President to speak to a joint session.  It is certain the Senate will pass such a resolution. But in order for the event to happen, BOTH houses of Congress must pass the resolution.  I hope the House has the good sense to deny it passage.

Speaker Boehner sent a letter to President Obama in which he said the following:  “As you know, the House of Representatives and Senate are each required to adopt a Concurrent Resolution to allow for a Joint Session of Congress to receive the President.  And as the Majority Leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, September 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening.”  The Speaker continued:  “It is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening [Thursday], when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.”  (You may read the entire letter from Speaker Boehner to President Obama HERE.)

It looks like what it is:  A bully in the Bully Pulpit!

I get the feeling this President actually LIKES throwing his weight around.  He never misses a chance to remind us HE is the President with his multiple usage of the words “me” and “I” and “mine.”

In his letter to the Congress, the President said:  ““It is my intention to lay out a series of bipartisan proposals that the Congress can take immediately to continue to rebuild the American economy by strengthening small businesses, helping Americans get back to work, and putting more money in the paychecks of the Middle Class and working Americans, while still reducing our deficit and getting our fiscal house in order.”  Obama continued by saying:  “It is our responsibility to find bipartisan solutions to help grow our economy, and if we are willing to put country before party, I am confident we can do just that.” (SOURCE)

It is pure boilerplate.  It is just more of the same.

The President wants the American people to perceive him as doing something.  In fact his “doing something” is what has kept the country in a mess and made that mess even messier.  His actions and that of his regulatory agencies and his democrat cohort in the Senate have created an atmosphere of uncertainty in the American business community and frozen business in its tracks.  Business cannot grow and jobs in the private sector cannot be created when risk is perceived to be too high due to the uncertainty the Obama Administration has brought down on the job creators in America.

If, and when, Obama and his regulatory agencies get out of the way, the American economy will grow by leaps and bounds.  Jobs will not be created until that happens.

OK.  Obama has proven he knows how to create government jobs.  But those jobs have only made private job creators even more reluctant to put their necks and their cash on the line.

Look.  It is becoming ever clearer as the days go by that America is frozen in place until the Obama Administration is shown the door. American business is ready to roar back to life.  They are in a leaning forward posture … but … not until Obama and his administration is out of the way.

Whatever Obama says in his speech to the joint session of Congress will be of no import to anyone but Obama and his campaign.

We have warned time and again that this campaign will likely be the dirtiest in history.  Obama’s shock troops, the labor unions, don’t mind rolling in the gutter to get their man across the finish line first.

Republicans had better sit up and take notice.  The GOP had better field a nominee with the ability to fight with bare knuckles and even hit below the belt when it is advantageous.  This campaign will make a barroom brawl look like a Sunday School picnic.

The GOP needs a brawler not a mild mannered impeccably coiffed, manicured, “nice guy” with a gleaming smile.  What is called for is a nominee to carry the GOP banner and attack, attack, and attack, and keep Obama reeling and unable to organize a counter-attack.  You can be sure the democrats will adopt the aforesaid strategy.  And they are darned good at it.

America needs a warrior and not a limp-wristed lawyer to lead this nation back to her place as the engine of democracy and the guiding light for all men everywhere who seek freedom and a fair shake at fulfilling their dreams.

We NEED America back.  The WORLD NEEDS America back.

J. D. Longstreet

 

WesternFront America