The Last Days Of The Republic?
The Last Days Of The Republic?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
Call it a “Constitutional Republic,” or a “Representative Republic,” the fact is – America, as a “republic,” is done for.
How did it happen? Well, those who would turn America into a Socialist Utopia used the very democratic process, in which Americans pride themselves, to execute a brilliant coup de tat and take over the US government. And they did it in plain sight, right before our eyes.
In a democratic nation the risk of electing a dictator, is always there, lurking in the shadows. All it takes is a bad mistake at the polls by freedom loving people misled by slick, smooth, oratory and, let us not forget, the promise or the implication of… something for nothing. I cannot overemphasize the importance of the electorate’s ignorance. It is my belief that ignorance played the largest role in the election of Obama to the presidency of the US than any other single causation.
In a mad rush to the polls to elect the nation’s first “black” President, everything else was overlooked. Important things like Obama’s socialist leanings, his obvious preference of Muslims over those of the Jewish faith, his bent toward collectivism, Marxism, and his penchant for a “command and control” economy for the US. None of this mattered to those ignorant of history, ignorant of the philosophies espoused by and believed in by Mr. Obama. No, what was MOST important to them was the election of America’s first black president, whatever the cost.
Well, the bill has come due. The cost? The cost was only our country – only the republic.
America is not the country it was as recently as one year ago. A year ago, America was still a constitutional republic. Today, America is a socialist nation with Progressives/Socialists/Marxists in control of our government and our economy. The nation is broke and on the cusp of total collapse. And we are being lied to by our leaders when they tell us the recovery from the recession has begun.
Just a few minutes before I penned these words I read an article by a internationally known wire service in which they boldly stated the recent decline in unemployment numbers points to the beginning of the recovery from tne recession. What they didn’t tell their readers was this: The decline was caused by discouraged, unemployed, Americans who decided to simply stop looking for work, after having been unemployed for months on end. Those numbers are not counted. This explains the drop from 10% to 9.7% of America’s workforce out of work. If Americans were told the truth we would see the actual unemployed figures would be closer to 13% to 15%, or even 17%, unemployed in the nation.
I am convinced our government is lying to Americans. I am also convinced our government is cooking the books.
The plain truth is — it is going to get a lot worse over the months ahead. There will be a general bump upwards in the stats, which will point to a recovery, as we approach the election in November. Don’t believe them. It will be, as they say: “Bravo Sierra.”
What we are seeing in America’s economic decline today is what always happens when socialists, somehow, gain control of a nation’s government, and/or a nation’s economy. It dies. Eventually that nation dies just as America is doing.
Can America be saved? I doubt it. Even if there is a complete turn around at the polls in November it will take decades to get a grasp on the damage done in a single year by the Obama Regime and his minions in the Congress.
We may find that we must re-invent America. We may have to re-found America, as it were. The real America is gone. I doubt that it can ever be recreated.
We may also find that instead of a single country, always at war with itself, the states may decide to split into two or three coalitions or confederacies, or, dare I say it… countries. If we are honest with ourselves we will admit that America is, at the very least, two countries existing under the banner of one nation. A number of states are investigating the possibility of seceding from the current group known as the United States. It is obvious to anyone caring to look… we are anything BUT united.
First, however, we must stop America’s slide into oblivion. Then we can decide who and what we want to become. Even before we do anything we must accept the fact that America, as a constitutional republic, no longer exists. It may be gone forever. I sincerely hope not. I hope Americans will decide to recreate America as its original founders intended. But, we must face the fact that THAT is not likely to happen.
The Last Days of the Republic have come and gone. America exists today as just another socialist nation along with its counterparts in Europe. It is a completely predictable end for a nation, which deliberately chose ignorance of its history and of its government. Ignorance brought America down. There is no other reasonable explanation for the government we have in Washington, DC, today!
J. D. Longstreet
Dumbing Down History in North Carolina and America
Dumbing Down History in North Carolina and America
Revising History to Favor Socialism and Marxism
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Another leftist plot is afoot here, in North Carolina, to reinforce the ignorance of our young students of their history, their heritage, and their REAL American culture. And this is not the first time the left has tried this move in North Carolina. We urge you to go to NCSOUTH’s blog site and read the entire article there. This is a must read! Go HERE!
http://ncsouth.blogspot.com/2010/02/dumbing-down-history-again.html
In an article at “Common Core” entitled “Dumbing Down The Tar Heel State,” James Elias says the following: “Newly proposed standards would mean that, over their high school career, students in North Carolina would take an ambiguous course called global studies in 9th grade, take study civics and economics in 10th grade, and study U.S. history from 1877 to the present in 11th grade.” He goes on to say: ” The Lexington Institute’s recent report, The Teaching of American History: Promise and Performance, documents the country’s growing indifference toward its own history. How can students assume the responsibilities and privileges of democratic citizenship if they don’t know the basic facts of our national experience?” You may read the entire article HERE.
In an article by Molly Henneberg at “The Water Cooler” entitled: “North Carolina Schools May Cut Chunk Out of U.S. History Lessons” Ms. Henneberg says: “He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.” She goes on to say: “State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.” Ms. Henneberg continues: “Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.” You may read the entire article HERE.
What we have, here in North Carolina, is a bold-faced move, by the political left, to isolate young Tar Heels from their history, their true culture, and their true heritage.
There has been a movement by the left, for a number of decades now, to dumb down our students — especially as to their history, the history of their respective states, and the history of western civilization — especially the history of America. Why? Well allow me to answer that question with another question: Had the American electorate actually known American history, the history of western civilization, do you seriously think they would have elected Obama to be President of the United States? The answer, of course, is a resounding NO!
This is all about the indoctrination of America’s young to favor socialism/Marxism, at an early age, while they are still within the government/union-run indoctrination machine we refer to, laughingly, as the Public Education System in America. This is about creating a generation(s) of young socialists/Marxists. AND IT IS WORKING! If you doubt me, look at Congress and the Office of the President of the United States. Today America has a socialist government!
For more on the indoctrination of our young students, go to the Internet and look for something called “Organizing for America.” You will learn that Organizing for America is the grassroots arm of the Democratic National Committee. You will also learn how the Obama Regime is using America’s high school students as a leftist army of young people supporting Obama’s socialist/Marxist agenda. You will also learn that some high school students have been given applications for employment at Barack Obama’s personal political wing: Organizing for America (OFA). Included on the 20-page application is a recommended reading list that includes the most radical propaganda literature imaginable. Prominent on the list: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, which is a step-by-step guide to the violent overthrow of the United States government. You may read more about this and see the “Intern application” for “Organizing for America” for yourself HERE.
Why aren’t you hearing about this in the Mainstream Media? Do you REALLY have to ask that? The MsM is so deep in the tank for Obama, and his socialist/Marxist agenda, that it is embarrassing!! Had the Republican National Committee done this, the MsM would have been howling to high heaven! Of course, we all KNOW they are not biased!
According to Wikipedia: “Organizing for America is a community organizing project of the Democratic National Committee. Founded after the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, the group seeks to mobilize supporters in favor of Obama’s legislative agenda.” Read the entire article HERE.
What is happening in North Carolina Public Education is inexcusable! For Tar Heels to sit on their hands, and do nothing to stop it is even worse. North Carolinians should be contacting their state representatives and state senators about this issue by personal contact, letters, telephone calls, faxes, and e-mail — any way they can — to make sure the General Assembly KNOWS, without a shadow of a doubt, that Tar Heels want their kids left alone! We do not want our children indoctrinated in leftist politics while spending those precious hours in an attempt to gain, at least, a rudimentary education!
The Department of Public Instruction should understand that we want our children taught the true, un-revised, history of the North Carolina, of the United States of America — and of Western Civilization. We want our children to know WHO they are, and WHERE their ancestors came from, and WHY. We want them to understand their TRUE culture — and just as important — we want our children to know and understand their true HERITAGE!
If you wish to control a people, any people, these are the things from which you isolate them. You cut them off from any ties to their history, their culture, and their heritage — and you do it FIRST and you do it EARLY in their development.
It is not difficult to see and understand what is happening in North Carolina. It is happening all over the United States. Americans are watching a coup de tat take place right before our eyes!
Americans have lost their government to socialism/Marxism. The country is on its knees economically. It is weakened, humbled, and very, very, vulnerable. The enemies of freedom, within our country, know this and they are striking now to take advantage of America’s preoccupation with its current economic woes. We cannot allow them to win. We cannot allow them to crush, to destroy, the experiment in freedom that was America.
We can, and we must, begin the struggle to fight back right here in North Carolina.
The state motto of North Carolina is: “To BE rather than to SEEM.” There is a reason that phrase was chosen as our state motto.
The tenacity of North Carolina’s Confederate troops is still extolled where real history is taught. During America’s War Between the States North Carolina Troops were known to be “FIRST at Bethel, FARTHEST at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and LAST to surrender at Appomattox.” The bravery of Tar Heels is legendary. North Carolina actually declared its independence from Great Britain BEFORE the other colonies. THIS is only a tiny fraction of the history Tar Heel students should be taught. No matter if the history is good, bad, or even ugly, our students should know it. It is THEIR STORY!
We urge you to contact your North Carolina state representative and state senator and demand they step in and stop this move to dumb down North Carolina’s students. Do it for the sake of the students, for the sake of North Carolina, and for the sake of America.
J. D. Longstreet
At The Point Of A Government Bayonet!
At The Point Of A Government Bayonet!
By J. D. Longstreet
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“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand”. (From the Bible, Matthew 12:25.)
The schism that slices through America today has been widening since the 19th century. Little by little, decade-by-decade, year-by-year it has continued to get ever wider and ever deeper. It has nothing to do with geography. It has nothing to do with slavery… and, yet, it has everything to do with slavery.
“What,” you say? “Didn’t we put the slavery issue to rest with a war in the 1860’s?”
The truthful answer is NO, we did not. We put to rest the issue of whether or not a man could hold another man in bondage in this country. What we did not put to rest, however, is the question of whether this country’s government could hold its citizens in bondage.
The Founders of America intended to set up a government with very little power. They intended the government to have only the power the citizens allowed it to have. Almost instantly the power struggle began between those who wanted a strong central government and those who wanted strong states and a weak central government. After all, it was The States that created the Federal Government… as a utility of the states. Not the other way around. Look it up.
In 1860 there were 33 states in the so-called United States of America. I do mean “so-called” because they were anything but UNITED. By the spring of 1861 thirteen of those states had had enough of being “dictated-to” by a oligarchic federal government wielding powers the constitution did not grant it, and .– as the US Constitution did not forbid it (as had the Articles of Confederation) — they took their leave of the United States. They created a country of their own with a constitution (mostly copied from the original constitution of the US) and they became a separate country.
A few Americans, today, actually know what caused that split. A handful of Americans understand what the ensuing war was fought about. A few million Americans still feel the sting of being forced, at the point of a government bayonet, to be a part of a country their ancestors had forsaken in order to set up a representative republic in the image of the government the Founding Fathers of America had given the United States.
A few million Americans who either live in, have lived in, or hail from, the only portion of this country to ever be invaded, conquered, and occupied by a foreign power, understand what is happening in America today, not because we learned it in school, — because we learned it from the stories our families have handed down, from generation to generation, and from our own research into what happened to a country which had, less than a hundred years before, won it’s independence from the Mother Country.
We are scattered all over America today… north, south, east, west, all over. We see where America is headed… and we fear for our fellow Americans because they/we are not ready for the cost of what is happening to America. None of us are.
What America is facing, in the next few years, will make the American Civil War seem like a Sunday School picnic.
Yes, I am referring to SLAVERY. Voluntary slavery to begin with… then involuntary slavery — when it is then too late. The socially accepted word for it these days is… SOCIALISM.
Back in November of 2008, Americans went to the polls and voted, voluntarily, to assume the national yoke of socialism. Whether America should stay free, or whether America should give up the freedom so many have fought, bled, and died for, apparently was not even under consideration by the electorate at the time.
Even thought we conservatives had warned of impending national destruction, if the nation chose socialism, the voter’s chose the current President — and– added many more socialists to the rolls of Congress. Effectively, America stopped being a constitutional republic, at that moment, and became just another mediocre socialist state like unto so many countries in Europe.
In January of 2009 the “rot” at the heart of America began to spread, exponentially, and we find ourselves, in 2010, in a country, which is beginning to resemble a third-world “banana republic.”
America is currently ruled by “command and control” by a President with strong Socialist/Marxist tendencies. He believes in Socialism, Marxism, Collectivism, and some even go so far as to declare that he also has strong leanings toward communism. As a result America is broke, in debt so deep our great grandchildren will still be burdened with the nation’s debt, and many Americans are humiliated and angry.
The average American has now begun to understand that socialism will destroy a nation — just as we warned before the election! They also understand that destruction has begun and is well on its way to destroying America. Much of America has awakened and are angry at the bitter taste of Socialistic Slavery.
Make no mistake. SOCIALISM IS SLAVERY. Under socialism a people give up all their rights… all their freedom… for security guaranteed by a powerful Central Government. Believe me, if you think democracy is expensive; wait ’til you have to pay for all those FREE programs.
All my instincts tell me that today’s crop of Americans are willing to give up everything for the promise of security. I must tell you — of all things “un-American”… that is the MOST un-American.
Do not expect the half of the country who stands solidly against socialism to go along, quietly, into the self inflicted slavery of this hell-spawned form of government called socialism.
The word “United” can be dropped from the name: “The UNITED States of America.” The country has been torn in two. And there will be no compromise. It cannot be healed, ever, again. Two peoples, this diametrically opposed, cannot share the same space. Only the most naive among us cannot understand where this argument, over how we are to be governed, will eventually wind up.
Americans have been divided before. More Americans died in the first American Civil War than in all the wars in which America has fought since her founding. And today, at least half of this country is deadly in earnest about their love of freedom and are willing to sacrifice, as their forefathers did, to preserve it.
Yes, we are in dangerous times — extremely dangerous. On the horizon of America’s future, dark clouds are gathering. Let us hope those gathering clouds are not the leading edge of the winds of war.
J. D. Longstreet
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Crazy Nancy, Cunning Barack … Alan Caruba
Crazy Nancy, Cunning Barack
By Alan Caruba
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When President Obama announced he would commit the nation to reduce “greenhouse gas emissions” in accordance with the failed UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference goals, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, issued yet another utterly crazed statement on January 29th.
“President Obama’s announcement marks a critical step forward in our effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the federal government—the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy.” For the record, the Capitol building’s electric power is provided by a coal-fired plant. And, for the record, the Speaker’s use of an executive jet to travel back and forth from her home in California every week has burned through $2.1 million while producing tons of greenhouse gases.
“With the President’s renewed call to complete work on a clean energy bill this year we look forward to putting people to work building up the industries of tomorrow, reducing our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and preserving our natural resources for generations to come.”
Allowing large and small oil companies to explore and extract our national reserves of oil would reduce our dependency, but from the late 1970s onward, it has been government policy to prohibit this, despite the role it plays in our national security and, of course, the cost of a gallon of gas at the pump. There’s a reason much of our military power is deployed to protect Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in the Middle East. We get 40% of our oil from there.
The so-called clean energy bill is “Cap-and-Trade”, a piece of legislation that would tax the use of energy by all Americans, thus raising their energy bills and reducing their ability to spend their money on consumer goods and services. The alleged “industries of tomorrow” include wind and solar energy companies, along with biofuel companies, all of which are totally dependent on government subsidies and mandates for their use. Remove the subsidies and they would go out of business.
In a February 2nd letter from the National Biodiesel Board to leaders in Congress says that the expiration of the biodiesel tax incentive that expired on December 31, 2009 “has essentially caused the production and use of biodiesel in the U.S. to cease…” No kidding!
Speaker Pelosi’s idea of “preserving our natural resources” is to restrict access to the billions of barrels of oil locked up in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve and to continue the ban on all off-shore exploration and extraction of countless billions of barrels of oil and cubic feet of natural gas estimated to exist in the 85% of the continental shelf that remain off limits.
While Congress continues on its wild borrowing and spending spree, Speaker Pelosi brags that the Congressional Record will be printed on “100 percent recycled paper” and that Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulbs will be replaced with “energy-efficient alternatives”; light bulbs that all contain mercury.
What justification can be made for denying consumers the right to purchase incandescent light bulbs? None!
President Obama has announced that, as soon as “Cap-and-Trade” is enacted, the U.S. will begin to “cut carbon emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020.” To achieve this, we will all return to the practice of riding horses and using oxen to plow the fields for the planting of crops.
The fact that global warming is being discredited daily with new revelations about the bogus “science” used to justify it by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).seems to have escaped the notice of Speaker Pelosi, the President, and others in Congress.
What Americans are witnessing is a calculated agenda to undermine access to the energy the nation requires for present and future generations and thus undermines the economy of the nation that is totally dependent on the sufficient provision of electrical energy and the ability to utilize the nation’s vast oil, coal, and natural gas reserves, a policy that has been in place since the 1970s.
In his State of the Union speech, the President did call for more nuclear plants, but the government has stalled the building of all but two new nuclear plants since the 1970s and, thanks to Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is unable to utilize the multi-billion dollar Yukka Mountain facility in Nevada for the storage of nuclear waste.
This and other proposals are a direct threat to the economy of the nation, diverting billions (of borrowed money) to phony “green jobs” and “clean energy.” It is bad news for America.
In September of last year, nearly a million Americans showed up in Washington, D.C. to protest healthcare reform and it is a wonder of civility that they and others have not returned to the nation’s capitol with pitchforks and torches to drive out the likes of Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress.
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
Where Are The Homeless People in Obama’s America?
Where Are The Homeless People in Obama’s America?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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It would seem that hidden amongst the Multitude of Miracles performed by “The One,” Obama, America’s homeless population has disappeared! Had you noticed? Practically no stories in the Mainstream Media about the poor, downtrodden, homeless people of America certainly must mean they no longer exist, right? It’s another Obama miracle, right?
Wait a minute! There were no homeless people during the Clinton Administration, either. There have only been homeless people during Reagan, and Bush One and Bush Two. Hummm. Kind of makes one pause for a moment and reflect, does it not?
There are two effective means of ridding a country of homeless people: Give them all homes, or … get rid of THEM!
Could it be that the MsM is deliberately NOT talking about America’s homeless so as to save any embarrassment to the Obama Regime? Naah. They wouldn’t so such a thing! Why, that would be biased toward the Obama Regime and we ALL KNOW the MsM in America, especially, is anything but biased.
The experts tell us that between half a million and six hundred thousand people are considered “homeless” at any given time in America. Assuming that is so, then why is the MsM not reporting it, except when a Republican is in the White House?
On the other hand, the UN, which has declared open season on America, has sent a UN Special Reporter to America to find out how bad the homeless situation really is.
In an article in “The Guardian,” a UK news organization, an article entitled: “UN investigator accuses US of shameful neglect of homeless” and dated November 2009 (A Republican was still President then, don’t you know?) The Guardian article began with: “A United Nations special investigator who was blocked from visiting the US by the Bush administration has accused the American government of pouring billions of dollars into rescuing banks and big business while treating as “invisible” a deepening homeless crisis.” The UN Special Reporter, Raquel Rolnik is quoted as having said: “I think those who are suffering the most in this whole situation are the very poor, the low-income population. The burden is disproportionately on them and it’s of course disproportionately on African-Americans, on Latinos and immigrant communities, and on Native Americans.”
The Guardian goes on to tell us: “The US government does not tally the numbers but interested organisations say that more than 3 million people were homeless at some point over the past year.” You may read the entire article HERE.
One must remember this was during the late Bush Administration. But, thanks be to Obama, THAT problem no longer exists! Hallelujah!
It is remarkable the number of problems that can be solved when one chooses to ignore them—or the MsM chooses not to draw attention to selected problems – problems they know have no simple solution. Homelessness is one such problem.
It is important to understand that in America, having a house is not considered a human right. We have not quite become a full-fledged “Nanny State” as have many countries in the UN. No, here in America, one still must take responsibility for some things — one of which is securing a place one can consider a home.
But, hey, don’t trouble yourselves over this non-existent problem. At least — not until it pops up again when we have the next Republican President of the United States.
J. D. Longstreet
“Explore or Expire”
“Explore or Expire”
The Lunacy of no Luna Base!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
The Russians are going to the moon. The Chinese are going to the moon. The Japanese are going to the moon. The Indians are going to the moon. The US is not going to the moon.
Historian Stephen J. Pyne said the following: “Exploration is a specific invention of specific civilizations conducted at specific historical times. It is not … a universal property of all human societies. Not all cultures have explored or even traveled widely. Some have been content to exist in xenophobic isolation.”
When future historians look back at America’s decision to curtail its exploration of space, they will surely shake their heads in disbelief. Will they compare the US to the ancient Chinese who sailed unknown seas (seven decades before Columbus’ trek to the New World) to discover and explore the eastern coast of Africa — then went home and walled themselves off from the rest of the world? I suspect they will. I just did.
Back in 1979 James Michener, in testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, said: “We should be most careful about retreating from the specific challenge of our age. We should be reluctant to turn our back upon the frontier of this epoch… We cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand slow march of our intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities.”
In an article in Redbook, as far back as 1969, Anthropologist Margaret Mead said: “Many people are shrinking from the future and from participation in the movement toward a new, expanded reality. And, like homesick travelers abroad, they are focusing their anxieties on home. The reasons are not far to seek. We are at a turning point in human history… We could turn our attention to the problems that going to the moon certainly will not solve … But I think this would be fatal to our future… A society that no longer moves forward does not merely stagnate; it begins to die.”
I must ask: What has happened to America’s “vision?” What has happened to our spirit of discovery? Where are America’s leaders with vision?
Look at how our horizons have shrunk. We are turning in on ourselves. We cannot survive as a people. The Bible tells us bluntly: “… without vision, the people perish.”
It concerns me to think that future generations will look back on America’s decision to curtail, even withdraw from, the exploration of space as a national failure. There is no other way to look at it. We are blowing the opportunity we have here, at the opening of the 21st century, to move out into space.
I remain convinced today, as I was as a young man, that man’s destiny lies in the stars, in distant universes and galaxies.
There is a yearning, deep within the human animal, to “discover.” Our little planet is floating in a huge sea of “undiscovered countries.” Given the opportunity, I would happily sign on as a “hand” on a ship of discovery to distant worlds. Why? Just to see what is there, to learn, to explore, and to experience any unspoiled regions of man’s reach.
“The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire… Beyond all rationales, space flight is a spiritual quest in the broadest sense, one promising a revitalization of humanity and a rebirth of hope no less profound than the great opening out of mind and spirit at the dawn of our modern age.” — Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, “From the Moon to the Millennium,” Albuquerque Tribune, 1999
America cannot remain static in the exploration of space. Doing so will only induce a national “shriveling-up” of the most splendid society ever to grace this tiny planet. We dare not take our eyes off the stars.
“There is no way back into the past; the choice, as (H.G.) Wells once said, is the universe–or nothing. Though men and civilizations may yearn for rest, for the dream of the lotus-eaters, that is a desire that merges imperceptibly into death. The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close.” — Arthur C. Clarke, Interplanetary Flight, 1950
Earth is America’s footstool. We have only to reach out from here, to grasp and secure within our arms, the future of all mankind, which lies out there.
The moon? The moon is only a “way station.”
There is no doubt in my mind that man will move out and open the frontier we call space. I have no doubt that mankind will eventually colonize planets other than earth. I have no doubt that movement has already begun. The vanguard is already probing “near-space.” What troubles me, and raises my ire, is the fact that my America is not at the spear point of that vanguard! I must ask why? The only conclusion I can reasonably formulate is this: America’s lack of leadership. There is a void at the top. America is in desperate need of leaders with vision. Without it, we will surely perish.
J. D. Longstreet
The National Madhouse … Alan Caruba
The National Madhouse
By Alan Caruba
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If you think that you are going mad, based on the statements out of the White House and Congress, let me assure you that you are sane, but those in charge of governing the nation appear to have lost their wits.
The Democrat’s third-ranking House leader, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), during an appearance on Fox News asserted that “We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession.” It is his view that “We’re not going to save our way out of this recession.” So saving money is bad. Spending money we are borrowing at a rate of a billion dollars a day is good. If that sounds insane, you’re right.
In defending his new budget, President Obama declared that “Already, we have made historic strides…to cut wasteful spending.” The problem with that is that his budget proposal, for a second year in a row, would increase federal spending as a percentage of the Gross National Product at a higher rate than any time in the past 65 years. Fully a quarter of the GNP would be sucked up and spent by the government.
As we all know by now, because the President keeps telling us, that everything that happened last year was the fault of the previous President, George W. Bush, but it turns out that President Obama proposes once again to spend 30% more of the GDP than Bush.
President Obama has also given notice to the United Nations that the U.S. would agree to the Copenhagen Climate Change Accord to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is reported that this means a reduction of “carbon emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020.” This would be contingent on the passage of the Cap-and-Trade bill lingering in the Senate.
The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is based on the now widely discredited global warming hoax that blamed carbon dioxide for the non-existent rise in the planet’s temperature.
Thus, the Cap-and-Trade bill is, itself, a hoax and, worse, would increase taxes on all energy use for all Americans. The reduction that President Obama calls for would require a return to the days of horse-drawn vehicles and an end to manufacturing and other activities dependent on oil, natural gas, and coal.
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced its intention to regulate carbon dioxide, the gas other than oxygen on which all life on Earth depends. Its justification for this is, of course, global warming. It requires a lot of gall to ignore the fact that the Earth entered a cooling cycle in 1998 that is likely to last another decade or two.
If the insanity emanating from the White House, Congress and the EPA is not enough, over at the United Nations last Monday the Human Rights Council met in Geneva. It was presided over by Halima Warzasi, a woman whom UN Watch notes “personally shielded the Saddam regime from international censure over the (Kurdish) gas attacks.” She was preceded in the chairmanship by Alfonso Martinez of Cuba. The Council’s principal members include China, Cuba, Russia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, none of which are famous for their attention to human rights.
Also last Monday, one brief moment of sanity; Ali Hassan al-Majeed, also known as “Chemical Ali” for having ordered the poison gas attacks on the Kurds, was hanged.
To Americans struggling with debt, with mortgages that cost more than the present value of their homes, and, for many, with unemployment, the notion that the nation would end the Bush tax cuts while raising taxes at the same time it is borrowing and spending money at an unsustainable rate is a good definition of madness.
In November, the Obama administration released a report stating that more than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted. The main culprit according to the report was Medicare, a program that the same administration via its “healthcare reform” legislation wanted to expand by adding millions more to its rolls.
So you may be forgiven for thinking that something is terribly wrong with the White House and Congress because it is.
Alan Caruba
“Big Daddy” Obama and the American Police State
“Big Daddy” Obama and the American Police State
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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I recently came across an article by John W. Whitehead, President of The Rutherford Institute entitled: “The State of the Nation: I am afraid.”
In the article Mr. Whitehead says: “We’re encased in what some are calling an electronic concentration camp. The government continues to amass data files on more and more Americans. Everywhere we go, we are watched: at the banks, at the grocery store, at the mall, crossing the street.” Mr. Whitehead goes on to say: “We are metamorphosing into a police state.” He says: “Fusion centers – data collecting agencies spread throughout the country, aided by the National Security Agency – constantly monitor our communications, everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government agencies, which are now interconnected – the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police – a relationship which will make a transition to martial law that much easier. We may very well be one terrorist attack away from seeing armed forces on our streets – and the American people may not put up much resistance.”
Mr. Whitehead is concerned that our Constitution will come under attack. He says: “As national borders dissolve in the face of spreading globalization, the likelihood increases that our Constitution, which is the supreme law of America, will be subverted in favor of international laws. What that means is that our Constitution will come increasingly under attack.”
It is an insightful article and one that every American ought to read and consider carefully. We encourage you to read The State of the Nation: I am afraid.” By John W. Whitehead at “The August Forecast” HERE.
I, too, am concerned for my country. As Mr. Whitehead has said this is not the America I grew up in. I do not recognize the country we live in today as America.
I see and hear more and more fellow citizens holding hushed and whispered conversations for fear the government –or — one of their neighbors who will turn them in to the authorities as a demonstration of their “Good Citizen” status will overhear them. America is coming more and more, every day, to resemble the old Soviet Union… certainly not AMERICA.
What happened? Americans decided they want security more than they want freedom. Like the Athenians of ancient Greece — we may never be free again.
I am convinced, more than ever, as I watch the Obama Regime in action, that the people of America are being set-up. “Set-up for what?” you may ask. How about a complete takeover of the country? I believe we are watching a coup de’tat take place right before our eyes.
I have mentioned a number of times, in the past, that I fear the Obama Regime will not allow the November Mid Term Election to take place as scheduled. I have postulated the Obama Regime will declare a “national emergency” and “postpone” the November elections… indefinitely.
Ok. So I am paranoid. That doesn’t mean I’m not RIGHT!
It seems I am not alone in seeing evidence of a “plot” in progress amongst the “minions of menace” in the backrooms of the Obama White House. They are in power now, and the do not intend to allow that power to slip through their fingers — certainly not through free and fair elections… not when those elections can be rigged to go their way.
There is an article by Ed Lasky at the “American Thinker” you need to read. Every American needs to read it and consider it very carefully. The article is titled: “Obama and the White House Chicago Boys.” In the article Mr. Lasky says the following: “Barack Obama has a problem. His polls numbers are dropping and his policies are fueling an angry backlash across America. The Democratic Party is held in disrepute, and congressional Democrats are dropping like flies. This imperils Obama’s radical agenda and his own 2012 prospects. What to do? Game the system and rig the future elections. That is how things are done in the streets of Chicago.”
Mr. Lasky says: “What we got was a team that will stoop very low indeed to win elections, honesty and transparency be damned. Obama may be a good basketball player, but he and his team excel in the blood sport of politics, and they will use every trick and tactic, no matter how disgraceful, to win. That may be the Chicago Way, but it is not the American Way.
Again, we urge you to READ Mr. Lasky’s article. You will find it HERE.
America is in DEEP trouble. Even though my fellow Americans HAVE begun to awaken to the threat to their freedom the socialists and Marxists/communists in the White House pose, not enough have been roused to action. We conservatives especially need to become a massive activist machine. We have to fight to maintain and preserve our freedom. If we don’t “Big Daddy Barry Obama” and his Chicago machine will most certainly roll over us and crush our liberty and freedom to death.
J. D. Longstreet
American First, Last, and Always! … By J. D. Longstreet
American First, Last, and Always!
A Citizen of the World, NOT!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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A recent commenter on one of my articles took me to task for not realizing that I am a citizen of the world FIRST — and a citizen of America SECOND!
How wrong he is! If you subscribe to world citizenship first, then you, too are wrong.
My allegiance is to America. I don’t give a rat’s behind what the remainder of the countries on this globe does. It is none of my concern — right up to the point they insist on making trouble for America. It is then that we must send the “United States WORLD Police Force” to clean up the mess the offending country, or countries, has made. I sometimes think our US Navy aircraft carriers should be painted black and white as are our police cruisers. Maybe we could install a gigantic blue flashing light on the carrier’s tallest radio mast. Impressive, what?
I am an admitted isolationist. If I could, I would build a wall around the US and invite the rest of the world to take a hike. Alas, I cannot. I am also a realist and I understand the interconnectedness of America with the rest of the world. I don’t like it, but I understand it. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Look, individuals who prized their independence and self-reliance settled America. They had no desire to be citizens of the world. Our forefathers warned us of “foreign entanglements.” The original America was designed to stand-alone. It was during the war for Independence from Great Britain that we began “entangling” ourselves with European countries as we sought allies to assist in our fight with the British world superpower. We have not been able to disengage since.
Last June, at a fundraiser in Washington, DC, Newt Gingrich is reported to have said: “I am not a citizen of the world. I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous!”
I agree with Gingrich. It s one of those “warm and fuzzy,” emotion inducing, expressions so favored by the useful idiots of the left. It is also, I have concluded, a result of the brainwashing of America’s youth in that left-wing indoctrination system we refer to, laughingly, as the Public Education System.
Why brainwash our kids into believing they are citizens of the world FIRST? Simple. It will make it much easier for Americans to accept becoming a part of a Global Government which would negate the US Constitution, strip Americans of all their rights as American citizens and render them serf’s of an elite globe spanning Marxist ruling class.
We all know by now that Obama is “a citizen of the world.” He tells us he is. Obama is, or at least was, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, “the organization that represents those who want globalism, nations without borders, a North American Union, a Godless U.N. Charter that can be changed according to political whims of unelected elite bureaucrats to replace the U.S. Constitution; a new, universal currency to replace the dollar controlled by the central bankers of Europe…” The preceding is from an excellent article by Joe Kress at “News with Views” entitled: “Obama: I’m a Citizen of the World.” You will find it HERE.
There has been, for a very long time, a movement behind the scenes, in the shadows, so to speak, to create a Global Government. A single One-World Government to which all people on earth would pledge their allegiance. The current governments of the various countries on earth would be suppliants to that Global Government. The earth would be under the power of an elite, unelected, oligarchy. A nameless, faceless, group of power-hungry individuals who will decide how everything, I mean EVERY THING, is run. They still believe in the Socialist/Marxist Utopia, which has never existed — and never will — so long as human beings are at the helm.
Obama belongs to that group of elitists who believe that they are the “anointed ones” charged with insuring the emergence of Global Governance on earth. They are the people who use phrases such as “a citizen of the world.”
Those of us who consider ourselves citizens of America first place our hands over our hearts when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the US. We do this because our allegiance is to America and ONLY America – FIRST! NOW do you understand why Obama did NOT? (Remember the Photo?)
So, if you are inclined to take me to task for not considering myself a citizen of the world first and America second, you can stand down. Your efforts will be totally wasted. You see — I live in the REAL world — not in your fantasy world of Socialist/Marxist propaganda and sloganeering. I am an American, First, Last, and Always!
J. D. Longstreet
The Bill Comes Due for Socialism … Alan Caruba
The Bill Comes Due for Socialism
By Alan Caruba
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“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” — Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister
It began as a beautiful cruise to a land of “hope and change”, but it has become a nightmare in which the ship of state is being deliberately steered toward a whirlpool of debt from which, if Obama is successful, the nation cannot escape.
One of the primary reasons the U.S. economy has grown over the years has been the confidence in its innovation and productivity. It has generated investment from around the world from those who wanted to profit from our success story. There was a time when U.S. securities were the safest in the world, but that is no longer the case.
On December 24, 2009, the U.S. Senate voted to raise the ceiling of the government debt to $12.4 trillion, described by an Associated Press reporter as “a massive increase over the current limit and a political problem that President Barack Obama has promised to address next year.”
On January 20, 2010, barely a month later, Senate Democrats “proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion to pay bills, a record increase that would permit the national debt to reach $14.3 trillion.”
This is the reason, by virtue of the Massachusetts special election; the United States has dodged the bullet of a “reformed” healthcare system which would have slashed a half trillion dollars from Medicare coffers while adding millions more people to its rolls.
It would have turned the health insurance industry into a public utility. They would have ceased to be private enterprises of competing companies. It would have driven physicians out of practice. It would have bankrupted the nation and reduced a widely acknowledged excellent health system to that of a third world nation.
The proposed “Cap-and-Trade” bill, a huge tax on all energy use—the lifeblood of any economy, must be defeated. This will come most likely from a lack of votes as Senate Democrats are finally scared enough of the electorate to act with some degree of rationality.
In a recent commentary, Jerome R. Corsi, the author of “America for Sale: Fighting the New World Order, Surviving the Global Depression, and Preserving USA Sovereignty”, wrote “With the recession and the huge stimulus package added to the beginning of the baby boomers retiring, United States debt is already at 50 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office estimates of the Obama administration plans as they currently stand.”
In other words, the U.S. government is committed through various “entitlement” programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, along with other expenditures, to spend more than it takes in via taxes. The other major expense is for defense. These three factors represent half of the annual U.S. budget.
The situation is so grave that, on January 18, The Washington Times editorialized that “Obama is killing the economy.”
The bill has finally come due for decades of socialism that began in the 1930s.
“The 2009 budget deficit tripled over 2008. The deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) went from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009. The deficit for the first month of fiscal year 2010 was $176 billion, which was greater than the $161 billion deficit for the entire 2007 fiscal year.”
At present rates, the public debt of the United States will reach 85 percent of GDP by 2018, just eight years from now, and 100 percent by 2022. It would be 200 percent by 2038 unless some brakes on spending are not applied before the ship of state gets sucked down beneath an ocean of debt.
What does President Obama propose? He wants to apply an unconstitutional special tax on banks! And not all banks, but just those banks on “Wall Street” whom he blames for the current recession.
His most recent proposal to regulate the banking system drove down the Dow Jones Average signaling further fears of his intention to micro-manage the economy. It is a recipe for disaster and shares of the big Wall Street banks in particular fell. He is deliberately attacking the great engine of the nation’s economy.
Wall Street is not the problem. The government is the problem.
Obama made no mention of the real culprits for the housing market meltdown, the reckless spending of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act that underwrote a program that put $12 trillion of mortgage loans, half of all such loans, in the hands of the federal government!
As John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute points out, “President Obama’s proposal (would) bring back 1930s-like separation of commercial and investment banks, dubbed Glass-Steagall II or Glass-Steagall 2.0, (and) would do little to prevent the problem of financial institutions being too big to fail. What it would do is hurt economic recovery, reduce types of financing available to businesses big and small, and give European and Asian financial services firm a huge competitive advantage over their U.S. counterparts.”
The billions still unspent in the so-called “Stimulus” bill should be returned to the Treasury. Plans to expand Medicare and Medicaid need to be scrapped. Taxes on greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide, must be avoided if for no other reason that CO2 has nothing to do with a non-existent global warming.
The capacity of the United States to recover calls for an end or at least a cap on the mindless spending of taxpayer millions on the pet projects and crony deals of Representatives and Senators.
It calls for an end to the restrictions on the exploration for and extraction of the nation’s vast coal, oil and natural gas reserves, including in ANWR and aggressively in the offshore continental shelf.
It calls for an end to huge multi-million dollar subsidies for “renewable energy” schemes such as solar and wind power.
It calls for an end to the ethanol mandates that dilute the mileage of every gallon of gasoline and actually increase CO2 emissions!
It calls for an end to congressional mandates on the auto industry that have, in part, driven two of its largest manufacturers, General Motors and Chrysler, into bankruptcy. The U.S. must divest its ownership in both companies.
It calls for reining in the rogue government agency, the Environment Protection Agency that is attempting to unilaterally impose control of CO2 emissions and has long engaged in practices that impede economic growth for business, industry, and the nation’s agricultural sector.
There are many reasonable and rational steps that can and should be taken, but it seems clear that the President, with the support of a Democrat controlled Congress, has no intention of taking any of these steps and, indeed, is intent on bankrupting the U.S. government and its people.
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Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
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