Power Tends To Corrupt, And Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.

For today’s commentary please visit:

STORM WARNING! at:

http://www.stormwarning.blogdrive.com/

Thanks!

JDL

Creating A Constitutional Crisis The Obama Way

When it first began it seemed nothing more than a trifling matter which was destined to be quashed in a few days never to be heard of again. Now, however, it has taken on a life of it’s own and is growing, it seems, exponentially each day.  The question of whether, or not, Mr. Obama is eligible to be President of the US is snowballing into what could become another constitutional crisis for the US 

We Americans are used to all sorts of questions being thrown around about our political candidates.  As a result, many of us are just yawning and looking away as a few hardheaded citizens demand that Mr. Obama, the “presumed” President-Elect, is asked about proof of his US citizenship.

The US Constitution, another inconvenient piece of US law, demands (Under Article Two, Section One) that one be a natural born citizen of the US to serve as it’s President.  Here are the exact words:  “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

OK, so why not put the rumors and, even worse, the bevy of lawsuits, to rest by simply producing proof of citizenship by showing the world a valid birth certificate?  See, that’s the part I cannot, for the life of me, understand!  This entire dustup could be resolved and the hounds nipping at the heels of the soon to be President brought to heel. I just DON’T GET IT!

 

OK, so what happens if it turns out that Mr. Obama is NOT a natural born citizen?  Well… we’d have a constitutional crisis … is what. That is the last thing we need at this moment in our history.

 

This issue needs to be settled before the oath of office.  It must be settled.  Can you even imagine the damage done should Mr. Obama assume the presidency only to be found out some time later to be, shall we say, less than qualified?  What about all the appointments he might make?  Every one of them would have to be recalled.  In the mean time, what do you do about all the decisions THEY might have made while holding their respective offices illegally?  They’d all have to be overturned.  And… who would be Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces? What about all the executive orders he makes… and the Bills the Congress hands up to him for his signature making them the law of the land?  Would those laws not be null and void? Can you see the complications this could, and would, have on our nation?

 

There is an excellent article on this at The Bulletin.  It’s titled: “Obama Fomenting A Constitutional Crisis: Constitutional Lawyer Discusses Ramifications Of Controversy”.  You’ll find it at:

 

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20210273&brd=2737&pag=461&dept_id=576361  

 

In case you haven’t heard it from the Mainstream Media, the Supreme Court Justices will meet Friday, December 5^th and review a case, which challenges the eligibility of Mr. Obama to serve as this nation’s President.

 

Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg has now filed an emergency motion for immediate injunction asking the courts to halt state certification of electors in order to stop the Electoral College from meeting on December 15^th and casting their votes for Mr. Obama.  At the same time, Berg is seeking to stop the official vote count, which is scheduled for January 6^th until the court decides on his appeal.  By the way, in case you are wondering… Mr. Berg is a democrat.

 

This issue is not going away until it is faced head on, by Obama, and put to rest by producing proof of his birth as an American citizen. Why drag this out?  Why not produce the document in question and let’s move on.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pivot Point in American History.

By J. D. Longstreet

 

When you cut through all the smoke and mirrors and hot air this election is about whether the US will continue to exist as a proud, free, nation, or drop into socialist slavery. When historians look back on this day, they will say it was the day, the point in history, which changed America.  Will America remain free, or will America retreat and surrender to the forces of socialism?  The choice is ours, America. 

 

When the great warrior leader of the Israelites, Joshua, had control handed to him upon Moses’ death, the tribes were bickering among themselves as they approached the very doorstep of the Promised Land.  Finally, Joshua had had enough!  He called them together and challenged them:  “Choose you, this day, whom you will serve!  As for me, and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

 

And so it is that today, Americans are called to choose whom they will serve.  We will choose to commission certain, from among us, to have power over us. This is an awesome thing.  It is voluntary submission. But, it is how a representative republic operates. We must be certain that those we elect are not shallow, empty suits, interested in power for power’s sake.  That will defeat the purpose of our republic.  It will also place this republic in immense danger.

 

Our enemies gather today… and watch.   They pray for Americans to turn the power of this government over to those who will appease them.   Their intention is to conquer the US and they will be happy if the electorate of the US makes it much easier for them to accomplish that mission by electing weak spined, naïve, people to fill the seats of power in our government.

 

If we choose today to turn this government over to those who cannot, for whatever reason, understand this nation is at war for it’s life, then there will be a heavy price to pay.  Just as 9-11, and the two wars which followed, in my opinion, was the price we paid for electing the last democratic administration, we can expect an even heavier price for returning that element to power in the government of the US.

 

As I cast my ballot one week ago today, I thought of my family, of my wife, of my children and my grandchildren.  I was reminded that I have a responsibility to ensure, as far as it is within my power, that they have a guaranteed future as a free people. I could not do that by voting for the Democratic Party.  To vote for the freedom and security of my family I had no choice but to vote for the Republican candidates.

 

You see, I believe Americans have forgotten that for a free nation, national security comes first, above all things. Without the security of our nation, nothing else is possible. Without national security even that which has already been accomplished is in danger.  An unsecure nation can only exist at the mercy of it’s enemies. And that mercy, once extended, and accepted, becomes the chain and the shackles that enslave entire nations.    

 

I believe it was the Apostle Paul who once said:  “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of God!”  He was, of course, correct.  I am convinced this nation was created, by God, as a beacon for the people of this world.  As such we Americans are answerable to God for our actions as a nation. We are also told, by the scriptures, that God punishes those he loves.   When we act as a God fearing nation, this nation does well.  When we fail, we pay the price.  When we make the right decisions we prosper.  When we make the wrong decisions we suffer.

 

We stand at the precipice of a decision today.  Two choices are presented for us from which to choose. As agents of free will WE must make that decision. Paraphrasing the words of the ancient Israelite warrior prophet Joshua, “America, choose you, this day, whom you will serve”!  Choose wisely, America, choose wisely.

 

J. D. Longstreet

After America… Who Will Lead The World?

By J. D. Longstreet

 

November 4^th, 2008, will likely go down in the history books as the day America gave up her world leadership role and became another “has been” nation.

 

About two years ago when I first began to look seriously at this fellow named Obama, I recognized his overt socialism immediately.  It wasn’t difficult.  It was right there for everyone to see… if one wished to see it.  But it now seems that millions of Americans are perfectly fine with assisting in the suicide of America by accepting his message of socialism, the destroyer of nations.

 

I’m an old codger, in my late sixties, and I have seen socialism as an enemy of the United States and what, back in my day, we called Americanism. Americanism is simply defined as democratic capitalism.

 

When I was in the US military we were taught to fight socialism. We trained to meet the socialists on the field of battle. There was no question that Americanism and socialism could not exist on the same globe without conflict, and, we rightly assumed, armed conflict.

 

Months ago, as I began to write about the dangers of socialism to America, (and how the Democratic Party has become a sort of Socialist/Democratic party) I was stunned when they, the democrats, did not refute it. I had expected democrats to deny any connection to socialism.  But they didn’t.  It was then that it struck me… they don’t deny it because they can’t.  They have become socialist! They have embraced socialism.

 

Back in 1935, or so, FDR, a democrat, introduced Socialism to America with his New Deal. America has never been able to extricate itself from the New Deal.  It is still with us today.

 

As hard as it is to fathom, there are millions of Americans today educated in America’s public schools who have no idea what socialism is.  As the democrat party controls our public school system, the courses taught are favorable to socialism. American “scholars” are not taught that socialism is a cancer, which will eat away the core of a capitalist nation by simply removing any desire of the citizens to advance their station in life.  It squashes all ambition to live better, to make more money, to manufacture better goods, to offer better services, to do/say/produce anything in which one could exhibit pride either in themselves or their country. 

 

How can this be?  Well, socialism demands the end of private enterprise. Under socialism there would be no small businesses, no Mom and Pop stores, no entrepreneurs. Socialism demands the redistribution of wealth.  That means taking the money you earned and giving it to those who did not earn it. Socialism demands that all wealth in a nation, and that includes yours, will be controlled by the government. In other words, you will own nothing — not even your own money.  The government owns everything and everyone is given only what it takes for that person to survive.  Socialism celebrates the lack of an upper class and a lower class.  Under socialism there is only one class.  And in THAT class all people suffer equally.

 

It would seem that America has made the decision to turn it’s back on everything good the forbearers made and sacrificed to give us… an America, unique in all the world and in all the world’s history.  What, then, is America about to do?  America is about to join the mediocrity of the remainder of the world.   No longer desirous of the leadership role, no longer willing to do the heavy lifting required by freedom, America has decided to join the pack of “has been” nations now embarrassed by their past glory years.

 

If I am right, and I am convinced that I am, tomorrow will begin the” Post-America” period in world history. Which leads to the burning question, at least for me.  That question is:  after America, who will lead the world?    

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

    

The Obama Commercial … by Alan Caruba

The Obama Commercial

By Alan Caruba

 

The Wednesday evening half-hour, $4 million dollar television commercial for the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama was a masterpiece of imagery.

 

It was also entirely devoted to class warfare, class envy, and most of all to fear.

 

This has been the Democrat message since Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the White House in the midst of the Great Depression—the real one, not the Recession the economy has encountered today. We don’t have 15% percent unemployment as was the case in the 1930s, but we do have a vast matrix of costly government programs left over from those times.

 

Obama’s message and the theme of his campaign are those the Democrat Party has always used to acquire political power. They are the promises about tax cuts that mysteriously never occur once they are in office.

 

They are about protecting people from every kind of change that could harm them and they promise “change” as a government that will come to their aid in sickness, in their old age, to help their children attend better schools, to help them go to college, and on, and on, and on.

 

The Obama commercial focused entirely on people struggling against changes in their lives over which they had no control. For example there was a Ford Motor Company couple laid off from their jobs, but no mention is made of the endless federal mandates imposed on all auto companies that drove up the cost of every automobile for everyone, nor the massive union pension and health programs those companies had to agree to in order to stay in business. These and other factors have killed the auto industry in America.

 

The Obama commercial talked of more teachers and better schools, but ever since the 1960s, the creation of the Department of Education, and the rise of the control over all schools by teachers unions, education in America has declined so sharply that we rank behind many other nations and produce students programmed to believe government is the answer but it has been federal government that has destroyed local community control over schools and their curriculum.

 

At one point, Obama said, “I will always be honest with you” and I recalled Jimmy Carter’s promise that “I will never lie to you.” Both candidates arrived out of the political wilderness with very thin resumes to suggest they had the knowledge or ability to run a nation. Carter’s one term in office was a failure in so many ways, but worse, we continue to pay for those failures in foreign and domestic policy.

 

And wasn’t it Obama who promised to accept public funding for his campaign only to renege on that promise?

 

At the end of the Obama commercial the scene shifted to the now familiar large crowd of adoring supporters. How long will that last if Obama cannot make the Recession go away? How long will his popularity last if the homeland comes under attack again and we see a weak response? It was the decade of the 1990s during which a two-term, Democrat Clinton administration failed to respond with strength against al Qaeda’s bombing of our embassies and other targets. By 2001, the targets were the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

 

 It is the unanticipated problems that test a presidency, not ones that have been around for decades. And, if Americans think that government is the answer, they need to remind themselves of Hurricane Katrina.

 

On so many levels, the commercial will have appealed to lots of people, young and old, struggling to pay bills, but the American government works best when it gets out of the way of Americans and let’s them begin new businesses, expand existing ones, and conduct business with the least amount of paperwork and other distractions.

 

That’s not how the government functions these days and, under Obama, the effort to “change” America will continue to add thousands of new laws and regulations to the Federal Register, but the class warfare and class envy will not end, nor will the fear.

 

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Overestimated My fellow Americans … by J. D. Longstreet

Some of us have been screaming from the rooftops, for nearly 2 years now, that Mr. Obama is a socialist. Only now, just days before the election, are people beginning to take notice. Why? It is there for everyone but the deaf, dumb, and bind to see.

 

America has been slowly but surely headed toward a socialist government since FDR’s “New Deal.” In the 1960’s it was Lyndon Baines Johnson and the “Great Society”, and now, the crowning touch, Barack Hussein Obama and the… what…”Spread the Wealth Around” government?

 

The Left in America knows they have not succeeded in convincing us all to buy into their “Demand whatever the country can do for you” approach to government. You see, there are a heck of a lot of folks, like me, still roaming around, out here in the hinterlands of America, who see them for what they are, who recognize their scheme to lock down a democratic majority, forever, in Washington by making every single American dependent on the government for their very existence. Folks like me are a threat to them and their plans.

 

That is why Obama has run a stealth campaign. Think back. Obama has not told us a single thing, in concrete terms, he will do for you. Oh sure, he has given us great oratorical flourishes that spellbind those who wish to be spellbound. Watching an Obama event is much the same as watching the old medicine shows of the 1800’s. His snake oil is his promise of change, of hope, of (—–) whatever you wish to place in the blank.

 

People, like me, pay attention to what is going on about them. We are aware of what our government is doing. We feel that the government is answerable to us, as the voter, and, equally important, we also feel we have a responsibility to watch the government and make sure they stay within the guidelines of the constitution. That is the way a free people stay free. Never, ever, trust your government.

 

It is we the left is afraid of. The fact that we continue to agitate and call attention to Obama’s obvious socialism grinds on them every second of every day. They fear that our collective voices may eventually cut through their carefully constructed façade and actually draw your attention to every thing that is wrong with the fine print in the Obama promise. First and foremost where is the money going to come from to finance Obama’s expanded government? Secondly, who is going to protect us from all this nations enemies now salivating at the expectation that such a weakling as Obama will assume the office of Commander-in-Chief of the US military? Apparently, everyone already knows that no amount of talking, and jawboning, with the Islamofacists, with Russia, with North Korea, with Iraq, with Iran, with Afghanistan, with Venezuela, and the host of nameless enemies we face daily will do any good, at all. Everyone, that is, but Obama. They look on, as Americans flock after this empty suit, in disbelief at their good fortune. They are ecstatic that America is about to be handed to them on a silver platter.

 

Our forefathers must be spinning in their graves. The blood, sweat, tears, and providential intervention they, and those who followed them, spent in building a nation unlike any on the earth is all for naught. For if the people have no more love of their country, no more pride in who they are as Americans, no more belief in themselves than those who follow Obama, then, I must tell you, we don’t deserve the country they gave us.

 

It would seem that I have overestimated the intelligence of the American people. It would seem that I have overestimated my fellow Americans’ love for freedom. My error, apparently, was in believing that a people grown from the stock of patriots who fought kings and world superpowers for their freedom, and created a country in which the citizens were limited only by their own imaginations and ambitions would naturally want to preserve this precious land and all the freedom if offers. My mistake. It is a mistake I will not make again.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

There Is No UNITED States!

There Is NO UNITED States!

By: J. D. Longstreet

 

There is a thread of fear running through the right side of the political spectrum in America. It is so real you can taste it. You can see it in the eyes of conservatives. You can hear it in their voices and you can even physically hear it when it is whispered into your ear. I will quickly add… it is fear mixed with resignation. Conservatives speak of it only in whispers. The left doesn’t speak of it at all because they are completely clueless about it.

 

Our fellow Americans, (on the left side of the American political spectrum) have mistakenly read the Right’s current state of mind as “fear of losing the election.” They could not be more wrong. It is not fear of losing the election. It is, however, fear of losing our country and the growing resignation that It is already too late to stop the sprint toward an inevitable conflict between citizens of what used to be the greatest country on the planet.

 

Yes, this IS a horrible thing to contemplate. Our forefathers in 1776 didn’t want it. Our ancestors in 1861 didn’t want it and we don’t want it. Nevertheless, the threat is there, standing just out of the light… but… just barely inside the shadows of our consciousness. The threat is visible to those who WANT to see it. The old expression “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” certainly applies to any who will not see that America is headed toward an internal conflict unlike anything this nation has seen since the 19^th century.

 

For decades now a wedge has been driven deeper and deeper through the heart of what was a United America. We are no longer united. The UNITED states do not exist… except in poetry, verse, song, creeds, pledges, and in the imagination of those people who inhabit a “dream world” far above the plain upon which you and I dwell.

 

In reality, Americans are split asunder… cleft in twain by the cleaver of socialism. The election of a socialist President will complete the great divide of America and render us truly TWO nations. No hope for unity will exist. We will be constantly at each other’s throats, constantly in over-heated debate scratching and clawing at each other until the inevitable happens.

 

I’m over reacting… right? You’d better hope so! Just to reassure yourselves that I am a nut, check your encyclopedia for the history of this nation from about 1820 through 1865… then tell me you do not see the parallels. You see, for those of us who have paid more than passing attention to the actual history of this country, what is happening today in America is akin to the replay of a very old movie. A story that does not have a happy ending, but instead, flashes, “to be continued” at the end of the last reel. 

 

If you have been harboring thoughts that the American Left and the American Right will ever be able to reconcile and become one vast, single, goal-oriented electorate, allow me to disabuse you of that hallucinatory conception. No, the two are so totally different in their philosophies of life and politics… and even religion, that there is absolutely no hope of ever putting aside those differences and “coming together”. It just isn’t going to happen. The divide grows wider every day.

 

There was a time when I felt that I would not live to see the next civil war in America but I must say that at the speed comity is dissolving in American I may yet live to see the opening volleys.

 

The question is… how much longer will the Right restrain itself? The socialist government, we are likely to have after the election, may snap the leash.

 

 The Right’s patience is nearly spent. This very election could well be the last election held under the false claim implied by the current name of the country, “The United States of America.” We are decidedly split into two camps. The socialists are on the left, and on the right, those who want to preserve democracy. The line has been drawn.

 

Let’s face it:  The Left covets a socialist regime in America and they will stop at nothing, as we now know, to get it. The right wants to save the country and the constitution The Founders of this country gave us. To the left, the constitution is simply an impediment. It is in their way and they are forever looking for ways around it. Their henchmen on the Supreme Court find all sorts of things in the constitution that aren’t there. They claim it is a “living document” which it isn’t. The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the constitution, was intended to restrain the federal government’s power. Unrestrained government is, for all intents and purposes, the creed of the political Left. Many on the Right fear that in the event of a future national emergency a leftists/socialist government might find it “necessary” to suspend the constitution and, possibly, national elections. There goes democracy. 

 

I voted earlier this week. I voted for a true conservative for President. If this is to be the last election I take part in I wanted to mark my ballot in support of the idea of a democratic representative republic, the kind of government our forefathers gave us. As I stood there, with the ballot in my hands, I had a choice between Karl Marx’s brand of government or that of Washington Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and the all the rest of those men who put everything they had, including their very lives, on the line to create this government. I knew I could not sleep at night if I did not support the America for which so many Americans have laid down their lives since 1776.

 

Crunch time is coming. The Media is telling us that the sale of firearms is at an historical high in this country. I warned of this a few weeks ago. This election will decide if we stay free a few more years, or if we begin the descent into anarchy. I’m afraid it is too much to hope for “UNITED” any longer.

 

J. D. Longstreet

San Francisco: the Epicenter of Stupid Ideas … by Alan Caruba

San Francisco: the Epicenter of Stupid Ideas

By Alan Caruba

 

In the 1980s I found myself traveling all over the United States in the employ of a corporation’s quarterly newsletter. I visited many cities and places, discovering the unfailing courtesy and good will of Americans everywhere I went. One of my favorite places was San Francisco. It is picturesque, sits beside a bay spanned by a marvel of engineering, and has great restaurants, hotels, and other attributes.

 

San Francisco is now the epicenter of spectacularly stupid and just plain bad ideas. Being stupid isn’t a crime, but enacting stupid ideas into law comes close to being a definition of criminal stupidity.

 

This is a city that has been at the forefront of gay marriage. Why anyone other than a homosexual would think there was any sense in two people of the same sex constituting a “marriage” defies the laws of nature. Webster’s dictionary defines marriage as “The legal union of a man and a woman as husband and wife.” But not in San Francisco. The rest of the citizens of California have made it abundantly clear they oppose same-sex marriage.

 

On November 4, in addition to voting for the president and other legislators, the citizens of San Francisco will be asked to vote on Proposition H, otherwise known as the “San Francisco Clean Energy Act.”

 

It would amend the city and county charter “to require the city to transition from fossil fuels to clean, non-nuclear, sustainable energy production at affordable rates.”  With this vote, if successful, the city will abandon the use of any energy afforded by coal, natural gas, and, as noted, nuclear power.

 

Electricity is measured in kilowatts-hours.  America’s 104 commercial nuclear power reactors now provide about 20% of its electricity. More than 50% is produced primarily by 400-plus coal-fired “fossil fuel” producers of electricity, providing more than 2,000 billion kilowatt-hours of reliable energy. Hydroelectric and gas-powered plants constitute the rest of the mix.

 

Solar and wind power constitute about 1% of the electrical energy produced from these two inefficient, impractical, and spectacularly idiotic sources of power.

 

What the citizens of San Francisco and, for that matter, the rest of the nation, don’t understand is that even in the best locations, wind turbines produce power only about one third of the time. When they cease to produce sufficient electrical power, a back-up coal-fired or nuclear plant has to be in place to meet the immediate needs of energy consumers. Comparably, solar power depends on the sun shining. Occasionally clouds obscure the sun. At night, it is shining somewhere else on Earth.

 

Proposition H states that, “Nuclear (power) is prohibited from being included in the definition of clean energy.” Moreover, solar and wind power will be mandated to produce “at least 107 megawatts” by 2012, and 75% of San Francisco’s electrical power by 2030.

 

Who supports Proposition H? They include the Sierra Club, the San Francisco League of Conservation Voters, and the San Francisco Democrat Party. I hope they get used to working by candle light if the measure passes. For all those other things that require reliable electrical power, they should plan on finding some means to keep them going other than the electrical socket in the wall.

 

The advocates of this supreme act of madness had the audacity of promoting it by asking, “If you and five friends could save the world, would you do it? If San Francisco voters pass Prop H for a 100% clean energy future, we could save the world.” The justification for this is, of course, “global warming”; something that is not happening.

 

If Proposition H passes, one assumes that views of the city will be obscured by miles and miles of wind turbines and that the drive into the city will include miles and miles of solar panels lining the highways. I don’t plan on visiting in the future.

 

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

 

© Alan Caruba, October 2008

America Does Not Need A Weak, Timid, President… by J. D. Longstreet

I came across something President Dwight Eisenhower said a few decades back. He said: “History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.” When Ike said it… it was profound. It is even more profound, if that is possible, today. 

 

Ike was, of course, correct. If history teaches us anything it is that if a nation is to remain free that nation must remain strong and, equally important, that nation cannot be timid about using it’s strength in defense of freedom, it’s own as well as the freedom of others.

 

Today we find ourselves on the brink of the election of a new President. A man, who will, under our law, become the Commander in Chief of all the US military forces. Already those forces are at war, openly, overtly, in two nations in the Middle East and in sundry other nations, around the globe, that only those in positions of high authority in our military and our government know about.

 

Someone once said: “Freedom is not free.” No truer statement has ever been made. We don’t know whom to credit for those words of wisdom, but whoever said it was absolutely correct. There is a cost. Usually, the cost is paid in blood.

 

These are the words of one of the men running for the high office of President of the US and Commander in Chief of our military forces: “I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. I will institute an independent Defense Priorities Board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary defense spending … I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal: I will not develop nuclear weapons.” Those are the words of Mr. Barrack Obama, democratic Candidate for President. You can watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU4sVQV3Lhk 

Before proceeding I would refer you all the way back to the quote by President Eisenhower: “History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.” What immediately leaps off the page when reading Mr. Obama’s words are timidity and weakness.

 

It is frightening for those of us who were born before the Second World War and have lived the history of this nation through all the wars we have been involved in since. We know the danger, we know the cost, and we know the lengths to which a nation must sometimes go to insure the safety of its citizens. We know the horror of killing hundreds of thousands of our enemy in a single hour with a single blow. It is a measure of the price we pay for our freedom. We also know that had we been timid, had we been weak of fortitude or military might, we would not be free people today.

 

Allow me, please, to pass on the words of John Stewart Mill: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” 

 

I would remind you that TWO wars are raging even as you read this. Not only is Mr. Obama assuring us he will order our troops off the battlefield and cede the war to the enemy, he is said to be considering reducing the military budget by 25%. If anything the size of the US military should be doubled and billions more spent in new equipment, new weapons, and new weapons systems. Just a few days ago Mr. Obama’s own vice presidential candidate assured us we could expect to be hit by our enemies within six months of Mr. Obama’s taking office. I believe him. Except, I think we will be hit sooner, much sooner.

 

Mr. Obama has missed making a connection with what the people of America want with our military in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Yes, Americans want their sons and daughters home. But they want them to come home victorious, having won the war; with their heads held high as the heroes we know them to be. 

 

Mr. Obama should heed the words of Earnest Hemmingway: “Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.”

 

As we are mere days from Election Day, I fear for my country. I fear that Mr. Obama may indeed win and become my President. I will not rest easy a single night he occupies the Oval Office.

 

J. D. Longstreet

 

 

 

 

 

    

  

Whatever Happened to Illegal Immigration? … By J. D. Longstreet

Once upon a time in a land far, far, away… illegal Immigration was a serious problem and the legal citizens of that land were up in arms about it. Then the issue disappeared. What happened? Methinks the media happened.

 

Have you wondered why Illegal immigration dropped from the radar screens of the media during the presidential campaign? I have. I suspect many of you have, as well.

 

Where did it go? The illegal aliens are still with us. Some estimates range as high as 20 million illegals here now. Even more illegal immigrants live and work among us every day in the US. We still have a border so wide open that it begs citizens of other countries to steal across it and take up residence in this country. As a result, they are still coming, by day and by night. 

 

Some recent reports in the press indicate that since our financial crisis arose a huge number of illegals have returned to their hones. Let me ask you…doesn’t that validate the argument many of us made that the illegals are not here to become citizens of this great country? We have been saying, all along, they are here for the money. Now that the money has tightened up, and the job market has shrunk, they’re headed back home. 

 

But why aren’t the two candidates for president talking about it? It is my opinion that there is no meaningful difference between the stances on illegal immigration of the two men running for President of the US.

 

If the illegal immigration thing ever does bubble to the top of the discussion between the two men the American voter is not going to like what he hears.

 

For Instance:  Remember that John McCain co-sponsored the Senate immigration bill that would have legalized millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. and McCain still supports what he calls a “sensible” guest-worker program for workers who are in the country without legal documentation.  Once the heat was turned up on the campaign trail he called for strengthening penalties for those who hire undocumented immigrants.  

 

If we go back and look at McCain’s record in the Senate, on illegal Immigration, what we find is very troubling. John McCain has voted in the past to extend social security benefits to illegals who have broken into our country, taken jobs from American citizens, drained the treasuries of our states and local governments by running up welfare costs, overloaded our schools while forcing the local taxpayers to fork over the money to pay for it. Those same illegals have devastated our hospitals, especially the emergency departments, through non-payment of hospital bills, and they have practically crushed our courts and law enforcement organizations with criminal conduct.

 

On the other hand, Obama has voted not to cut off funds to those “sanctuary cities,” and he voted for the Senate immigration overhaul bill. You may recall that bill was supposed to create stronger border controls, but, when you look closely, you find the bill would actually expand the guest-worker program and, over time, legalize millions of undocumented, or illegal immigrant workers, already in the country today. Obama has also sponsored a bill, which would allow states to provide in-state tuition for illegal aliens and he even supports giving driver licenses to illegal aliens.

 

But we aren’t hearing about this today. Why is that? Could it be because neither side wants it brought up? The media, so in the tank for Obama, knows that if they bring it up in relation to John McCain, it opens the door on Obama’s stance on illegal immigration. In other words, you can’t talk about one without talking about the other because there is just not that much difference between them on Illegal Immigration. 

 

So… where does that leave the voter. I’m beginning to think the voter is complicit in all this. There is just no way the American voter can NOT know where these two men stand on illegal immigration. That said, why are so many voters going to vote for a candidate they do not agree with on illegal immigration? Because they feel they have no choice. I suspect the voters in both camps believe they are down to a choice between the lesser of two evils… again. I have to tell you… this is no way to run a country.

 

J. D. Longstreet