Showing posts with label US Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Congress. Show all posts

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The Lawyers Rule ... Alan Caruba

The Lawyers Rule


By Alan Caruba

If one looks back over the history of the members of Congress, the occupation that dominates is lawyers. It is reasonable to assume that those in charge of making laws would attract those who practice it to public office.

I got to thinking about this while considering the current 112th Congress, one that has imposed Obamacare on an unwilling majority of the population with former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, telling us that Congress had to pass this abomination in order to find out what was in it.

President Obama is a former lawyer with zero experience in the world of business and commerce. His current obsession is with “millionaires and billionaires.”

According to data from the Congressional Research Service, the dominant profession of Senators is law, followed by politics—also called “public service.” In the House, most members come from business, followed by public service, then law.

In the Senate, 49 had previous service in the House. In the House and Senate, 81 members were educators. There are two medical doctors in the Senate while the House has 15, plus two dentists, one veterinarian, one ophthalmologist, and one psychiatrist.

In the entire Congress, there is only one physicist, one chemist, six engineers, and one microbiologist.

Given the appalling financial condition of the nation, there are only seven accountants in the House and two in the Senate.

There are only five current members of Congress who served in the military Reserves, three in the House and two in the Senate. Four are current members in the National Guard; three in the House and one in the Senate. Four Representatives and one Senator are graduates of the U.S. Military Academy. Two Senators and one Representative are graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy.

In the 112th Congress, the Senate has a former comedian.

The 112th Congress has tossed aside its primary function to address the financial stability of the nation by authorizing a “super committee”, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats despite the fact that Republicans control the House where the authorization of all funding is a Constitutional mandate and the Democrats control the Senate by a bare majority of one vote.

There is extreme partisanship in both houses of Congress because the nation is sharply divided along liberal and conservative political preferences regarding its proper governance.

The 2010 elections moved the House in the direction of conservatism. For forty years Democrats controlled the Congress until the 1994 elections gave power to Republicans. It has seesawed back and forth since then, but both parties did little to address the issue of “entitlements”, Social Security and Medicare, or the looming housing mortgage crisis that imploded in 2008.

The 2008 election gave the nation its first president who, despite flowing rhetoric about bringing together the opposing factions in Congress, has not served from a center-left position, but has plunged totally into a far Left takeover of large portions of the nation’s economy from health to auto manufacturing to financial services.

For those who despair of the present and future, it is worth noting that the Founding Fathers created a Constitution that was designed to deliberately slow down the process of legislation with checks and balances that included presidential veto powers and a Supreme Court to determine issues of constitutionality.

The last time the nation was this divided, it fought a Civil War over the issues of slavery and states rights. This time, Americans are patiently waiting for the 2012 national elections to vote in a new president and rearrange the seating charts in Congress to favor conservative legislators. Who says so? All the polls.

The Tea Party movement was the direct result of the rejection of Obamacare which has been repealed in the House and is headed to the Supreme Court. The uncertainty surrounding it continues to have a profound and negative affect on the economy.

Like moths to a candle, the power vested in Congress has drawn lawyers as the group most interested in holding high office. That remains the case today and raises the question of how a group of men and women trained to lie on behalf of their clients can be trusted to make informed and intelligent decisions about the conduct of the nation’s affairs.

“It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”, said Winston Churchill. In a private moment, he is quoted as having said, “Americans can always be relied upon to do the right thing — after they have exhausted all other remedies.”

We have been exhausted by the socialism of past Congresses and the remedies that President Obama has tried to impose on an unwilling nation. It is time to do the right thing.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

A Whiff of Secession and Nullification ... Alan Caruba

A Whiff of Secession and Nullification


By Alan Caruba

In May Rasmussen Reports took a survey of a thousand adults asking if they believed that States have the right to secede. “One-in-five Americans believe individual States have the right to break away from the country, although a majority doesn’t believe it will actually happen.”

That a Tea Party movement sprang to life in the midst of the protests against Obamacare and then was instrumental in transferring political power in the House of Representatives in the 2010 election cannot be dismissed. People—lots of them—are increasingly wary of the central government, particularly one that has burdened them with more debt in the last three years than in the entire prior history of the nation.

In October, Pelican Publishing Company will publish “Rethinking the American Union for the Twenty-First Century” in which a number of scholars edited by Donald Livingston, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, examine the implications of secession, possibly by regional groupings of States, from the present federal government.

Prof. Livingston is a political philosopher and scholar, the author of two books on the British philosopher David Hume and may well be one of a handful of people who have given serious thought to the question of whether the present Union has either outlived its usefulness or, worse, become a sinkhole of power aggregating to itself total control over the States.

The Tenth Amendment clearly states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That is true, but I doubt there is a single Governor of any of the fifty States who cannot enumerate the ways the federal government has wrested power from them while imposing costs. When Arizona finds itself the object of a federal legal suit to prevent it from trying to control its border with Mexico, you know there’s a problem.

In an article, “Decentralization for Freedom”, by Prof. Livingston, he raises some issues that are increasingly troubling to a growing number of Americans. He addresses the measures States can take “to protect their citizens from usurpations by the central government.” Among these are the passing of resolutions. “A continuous flood of resolutions from the States about the constitutionality of this or that issue (and widely publicized) would serve to educate the public.”

Thereafter, Prof. Livingston recommends a resort to the Tenth Amendment by State legislators and governors in order to recover usurped authority. We are beginning to see another measure, the refusal to accept federal funding as regards its centralized control of education.

Resistance to Obamacare is based on the question whether the federal government can require individual citizens to purchase something they do not want. The House has passed a measure to repeal it, but it is stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Reverse the situation and you have a federal government telling Americans what they cannot buy, as in the case of the 100 watt incandescent light bulb in use since the days of Thomas Edison.

“Genuine federalism in America can be recovered only by political action in the name of the State’s own authority and not by Supreme Court legalism,” says Prof. Livingston.

“To all of this it is often said that State interposition, nullification, and succession were eliminated as policy options by the Civil War. Brute force, however, cannot settle moral and constitutional question.” While Lincoln did “save the Union”, he did so at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and the destruction of the South.

Clearly the central government has grown so large, so unwieldy, so wasteful, and so unresponsive to the problems and costs it has imposed that people are beginning to wonder why 435 Representatives in the House and 100 in the Senate should control the lives, the economy, and the education of more than 300 million people in fifty sovereign States.

The President virtually makes law with “executive orders” and the nine members of the Supreme Court exercises final authority of the constitutionality of laws. Congress is so divided by raw partisanship it is barely functioning.

“The only remedy,” says Prof. Livingston “is territorial division of the Union through secession into a number of different and independent political units.”

“The current central government of the United States hates inequality, but it also fears the people,” says Prof. Livingston, noting that “There is no law an American State can pass that cannot be overturned by the arrogant social engineers of the Supreme Court who in the last fifty years have played with the inherited moral traditions and federative policy of the American people like a quack with a hapless patient.”

“Constitutionally, this means that the States must reassert their sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and recall those powers they have allowed to slip out of their hands to the central government.”

This is not a call for anarchy. It is the realization that the modern presidency has aggregated to itself powers it does not have or, in the case of Libya, is ignoring the War Powers Act that limits its ability to engage the nation in conflicts Congress does not ultimately authorize.

It is the realization that every United Nations treaty the United States signs deprives it of its sovereign rights.

It is a call for consideration that regional groups of States with common interests might provide better government within such groups, leaving to the central government the responsibility to protect the nation via a common military, conduct foreign affairs, and return to the gold standard that would protect the value of a common currency.

When one-in-five Americans give credence to the right of secession, it is clear that the problems being experienced in all fifty States, the massive regulation of all activities within those States, the imposition of a centralized “core” curriculum to be taught in all schools, is arousing a rediscovered sense of liberty among Americans.

What steps must be taken to retain that liberty and even to restructure the Union are as yet undetermined, but they are increasingly entering the public debate.

There is no debate that something is terribly wrong when a president is elected whose eligibility and legitimacy is in serious question while the courts do nothing to address this critical constitutional issue and the Congress does nothing while sending bills for his signature.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Bipartisanship Must Be Left At The Door



Bipartisanship Must Be Left At The Door
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet


Bipartisanship has no place in the next Congress. Getting along with Democrats should not even be a consideration. We conservatives did not send representatives to the US House of Representatives and the US Senate to “get along” with Democrats OR the Obama Administration. We sent them there to bring the current goings on to a “screeching halt” and to turn the country around and take it back to its conservative roots as a constitutional republic and not the socialist “People’s Republic” the liberal-socialists of the Democratic Party have striven so hard to make it into.

Our country is bearly recognizable today as a constitutional republic. The democratic controlled congress made clear they did not give a rip what the people wanted and they set about to “fundamentally change” America into a socialist dung heap. The many government regulatory agencies under the command of the Obama Regime have taken on so much power they resemble more the Nazi Gestapo than they do agencies of the US government… a government supposedly controlled by the people of the country. They, too, must be stopped, even if that means closing them down -- forever. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, the Education Department, the Energy Department, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, all top the list of government agencies that must be stopped.

Speaking of US government regulatory agencies – have you ever taken the time to discover just how many government agencies there are? Well, now you can. Go (HERE) for a complete list of all US government agencies. It is an “A” to “Z” list – and you will be astounded! These represent only those agencies made public. We have no idea, who, what, or how many others exist without the knowledge of the citizens of the country.

Prepare for the liberal-socialist democrats to begin, very shortly, to complain that the US government is “broken.” See, it is NOT broken as long as they get their way. Only when the American people get THEIR way is the US government broken to the Democrats!

If the politicians we sent to Washington, as a result of the November elections, do as we want and have instructed them to do, there will be a knock-down-drag-out brawl within the US House of Representatives and the US Senate over the next two years.

We don’t want compromise. We don’t want bipartisanship. We did not send them to Washington for either. We sent them to Washington to rescue our country -- before it is lost forever.

For instance: We want ObamaCare repealed. We want it COMPLETELY repealed! That, alone, will be a monstrous job. The so-called “Dream Act,” which is only another rendition of Amnesty for illegal aliens must be stopped as well.

There will be weeping, and wailing and gnashing of teeth among the democrats at any effort to repeal ObamaCare, especially. Its repeal will mean the government losses control of one-sixth of the US economy. You’d better believe they will fight tooth and nail for control of the lives of every American citizen. They will weep on the floor of their respective chambers. They will tell America that ObamaCare is for the children, for the oppressed minorities, for anything and everything they can think of that might tug at America’s heartstrings. They have won so many battles before by playing on the voter’s emotions that they will not care how ridiculous they look with the crocodile tears streaming down their façade covered faces. It will be a ridiculous comedy played out before the eyes of the world.

We conservatives must be prepared for the onslaught of vile propaganda unleashed on their efforts to rescue America. The Mainstream Media, which is totally immersed in the agenda of the liberal-socialist democrats, will ride to the rescue of Obama and his socialist agenda. It has already begun. They currently sing his praises as the “come-back-kid” after his mediocre successes in the lame duck session of Congress.

Over the next two years, conservatives will need to take careful notice of the remaining “RINO’s” in Congress and prepare a plan of attack to remove them from office in the elections of November 2012.

And we must discover a conservative republican candidate for president who actually has a chance to win. Frankly, I see no possible winner among the host of names being floated about for consideration as possible candidates for the republican nomination today. We may need to go outside the usual herd to find a new face, a new name, with hard rock conservative values to carry our banner into the Oval Office.

The next two years will be two of the most difficult years in the conservative movement in the United States. We must be unrelenting as we push forward the conservative agenda.

Someone once said: “A nation of sheep, breeds a government of wolves.” It is time for conservative Americans to re-assert themselves as neither sheep nor wolves – but as lion-hearted Americans.

Ours is a rescue mission. If we do not press home our advantage over the next two years our mission will become a “recovery” mission.

J. D. Longstreet

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Cry Treason! … by Alan Caruba

Cry Treason!
By Alan Caruba
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Treason is generally defined as the offense of attempting to overthrow the government of one's country or of assisting its enemies in war. Benedict Arnold burned his name into U.S. history by conspiring with the British to turn over West Point to them. When his plot failed, he fled to England.

Having all formerly been traitors to the Crown, the framers of the Constitution defined treason narrowly. Historians tell us this was to lessen the possibility that those in power might falsely or loosely charge their political opponents with treason.

Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution says “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”
Let it be said that probably all presidents have been called treasonous by their political opponents.

A growing body of popular opinion, however, is beginning to regard the actions of Barack Obama as treason because they coalesce into a pattern that suggests a deliberate effort to undermine national security and the economy. The liberties we take for granted, privacy, freedom of speech, and others are seen to be in jeopardy.

What is troubling to many was the way Obamacare was foisted on a nation that clearly opposed the takeover of one sixth of the economy. The political process by which passage was achieved was ugly, but it was not treason.

Now the Cap-and-Trade Act is being ushered hastily into the Senate for a vote despite widespread opposition to the fact that it is based on a total fraud, “climate change”, otherwise known as “global warming.” Can a law based on a lie be lawful? Is passing such a law treasonous?
The President’s displeasure with the Arizona law that mirrors almost word for word the federal law regarding illegal aliens presages a likely effort to grant amnesty to millions here illegally; a measure that is also widely opposed by the majority of Americans.

The hasty passage of any or all of these laws, now that the midterm elections loom in November, is completely legal, but they all represent a refusal to acknowledge the will of those in whom the Constitution posits ultimate power, the People.

The Tea Party movement, taking its name from an act of insurrection against the Crown, is ample evidence of the unrest among many Americans. The effort to smear members as racists or violent suggests the seriousness with which the White House takes the movement.

Given the virtual free hand any president has to determine foreign policy, he has consistently offended our allies and raised questions among them as to his judgment. That is not treason, but it is harmful when the U.S. needs to call upon them for support.

His actions regarding Iran have been a green light to continue their quest for nuclear weapons. His actions toward Israel are nothing less than astonishing given the long record of cooperation and mutual support that has existed since its founding.

Surrounding himself with White House staff, one of whom was an admitted communist, another who praised Mao Tse Sung, and still others whose views reflect bizarre “scientific” theories or proposals, raise questions and legitimate concerns regarding his true political philosophy, but it is not treason.

The takeover of General Motors, his firing of the company’s CEO, the disgraceful treatment of investors and creditors should have raised serious constitutional questions. When Harry Truman tried to take over the nation’s steel manufacturers, he was rebuffed by the Supreme Court. The U.S. retains an ownership position with AIG, the insurance company.

Obama’s attacks on insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, even physicians, then migrated to attacks on Wall Street despite the fact that banks receiving TARP funds swiftly repaid the loans. There is at this point no aspect of life in America that has not been sharply criticized by the President.

None of this can be called treason under the strict and narrow definition of the Constitution, but taken together it is a pattern of acts that pose what many are coming to see as a clear and present danger to the nation.
The midterm elections in November represent the only constitutional means to rebuke the passage of legislation that has saddled the nation with greater debt than all previous administrations, with the takeover of key elements of the economy, and the prospect of the further erosion of our national security and sovereignty.

Everything that President Obama and the Democrat leaders in Congress have done has the sanction of law, but not the approval of the people whose lives will be affected by it.

It is not treason, but it has the look, the feel, and the smell of treason.

© Alan Caruba, 2010
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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.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Partisanship Is 100% American!

Partisanship Is 100% American!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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The ignorance of today’s Americans, about the way their country’s government was designed (By The Founders) to work, is not only lamentable -- it is dangerous!

If you are one of those Americans decrying partisanship in the US Congress and you are educated enough to read this article, then there is NO EXCUSE for your ignorance.

Yes, I understand the Public School System in America rarely teaches American History and in many cases they don’t even teach European or World History and they certainly do not teach “Civics” anymore. (Pause) OK, for those of you younger folk who have NO IDEA what “CIVICS” is -- the simplest explanation is this: Civics is the study of the rights and duties of citizenship. In other words, it is the study of government with attention to the role of citizens in the operation and oversight of government.

Back in the day, we actually studied Civics in High School. THAT is where I first got the idea in my head that I actually had a say in the way the US Government is run. It is a right I have exercised over and over ever since. I fear it is a right a large portion of the US population doesn’t even realize they have – because they were never taught CIVICS and never studied American History or European History and/or World History. You see, the combination of these three studies is dangerous to the ruling elite in America.


Those of us, who HAVE studied the history of this country and HAVE studied the Constitution and the government of the US --and our role in it -- are extremely dangerous people. We KNOW when our leaders are snookering us, as they are today, for instance.

I have come to believe there is now, and there has been for some time, a deliberate effort to keep you and the generations that follow completely ignorant as to your constitutional rights -- and even more important, how your government was designed, by the Founders of this country, to work.

Today we hear calls for “bipartisanship” from the Socialists/Progressives in Congress. They KNOW the Congress is SUPPOSED to be PARTISAN! That’s why there is more than one political party. Since the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson there has been partisanship in the government of the US.

Let us establish, right up front, that the Founders intended the government to be partisan. They intended to make the process of law-making a slow and tedious process. The idea was to insure that laws were not passed in “the heat of the moment” or, as we like to say today, as a “knee-jerk reaction.”

If thee was no partisanship in Congress laws would be flying through the hoppers of both houses and onto the law books, willy-nilly, and we would very quickly become a dictatorship of some kind. That would indicate that there was NO OPPOSITION to the ruling party. The representative republic, that is America, would cease to exist almost immediately. The ruling party would simply take over the government and run it as they saw fit and if you disagreed you would have no say, whatsoever, in the matter. I must say, our current government bears a great deal of resemblance to a dictatorship today.

Take a good look at the ruling party in America today… the “Marxists.” Oh, they prefer you call them “Progressives.” But be aware of this: the title “Progressive” has been used for decades in America as code for Marxist or Communist.

Now observe the manner in which the Obama Regime rules America. As Obama could not dissolve the Congress, as he gives every indication he would LIKE to do, he created a cadre of “Czars” to do his biding. These Czars did not have to be vetted by the Congress and there is no advice and consent from the US Senate sought.

The Czars exist only to do Obama’s bidding and they answer ONLY to him. I suspect as soon as someone challenges Obama’s “politburo of Czars” in the courts, they will be found to be unconstitutional and he will be ordered to disband them. That does not mean, however that they will not continue to serve Obama informally.

IF the AMERICAN people were up on their constitution and IF they had any knowledge of how their government is SUPPOSED to operate under that constitution, they would be demanding that Obama do away with his Czars -- or be impeached for abuse of power, abuse of the office of President, and abuse of the American people.

But there is no hue and cry. Why? Ignorance. How is that possible? It is possible because the Public School System is run by the labor unions which are closely allied with Obama’s political party and his Marxist philosophy and they have turned the Public School System’s classrooms into Leftist Indoctrination Centers for America’s young.

Our kids are being indoctrinated in the same Progressive/Marxist philosophy favored by Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, et al. THAT is way they are ignorant of the constitution and the constitutional way our government is supposed to work -- and that is why they do not understand partisanship in the Congress.

Boiled down -- the American electorate is split between conservatives and progressives/Marxists. We both have strongly held beliefs and every individual has certain core beliefs that dictate how he/she sees the world around them. It is totally ludicrous to insist that we stop arguing. To do that, one side, or the other, would have to completely dominate the other. If and when that happens, democracy is dead.

Let’s face it. As long as Congress is busy fussing and arguing with itself, the people are somewhat safe. Actually, the only time I feel safe these days is when Congress is in recess.

Remember, when you hear someone arguing bipartisanship in Congress, what they are actually saying is they want the opposing side silenced so only their argument is heard. As I said, that spells the doom of democracy. In America partisanship is a GOOD THING. Bipartisanship is just plain dangerous to freedom.

J. D. Longstreet

Thursday, January 21, 2010

The Kamikaze Congress!


The Kamikaze Congress!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Have you noticed that the US has a Congress with a death wish? Oh, yes! We have a Congress made up of socialist and communists who are set on suicide.

You may ask, “How can you say such a thing, Longstreet?”

Well, actually, it is stating the obvious -- obvious to everyone, it seems, but the “so-called democrats” in the White House and the Congress.

ObamaCare is a death sentence to the democratic majority in the Congress and will certainly relegate Obama, himself, to the long list of one term democratic presidents. To pass the bill is suicide for the democrats and they are hell bent on doing just that! Their work continues in the shadows of locked rooms as they devise alternate plans to get that bill to the President's desk for his signature.

A TV evangelist has recently been credited with having said the Haitians had made a pact with the devil, a couple of centuries ago, and that led to the earthquake. Following that logic -- I have to tell you, it surely appears the current Congress of the US has made a pact with an evil force of some kind! They appear to be under some sort of “spell.” They are racing toward oblivion and nothing we can say will deter them. They are totally heedless of the warnings. It really does appear they are automatons marching to their demise.

The American people do not want ObamaCare. According to the Rasmussen poll 58% of Americans do not want ObamaCare! We have said it over and over. We do not want Cap and Trade! We have told them time and time again that we don’t want it. We do not want Amnesty for illegal aliens. We have instructed the Congress to forget Amnesty and to close and seal the borders of the US and allow no one in save for those legally seeking to enter the country.

They are not listening to us and they are unresponsive to our wishes. Therefore, they must go -- and go they will this coming November. Why do you think so many of them are already announcing their retirement? They are the smart ones. They want to leave and save what little face they have left.

Look, as much as I hate to even think it, the truth is the United States is now ruled by an oligarchy. An oligarchy is the rule of many by a few. In other words, we have a country, at the moment, which is no longer ruled by “the people,” as the Founding Fathers intended, but ruled by a handful of elite politicians -- and Obama’s Czars -- and intellectuals educated beyond their abilities.

We have referred to it as a “rogue government.” However, now that Scott Brown, a conservative republican, has won the special election in Massachusetts, the socialists in Congress will be frantically trying to stir back toward the political center. Their chief problem will be the indisputable fact that they have been exposed for what they are and any actions they attempt at creating the appearance of becoming centrist will be suspect, at the very least, by the electorate.

Their facade has cracked and is crumbling around them.

We told you many months ago that this socialist led Congress would overreach. They did. Now they must pay the consequences. The Speaker of the House of Representatives has said Americans will have ObamaCare “one way or the other!” She didn’t even blink when she said it! I don’t know about you, but I read that as a clear confirmation that the Congress simply does not care what the American citizens want or don’t want. We will get what THEY decide we are going to get… PERIOD! Now, if that isn’t the act of a rogue government, I don’t know what is.

It is now clear, however, Ms. Pelosi underestimated the near rage of the American people over the absolute arrogance of such a statement, and I suspect it contributed to Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, and a turning point in the direction the Congress and the Obama Regime had planned for the next three years. Her admission that she did not have the votes in the US House to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare was evidence that the current socialist government of the United States had just taken a severe blow to their collective solar plexus and were reeling back on their heels.

They have been acting as though they are some sort of fringe religious cult. It is common knowledge many democrats in the House and Senate are, indisputably, going to lose their seats in Congress if they continue their socialist plans and policies. Yet many say the loss in Massachusetts resulted from their not being Progressive enough! It is as though they have lined up to drink the poisoned Kool-Aid and die a political death, sacrificing their political lives for a Progressive/Socialist idea that REAL Americans WILL REPEAL at the very first opportunity.

So, what to do?

Throw the bums out!

We will have that opportunity this coming November in the Mid-Term Election. Americans must flood the polls on that Tuesday to save The Republic. For make no mistake about it — The Republic is in peril. Our Rogue Congress is, in my opinion, “a clear and present danger” to the Republic and it is the duty of American citizens to make every effort to save their country by voting the Socialists, Communists, Statists, and Progressives out of office in November.

It is a necessary first step in reclaiming our country -- AND our birthright as free Americans.

J. D. Longstreet

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Dems to Push "AMNESTY for Illegal Aliens in Immigration Reform Bill


Another Try at Amnesty for Illegal Aliens Coming Up in US Congress!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Badly shaken by the Republican victory in Massachusetts, the Democrat/Socialists in Congress are, nevertheless, about to hit Americans with yet another attempt at passing a bill into law that would grant illegal aliens amnesty and provide a route to citizenship for them, as well.

The Amnesty Bill, which will be referred to THIS time around as “Immigration Reform,” MAY turn out to be a bigger issue with the American electorate than ObamaCare. Obama and the dems know the only chance they have is to get the Amnesty Bill passed into law before November 2010. After November there may very well not be enough dems in the Congress to even have a chance at passage. So we, the American electorate, are about to get the “Bum’s Rush “ on Amnesty for illegal aliens… AGAIN!

Actually, as I view the relationship between the US and Mexico today, I tend to agree with those who feel we ought to annex the entire country of Mexico and run it as an American territory. I mean, it’s not like we are not supporting the country of Mexico these days. The billions of US dollars a year pouring into Mexico, from their citizens who have burglerized the US, is staggering.
Those of us against providing amnesty to anyone breaking and entering into our coutry are going to be demonized in the comimg weeks. Already we have been referred to as demogogues. Even the President, back last summer referred to us in those terms.

Take a look at Obama’s answer to a reporter’s question, last summer, concerning so-called “immigration reform” which, translated, means: “Amnesty” for illegal aliens hiding (in plain sight) in the US today.

Here’s what Obama said:“Now, am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No,” said Obama. “This is going to be difficult; it's going to require bipartisan cooperation. There are going to be demagogues out there who try to suggest that any form of pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable. And those are fights that I'd have to have if my poll numbers are at 70 or if my poll numbers are at 40. That's just the nature of the U.S. immigration debate. But ultimately, I think the American people want fairness," Obama continued. And we can create a system in which you have strong border security, we have an orderly process for people to come in, but we're also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so that they don't have to live in the shadows, and their children and their grandchildren can have a full participation in the United States. So I'm confident we can get it done.”

That, dear reader, is the President of the US speaking.

So be prepared for whatever comes from the dems. After the GOP victory in Massachusetts they are desperate to secure their power and they NEED the support of the illegal aliens in America.

So, as the propaganda mills crank up, in the next few weeks, and begin inundateing Americans with all the lies and distortions about how badly Americans treat Mexicans, illegal and otherwise, just keep in mind that all they are attempting to do is prod Americans into supporting the new Immigration Reform Bill, which is nothing more than the OLD AMNESTY for ILLEGAL ALIENS Bill

The Immigration Reform Bill, the Amnesty Bill, is an abomination and should never see the light of day. I’ll be leaning on my Senators from North Carolina to vote against The Immigration Reform Bill at every opportunity. May I suggest you do the same?

J. D. Longstreet
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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Distracted by Stupidity ... by Alan Caruba

Distracted by Stupidity
By Alan Caruba
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I have a friend who lives with his blind Malamute dog, Boris, in a cabin deep in the Missouri woods. He is as self-sufficient as one can be, but he is not one of those survivalists who are waiting for the Homeland Security to show up. He has to go into town to get dog food and pipe tobacco, although he has been brewing his own hard cider of late. It’s his latest hobby.

He is hardly cut off from the world and that seems to be his main complaint because he is of the opinion that it is largely populated by stupid people and, frankly, it is hard to disagree. As a result, we are both richly rewarded with evidence on a daily basis.

For example, it is abundantly clear (except to stupid people) that a majority of voters in 2008 elected a fool to be President of the United States of America and the presumed “leader of the free world.” Do not ask the presidents of France or Russia, or the Prime Minister of England for their opinions of him. For that matter, don’t ask former President Bill Clinton, who’s still waiting for his cup of coffee.

One of Obama’s first official acts was to dispatch Air Force One to do a low fly-by of New York City for a photo. For some reason, that scared the hell out of New Yorkers.

It is hard enough to get through life when most people around you have concluded that you are a dunce, but when it is America being judged as stupid, led by stupid people, and populated by too many stupid people, it is hard to get other nations to cooperate.

My own email and comments on my blog suggest that there are still plenty of very smart people in America and I think the Tea Party movement is evidence of that because these folks are looking for a home that is neither Democrat, nor Republican, but just sensible and a place where someone has actually read the U.S. Constitution.

As we close in on the anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration (remember the nearly two million folks that showed up in the freezing cold, thrilled to be a part of the hopey-changey thing?), but even by the kindest standards of judgment, it is clear that he is utterly clueless in an over-educated way that reeks of condescension.

You get the feeling that he has Tele-Prompters at the breakfast and dinner table in order to provide him with small talk. Without them, listeners begin to wonder if, at some point, he suffered some form of brain damage.

Worse, the next in succession is a Vice President who recently held a closed-door meeting on “transparency” in government. Behind him wait the Wicked Witch of San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi, who burns through $60,000 of jet fuel each way to and from the capital every week. Next in line is the Nevada troll, Harry Reid. You have to be spectacularly stupid to blow billions of taxpayer dollars “bailing out” General Motors and Chrysler when the ordinary bankruptcy process would have spared us the insanity of owning a failed auto company. Capitalism rewards success and scorns failure, but those in power these days think capitalism is a bad thing.

Given the pathetic performance of other government-owned entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the fact that they have been exempted from the “financial responsibility” taxes Obama wants to impose on banks, it comes as no surprise that their executives collected multi-million dollar bonuses at the same time some government official was railing against similar bonuses for Wall Street bankers and investment executives.

In the midst of the worst financial crisis this nation has faced since the 1930s, how stupid do you have to be to try to “reform” Medicare in ways that slash billions from it while adding more people to its rolls? By what stretch of the imagination does Congress think it has the power to require people to buy insurance they do not want? And, it turns out, exclusively from the government.

What ever happened to the free marketplace where competition determined prices? There’s a reason insurance companies run all those TV commercials. Didn’t anyone in Congress or the White House ever take Economics 101?

The Founding Fathers said over and over again that the only way a republic such as ours can survive is if it is led by men (and now women) of “virtue,” by which they meant people that weren’t in public service to plunder the treasury. They knew those elected to public office would not all be angels, so they put together a legislative process that slows the passage of laws to a crawl. All manner of impediments exist and we should be very happy that they do.

I grew up in an era before television when newspapers, radio, and the Movietone News were the main sources. This may seem odd to today’s generation, but during World War Two the media did not compete with one another to be the first to tell the Nazis when and where D-Day would occur or which island in the Pacific would be invaded next.

This is a far cry from Walter Cronkite telling Americans that our troops lost the Tet Offensive in Vietnam when we had actually killed thousands of the enemy, rendering them a terrific blow. That was the first war of the modern era, which the media wanted the U.S. to lose. It has since been followed by both the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

Well before 9/11 America was locked into a war with al Qaeda even if no one in the White House wanted to give it much thought. By treating the 1993 bombing of the Twin Towers as a criminal act, the U.S. set in motion its final destruction. Now we have a government that wants to extend the protection of the U.S. Constitution to captured terrorists and try them in the heart of New York City. Do not tell me that is not stupid!

Just what do you do with an overweight, slovenly, Muslim U.S. Army Major who was also engaged in a lively exchange of emails with a jihadist mullah in Yemen? You give him his discharge papers. When you don’t, you end up with thirteen dead soldiers while he stands around yelling “Allahu Akbar!” Today’s military is so politically correct the rules of engagement on the battlefield include offering candy and soft drinks to the enemy before actually shooting at them.

Putting an idiot like Janet Napolitano in charge of Homeland Security aptly fits the description of stupid, but a close look at the monkey cage of loonies attached to the Oval Office reveals more social misfits than you could find in a Beverly Hills rehabilitation center.

We are stuck with Obama and his merry band of morons until 2012, but we can begin to clean house in Congress in November 2010 thanks to the midterm elections. It’s up to the people with common sense and good judgment to take charge of this nation through participation in all manner of civic and political organizations, through a constant deluge of Congress to stop Obamacare, immigration “reform” (how I hate that word!), and the strangling of the free market economy that has enriched those willing to actually hold a job and lucky enough to have one.

Alan Caruba
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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.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Harry reid Must Resign! ... by Frances Rice


(The following is published on “INSIGHT on Freedom” with the permission of the author. … Ed)
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HARRY REID MUST RESIGN!
By Frances Rice
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Wielding a sharp racial sword, Democrats ruthlessly destroy the careers of Republicans on racial matters, accepting no apologies. Yet, using a glaring double standard, those same Democrats quickly give a pass to any Democrat, such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who again displayed egregious racism.

Hardly a ripple of protest was made in 2004 when Reid shamelessly slurred Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an incompetent Negro who could not write good English. "Slap at Thomas stinks of racism," was the headline of the New York Daily News' December 7, 2004 editorial.

Now, Reid has described then-Senator Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." With this racial slur, Reid denigrates not only Obama, but also the entire population of black Americans as being uneducated Negroes who cannot speak standard English, the same type of disgusting remark he made over five years ago about Justice Thomas, a graduate of Yale Law School. A tribute to Justice Thomas that includes details about his stellar career is posted on the NBRA website.

Any American with an ounce of decency would not tolerate the type of disgusting racial epithets hurled by Reid at black Americans. If Reid had a scrap of politesse or common decency, he would apologize immediately to all black Americans, not just President Obama, and resign. It says a lot about his character and his innate disdain for blacks that he has refused to do so.

Obama's readiness to give Reid a pass is in sharp contrast to how Obama reacted in 2002, wasting no time issuing a challenge to the Republican Party to repudiate Republican Senator Trent Lott's remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond and seek his resignation as the Republican senate majority leader. The article "Obama in '02: 'The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott'" by John McCormack uncovers the following quote from Obama that was printed in the December 12, 2002 issue of the "Chicago Defender".

"It seems to be that we can forgive a 100-year-old senator for some of the indiscretion of his youth, but, what is more difficult to forgive is the current president of the U.S. Senate (Lott) suggesting we had been better off if we had followed a segregationist path in this country after all of the battles and fights for civil rights and all the work that we still have to do," said Obama.

He said: "The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party."
In the arsenal of excuses for Reid not resigning, as did Lott, is the claim that Reid's racist comments were not of the same caliber as Lott's remarks made on the occasion of Thurmond's 100th birthday. Lott was criticized and later apologized for his favorable comments about Thurmond's life's work that encompassed his ill-fated 1948 presidential bid when Thurmond was a racist Democrat, and Lott was only seven years old. Thurmond died in 2003.

The fine line of racial calibration afforded Reid is never permitted any Republican under any circumstances. Resign! That's the universal cry from Democrats to Republicans, regardless of the nature of the charge of racism, and even when the charges are false. Further, Democrats are not shy about embracing or speaking well of their aging leaders who have engaged in horrendous acts of racism.

Democrats who called for Lott's resignation were silent when Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd praised former Klansman Democrat Senator Robert Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment". Unlike Byrd, Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan that was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party. After he reformed on racial issues and joined the Republican Party - the party of freedom and equality for blacks - Thurmond defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats.

Egregiously Byrd, in March of 1968, while referring to the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. left Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. This motivated Dr. King to return to Memphis a few weeks later where he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Byrd was also a fierce opponent of desegregating the military and complained in one letter: "I would rather die a thousand times and see old glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen of the wilds."

In the early 1970's, Byrd pushed to have the senate's main office building named after a former "Dixiecrat," Democrat Senator Richard Russell who was Senator Byrd's mentor and leading opponent of anti-lynching legislation and other civil rights laws of the 1950's and 1960's that were championed by Republicans. Recently, in 2001 Byrd was forced to apologize for using the N-word on television. During Byrd's last bid for re-election to the senate, Obama wrote a letter of support for the racist Byrd, and not one murmur of indignation was uttered about the fact that Obama was honoring a former Klansman. Democrats showed no shame when they heralded Byrd as "the conscience of the senate." Can we say hypocrisy?

Why is there omitted from most discussions about racism all the racists words and deeds of numerous other Democratic Party leaders, including President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter? Instances or racism on the part of these and other Democrats are detailed in articles posted on the NBRA website.

The new book by Wayne Perryman "Whites, Blacks & Racist Democrats" provides details about the origin and depth of the contempt Democrats have always had for black Americans, starting in 1792. In his book on page 184, Perryman reports what Democrat President Lyndon Johnson said to his closest friend, Democrat Senator Richard B. Russell of Georgia. Historical documents show that Johnson told Russell the following:

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they got something now that they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, but not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them.... It will be Reconstruction all over again..."

Until and unless we hold Democrats to the same standard of racial purity imposed on their political opponents, we will never end the Democrats' use of racial tactics designed to keep our nation divided along hyphenated lines.

The resignation of Senator Harry Reid would signal an end to the Democrats' era of race mongering for partisan political gain. However, all signs show that Reid will not resign, and the Democrats will never loosen their race-baiting grip around the throat of America.
So, it is up to the people of Nevada to vote Reid out of office during the November 2010 election, and the rest of us to kick the Democrats out of Congress, since they are determined to tax and spend our nation into a long socialist winter.
http://blackrepublican.blogspot.com/2010/01/harry-reid-must-resign.html

Frances Rice is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel, a lawyer and chairman of the National Black Republican Association. She may be contacted at: http://www.nbra.info/
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About the author:

Frances RiceLieutenant Colonel Frances Rice, United States Army, Retired is a native of Atlanta, Georgia and retired from the Army in 1984 after 20 years of active service. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from Drury College in 1973, a Masters of Business Administration from Golden Gate University in 1976, and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1977. In 2005, she became a co-founder and Chairman of the National Black Republican Association, an organization that is committed to returning African Americans to their Republican Party roots.