Our Stealth Congress ... Alan Caruba

Our Stealth Congress
By Alan Caruba

We are living in an era in which our Congress and much of our government operates like a stealth bomber, destroying rights we assume to be protected by the U.S. Constitution and otherwise encumbering an ailing economy in ways known to make it worse.

Take, for example, the House passage this week of the Dream Act, an end-run around the widespread opposition to any form of amnesty for the problem of illegal immigration. While 38 Democrats joined Republicans to vote no on the measure, eight Republicans “crossed the aisle” to support Pelosi, Reid and Obama. The Senate is scheduled to take up the measure on December 9 and it is widely predicted it will fail in that chamber.

Even a massive rejection by the voters appears to have made no impact on the Democrat Party which gives every indication of not giving a damn about We the People even when a million showed up in Washington to protest Obamacare. One is reminded of Speaker Pelosi’s now classic statement that we would have to wait to find out what is in the Obamacare legislation until after the vote was taken.

The result is an increasing number of waivers from aspects of this noxious law for unions, fast food chains, and others to ensure their members and employees do not lose health insurance. This from a bill we were told would extend health insurance to thirty million more Americans.

So the Democrat majority, most of whom did not even bother to read the 2,000-plus monstrosity, voted to have the government take over one-sixth of the nation’s economy and destroy the patient-doctor relationship and just about everything else that made our health system the best in the world.While Americans were making plans for Christmas and beginning to feel the sting of winter as far south as Florida, Congress voted to approve the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a government created entity that will impose huge tax increases on companies in the northeast in the name of preventing a “global warming” that is not happening.

RGGI is the nation’s first mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) cap and trade regulating entity even though the Cap-and-Trade Act is all but dead in the Senate. Everyone living in ten northeastern states will see their electricity bills soar due to caps on how much GHG their utilities and other major manufacturing facilities emit. This is, I would remind you, is occurring in the midst of the worst recessionary period since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

This is equivalent to the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government entities that created the housing bubble that led to the 2008 financial crisis.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) is concluding its latest and hopefully last conference in Cancun, Mexico, desperately trying to save the Kyoto Protocols. Widely seen as the end of the “global warming” hoax, the UN is far from finished trying to impose its will on the United States and other nations.

As this is written, the Obama administration is trying to get the U.S. to ratify the UN Small Arms Treaty. This is a major goal before it folds its tent in 2012. If the Senate were to ratify the treaty, some 90 million Americans would be required to turn in any banned firearms to local government “collection and destruction” centers. It would prohibit firearm and ammunition manufacturers from selling their products to Americans. In short, it would negate the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”

This is yet another stealth effort to undermine the U.S. Constitution, along with all the talk about putting government limits on Internet use and dangerous babble coming out of the FCC to impose a “value” system to determine what radio and television stations can report as news.

As this is written, Americans are still waiting to learn whether their taxes will rise or whether tax rates that have been in place for a decade will be extended. Even so, the President claimed that it was the GOP that was holding Americans “hostage.”

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” is not a cliché. It has never been more true than our present times.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

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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

Caruba's Crystal Ball ... Alan Caruba

Caruba's Crystal Ball

By Alan Caruba

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I rarely make predictions. Events can change the entire direction of a nation in the blink of an eye. It happened in my lifetime with Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, and with 9/11.

As this is being written, air traffic to, from, and throughout Europe is barely recovering because of an Icelandic volcano and no one really knows how long that will continue. So, barring any catastrophic natural events or wars, I will look into my crystal ball and narrow my predictions to the period between now and the midterm election on November 2, 2010.

Having forced a healthcare program on America that 85% of the voters did not want, the Obama White House now knows it can do the same with other major pieces of legislation intended to “transform” America into a socialist wreck comparable to European nations, one of which, Greece, is bankrupt while two others, Spain and Italy, are close to it.

The Obama administration is getting ready to put a chokehold on the nation’s financial sector by claiming it needs more regulation. It is a lie. Few sectors of the nation are more heavily regulated by the government. What is needed is more effective enforcement of existing regulations. Had that been the case there would have been no Bernie Madoff and the 2008 crisis brought about by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae could have been avoided.

The next piece of legislation to be imposed on Americans before November will be Cap-and-Trade, a law based on a “global warming” crisis that is not happening. It will impose “caps” on how much energy industries, businesses, and finally individuals can use and it will institute a “trade” mechanism in bogus carbon credits that will make a few companies, utilities, and individuals very rich while bleeding Americans by taxing energy use at every level. The era of abundant and affordable energy will end and, with it, the economy of the nation. Companies that manufacture goods will move offshore to friendlier places such as China and India. Both were exempted in the United Nations’ Kyoto Protocol intended to force greenhouse emission caps on industrialized nations like America and Europe.

The coal industry, responsible for providing the source of half of all the electricity generated in America, will be under attack in every way at the government’s disposal. Mountain top mining will be the next target. Beyond that, all coal-fired plants will encounter a regulatory hell. There will be no offshore exploration for new sources of oil and natural gas.

When the brown-outs and black-outs begin, the nation will be five to ten years from providing new sources of electrical power whether it’s coal, natural gas, or nuclear. By then billions in government (your money) subsidies will have been wasted on “green” or “clean” or “alternative” energy in the form of wind and solar. They currently represent about one percent of all the electricity generated in America.

By the midterm elections, the unemployment rate will have likely increased. A growing, permanent class of the unemployed will be maintained with endless extensions of government support.

The southern border from Texas to California is becoming a war zone. There’s a reason the State of Arizona just passed a law allowing its citizens to carry concealed weapons and another law to empower its law enforcement authorities to rid the State of illegal aliens. Do not be surprised by the rise of southwestern state militias to deal with the constant invasion. Watch for an effort to pass an amnesty law as well.

What Americans have not caught onto as yet is that the Obama administration’s policies and actions are now fully controlled by people who did not have to go before the U.S. Senate for approval. They are Obama’s “czars” and they wield as much influence or more than constitutionally appointed cabinet secretaries.

So the real question between now and November is “How much damage can the Obama White House inflict?” and the answer is a lot.

Alan Caruba
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© Alan Caruba, 2010

Illegal Aliens and Socialist America!

Illegal Aliens and Socialist America

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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They tell us there are 12 million illegals living in the United States of America. 12 million! (I don’t believe, for a second, there are ONLY 12 million illegal aliens in America!) But, for the sake of this commentary, let us accept, for the moment, that figure is true. That means the southern border of the US has been violated, crossed illegally, 12 million times, that we know of, and it MUST STOP!

I suppose the thing that galls me so much about it is the fact that those illegals will play the race card in a heartbeat - and they claim to be so “put upon” when we confront them and declare their crossing the border without the proper paperwork a crime, which it most certainly is!

Thinking back to the demonstrations months ago, I remember I could only stare, wide-eyed, as my jaw dropped! There were no federal authorities there to round those people up and check their citizenship! None. There they were, in broad daylight, marching and protesting that we, legal US citizens, are angry that THEY broke into OUR country! It bothers me greatly that he US government extends the right granted to US citizens by the US Constitution to non-citizens. They ARE NOT CITIZENS and they ARE NOT ENTITLED TO ANY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS!

The illegal aliens in the US today act as if we OWE them! We OWE them nothing! Nothing! They are upset that we conservatives want to treat them like criminals. They ARE criminals!

My regional newspaper has said that we simply cannot keep people out who wanted to better themselves. Oh, contraire! Yes, we can… and we must! At least until they make use of the proper channels and enter the US legally!

I am tired, no, I’m past tired of seeing my tax dollars go to care for people who just broke into the country.

It’s time to warn Mexico that if they continue encouraging their poor to illegally cross the border, into the US, we will invade… again… and just annex their whole country and be done with it! Maybe the oil they have would offset the cost of supporting them. Well, I mean, they want to be Americanos, so darned much, why don’t we make the whole country of Mexico the 51st state and be done with it!

Until the US can get it’s immigration under control, we need to stop ALL immigration, legal as well as illegal. Take down Lady Liberty, dismantle her, and ship her back to France! OK, so that’s a bit much, but I think you get the passion I bring to the subject at hand!

This immigration boil has needed to be lanced for a long time now. It’s going to hurt for a little while and then it will feel SO MUCH BETTER!

You folks in the northern tier of states may not feel the invasion as we do. Down here, in the southern tier, we are being overrun. And we are fed up! When the South gets fed up, it tends to make life miserable for those in charge until something gets done!

We want the southern border closed and sealed. We want the illegals already in the US found and put in prison. No more trucking them back across the border so they can come right back as soon as the moon rises. No, we want them put away - in prisons - for a long, long, time.

While we’re at it, we ought to serve notice on Mexico that any more incursions by their military across that border will be considered and act of war and the US military will act accordingly.

This is not over. The Southern States, especially the Border States, have had it. It IS going to stop. One way or the other. If the current crop of politicians in DC can’t do it, then we desperately need to throw them out and elect people who can and who will actually TRY!

The US is split right down the middle, these days, with the citizens in one of two camps. If you are an American today, you are either a capitalist or a socialists.

We Conservatives are, for all practical purposes, without a political party these days. So, we are fighting the socialist agenda of the Democratic Party on our own. We have no choice.

As a conservative, I am convinced that as soon as the Obama Regime gets the Socialized Medicine issue behind them… and declares victory for the President… they are going to turn their attention to illegal immigration. They are not going to try to solve the issue; they are going to make another attempt to ram an AMNESTY for ILLEGAL ALIENS through Congress. They want and they need the votes of those people in the US illegally and they are going to make an all-out push to secure them.

It is time for conservative Americans to step up, once again, and meet them head-on and stop their sweeping attempt to turn the United States into just another mediocre socialist country.

J. D. Longstreet

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Conservative+Illegal-Immigration+Amnesty

Amnesty For Illegal Aliens Coming Soon!

Amnesty for Illegal Aliens Back Soon? You Bet!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Time to get the e-mail humming to your Senators again. Phone calls work well, too. Faxes are also important. Even a telegram to your senator’s office would be helpful

We were fairly sure it was premature to declare the death of the Immigration Bill, the last time it was defeated in the Senate. And sure enough, here it comes again. We have no choice but to man the barricades once again.

Isn’t there something very sad (and very telling) when the people of a country have to “force” their own government to respond to the wishes of their people? Isn’t it telling as to how far we have traveled down the road toward “totalitarian government”? Have we learned anything??? I doubt it!

Oh, and there is this: When we say “totalitarian” government these days we mean one of two distinct types of governance: Islamofacist or communist.

“Once more, into the breach,” conservatives!!!

So, here’s what’s going on:

A few days ago, President Obama played host for a White House meeting to re-launch the legislative process for “comprehensive” immigration reform. Then, a few days afterwards, several big city police chiefs went public and urged Congress to bring illegal immigrants “out from the shadows.” If you are asking yourself why you haven’t heard about this, you probably HAVE heard about it but since it just isn’t very important to YOU, you probably shuffled it off to some dark corner of your mind until you have the time - and the inclination to deal with it. Anyway, the pollsters seem to think that, or something very like that, is what has happened to Amnesty for illegal aliens in the US. Well, my dear fellow Americans, we’d better GET INTERESTED again… and quickly. If I am correct, Obama is about to ram the old Amnesty Bill right through Congress and sign it into law before we even know what hit us! And the Mainstream Media, in league with The Obama Legions, are playing along with Obama in an attempt to keep us distracted with all the many and varied crises sucking up all the ink from their publications and all the air time from their broadcasts.

And… to make matters even worse for those of us who oppose Amnesty, there is a huge disconnect between the citizens of America and their representatives in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. Read the full story HERE.

According to Rasmussen Reports Sixty-six percent (66%) of likely voters nationwide say it is Very Important for the government to improve its enforcement of the borders and reduce illegal immigration. Now, consider THIS: Just 32% of America’s Political Class agrees. Surprised? Neither am I! We have said all along the problem with illegal immigration across our southern border could be fixed, almost immediately, if the government wanted it fixed. Now we know for certain that they do not want the southern border sealed. See, those are democratic voters coming across that invisible line headed north into the land of milk and honey and along side them on their northward trek is cheap labor!

Basically, Americans STILL want the border closed and sealed FIRST! It is common sense to stop the leak before bailing. Once the border is closed and sealed then taking care of those aliens here illegally can begin and mass deportations can begin.

Like you, I have heard all the arguments from the government that they cannot find all those 12 million, or so, illegal aliens who have integrated into our society in order to deport them. I don’t buy it, not for one second. If the government was serious about finding them all they’d have to do is enlist the help of American citizens and you would have convoys of school buses, filled to capacity with illegal aliens, headed south to the border to be deported. Maybe the government doesn’t know where they are, but you can bet your bottom dollar American citizens know where they are - or can find them - post haste.

Yes, Americans ARE angry with the illegal alien mess and the numerous attempts by our government to offer them amnesty, which would, in time, offer them citizenship. But, as Rasmussen learned when doing their survey, Americans are not mad at the illegal aliens. No! They/we are mad at our government for allowing this to happen in the first place!

Those of you who support open borders do not, I repeat, do not try to beat us about the head and shoulders with the old saw that says America is a nation of immigrants. See, we already know that because our ancestors were immigrants, too. Mine came into the country, legally, in 1789 through what was then Charles Town Harbor and were assigned a place in the 96th precinct of the state of South Carolina. Notice - they came into this country LEGALLY! That is all we expect of any who want to immigrate to America. Do it legally and we will welcome you with open arms. Do it illegally and we want you caught and deported forthwith!

It is becoming ever more clear, everyday, that America’s biggest problem with illegal immigration is not with those who illegally break into our country and help to bleed it dry, but with our government which refuses to uphold the laws already on the books. Had those laws been enforced we would not be in the situation we find ourselves today. Plus, the problem of what to do with these 12-plus million illegal aliens would not be a problem, at all, if the government would simply follow the laws on the books today.

The bottom line for Americans to ponder is… what do we do with a government that refuses to uphold/enforce the nation’s laws? Well, let me ask you - suppose you had a business and an employee consistently refused to follow the rules of the workplace. What would you do to that employee? See? The answer is simple. The ONLY way we are ever going to get relief from this problem is to clean the house in Washington.

My friend and fellow blogger, Alan Caruba, recently said in his piece entitled “A Crisis of Governors”: “What, in fact, Americans are witnessing is a failure of government at both the state and federal level. The nation has managed to elect too many people to public office that are so clearly inept, incompetent, and untrustworthy, it poses a threat to the republic.” Alan, as usual, is spot on. America’s most dangerous enemy, at the moment, is its own government! I would add that, in my opinion, America’s second worst enemy, at the moment, is its own ignorance. It was through the ignorance of the American electorate that these pitifully inept politicians were elected to office to begin with.

Maybe a third party working hard over decades could turn it around, but frankly, I doubt it. Americans are so woefully ignorant of how a representative republic is supposed to work that I have serious doubts we are capable of doing that which is necessary to save our country. Then there is the opposition from the politicians themselves. If we know anything, we know the two parties in power today watch each other’s backs when it comes to Americans forming a powerful third party. They make sure it is almost impossible for that to happen.

Until we can come up with a solution to the problem of an unresponsive government we are stuck standing on the sidelines observing the largest land invasion and take-over of a country in the history of the world.

J. D. Longstreet

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Conservative+Amnesty+Illegal+Aliens+Obama+Socialist

The War on Our Southern Border ... Alan Caruba

The War on Our Southern Border
By Alan Caruba

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Among the latest news out of Mexico was the discovery of four U.S. citizens found in a van, strangled, beaten and stabbed in the border city of Tijuana. The victims, ages 19 to 21, were two men and two women from San Diego and Chula Vista areas.

In 2008, 6,292 Mexicans were killed in the drug wars between the drug cartels. In the first eight weeks of 2009, there were already a thousand casualties, some of them beheaded. By way of comparison, in six years of war in Iraq, this exceeds U.S. losses by more than three thousand.

In mid-March, however, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, third in the line of succession to lead the nation, told a crowd of legal and illegal Hispanics that enforcement of federal or even local laws regarding immigration is “un-American.” She called the illegal aliens in the audience, “very, very patriotic.”

No, Madame Speaker, the patriotic, indeed the constitutionally responsible thing to do is to enforce the laws of the nation. You even took an oath of office to do so.

It is an open secret in Washington, D.C., that Obama and his fellow Democrat travelers in Congress want to push through an amnesty in order to increase the number of voters likely to support Democrats in coming elections. Congress has a short memory and no doubt has conveniently forgotten the firestorm of protest that erupted when the Bush administration attempted the same thing.

President Obama’s proposed budget cancels plans to extend the border fence along the U.S.-Mexican border beyond the 670 miles already completed or planned. That leaves 1,277 miles open. In addition, the budget would end payments to states and communities to cover the cost of jailing illegal immigrants.

Sooner or later, some innocent American bystanders in downtown Tucson or any other American city are going to get caught in a hail of bullets as Mexican narco gangs exchange fire in a territorial dispute. Then Americans will demand action. You may recall that was the feeling right after 9/11 in 2001.

When I say “territorial dispute” I am referring to the network of American cities in which these gangs are currently operating. In April 2008, the Justice Department reported that Mexican drug cartels represent “the largest threat to both citizens and law enforcement agencies in this country and now have gang members in nearly 200 U.S. cities.”

Obama’s response to this was a promise to reduce gun sales that end up across the border and I believe him because we are already witnessing efforts to take away everyone’s guns. While calling for tougher border security, Obama so far is doing nothing beyond the management of a U.S.-Mexico agreement forged during the Bush administration.

Meanwhile, his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is saying stupid things to blame America for the chaos of Mexico, claiming that American “is at least as responsible as Mexico for the violent drug wars…” No, we are not responsible for Mexico’s endemic corruption and its failure to crack down on the drug cartels many years ago.

Forgive me if I have little confidence in any real action being taken by Obama’s new director of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano. When she was Governor of Arizona, she called out the National Guard to back up the Border Patrol, but essentially had them man desks. It was a serious waste of man power by all accounts. Currently she is calling for more motion sensors and aerial surveillance to spot those entering the nation illegally. That’s just a bad joke.

If the U.S. wants to avoid an all-out border war with the narco cartels, it needs to put up one very high fence along the 1,947 miles we share.

I have even less confidence in the Mexican government to deal with the narco gangs. It isn’t like they’re not trying. Meeting with George Bush in 2007, the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, asked for help to fight the gangs and to his credit, he has been making a serious effort, deploying thousands of police and military, but at a terrific cost to their lives. It is, in the very truest sense of the word, a war.

Mexico’s drug war is closing in on becoming Obama’s “Iraq”; a war not so much of choice as one that is integral to our national security.

This is not an exaggeration. In December, Four-Star general (ret.) Barry McCaffrey and former national drug czar said that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a narco-state. An Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at West Point, McCaffrey released a report that predicted Mexico will be in control of the narco gangs within a decade. “Chronic drug consumption in Mexico has doubled since 2002 as has cocaine use, while U.S. cocaine consumption has dropped by 70% in the past two decades. An estimated 5% of the Mexican population now consumes illegal drugs.”

Fully 90% of all U.S. cocaine use transits through Mexico and it is also a dominant source of methamphetamine production for the U.S. market.

All this is occurring while Speaker Pelosi is encouraging illegal immigration and denouncing enforcement of our laws to prevent it.

All this is occurring as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has released a report that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless, targeting rivals, along with federal, state and local police. Citing a dramatic rise in border violence over the past three years, it called it “an unprecedented surge.”

“Good fences make good neighbors” says the famous Robert Frost poem, Mending Wall, but a vastly increased border patrol and other steps are needed now to ensure the safety of Americans everywhere within the nation. It must be coupled with a renewed and vigorous effort to thwart the influx and to encourage as many of the estimated twelve million illegals living among us to return home.

Editor’s Note: One of the best websites for information about this problem is http://www.borderfirereport.net/. I recommend you bookmark and visit it to gain the insight and information necessary to demand congressional and White House action.

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/ and a weekly commentary at http://www.anxietycenter.com/, the website of The National Anxiety Center.

© Alan Caruba, May 2009

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US+Illegal+Immigrants+Amnesty+Mexico+Drugs+Violence