This is on the mark. From:Posted by foucaultspendulum

After 12 months of a flaccid presidency and a democratic congress full of prostitutes, I would think President Obama would stop pretending and ask himself: “what have I learned from this?”

The continuation of torture and rendition programs, a renewed Patriot Act, a majority edge in Congress squandered, a State of the Union that will be forgotten in history, a totally screwed-up health reform plan engineered to fail that rewards insurance companies with bigger profits, an election in Massachusetts reflecting a national power loss to the Democrats which delivered on a silver platter power to a Republican bum to come up with even dumber solutions, an expanded military with a gargantuan budget which includes the global consolidation of military war garrisons, an expanded war with more to come, a crumbling national infrastructure with a reduction in social programs as a complement, along with lost jobs, lost homes and lost dignity.

The good old Bush Junior fun days of walking into doors and choking on pretzels are gone. The slapstick comedy up front and with Voldemort behind the scenes is over. Today’s ring master who delivers the Daily Theater platitudes in the White House is even more deceptive. He may talk the flowery rhetoric of change and hope to the populace with attention spans the length of a TV commercial to distract them for two minutes but there are people in America still living poor as dump dogs and relying on sewing up their own wounds with needle and thread bought or stolen from K-Mart. And the predatory 2% are still getting richer.

The American empire was carefully thought out by four men: Mahan, Brooks Adams, Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt. In the last 200 years or so we have had an oligarchic system in which men of property can do well and others are on their own. Or, as Book Adams put it, “ the sole problem of the ruling class is whether to coerce or to bribe the powerless majority”. Nothing has changed.

And it turns out the Democratic Progressive alternative is no alternative at all to the republican party of death and deceit. Both sides are allowed to rule as long as they don’t mess with anything that matters.

A sharp ideological turn is coming. Although America bristles with sensible and logical options which our two major political parties can’t seem to grasp; like expanding the concept of Medicare into health reform or rebuilding infrastructure to provide jobs instead of useless wars and torture, there is not enough outrage in America of the kind that dragged the French aristocracy to the guillotine. And nor do most Americans grasp the reasons they keep electing the same bums over again. We elect presidents who work against our own interests and pack the Supreme Court with ideologues who now allow corporations to buy democracy. Now no one can deny that corporations decide policy and that corporate control of the country seems inevitable.

And what has Obama even remotely tried to do to chip away at this monolith of malefactors who are busy redistributing wealth from the bottom and the middle to the top? Just talk is all.

And at the most token changes with little bite. I wasn’t expecting the changes Obama advertised but I was hoping he would have at least tried to fight against the status quo at the expense of losing a second term. Now he has stupidly wrecked himself and may lose a second term anyway. He is like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton who made it easier for the rich while the sham rituals of democracy continued as they employed the usual scapegoats; gays, socialists, Arabs, immigrants and government, to take the blame. The crap covered the land, and still does today, disguised as fluff and patriotism to hide the huge illusion of the America Way.

People still seem to believe that problems can be solved if the parties sit down and rationally talk it over. This is no longer possible in an America where communication itself has become the problem, in an overcommunicated society where we “send” more and “receive” less.

But now the masquerade is over and the dumbed-down are waking up too late and all the defensives the plutocracy has tried to continue to dumb down the populace is wearing thin. If Americans have any backbone, that could only leave blood in the streets as the final solution.

I believe I am not alone in thinking that Barack Obama is not up to the challenges of the job and should be sent home as soon as possible.

By: Dick Morris

State Of Hopeful Devastation And Deficient Surplus

By Lisa Richards
January 28, 2010

According to Salon.com’s Joan Walsh, Barry Obama’s first State of the Union Address was his best speech so far and finally showed Obama has “spine.” If last night was Obama’s best, I would hate to see the worse. There is not enough Lithium and Thorzine in America’s mental institutions to cope with that kind of traumatic experience.

Last night’s State of the Union was one hour and twenty-minutes of wind-bagging boredom by an intellect who said everything and nothing, while making constant contradictions lacking any form of astuteness Obama is supposed to posses in vast amounts.

If Andrew Jackson were a live, he would have shot himself in the head just to be put out of the misery one droning moron put the country through while blaming George W. Bush and the Republicans for the Wall Street fiasco Democrats, including Obama, created.

Obama further blamed the United States Supreme Court for overturning the law on campaign spending. No American has the right to decide how much money they wish to contribute without asking Washington’s permission first. The chastising remark to the high court had Justice Alito shaking his head no; his lips could be seen uttering “not true, not true.”

The absurd inconsistencies had me shaking my head wondering if Obama’s Teleprompters have separate personalities or if the hair plug and the facelift sitting behind the president were pulling their own strings in attempt to hang Obama for their own political gain.

Barry and his Teleprompters live in a Utopian dream world he wants to drag each American into. First the Messiah told Americans that “…the devastation [of unemployment] remains. One in 10 Americans still cannot find work. Many businesses have shuttered. Home values have declined. Small towns and rural communities have been hit especially hard. And for those who’d already known poverty, life has become that much harder.” Two minutes later Obama declared that “After one of the most difficult years in our history, they [Americans] remain busy building cars and teaching kids, starting businesses and going back to school. They’re coaching Little League and helping their neighbors…I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight. Despite our hardships, our union is strong.”

In other words; America is destitute and dying, but she’s alive and well.

Barry told America why he ran for president and why Wall Street collapsed last year: “[W]hen I ran for President, I promised I wouldn’t just do what was popular, I would do what was necessary. And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today. [Note: it’s 10%] More businesses would certainly have closed. More homes would have surely been lost. So I supported the last administration’s efforts to create the financial rescue program. And when we took that program over, we made it more transparent and more accountable. And as a result, the markets are now stabilized, and we’ve recovered most of the money we spent on the banks. Most but not all.”

Just enough to use as an excuse to tax banks Americans will fund via their own personal investments and paychecks. Obama cannot make one, single statement without asserting a contradictory knife to the throat of All Americans.

Wall Street did melt, homes and businesses have been lost, investments have vanished in record numbers because bailouts saved banks, which should have been allowed to go under and recoup losses without government involvement that has simply made things worse.

At times Obama acted as if 10 percent unemployment is non-existent and Americans are finding jobs in record number, yet spun the words around at fill-in-the-blank moments saying the opposite. But he’s never had more hope than he did last night.

Again; the speech said everything and not one, damn thing at all. The Marxist and Chief was consistently redundant, something George W. Bush was criticized for and Obama is praised as brilliant.

Last night was simply a repeat of every Obamathon Americans have been forced to endure since the Water-walking windbag entered the presidential campaign. There is nothing shocking to report, nothing great worth writing about.

The major drawback is Americans are stuck with this Messianic Marxist and an anti-American administration for three more years.

On the upside, Michelle Obama is going to end childhood obesity in America. The First Lady, who is apparently very “shy,” may want to tackle the overweight, gut-bellied legislators squeezed into Chamber last night. Obesity reins in Washington, and it is not children who need their mouths wired shut.

Lisa Richards Copyright ©™ January 28, 2010
www.lisa-richards.com©™
lisa-richards@lisa-richards.com

 Mass. Miracle, Obama, Cheney, Jobs, McCain-Feingold & More!

This is part 10 of an ongoing series of conversations with former Congressman and conservative icon Duncan Hunter. Hunter has agreed to do a series of free wheeling interviews to ensure that the conservative point of view is given voice as we try to move the Republican Party and the country in a pro-American, pro-constitutional direction; a return to our roots, if you will. In addition to being involved in recruiting and fundraising for a number of hawkish, conservative congressional candidates, Hunter is attempting to re-invigorate the GOP and re-establish the Reagan, pro-military, small government ideals.

DH: Hello, Jim you there?

AJM: Yes sir, this is Jim.

DH: OK. Duncan Here. How’s it going?

AJM: Good, Good. We have Gloria from Ohio here on the line.

DH: Good. Hi Gloria.

GW: Hi, how are you?

DH: I’m doing good. I’ve got my two little granddaughters here, they have now got the fire ready to go. They built a little house in the fire place. Now we’re going to light it.

{To his granddaughters: Ok, grab my hand dear. Ok c’mon. No, you light it right there sweetie. Put your hand over here. Grab Grandpa’s hand. Grab grandpa’s hand right there. Ok now we’re going to light it. That’s good}.

OK guys, well listen, what’s new?

AJM: Well, I missed you last week. Of course we are on no particular schedule. But unfortunately I was skiing in Sun Valley, Idaho.

DH: Well that’s not bad. I’m going to do an event up there in Couer d’Alane at the end {throw that in sissy} at the end of February for the Republican Party for Vaughn Ward. He’s the Marine company commander now running for that congressional seat. I think it’s against Minnick.

AJM: Yes, that’s correct.

DH: You might want to run on up there, Jim.

AJM: Couer d’Alene is not that far either, right on the other side of the Washington border. Do you know when that’s going to be?

DH: It’s right at the end of February. You need to talk to the Republicans in Couer d’Alene, they’ll know the date.

AJM: OK. Is your brother involved in this too?

DH: Well, I just called him and told him to try and get up there too. I think he’ll try to get up and make it.

AJM: Well I have no qualms with that whatsoever. I might have to hit a ski area or two on the way back.

DH: Well, we’re thinking about catching some steelhead, so we’re of the same mindset. {drop that sissy, just drop it. You can’t just hold on to it}

AJM: Who joined the call? Is that Lynn?

LD: Yes. Hi Congressman Hunter

DH: Hi, how are you doing?

LD: Good. You?

DH: Doing great. I’ve got two little granddaughters here and they helped grandpa make a fire.

LD: How awesome.

DH: We’re working away {put it right there at the edge there, sis}

So anything new happen?

AJM: Well, we always got to report the news to you, you know that (laughs). I’d like to start off with what your take is on the victory in Massachusetts for Ted Kennedy’s former seat….

DH: It shows that God has a sense of humor!

All: (laughs)

DH: When He was thinking “now which Senate seat shall I give to the Republicans? I think I’ll give them Teddy Kennedy’s seat”.

All: (laughing)

AJM: Were you surprised? What do you think it portends for the upcoming elections?

DH: Well, I think the rule of thumb for politics is that truth is always stranger than fiction. So you have to always expect the unexpected. They have a 3 to 1 democrat versus republican registration, but a ton of independents, which was the key dynamic here.

But I think it shows that even folks from Massachusetts don’t like the idea of socialism! I think they harken back to lots of grim faced old WWII soldiers, Navy personnel, and Marines who fought in some of those horrendous battles, followed by lots of ongoing generations who fought in other tough places around the world to keep this country free. And the idea of giving away that freedom through Obama’s socialistic agenda was repugnant to most Americans, and I think, to a lot of liberals. I think there are a lot of liberals who in their hearts don’t believe in socialism. And they’ve watched the miracle of freedom and capitalism and I think that Americans don’t want to give that up. Even in Massachusetts they don’t want to give that up.

AJM: I think you might be right. Do you watch Glenn Beck’s show much, Congressman?

DH: Not much. Every now and again. But I don’t watch too much TV.

AJM: I don’t blame you.

DH: I like Glenn Beck. He was great to me in the presidential race. I like him. He gave me an hour on his show.

LD: I saw that!

DH: I appreciate Glenn Beck.

AJM: One of the things he likes to mention is the difference between your typical liberal democrats and the ‘progressives’ – the true believers in socialism and Marxism – and he likes to differentiate between those two. What camp do you believe that the Obama folks are in? Are they just typical liberal democrats or are they…..

DH: The latter. I think Obama, because of his background….everything Obama has ever had in life came from government. And I think his experience in life has revolved around radicals and government. And that’s what he believes in. And in the end, people tend to revolve back, to go back to their roots.

And I think Obama is a machine politician. And I think that’s why he had no problems in getting tough with Ben Nelson, and threatening to take things away from him. I think the American people were upset when Nelson, as I understand, it was threatened that the Obama Administration would take away the Strategic Operations Center from Nebraska, which is a national security issue. And that was treated by the Democrat leadership and Obama as a piece of cheese. I think that, to some degree, reflected the character, or lack thereof, of the Administration.

AJM: Yeah. And Nelson, if I’m not mistaken, is one of the more ‘moderate’ Democrats. They had to do some arm twisting somehow, I guess.

DH: My point is, if you really believe in machine politics and machine government, in a leftwing government-heavy administration, that is a classic approach. To simply threaten or cajole people until you get what you want.

AJM: That’s the Chicago way.

DH: There it is.

ALL: (laughs)

DH: I was in congress for 28 years. I never once called up the Whitehouse and told them I wanted something for a vote. Or that I would change my mind if I got something. You need to do what you think is right and let the chips fall where they may. If you are trying to work for a project in your district, you try to work for it on the merits. But the Chicago way is to bully and to intimidate and entreaty until you get your way. And I think that took a little bit of the shine off the Obama Administration’s claim to this “new direction” in American politics.

AJM: Post-partisanship!

DH: In the end, they reverted back to what you do with a ward precinct captain if he doesn’t go along with you. Beat him up. (laughs) They treated Ben Nelson like an expanded version of a recalcitrant Chicago precinct captain.

AJM: That’s great. When you mentioned your record of not bending to the chicanery of whatever administration…

DH: Not necessarily chicanery, but you go to DC to vote for what you think is right for your country, and if you really believe in exercising democracy in its proper way, you vote for things on their merits.

AJM: I agree. But I remember back in 2004, I believe Newsweek wrote an article about you entitled: Duncan Hunter’s Arm Does Not Twist. And it was an article talking about Cheney trying to cajole you into voting for something or another – I can’t even remember what the subject matter was right now….

DH: I think that was the Intel Bill, that tried to take away the assets of Defense related intelligence and move it over into this new intelligence reform package where Department of Defense would be responsible for a lot of our intel apparatus, but wouldn’t have the budget that funds that apparatus. And would not be in control of all of our intelligence assets in a war theatre.

What that means is if you had a rivet joint aircraft or an intelligence aircraft working in the Iraq theatre and the combatant commander said “we need that piece of equipment over Falluja right now because the Marines are in a heavy firefight”, one of our intelligence agencies might control that equipment and they’d have to get the OK from Washington before they could use it to support American soldiers in battle. You can’t do that in a war.

So what I think we did there, I insisted on maintaining the chain of control of our assets in theatre. And I think that accrues to the benefit of our soldiers, not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan as well.

Obviously, there are a lot of intelligence assets that are key to our war fighting in particular battles. {OK kids that’s enough. No, we have to save the rest of it for the next fire. You’ve got plenty.}

ALL: (Laughing)

DH: They are using up all my fire starting material. They are not that good of Boy Scouts (laughs).

AJM: In that Newsweek piece, I think the author was amazed that you, at the height of Bush and Cheney’s popularity, that you were able to back them down.

DH: Well, I didn’t back them down. I simply refused to do what the Administration wanted. That was signing off on the intelligence bill. General Myers, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, has an excerpt about that in his book, Eyes on the Horizon. I just saw it last night, that incident.

AJM: Coincidence. Interesting. I’m kind of going off on a tangent here, but since we brought up Cheney, and he was the one trying to do some of the arm twisting…

DH: Except he wasn’t twisting arms in this sense: Cheney didn’t say “we are going to do this for you if you go along with it”. Cheney argued it on its merits.

AJM: No, but he still obviously didn’t convince you. (laughs)

DH: Yeah.

AJM: But I just wanted to know what your relationship with Dick Cheney is. You’ve known him a long time. What do you think about him, and what do you think about his recent, pretty candid remarks against some of the Obama Administration’s policies?

DH: Yeah. I like Dick Cheney. I think he viewed his role as Vice President as focusing primarily on security issues, which I think is a key thing, especially when you are in an administration which is involved in two wars. So I think Cheney was the right man at the right time. And he’s a good friend, and I think a guy with a realistic and pragmatic view of the world.

And I think the Obama people are beginning to understand the real world to some degree now. Mr. Obama was very popular with the Europeans, but you noticed they haven’t sent a single additional soldier into the battle zones. The Germans still won’t leave the fort at night under their rules in Afghanistan and the French refuse to go where there is any fighting. Outside of that, they are prepared to be with us all the way.

ALL: (Laughing)

LD: Right behind us.

DH: They are right behind us…..about 450 kilometers. (laughs)

AJM: Regarding Cheney’s recent criticisms of Obama…

DH: I think those were very appropriate. In fact, I think it actually helps the country and it may help the Obama Administration to some degree for this reason: The Obama Administration doesn’t have a weather vane, or a compass with respect to national security. Maybe Jim Jones, a former Marine, is going to provide some leadership there. But generally speaking, across the board they have very few people capable of focusing on security, with a background in that important area. So Cheney’s remarks on security issues are a little bit of a compass for the Obama Administration. They are forced to respond to his statements. That makes them think. That makes them consult with each other. It forces an analysis, and I think that’s good.

AJM: Yeah. One of the interesting things that I read about that Massachusetts victory for Mr. Brown, Scott Brown, was that one of the things he focused on quite heavily during his stump speeches was the fact that our tax dollars need to be going to fighting the terrorists as opposed to paying for their lawyers. And that resonated even in Massachusetts.

DH: Yeah. I think that makes some sense. You know, if anything, the fact that we had a number of the people from Guantanamo that we released, the military released, go back to the battleground and take up arms against us is evidence that we have been too lenient.

AJM: It was not just one or two either. It’s been a handful.

DH: Yeah, I think it’s been more than a dozen. A couple of them have been killed. Some have been captured.

AJM: And then what do you do with them again?

LD: For God sakes, don’t give them a bloody nose.

DH: Obviously, they need a new trial according to the liberals.

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: OK, I’m going to switch gears on you. On some other breaking news of the day. That is the Supreme Court today, at least I think it was today, or last night, finally overturned the majority of McCain Feingold, the campaign finance reform. It was a 5-4 vote, nonetheless they gutted the whole idea that corporations and other groups couldn’t spend their money the way they saw fit for elections. I know you opposed it when it came out, and I wonder if you’d like to comment on it now?

DH: I haven’t seen the opinion. And McCain Feingold was pretty complicated. So I’d have to take a look at the written opinion by the Supreme Court. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I at least have to have a chance to look at the summary of their opinion.

AJM: Ok. We’ll get you on that one next time. Regardless, it is at least being reported – and I haven’t read the opinion yet either – as having substantially overturned McCain Feingold. You did oppose it back in its day, I do know that.

DH: One of the many problems with McCain Feingold, aside from its legality, was using 527s, the leftwingers could absolutely inundate conservative candidates. During one election cycle, they spent in excess of 100 million against conservative candidates, and the Republican 527s were something like 20 million. It became a huge funnel for leftwing money to go after Republicans who themselves were somewhat hamstrung by spending limits to individuals. So you ended up with massively financed negative campaigns. And I’m thinking of Richard Pombo’s district that Pombo lost, was one in which I believe the lefty 527s went well over a million bucks against him. You’d have to look up the exact numbers to ascertain that.

AJM: Yeah. Aside from the practical aspects of kind of a unilateral disarmament on the right, it apparently is deemed now at least partially unconstitutional. I think it is always a good thing to review laws such as that, that deal with speech.

DH: Yeah, I think so. But anyway, I’d have to look at the written opinion by the Supreme Court to really have a good take on exactly what they’ve done with McCain-Feingold.

LD: It was bad enough for Pelosi to put out a statement.

DH: (laughs) That’s a good indicator!

LD: Yes it is!

DH: They are coming our way!

ALL: (laughing)

DH: The Democrats fought ferociously to keep 527s at full steam. Anything attempting to reform the 527s, which were literally allowing foreign entities to come in and pump lots of money into the US system.

AJM: And George Soros financed about a dozen of them.

DH: Yeah, and any attempt to reform that was beaten back by the Democrats. In fact those were the days of a Republican majority, the filibuster was threatened in the Senate if we even thought about attaching that to a major bill that was going through.

AJM: Yeah. I believe the first challenge to its constitutionality, before the court was reformed by George W Bush, with Alito and um – what’s his name —

ALL: Roberts

AJM: Yeah, Roberts – was a 5-4 decision the other way to sustain McCain Feingold. And Mr. Fred Thompson who was very involved in that legislation for many years, actually argued in front of the Supreme Court to keep it, to argue that it was good law. I don’t know if you remember that?

DH: No, I don’t.

AJM: Well he did. I’m glad to see it gone. But we’ll let you get up to speed on the actual verbiage.

DH: Well you ought to also (laughs). It’s probably a 500 page opinion. So get ready, and get your reading glasses on!

AJM: (laughs) Yeah. All I know is that when I read McCain Feingold it was bad law. And anything that goes to the point of overturning it is fine with me.

DH: Yeah.

AJM: OK. Another thing that happened in the news today, the jobless claims rose, quote-unquote,“unexpectedly”, to the highest level in several months. New jobless claims. Indicating even to the liberal press that this so-called recovery is a lot less than meets the eye.

What would you do, what would you recommend to the Republicans to campaign upon, or even to the Obama Administration to push, to actually turn this economy around? Right now it does not look like it is turning very fast, if at all.

DH: Retrieve at least a small part of the production lines that served this country’s consumers to our own country. Make a few things in America. We’ve moved our assembly lines off shore. The base of this economy is a middle class guy who can make enough money - and manufacturing has always been a high wage industry – who can make enough money to make that mortgage payment, to buy that car, and to do the other things that are part of the American Dream. We’ve allowed China to cheat on trade, along with a lot of other countries, with their Value Added Tax, which for practical purposes is a de facto tariff on American products and an illegal subsidy to foreign made products.

And we’ve allowed that dynamic to maintain in such a way that a large part of the American manufacturing base has gone off shore.

So the American that drives his Toyota to his house, watches his Sony television, puts on his Malaysian made clothes, then wonders why his kid doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have to look to far. And that’s’ why the housing was the last – you know ‘housing’ is manufacturing, writ large. In fact a house is referred to by national homebuilders – they call their houses “products”, they don’t call them homes. They are a big manufactured product which is still made mostly in this country and that’s why the housing boom carried the economy, the US economy, for as long as it did. It’s big manufacturing. One of the last segments of manufacturing that other countries haven’t learned to exploit. China hasn’t learned yet how to make a home in such a way that they can ship it over to the US and crane it onto a lot.

But the ripples, the economic ripples, that a healthy manufacturing, a healthy homebuilding industry sends to the economy of the community that it is sited in is evidence of how important manufacturing is to this country. And how much of it we let slip away. So until we make our own products, and retrieve some of that manufacturing base, the jobs that millions of Americans have depended on in the past to be able to afford that mortgage and afford those other things we provide for them, it’s a grim picture.

AJM: Yeah, and during the campaign…

DH: And it’s been an Achilles heel for the Republican Party. But it seems the Democrats have drunk the ‘free trade’ kool-aid also. The Hunter-Ryan bill was a bill that would have punished China or at least given the President the ability to punish China for illegal devaluation of its currency. It was promised by the Democrat leadership to be front and center when they took control. After a couple of Wall Street fundraisers, it seems to have faded into oblivion.

It’s because there are a lot of companies, which are American companies, whose manufacturing is now sited in China, who appreciate the benefit of the subsidies that China’s currency devaluation and their VAT rebate gives to them.

AJM: And during the campaign, if I’m not mistaken – obviously it’s tough to browbeat other countries into doing something – you had solutions for what we could do on our side. One of them as I recall was the elimination of taxes on US manufacturers. You still believe in that? And what other things can we do internally to stimulate….

DH: Eliminating taxes on manufacturing would actually create substantially more tax receipts, more revenue for the American government because workers would be making more wages and pay withholding tax, and economies would be stimulated and jobs and communities would be roaring back.

What we ought to have with respect to trade, one thing I offered is what I call “mirror trade”. For example, China has a 17% Value Added Tax. That means if the telephone you’re holding right now and talking into cost $100 to make and its made in China, that company in China, instead of paying corporate taxes and income taxes and other business taxes, pays the government of China 17% Value Added Tax. A hundred dollar cost of that phone you are talking into includes $17 paid to the Chinese government. When that phone is taken down to the docks to be shipped to Washington State, to be sold in one of your stores, the Chinese government rebates $17. That is they give the tax money back to the exporter, because they are sending it to America. So they subsidize it to the tune of 17 bucks. So they now have only $83 in that 100 dollar phone. And if you make that same phone in Washington State, and export it to China, when that phone hits their docks, the Chinese government charges you a penalty of $17, 17 percent. The Washington State manufactured phone is now $117, while the one made in China and sent to you has now gone down to $83. So you’ve got a 34 point spread and the opening kickoff hasn’t even taken place yet in this international competition.

That Value Added Tax rebate was a loophole. It was described by one Senate Staff report, back in the old days when we agreed to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as one of the biggest blunders in American negotiating history! There was only a few countries in the world at that time that had VAT taxes. Now, 132 of them have VAT taxes and they are upwards of 12 to 20 percent. And that amounts to an illegal subsidy for foreign based manufacturing, and a penalty, a de facto tariff on every product the United States manufactures and sells abroad. That’s why even countries that have higher labor rates than the United States, like Germany, have a trade surplus over the US.

AJM. Yeah. And for a country like China, which has a much, much lower labor rate, that’s even more poison in the well.

DH: You’d think the country with the highest labor rate, ie the US vis a vis China, would have the tax advantage. But interestingly, China has the lower labor rate, but they also scratched out this tax advantage, the VAT, and they manipulate their currency. So they have a triple play going in their direction.

Along with that you have US governments which do not understand that it is important to be friendly to business! In some of these States, the policy seems to be the ‘the beatings will continue until moral improves’.

ALL: (laughing)

DH: So you have…I remember when one of our big companies left San Diego and went to Arizona and the Democrat Mayor of San Diego told them that she was going to sue them if they left. And they said “you’ve now just explained why we are leaving”, and they left.

ALL: (laughing)

DH: And so being friendly to business, having low taxes, and doing everything you can to allow business to come in and operate, not overlaying the business structure with a punitive legal and regulatory system that is predicated on a massive extraction of dollars; those things are important in maintaining an economy where the average guy, without a PHD, can get a job that allows him to make mortgage payments, send his kids to college, buy a car, and do the things that constitute the American Dream.

And we are pushing manufacturing offshore. With that we are pushing off the dreams of the next generation.

AJM: I hear you. Obviously, it would take some time to adjust the WTO or get out of the WTO, don’t you think just in taxes and regulations, as you just described, we can make a big dent in the exodus of manufacturing?

DH: Absolutely. And it’s been proiven over and over and over. As I recall, but you’d have to check the facts on this, Ireland at one point decided to attract manufacturing, and eased up on their tax code and did things that made them much more business friendly, and was able to attract and revitalize their manufacturing industries.

This in not a secret. But it is something that the nature of government is to extend its power through its programs and bureaucracies, with its deliverance of so-called benefits to people. And by extracting money from the producers to finance those benefits. And it is very difficult to make some of these salmon swim upstream. Because the current of big government is always to accumulate power and that is manifested in its attempts to increase revenues.

LD: Up to a point. There comes a point where it all collapses, I would think.

DH: Listen, at one time – this is legendary – but legend has it that at one time Great Britain had a 95% tax bracket for some people. And the key is that those people simply left the country. And legend further says that they never actually collected a single dime under the 95% tax bracket. So you can pluck the golden goose til there’s no feathers left.

And that was the whole point of the Laffer Curve; it was the idea that if you continue to beat the prisoner – business – at some point they are going to stop producing.

GW: Yes, yes.

AJM: And you see that in the United States, where the low regulation – some of the southern states that have much lower regulation or regulatory burden compared to some of the more “enlightened” states.

DH: Yeah. That’s right. Well now listen, my little granddaughters – we’ve now built a fire. One of them has a shield and a sword, and the other one wants me to make Indian moccasins. I’m going to have to sign off here. (laughs)

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: OK, can I ask you one last quick question?

DH: Absolutely. Here we go.

AJM: This one’s quick. You have a Senate race, a Senate primary out there in California with Chuck DeVore versus Carly Fiorina. And I’m wondering, have you made an endorsement, and are you planning on making an endorsement??

DH: No. I haven’t made any endorsement. I haven’t even looked at the race. But we’ll do that and try to get up to speed on it. But, I haven’t yet, no. We got a long time before the California primary. {no, don’t draw on that}. I’ve got a granddaughter who is drawing on the wrong side of this leather.

LD: They’ll burn the house down while they are at it too. (laughs)

DH: (laughing) He, this is great time. I’m in my elk room right now. We’ve got these big elk heads on the wall. And they’ve represented a lot of meat, let me tell you.

AJM: Hey, when you went up to Idaho, or was it Colorado, where you got your elk, did you bring that home?

DH: Oh yeah. Yeah. We brought home the meat and we brought home the horns. So the Hunters will continue to eat well this winter.

ALL: (laughing)

AJM: OK. We’ll let you go. Take care of those kids. Are you doing duty by yourself or is Lynne home too?

DH: OK, great. Right now I think I’m isolated with a couple of wild Indians.

ALL: (Laughing)

AJM: OK, thank you very much.

DH: Great talking to you guys. Hope you are all doing well. Hope your families are doing well.

ALL: Thank you!

DH: OK. And God Bless Massachussetts!!

ALL: (Laughing) Amen!

by Chuck Baldwin
January 22, 2010
Today marks the 37th anniversary of the infamous US Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision, which, in effect, legalized abortion-on-demand nationwide. The aftermath of this tragic ruling is the deaths of over 40 million (a very conservative number) innocent unborn babies. It is no hyperbole to say abortion is America’s holocaust. Think of it, every American citizen today, 37 years old or younger, has never known a country that respected and protected innocent human life in the womb. Put it another way: when Hitler’s Third Reich was at its zenith, the abortion rate was 40%. In 2003 (the last year that I checked), the abortion rate of the county in which I live was 39%. And I live in the heart of the so-called “Bible Belt.” In fact, statistically speaking, the most dangerous place to be in America is not in an automobile without wearing a seat belt, or in a commercial airliner with a potential terrorist on board. Statistically speaking, the most dangerous place to be is in the womb of one’s mother.

Dr. Bernard Nathanson once headed America’s largest abortion clinic in New York City. He admitted superintending over the killing of 75,000 unborn babies. He later recanted his pro-abortion activity and wrote what may be the quintessential book defending an unborn child’s right to life, “Aborting America.” Dr. Nathanson said, “There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of pregnancy.”

Dr. Mildred Jefferson was a surgeon at Boston University Medical Center, a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery with many honors and awards. She said, “Many people try to hide behind the confusion of not knowing what happens before a baby is born. But we do not have to be confused. We in medicine and science have a different name for every stage of the development of the baby, but it does not matter at all whether you know those names or not. When a young woman has not had much opportunity to go to school and she becomes pregnant, no one has to tell her that she is going to have a baby.

“I became a doctor in the tradition that is represented in the Bible of looking upon medicine as a high calling. I will not stand aside and have this great profession of mine, of the doctor, give up the designation of healer to become that of the social executioner. The Supreme Court Justices only had to hand down an order. Social workers only have to make arrangements, but it has been given to my profession to destroy the life of the innocent and the helpless.

“Today it is the unborn child; tomorrow it is likely to be the elderly or those who are incurably ill. Who knows but that a little later it may be anyone who has political or moral views that do not fit into the distorted new order. To that question, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ I answer ‘Yes.’ It is everyone’s responsibility to safeguard and preserve life. A child is a member of the human family and deserves care and concern.”

How many physicians, scientists, teachers, pastors, missionaries, statesmen, musicians, businessmen, and notable contributors to society have been murdered in the womb?

At this point, I can hear someone interrupting, “What about cases involving rape or incest?”

While these cases number less than 1% of pregnancies, consider this case history: a 12-year-old girl was raped and became pregnant. “Get an abortion,” you say? Congratulations. You just killed Ethel Waters.

And as Dr. Jefferson said, just where does the acceptance of abortion lead? If we listen to the former governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm, elderly people who are terminally ill have a “duty to die and get out of the way.” (Source: New York Times)

And does anyone remember Baby Doe in Bloomington, Indiana?

A little baby was born April 9, 1982, with Down’s Syndrome in a Bloomington, Indiana, hospital. The parents refused to allow a doctor to correct a defect in the esophagus that prevented eating because the child was born with Down’s. The Indiana Supreme Court upheld the parents’ right to make this decision. Despite many couples on hand willing to adopt the child, adoption offers that came in from all over America, and an appeal pursued to the U.S. Supreme Court, Baby Doe died of starvation on April 15, 1982.

Add to this blatant disrespect for human life the potential for mandated government-run national health care–complete with cost-related rationing–and one can only imagine how the value of human life will continue to decline in these United States. Plus, if you want to do some personal research that will really send chills up your spine, start investigating the fact that many scientists and researchers are seriously discussing genetic manipulation and genetic engineering. Good grief! Our own government and military are already culpable in grotesque medical experimentation with both civilian and military personnel.

Our own Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has admitted to using military personnel as human guinea pigs for medical, biological, and mental experimentation under various programs associated with the now-infamous title, MK-ULTRA. CIA officials say the programs have all been scrapped. Don’t you believe it.

In addition, consider the testimony of Dr. Carolyn Gerster, a physician specializing in internal medicine and cardiopulmonary diseases. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Oregon Medical School in Portland. She spent two years as a medical officer in the US Army.

Dr. Gerster told Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, “I was asked to become a member of the American College of Physicians many years ago. It’s any honorary society of internal medicine. I was very proud right up until the day that the society gave the James D. Bruce Award for Medical Research to Dr. Saul Krugman for the following experiment. Dr. Krugman had taken living hepatitis virus MS2 and injected this living virus into 25 retarded children in Willowbrook Home for Retarded in upstate New York. This was defended on the basis that they would probably get the hepatitis virus anyway.”

Consider, too, that, contrary to what most people assume, the vast majority of physicians graduating from medical school today no longer take a Hippocratic-type oath–an oath that binds physicians to the following: “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary [medical device] to cause an abortion.”

As Schaeffer and Koop pointed out in their book, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” “The Declaration of Geneva (adopted in September 1948 by the General Assembly of the World Medical Organization and modeled closely on the Hippocratic Oath) became used as the graduation oath by more and more medical schools. It includes: ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception.’ This concept of the preservation of human life has been the basis of the medical profession and society in general. It is significant that when the University of Pittsburgh changed from the Hippocratic Oath to the Declaration of Geneva in 1971, the students deleted ‘from the time of conception’ from the clause.”

Today, the ageless principles that had guided the medical profession throughout Western Civilization have been expunged from a majority of our physicians’ training and practice. And the Roe Supreme Court decision had much to do with this.

What is especially irritating about the whole abortion debate is the way the subject has been used as a political football by those on both the right and the left of the political aisle. While the national Democratic Party proudly touts itself as being “pro-choice,” (meaning, pro-murdering unborn babies), it has been the so-called “pro-life” Republican Party that is mostly to blame for legalized abortion being left as the law of the land for nearly 4 decades.

Think of it: the GOP has dominated US Supreme Court appointments for the 37 years since the Roe decision. In fact, the 1973 court that released the Roe decision was a Republican-appointed court by a 6-3 margin. The same GOP-dominated court also rendered the Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decision reaffirming Roe.

Consider still: the “pro-life” Republican Party controlled the entire federal government from the election of 2000 to the election of 2006: six long years of GOP domination of both houses of Congress, the White House, and the US Supreme Court. And in all that time not one single unborn baby’s life was saved. NOT ONE!

And, yet, each year, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) would introduce the Sanctity of Life bill. And each year, the bill would sit in the document room of the Capitol Building and gather dust. What would Rep. Paul’s bill do? Two things: (1) It would define unborn babies as persons under the law. (2) Under the authority of Article. III. Section. 2. of the US Constitution, it would remove abortion from the jurisdiction of the court. Had the “pro-life” Republican congress passed Dr. Paul’s bill, and the “pro-life” President, G. W. Bush, signed it into law, Roe v. Wade would have been effectively overturned.

So, why didn’t President Bush trumpet the bill? Where was the Republican leader in the Senate? Where was the Republican Speaker of the House? Where was Orrin Hatch? Where was John McCain? Where was Lindsey Graham? Where was Glenn Beck? Where was Rush Limbaugh? Where was Newt Gingrich? Where was Sean Hannity? Where was the National Right to Life Committee? Where were the tens of thousands of “pro-life” pastors and Christians?

And, yet, these same “pro-life” pastors, church members, and “conservatives” refused to support Congressman Paul for President in 2008, because he was not “conservative” enough. Actually, they opposed him because he opposed the war in Iraq, which means they would rather support a politician who promotes taking America into unconstitutional wars–but who will do nothing to overturn Roe and save the lives of unborn babies–than support a man who demands that the Constitution be followed, and actually had a constitutional plan to overturn Roe and end abortion-on-demand as a national “right.” No wonder Jesus noted that unbelievers often have it over believers in the brains department. (See Luke 16:8.)

I remind you that preserving life and liberty is the primary purpose of government (read the Declaration of Independence, for example). At this point, however, I think it is safe to conclude that to pretend there is any hope that Washington politicians (from either party) will do anything to overturn Roe is pure fantasy. At this point, it is up to State legislatures and governors to preserve life in their respective states. Several states are already beginning to do just that.

According to Fox News a few years back, 30 states were poised to pass laws outlawing abortion if and when the US Supreme Court ever reversed its Roe v. Wade decision. What they need to do is stop waiting for the US Supreme Court to reverse itself, and go ahead and stand on their own State authority and autonomy, and outlaw abortion in their states now, as legislators in South Dakota, Georgia, Michigan, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia are already attempting to do.

Legalized abortion is a national holocaust; an affront to our national character; a contradiction of established principles subscribed to from the beginning of Western Civilization; an insult to the principles of our Declaration of Independence; a bane of our national spirit; and a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God. That we have allowed it to continue for 37 years now stands as an indictment against this generation of Americans and bodes ominously for the well-being of our posterity.

Obama: Constitution Is Living Document

This might be a good time to remember what Mr. Obama thinks about the Constitution.

From his second autobiography, The Audacity Of Hope, pp 52 –54:

So if we all believe in individual liberty and we all believe in these rules of democracy, what is the modern argument between conservatives and liberals really about? If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that much of the time we are arguing about results—the actual decisions that the courts and the legislature make about the profound and difficult issues that help shape our lives. Should we let teachers lead our children in prayer and leave open the possibility that the minority faiths of some children are diminished? Or do we forbid such prayer and force parents of faith to hand over their children to a secular world eight hours a day? Is a university being fair by taking the history of racial discrimination and exclusion into account when filling a limited number of slots in its medical school? Or does fairness demand that universities treat every applicant in a color-blind fashion? More often than not, if a particular procedural rule—the right to filibuster, say, or the Supreme Court’s approach to constitutional interpretation—helps us win the argument and yields the outcome we want, then for that moment at least we think it’s a pretty good rule. If it doesn’t help us win, then we tend not to like it so much

Obama’s Constitution

The rhetoric and the reality.

BY Edward Whelan

Justice John Paul Stevens turns 88 in April, and by January 2009 five other justices will be from 69 to 75 years old. If Barack Obama is elected president, he will probably–with the benefit of resignations by liberal justices eager for him to be the president who chooses their successors–have the opportunity to appoint two or three Supreme Court justices in his first term, with another two or three in a potential second term. That prospect ought to focus the attention of all Americans who want a Supreme Court that practices judicial restraint and respects the proper realm of representative government. For Obama, if elected, would certainly aim to fill the Supreme Court–and the lower federal courts–with liberal judicial activists. Read More

Rush: Obama bastardizing Constitution

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh reiterated his hope Saturday that the new Democratic administration will fail, rousing conservative activists to fight the “bastardization of the Constitution that the Obama plans are.”

When it came to Iraq, Democrats “hoped George Bush failed,” said Limbaugh, making his first appearance at the Conservative Political Action Convention, “So what is so strange about saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to reconstruct and reform this nation so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?”

“I want the country to survive. I want the country to succeed.”

In a 90-minute session, Limbaugh dismissed calls for bipartisan cooperation with President Obama and congressional Democrats. Working with them is tantamount to being co-opted by liberals eager to impose big government across the land, he said. Read More

Obama, the Scourge of the Constitution

 By Alan Caruba  Thursday, January 14, 2010

Barack Obama taught a University of Chicago Law School course on the U.S. Constitution. In response to inquiries during the campaign, the school released the following statement:

“He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.”

Presumably, he knows something about the Constitution, but that has not prevented him from ignoring parts of it that he finds inconvenient and undermining others.

I cut Obama no slack on his ignorance of the Constitution

Putting aside the controversy over his actual place of birth which would render him ineligible to be President, his latest effort to ignore the Constitution comes in the form of a proposed “financial crisis responsibility fee” to be imposed, according to Fox News, on “roughly 50 firms (that) will be subject to the fees, which will apply only to banks, insurers, and investment houses with assets in excess of $50 billion.”

“Significantly,” noted the Fox article, “the administration will exempt General Motors, Chrysler, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the fees even though most of the current TARP deficit is linked to taxpayer bailouts of these firms.” It is worth noting that General Motors and Chrysler owe $66 billion of the total and the insurance conglomerate, AIG, owes about $70 billion. While the government is, for all intents and purposes, owns GM and Chrysler, the real winner in the bailout bonanza is the United Auto Workers.

I am not a constitutional scholar, but among my friends is an attorney and former judge, Lionel Waxman, who writes one of the liveliest blogs on the Internet, “Flashpoint.” As he noted in a recent post, “I cut Obama no slack on his ignorance of the Constitution. He was a law professor for Pete’s sake. He taught the stuff.”

“Here’s where he runs merrily athwart the Constitution,” said Waxman. “The equal protection clause has been ruled as prohibiting singling out some people for different (treatment) by law than others similarly situated. That’s exactly what he is doing. Article 1, Section 10, rules out issuing writs of attainder.”

Here’s a definition: BILL OF ATTAINDER, legislation, punishment.

1. An act of the legislature by which one or more persons are declared to be attainted, and their property confiscated.

2. The Constitution of the United States declares that no state shall pass any bill of attainder.

Wikipedia notes that, during the Revolutionary War, bills of attainder, and ex post facto acts of confiscation, were passed to a wide extent. The evils resulting from them, in times of more cool reflection, were discovered to have far outweighed any imagined good. As a result, the authors of the Constitution ensured that such writs of attainder could not be issued by the federal government.

Waxman advises me that the prohibition against Bills of Attainder did not bind the States at the time of the Revolution. It was not extended to the States until the Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1866, whereupon it was held to be one of the privileges and immunities which the States were then bound not to abridge.

What makes the President’s proposal even more outrageous is that the banks he seeks to punish are guilty of nothing more than obeying federal laws that required them to make loans to borrowers that, under normal banking standards, would never have qualified for them. The law is the Community Reinvestment Act and it is one of the primary causes, along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for the implosion of the housing mortgage market.

Adding to the outrage are the exemptions noted above and the fact that the banks in question have all repaid the TARP money they were literally forced to take!

This President wants to punish banks and other financial institutions for obeying the law! He wants to extract monies from them as a means to reducing the present federal debt, elements of which he voted for. There is no talk whatever of returning the unspent “Stimulus” bill funds to the Treasury towards this end.

Obama is becoming the scourge of the Constitution.

His healthcare “reform” bill, major portions of which no one has seen to date, is unconstitutional on several counts, not the least of which is the way it exempts the entire State of Nebraska or extends special provisions to the State of Florida, thus requiring the other States to unfairly pick up the slack.

This is a President who, through his Attorney General, is extending the protection of the U.S. Constitution to admitted enemy combatants! This is an offense to the 9/11 victims and all Americans past and present for whom the document represents hard won freedoms.

At what point will the ruling party in Congress, the Democrats, begin to resist these attacks on the Constitution? At what point will the Republicans take off the gloves? At what point can we expect the President to cease his attacks upon it?

If ever there were grounds for impeachment, these and other actions by the President are mounting evidence for such an action.

Congress, Obama ignore Constitution

By Carroll Cawyer

Why do we need laws? It is obvious that our elected leaders of the majority party conveniently forget the law, even the Constitution, when it gets in their way.

You disagree. Article I, Section 2 (1) of the Constitution says that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen … by the people of the several states …” The District of Columbia is not a state and although the 23rd Amendment provides for residents of the district to vote for presidential elections, it does not permit a vote for a member of Congress. Yet this Congress pushed the Constitution aside and authorized the election of a congressman for the district.

The First Amendment provides for the freedom of religion, speech and the press. These freedoms were specifically provided for freedom of religious and political expression. Yet we see this Congress moving toward “Hate Speech” legislation to prevent religious teachings if it condemns aberrant and distasteful behavior as sin. We have also seen the curtailment of our rights to discussing political elections within a specific time frame of an election. And that is the time frame when most Americans actually begin to pay attention to upcoming elections. It was free religious teaching and political discussion which the Founding Fathers were most concerned about.

The White House has just fired an Independent Inspector General investigating AmeriCorps. Congress gave them special protection, a law passed last year with the support of then Senator Obama, requiring a 30-day notice before firing one of these Inspectors General for cause. This was to remove political pressure from the position and keep them truly independent. However, Inspector General Gerald Walpin conducted an investigation on the misuse of federal funds, by Sacramento Mayor and friend of President Obama, Kevin Johnson when he was the president of the nonprofit Saint Hope using AmeriCorps funds. His investigation found the allegations to be true and upon filing his report he received a phone call from the White House telling him to resign within one hour or he would be fired. He refused to resign and the action is still ongoing.

These are just three examples of those in power believing they are above the law. They must be careful. When leaders ignore the law designed to protect residents from the overbearing tyranny of government, the people will remember that they are the true law and power in this country. Those who shred the Constitution will be swept from power by Constitutional means, including the Second Amendment which was included in the Constitution if ever needed “again” for this specific purpose.

In Violation of the Constitution: Obama Takes On Chairmanship of UN Security Council

Never in the history of the United Nations has a U.S. President taken the chairmanship of the powerful UN Security Council. Perhaps it is because of what could arguably be a Constitutional prohibition against doing so. To wit: Section 9 of the Constitution says:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Nonetheless, the rotating chairmanship of the council goes to the U.S. this month. The normal course of business would have U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice take the gavel. However, this time will be different. Constitution be damned, Barack Hussein Obama has decided to put HIMSELF in the drivers seat, and will preside over global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament talks slated to begin September 24th.

The U.S. Constitution 2.0, The Obama Rewrite

The Obama Administration is developing a new socialist constitution for America to replace the original Constitution written by our Founders. Every single one of these huge bills being rammed through congress is simply another article of the Obama constitution which allows no amendments by Republicans.

The people need to understand that these huge 1000 to 2000 page bills - the 111 Congress agenda - are all parts of one master blueprint for a new socialist government. The master plan has been split up into different component pieces so that the people won’t notice how they will all fit back together until after they become law.

In a building blueprint for example, you have a page for the foundation, a page for the framework, a page for the plumbing, a page for the electrical system, etc. It doesn’t become a building until all of the drawings and diagrams are built and integrated together.

It seems that everyone wants to focus on the details of the Healthcare bill, the Cap & Trade bill, the Stimulus bill, and others that have and will come up. We want to pick apart each bill and say “you can’t have this in there” and “you can’t have that in there,” while overlooking the larger picture. Each bill is simply one page in the overall plan to redesign America into a socialist state.

This is why each and every conglomeration of legislation this congress has been working on all year is critical to the Obama agenda. They must all be passed or the master plan cannot function as designed. No trace of capitalism can remain or the socialist system won’t work.

The old building must be torn down and the lot cleared before the new building can be built, and that is precisely what the Obama is doing now to our economy. The free market economy must be destroyed before the new socialist economy can be installed.

This explains why nothing the Obama has done has promoted free enterprise or helped small businesses. Small businesses contain a huge resource of potential government dependents if the Obama can cause them to become unemployed. Government dependents are good for socialism and they generally vote for Democrats.

The blueprint doesn’t stop at our shores. This is a global blueprint that extends all the way to Geneva; to Copenhagen; to China; to the Mideast; and of course, to the U.N. It’s an open door to a one world government under the pretense of controlling global warming which is another page in the blueprint that uses the same kind of lies and false pretenses that are being applied to the economy and healthcare. There is no end to the lies and deceptions coming from the Obama.

Whether on the global or domestic scale, they are the methods, strategies, and philosophies of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.” The bankers and mortgage brokers became the target. The healthcare providers and insurers became the target. The energy producers are next to be targeted for assassination by the Obama machine gun. The war on drilling has already begun.

There is no energy crisis in this country, but there will be if the Obama has his way with pushing electric cars onto a public that doesn’t want them. All of our electrical energy needs can be easily met with an electric grid powered by nuclear power plants. But if we did that then the government wouldn’t be in control of the grid and GE wouldn‘t stand to profit. To the Obama, nuclear means only bombs, so no new nuclear power plants will be allowed under this administration - at least not in our country, but they’re fine in Iran.

Global socialism can only succeed if nations are willing to unite under a one world government. That means we are not allowed to have enemies, which is why Obama is making nice with Islam and Islamic terrorists. If the Obama can convince them that he is not George Bush, then maybe they will like us. I realize it is insane thinking, but it is the Obama’s thinking.

Somehow he seems to have the idea that we are under threat from, and being attacked by, Islamic radicals because they don’t like us for something that we’ve done. It has nothing to do with their religion, right? So the solution to this problem is to make nice with them and show them that things will be different now with this imitation president.

Attorney General, Eric Holder, had already guaranteed the “successful guilty outcome” of the New York Five trial in an attempt to calm our concerns. So if that’s the case, why have the trial at all if the outcome is already decided? Why not expedite the process with a military tribunal rather than spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on this kangaroo court? The answer is that it will not be the terrorists who are being tried; it will be the Bush administration’s policies and efforts to protect our country that will be on trial.

Why were these five terrorists picked for the New York trial? Two of them, Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Waleed bin Attash are two of the three detainees who have been waterboarded, and the other three, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali are claiming to have been subjected to other forms of torture. This is, no doubt, what a large portion of the trial will focus on as well as other methods of the Bush administration to protect our country from attacks - methods that are being repealed by the Obama.

I don’t need to tell you what a threat to our national security this will be when all of our intelligence-gathering methods and interrogation techniques are discussed in open court and made available to the enemy that the Obama doesn’t recognize. This, in addition to the security risks and expense being presented to New York, shows the incompetence and naiveté of this administration.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed wants to die as a martyr. Little does he suspect that among his 72 virgins will likely be Janet Reno, Madeline Albright, and Helen Thomas. The way to become a martyr is to go down fighting for Islam and Allah.

That is exactly what this New York show trial will give him - an international soapbox to espouse his beliefs and hatred. Instead, he should get a military tribunal followed by execution in a sausage machine then fed to the hogs. That is the fate he deserves, not the dignity and respect that Obama wants him to have in a civilian trial as an American citizen which he is not.

The Obama says he wants to show the world how fair our court system is. What foreign country gives a hoot about how fair our domestic court system is? What concerns them is our foreign policy. Whose side is the Obama on? It’s hard to choose between the communists and the Islamics.

The talking heads in Washington and on the news channels are doing their best to mislead the ignorant sheeple by calling what the 911 highjackers did “a crime.” It was not a “crime.” There is no law on the books that says you can’t fly a plane into a building. It was an act of war. Bush understood that; the Obama doesn’t.

And don’t be fooled by the deception coming from this administration that AG, Eric Holder, made the decision to hold civilian trials for terrorists all by himself. This decision came down from the very top of the administration. The Obama is quite content to allow all of the Islamic propaganda that will be featured in the trial to be spread around the globe to demonstrate to the Islamic world how fair and unbiased he is toward Islam. He would like them to think that the rest of us feel the same way… except the conservatives.

When it comes to granting and protecting the so-called rights of terrorists, they say the Constitution must be followed to the letter. But when it comes to the actions of congress and this administration - and protecting the rights of American citizens - the Constitution doesn’t seem to exist. This government is already operating under the new Obama constitution 2.0.

When our country was founded, the Founders spent years of hard work to develop our Constitution which provides the framework for the country and the federal government. Obama’s socialist constitution is already written and will replace the Constitution our Founders provided in a very short period of time if we are unable to stop it.

When Obama said “We are just 5 days away from fundamentally transforming America,” we understood his intentions, but hadn’t seen the plan. Now we are seeing his blueprint coming out of congress under the guise of healthcare, economic recovery, global warming, and other contrived frauds, but it’s only recently that we can see how it all fits together into a new Constitution for a socialist America. In other words, we saw the intent before but not the plan. Now we see the plan - and it’s shocking.

We need to stop bickering over the details in each of these bills in congress and see the larger picture. We need to stop trying to add amendments and repealing others to find some sort of compromise that will allow a bill to pass. This is the most frightening thing that could happen in congress.

No part of this blueprint should be allowed to pass through congress and find its way to the Resolute desk. It’s already too late to stop the Stimulus Bill which was one page of the blueprint. But 85% of that money has yet to be spent and can still be returned to the U.S. Treasury.

Unfortunately, this congress has no intention of doing that as the remainder of the money has already been earmarked, either directly or indirectly, for the election and re-election of more Democrats to congress. Those people will be the tenants who will fill the corporate offices in the socialist building that the Obama has under construction. These piles of legislation must be stopped in congress altogether or the free country we all know and love is finished.

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Washington, DC
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2009 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT): This marks two years in a row for Senator Dodd, who made the 2008 “Ten Most Corrupt” list for his corrupt relationship with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for accepting preferential treatment and loan terms from Countrywide Financial, a scandal which still dogs him. In 2009, the scandals kept coming for the Connecticut Democrat. In 2009, Judicial Watch filed a Senate ethics complaint against Dodd for undervaluing a property he owns in Ireland on his Senate Financial Disclosure forms. Judicial Watch’s complaint forced Dodd to amend the forms. However, press reports suggest the property to this day remains undervalued. Judicial Watch also alleges in the complaint that Dodd obtained a sweetheart deal for the property in exchange for his assistance in obtaining a presidential pardon (during the Clinton administration) and other favors for a long-time friend and business associate. The false financial disclosure forms were part of the cover-up. Dodd remains the head the Senate Banking Committee.

Senator John Ensign (R-NV): A number of scandals popped up in 2009 involving public officials who conducted illicit affairs, and then attempted to cover them up with hush payments and favors, an obvious abuse of power. The year’s worst offender might just be Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign. Ensign admitted in June to an extramarital affair with the wife of one of his staff members, who then allegedly obtained special favors from the Nevada Republican in exchange for his silence. According to The New York Times: “The Justice Department and the Senate Ethics Committee are expected to conduct preliminary inquiries into whether Senator John Ensign violated federal law or ethics rules as part of an effort to conceal an affair with the wife of an aide…” The former staffer, Douglas Hampton, began to lobby Mr. Ensign’s office immediately upon leaving his congressional job, despite the fact that he was subject to a one-year lobbying ban. Ensign seems to have ignored the law and allowed Hampton lobbying access to his office as a payment for his silence about the affair. (These are potentially criminal offenses.) It looks as if Ensign misused his public office (and taxpayer resources) to cover up his sexual shenanigans.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA): Judicial Watch is investigating a $12 million TARP cash injection provided to the Boston-based OneUnited Bank at the urging of Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank. As reported in the January 22, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, the Treasury Department indicated it would only provide funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending. Not only was OneUnited Bank in massive financial turmoil, but it was also “under attack from its regulators for allegations of poor lending practices and executive-pay abuses, including owning a Porsche for its executives’ use.” Rep. Frank admitted he spoke to a “federal regulator,” and Treasury granted the funds. (The bank continues to flounder despite Frank’s intervention for federal dollars.) Moreover, Judicial Watch uncovered documents in 2009 that showed that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even as liberals led by Rep. Frank continued to block attempts to rein in the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). For example, during a hearing on September 10, 2003, before the House Committee on Financial Services considering a Bush administration proposal to further regulate Fannie and Freddie, Rep. Frank stated: “I want to begin by saying that I am glad to consider the legislation, but I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two Government Sponsored Enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. We have recently had an accounting problem with Freddie Mac that has led to people being dismissed, as appears to be appropriate. I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury.” Frank received $42,350 in campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 1989 and 2008. Frank also engaged in a (gay)relationship with a Fannie Mae Executive while serving on the House Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner: In 2009, Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes from 2001-2004 on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system. (Did we mention Geithner now runs the IRS?) It wasn’t until President Obama tapped Geithner to head the Treasury Department that he paid back most of the money, although the IRS kindly waived the hefty penalties. In March 2009, Geithner also came under fire for his handling of the AIG bonus scandal, where the company used $165 million of its bailout funds to pay out executive bonuses, resulting in a massive public backlash. Of course as head of the New York Federal Reserve, Geithner helped craft the AIG deal in September 2008. However, when the AIG scandal broke, Geithner claimed he knew nothing of the bonuses until March 10, 2009. The timing is important. According to CNN: “Although Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told congressional leaders on Tuesday that he learned of AIG’s impending $160 million bonus payments to members of its troubled financial-products unit on March 10, sources tell TIME that the New York Federal Reserve informed Treasury staff that the payments were imminent on Feb. 28. That is ten days before Treasury staffers say they first learned ‘full details’ of the bonus plan, and three days before the [Obama] Administration launched a new $30 billion infusion of cash for AIG.” Throw in another embarrassing disclosure in 2009 that Geithner employed “household help” ineligible to work in the United States, and it becomes clear why the Treasury Secretary has earned a spot on the “Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington” list.

Attorney General Eric Holder: Tim Geithner can be sure he won’t be hounded about his tax-dodging by his colleague Eric Holder, US Attorney General. Judicial Watch strongly opposed Holder because of his terrible ethics record, which includes: obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro’s Cuba.

Moreover, there is his soft record on terrorism.

Holder bypassed Justice Department procedures to push through Bill Clinton’s scandalous presidential pardons and commutations, including for 16 members of FALN, a violent Puerto Rican terrorist group that orchestrated approximately 120 bombings in the United States, killing at least six people and permanently maiming dozens of others, including law enforcement officers. His record in the current administration is no better. As he did during the Clinton administration, Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact his political bosses at the White House. For example, Holder has refused to investigate charges that the Obama political machine traded VIP access to the White House in exchange for campaign contributions – a scheme eerily similar to one hatched by Holder’s former boss, Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The Holder Justice Department also came under fire for dropping a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. On Election Day 2008, Black Panthers dressed in paramilitary garb threatened voters as they approached polling stations. Holder has also failed to initiate a comprehensive Justice investigation of the notorious organization ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which is closely tied to President Obama. There were allegedly more than 400,000 fraudulent ACORN voter registrations in the 2008 campaign. And then there were the journalist videos catching ACORN Housing workers advising undercover reporters on how to evade tax, immigration, and child prostitution laws. Holder’s controversial decisions on new rights for terrorists and his attacks on previous efforts to combat terrorism remind many of the fact that his former law firm has provided and continues to provide pro bono representation to terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Holder’s politicization of the Justice Department makes one long for the days of Alberto Gonzales.

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)/ Senator Roland Burris (D-IL): One of the most serious scandals of 2009 involved a scheme by former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to sell President Obama’s then-vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Two men caught smack dab in the middle of the scandal: Senator Roland Burris, who ultimately got the job, and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, emissaries for Jesse Jackson Jr., named “Senate Candidate A” in the Blagojevich indictment, reportedly offered $1.5 million to Blagojevich during a fundraiser if he named Jackson Jr. to Obama’s seat. Three days later federal authorities arrested Blagojevich. Burris, for his part, apparently lied about his contacts with Blagojevich, who was arrested in December 2008 for trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat. According to Reuters: “Roland Burris came under fresh scrutiny…after disclosing he tried to raise money for the disgraced former Illinois governor who named him to the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama…In the latest of those admissions, Burris said he looked into mounting a fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich — later charged with trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat — at the same time he was expressing interest to the then-governor’s aides about his desire to be appointed.” Burris changed his story five times regarding his contacts with Blagojevich prior to the Illinois governor appointing him to the U.S. Senate. Three of those changing explanations came under oath.

President Barack Obama: During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to run an ethical and transparent administration. However, in his first year in office, the President has delivered corruption and secrecy, bringing Chicago-style political corruption to the White House. Consider just a few Obama administration “lowlights” from year one: Even before President Obama was sworn into office, he was interviewed by the FBI for a criminal investigation of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s scheme to sell the President’s former Senate seat to the highest bidder. (Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and slumlord Valerie Jarrett, both from Chicago, are also tangled up in the Blagojevich scandal.) Moreover, the Obama administration made the startling claim that the Privacy Act does not apply to the White House. The Obama White House believes it can violate the privacy rights of American citizens without any legal consequences or accountability. President Obama boldly proclaimed that “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” but his administration is addicted to secrecy, stonewalling far too many of Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act requests and is refusing to make public White House visitor logs as federal law requires. The Obama administration turned the National Endowment of the Arts (as well as the agency that runs the AmeriCorps program) into propaganda machines, using tax dollars to persuade “artists” to promote the Obama agenda. According to documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the idea emerged as a direct result of the Obama campaign and enjoyed White House approval and participation. President Obama has installed a record number of “czars” in positions of power. Too many of these individuals are leftist radicals who answer to no one but the president. And too many of the czars are not subject to Senate confirmation (which raises serious constitutional questions). Under the President’s bailout schemes, the federal government continues to appropriate or control — through fiat and threats — large sectors of the private economy, prompting conservative columnist George Will to write: “The administration’s central activity — the political allocation of wealth and opportunity — is not merely susceptible to corruption, it is corruption.” Government-run healthcare and car companies, White House coercion, uninvestigated ACORN corruption, debasing his office to help Chicago cronies, attacks on conservative media and the private sector, unprecedented and dangerous new rights for terrorists, perks for campaign donors – this is Obama’s “ethics” record — and we haven’t even gotten through the first year of his presidency.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): At the heart of the corruption problem in Washington is a sense of entitlement. Politicians believe laws and rules (even the U.S. Constitution) apply to the rest of us but not to them. Case in point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her excessive and boorish demands for military travel. Judicial Watch obtained documents from the Pentagon in 2008 that suggest Pelosi has been treating the Air Force like her own personal airline. These documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, include internal Pentagon email correspondence detailing attempts by Pentagon staff to accommodate Pelosi’s numerous requests for military escorts and military aircraft as well as the speaker’s 11th hour cancellations and changes. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also came under fire in April 2009, when she claimed she was never briefed about the CIA’s use of the waterboarding technique during terrorism investigations. The CIA produced a report documenting a briefing with Pelosi on September 4, 2002, that suggests otherwise. Judicial Watch also obtained documents, including a CIA Inspector General report, which further confirmed that Congress was fully briefed on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Aside from her own personal transgressions, Nancy Pelosi has ignored serious incidents of corruption within her own party, including many of the individuals on this list. (See Rangel, Murtha, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.)

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the rest of the PMA Seven: Rep. John Murtha made headlines in 2009 for all the wrong reasons. The Pennsylvania congressman is under federal investigation for his corrupt relationship with the now-defunct defense lobbyist PMA Group. PMA, founded by a former Murtha associate, has been the congressman’s largest campaign contributor. Since 2002, Murtha has raised $1.7 million from PMA and its clients. And what did PMA and its clients receive from Murtha in return for their generosity? Earmarks — tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. In fact, even with all of the attention surrounding his alleged influence peddling, Murtha kept at it. Following an FBI raid of PMA’s offices earlier in 2009, Murtha continued to seek congressional earmarks for PMA clients, while also hitting them up for campaign contributions. According to The Hill, in April, “Murtha reported receiving contributions from three former PMA clients for whom he requested earmarks in the pending appropriations bills.” When it comes to the PMA scandal, Murtha is not alone. As many as six other Members of Congress are currently under scrutiny according to The Washington Post. They include: Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN.), James P. Moran Jr. (D-VA), Norm Dicks (D-WA.), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), C.W. Bill Young (R-FL.) and Todd Tiahrt (R-KS.). Of course rather than investigate this serious scandal, according to Roll Call House Democrats circled the wagons, “cobbling together a defense to offer political cover to their rank and file.” The Washington Post also reported in 2009 that Murtha’s nephew received $4 million in Defense Department no-bid contracts: “Newly obtained documents…show Robert Murtha mentioning his influential family connection as leverage in his business dealings and holding unusual power with the military.”

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY): Rangel, the man in charge of writing tax policy for the entire country, has yet to adequately explain how he could possibly “forget” to pay taxes on $75,000 in rental income he earned from his off-shore rental property. He also faces allegations that he improperly used his influence to maintain ownership of highly coveted rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, and misused his congressional office to fundraise for his private Rangel Center by preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company in exchange for funding. On top of all that, Rangel recently amended his financial disclosure reports, which doubled his reported wealth. (He somehow “forgot” about $1 million in assets.) And what did he do when the House Ethics Committee started looking into all of this? He apparently resorted to making “campaign contributions” to dig his way out of trouble. According to WCBS TV, a New York CBS affiliate: “The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently ‘wrangling’ other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles…Since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.” Charlie Rangel should not be allowed to remain in Congress, let alone serve as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and he knows it. That’s why he felt the need to disburse campaign contributions to Ethics Committee members and other congressional colleagues.

About Michelle Obama :

Written by Dr. Paul L. Williams

“In my own life in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service, “…
Michelle Obama

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn’t perform any official duties. But this hasn’t deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.

Just think, Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary from her husband’s salary.

Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by taxpayers:

Mamie Eisenhower: One– paid for personally out of President’s salary.

Jackie Kennedy: One

Roseline Carter: One

Barbara Bush: One

Hilary Clinton: Three

Laura Bush: One

Michele Obama: Twenty-two

How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Ms. Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU,

John Q.Public.

Michele Obama’s personal staff:

One.. $172,200 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)

Two.. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of
Policy And Projects For The First Lady)

Three.. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House
Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama)

Four.. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications
for the First Lady)

Five… $100,000 - Winter, Melissa (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First

Lady)

Six.. $90,000 - Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

Seven.. $84,000 - Lilyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)

Eight.. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)

Nine.. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Project for the First Lady)

Ten.. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)

Eleven.. $64,000 - Reinstein, Joseph B.(Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)

Twelve.. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First

Lady)

Thirteen.. $60,000 Fitz, Alan O.(Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)

Fourteen.. $57,500 - Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)

Fifteen… $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)

Sixteen.. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)

Seventeen.. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)

Eighteen.. $43,000 - Tubman, Samanth a (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)

Nineteen.. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

Twenty.. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)

Twenty-One.. $35,000 - Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)

Twenty-Two.. $35,000 - Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)

Total.. $1,591,200 in annual salaries

There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady’s social life.

One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense.

Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and “First Hairstylist” Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air Force One to Europe .
.

 GOP Congressional Politics, JD Hayworth, Panty Bomber and FOOTBALL

AJM:  Hello Congressman, how are you today?

DH:  Very good.

AJM:  How did your speech go?

DH:  Good.  It was a great event.  It was for a guy named Lew Meyer.  He was guy who was in Hue City when the NVA came and took Hue City, which our Marines then retook.  He was badly hurt and was then in a POW camp.  We got him a POW medal and a purple heart.

AJM:  That’s great.  Did you say it was on the Midway?

DH:  Yeah, the ceremony was on the Midway.  I’ve got about 20 minutes here, so let’s roll.

AJM:  OK, let me close my office door so I don’t disturb the neighbors. 

DH:  OK.

AJM:  OK.  Happy New Year to you first of all.  I guess what I’d like to know, what we’d like to know is what are your plans for 2010 in terms of helping move the country, move the ball in our direction?  I know you’ve been very involved through 2009 , so what are your plans going into 2010?

DH:  Well, I think the best efforts of all Republicans and all conservatives is to try to get good guys to run for office, particularly in seats in what I would call swing districts, where we can take a big step, a giant step towards taking congress back.  And to those ends, what I’ve been doing is trying to help a few good candidates.  One of whom is Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch who is running for Congress here in San Diego against a long term liberal incumbent Bob Filner.  Popaditch is a Silver Star winner who was in that famous picture as the statue of Saddam came down, when Baghdad fell.  He was a tanker and was thereafter injured pretty badly in a tough firefight, won the Silver Star, came back to the States and is now running for that congressional seat.

We have a number of other good guys who are running fresh out of the Service.  One is Vaughn Ward, a rifle company commander in Iraq and he is running for the seat in Boise, one of the two house seats there.   Then we have Jesse Kelly who is running for what should be a Republican seat in Tucson.  That is a seat that has a 20,000 vote Republican plurality, yet the seat is held by a democrat.

So helping with these – what I would call these “takeback” congressional districts, helping good, conservative candidates win in those districts should be the agenda for all Republicans and all conservatives this year.

AJM:  Sounds like a good agenda. 

DH:  You win these things by winning seats and that’s how we’ll take away this “do anything I want to do” program that the Obama Administration has embarked upon.  They aren’t held back now, they are filibuster proof in the Senate, and as the Health Care vote demonstrated, they have enough votes to override a filibuster attempt.  And that means essentially they can do whatever they want to do.   That’s not balance, that’s not checks and balances, but rather it is the pathway for a socialist agenda this next year.

AJM:  Yes sir!  This next question is related and it is a little bit touchier.  And that is what about conservatives challenging established moderates in the party for their seats?

DH:  It depends.  I’ve always been cool to that approach, because we end up with a limited number of bullets and we end up shooting each other.  Republicans can’t afford to do that, generally.  So if you’ve got some fairly scarce ammunition and you can use it in a district where $50 thousand or $75 thousand might mean a 2% win for a Republican, like the Nick Popaditch district, why would you go over and spend a million trying to knock out a Republican in a safe Republican seat?

That approach has always left me a little cool.  And behind that approach, to some degree, is of course the self interest of folks who want to take a Republican seat, that want to get a political seat for themselves, so they end up stirring up a fight with a Republican incumbent who at least makes that first vote in the right column.  And that is the vote for Speaker.  And if you have a Republican majority, you should always have a conservative speaker, because the majority of the Republican Party is conservative.  So if you have a Connecticut liberal like Nancy Johnson or a social liberal like Rob Simmons, who is otherwise good on defense, and that person would vote for,  say, a Newt Gingrich for Speaker of the House.  So it’s much more worthwhile to expend your ammunition trying to take back a district that is held by a Democrat then shooting at each other – and I say that as a staunch conservative – shooting at other republicans when your ammunition is scarce when it’s going to take an all out effort to simply win a majority.

AJM:  I understand that position, and that is the good Republican position.  Now I’m going to ask you to put on your conservative hat.  What happens in the instances when a moderate IS challenged by a conservative?  Obviously certain moderates, oh I would say like a Lincoln Chafee, is really quite left actually as opposed to moderate.  But in this case specifically, I heard today that JD Hayworth, your old buddy from Congress, is going to challenge John McCain for his Senate seat.

DH:  Yeah?  I haven’t heard that.  But I’m going to see JD I think in a couple of weeks.   He’s going to be out helping Jesse Kelly.  I’m sure if that’s what he’s going to do, I’m sure he’ll call me about it.  You know, everybody is an ‘independent contractor’ so you can’t say you don’t have the right to run in a district – whether it’s for a Senate seat or a House seat – and go up against a member of your own party. 

What you were asking me about, though, was the practicality of using scarce ammunition to shoot our own soldiers.  And my answer to that is, that it is not a practical thing to do. 

Now, you called me with a lot of enthusiasm about having a 3rd candidate when we had a Republican candidate and had a democrat candidate in that NY district 23.  I think that, wasn’t that the McHugh district?

AJM:  Yes.  McHugh moved onto the Administration…

DH:  What I told you probably would happen, or had a chance of happening, occurred.  That is, we ended up having a split.  From a Democrat’s strategy point of view, they loved it when the Republicans basically had a split.   Then the Republican nominee, who did something entirely inappropriate, which is to endorse the democrat.  So the one thing that could keep the democrats in control of that particular seat occurred. 

So at some point, here’s what you have:  You have to win!  Winning is important.  So when you only have so much ammo, you want to ensure every bullet is expended to achieve maximum leverage. 

The district next door to my seat, which I won in 1980, I ran against an 18 year Democrat, liberal incumbent, I couldn’t raise a dime from the Republicans.  In fact, I had to sell my house to run.  Which I did.  But I couldn’t raise any money from the so-called Republican establishment.  That same establishment put about 3 million dollars into the primary contest in the Republican district next door.  The money I got from selling my house, which I could not raise from the Republicans, put me over the top and I was able to win that 2 to 1 democrat seat by 53% to 47%.  So I learned first hand that, in terms of numbers, I gave the Republican party a seat that they otherwise would not have had.  So it’s much more effective to use your ammunition shooting at the other side than shooting at your own troops.

AJM:  I generally agree.  I don’t anticipate that JD Haworth will get much support from the Party.  He’s going to have to raise his money on his own. 

DH:  I want to be clear.  I’m not talking about JD.  JD hasn’t said anything to me, so I don’t want to personalize or speculate about what your friends are going to do.  I like JD, he’s a great friend of mine.  And what you do in a case when you have a personal friendship, is very often you throw all the rules aside.  Personal friendships are still important in this world, and they are important to me.

But you asked me a general question about Republicans using their resources to shoot their own guys in primaries, and I said it’s not a practical strategy, and it’s not.  I mean look at the national numbers.  The democrats are below 50% approval for the first time.   We have to strike hard.

If you ask me whether I would take a liberal Republican in a seat where his first vote would be for John Boehner for Speaker of the House, rather than Nancy Pelosi; or you are going to have a lefty in that seat who votes for Nancy Pelosi, my preference is always going to be the former.

AJM:  I understand that, and I think most conservatives do.  But the environment, especially with the Tea Parties, has kind of changed the outlook on Republicans as well as Democrats.. …

DH:  Yes it has.  But I’m reminded of another thing.  You know Bob Dornan lost to Loretta Sanchez here in Orange County…

AJM:  Uhhhggggg…

DH:  And Bob Dornan was one of the great conservatives in our party.  Dornan was beaten by a couple of hundred votes.  I think 224 votes, arguably a number of them cast by illegal aliens.  The democrats played the race card and the republicans folded.  Nonetheless, he only lost by about 200 votes.  The libertarian candidate got about 5000 votes, as I recall.  And probably a lot of those people who voted libertarian, said ‘well I’m going to vote Libertarian because I think the Republicans haven’t done enough to cut taxes, they don’t do enough for freedom’.  So by voting libertarian, they helped to elect a liberal over a real conservative.  That’s what I call the practical aspects of dividing your votes and dividing your resources. 

AJM:  Yeah, I understand the third party notion and what it can do.  I think you explained it well regarding that seat in NY.  But when we talk in terms of Republican primary I think it’s been your practice, in fact I know you’ve actually recruited conservative candidates in the past to run against more liberal republicans.  And I think we are going to see a fairly decent groundswell of that this time, within the Republican Party, not necessarily third party. 

DH:  Yeah.  People I’ve recruited in the past, like Gunny Nick Popaditch – though I’m not the only person to have encouraged him to run, I don’t want to give myself all the credit – I think he’s a great candidate.  But I asked him if he’s interested in running against an extremely liberal Democrat.  And that’s the reason I wanted Nick to run. 

AJM:  Yeah, that’s a seat held by a democrat.  In the past, with the Conservative Opportunity Society, you were trying to identify conservatives to run, not just Republicans.

DH:  Oh that’s true.  I still do.  But all the conservatives I recruited to run, I recruited to run as Republicans during my tenure at COS.   (Laughing) I don’t recall ever asking anyone to run on the Libertarian ticket.

AJM:  (laughs) Oh, no, no, no.   

DH:  (laughing) That’d have been a real trick if I had!

AJM:  OK.  Well good.  I’m sure you’ll be hearing from JD in the weeks to come.  It will be interesting to see what happens there.

DH:  Yeah.  JD is a great guy and he’s a great friend. 

AJM:  Yeah, I noticed also, you told me you endorsed Mr. Bob Smith for Senate down there in Florida, not the moderate NRSC’s Charlie…. 

DH:  Yeah.  Bob Smith helped me in my presidential race.  He supported me.  Plus, he’s an old time friend of 30 years.  That’s important.

AJM:  Plus he’s an old cold warrior too.  We don’t seem to have too many anti-communists around anymore.  We need a few more of them, I’ll tell ya.

DH:  Yes, we do.  Bob Smith’s a great guy and I would do the same thing again.

AJM:  Well good.  There you go, you’re stirring the pot.

DH:  (laughs) That’s not so.  You have a general practical rule which is when you divide votes, you divide resources, that hurts you in terms of the general election.  But against that rule, you’ve got exceptions.  One exception is old friends who have known you  for a long time, who have helped you.  There’s a certain reciprocity involved.  And also, going out and recruiting candidates as I’ve done.  When you go out and recruit a conservative candidate and you ask them to run, because you think they are just a tremendous candidate that would do great things for the country, you don’t have a crystal ball that tells you that 3 weeks from now you’re going to have a state senator get into the race who has got good poll numbers.  So you understand, once you go out and recruit that good candidate to run, then you have to stick with him.  There’s a certain loyalty factor involved.  So overlay that loyalty factor, that conservative factor, and the recruitment factor against the practical rule that you want to use your scarce ammunition in the real battle (general election), not against fellow republicans.  I think that is an important thing.

AJM:  OK,  very good.

Now on to our Christmas underwear bomber.  I’m sure you are quite aware of that story, about the guy getting on the airplane with the bomb planted in his skivvies.   They did not ‘connect the dots’ on this guy and I’m wondering if it’s because of their attitude that this is not really a WAR on terrorists we’re engaged in.  They changed it to an “Overseas Contingency Operation”, and they don’t use the words “terrorism” or “jihadists”, so I think political correctness has slipped back into this fight, especially with the idea we are going to prosecute these guys in court.  What is your message to the Obama Administration about how we need to keep these folks off of airplanes and out of our country?

DH:  The Obama Administration, I hope, has learned the lesson that you can’t eliminate the war by changing your vocabulary.  You can’t do that anymore than they could have in 1942 by declaring that World War II was over.  That is essentially what the Obama Administration tried to do.  They thought that by changing their vocabulary, they could somehow stop these jihadists from attacking us.  That is a rather naïve point of view.  And if that is representative of their strategic thinking, I think the country is in for real trouble.

AJM:  I’ve seen nothing from these guys that tells me it’s not.  That is why this 2010 election we just talked about it is one of the most crucial in our modern history.  We’ve had others, but this one’s a biggie.

DH:  Oh yeah!  That’s why I’m doing…..let me again make a pitch for 3 guys.  You’ve got 3 military guys who went out there and fought for this country in Iraq and understand what it takes to defeat an enemy.  One of the guys is Gunnery Sergeant Nick Popaditch, the “cigar marine”.  He was the guy that was sitting in the turret of an M1 tank as the statue of Saddam came down.  He later won the Silver Star in heavy combat.  A great, great speaker, very eloquent;  running against liberal Bob Filner here.   We’ve got to help him.  Also, Jesse Kelly, who was a Corporal who went over the line in the initial push towards Baghdad.  He comes from a business family, and could have easily avoided service.  In fact, everyone that serves today serves as a volunteer.    He went into the combat arms as an infantryman and served in that first Iraq push.  He’s running in Tucson.  And lastly, Vaughn Ward, who served in both the CIA and as a Marine rifle company commander in Iraq, running in the Boise district of Idaho.   These are three guys who served our country and want to serve again in the Congress.  I’ve backed them up.  If I did nothing else, I’d cut three checks and send them to those guys.

AJM:  Well, you’re definitely going to get checks coming for all those guys.  Plus there are another couple of gentlemen, like the guy out in Iowa, Chris Reed, who I believe you’ve campaigned for as well.

DH:  Yes, absolutely.  While he didn’t serve in a combat unit in Iraq or Afghanistan, he nonetheless was in the Navy, a servant of our country.  He’s running against the liberal, Mr. Loebsack out there in Iowa.  Great candidate.  So I went out there to do a small event for him.  We’ve got to help him out.  That seat is representative of the kind of swing district that we need to get back if we are going to win majority.  We can’t just win the solid Republican districts.  We’ve got to win some tough ones.  That seats in the same position, I think, as Mr. Filner’s here in San Diego.  It’s a Democrat seat, a district that is marginally Democrat, but populated by a conservative constituency and voter base.  We can win these with good candidates.  Chris is an example of one of those good candidates. 

AJM:  And you are going to stay involved in these campaigns and other campaigns of up and coming conservatives throughout the year?

DH:  Absolutely.  Yes. 

AJM:  Well your 20 minutes is up, I hate to tell you (laughs).  I know you have limited time, but I have to ask you this.  Are you a San Diego Chargers fan by chance?

DH:  Uh, yes.

AJM:  And you think their chances this year are???

DH:  Listen.  I always think the Chargers are going to win every game.  (laughs).  With respect to other facets of life, we can be practical, we must be practical.  But with the Chargers, I’m always for the Chargers whether they are up or down or indifferent, and I always think they are going to win every game.    In this case they’ve won what?  The last eleven?

AJM:  Yes.  I think.

DH:  And Phillip Rivers has never lost a game in December, he’s 18-0 for December.  And I hope that carries into this month!  But I think we’ve got a great chance of winning everything.

AJM:  They are looking good.  I just filled out a football pool, I’m still picking the Vikings to win the Super Bowl – they’ve been my team since I was a kid – but in terms of who looks the scariest right now, I’d say it’s San Diego.

DH:  San Diego’s looking good.  Incidentally, on the college level, Vaughn Ward, the guy who is running for Congress in Boise Idaho, his team Boise State has done well.  They just won the Fiesta Bowl.

AJM:  Is Vaughn a Boise State grad?

DH:  No, I don’t think he’s a Boise State grad, but he’s a Boise State aficionado at this point. 

AJM:  (Laughs)  After last night’s National Championship game, Boise State ended up in the final polling, the AP and the Coaches Poll, as number 4 in the nation.  That’s pretty impressive, because I think they have all but one of their starters is coming back next year.  Can you believe that?

DH:  Yeah.  They ought to be a little higher.  What they did was simply let them replace TCU who they beat.

AJM:  Pretty much.

DH:  They beat Oklahoma, they beat Oregon.

AJM:  They should be number 2.

DH:  I think they are the number 1 team in the nation!  Who do they have ranked right now as number 1?

AJM:  Alabama, of course.

DH:  Yeah.  But you know, TCU was number 4 ranked, right? 

AJM:  Uh huh.

DH:  What did they get?  45 yards on the ground against Boise State?

AJM:  That was an impressive defensive display.

DH:  I think they have definitely got the best defense in the nation.  And I think they’ve got the best team.

AJM:  Well next year, because they should start the year highly ranked, if they go undefeated again, they should get a chance to play for the national championship this time, even though they are in the WAC.  So we’ll see.

Final question for you.  Michael Steele.  Have you been paying attention to this guy the last few days?

DH:  I haven’t been following Michael, but I know him.

AJM:  He managed to put his foot in his mouth one more time.  Yesterday, talking to Sean Hannity, Hannity asked him if he thought we had enough to take back the House, and he answered “no”.  So he’s been scrambling trying to do damage control.  But there have been a lot of calls for his head.  Do you think it is beneficial at this point to call for this guy’s head?

DH:  No.  What I think Michael’s got to do, is redouble his efforts to take back the house.  He can always make up by action for what faux pas have been wrought by speech.   If he just works real hard and helps us raise money and goes into those districts – he’s a good speaker – and just does everything he can for us to win…

AJM:  He needs to watch his language or something.  He’s very good at shooting himself in the feet.

DH:  Well, I’m not good at un-ringing bells.  So it sounds like that bell’s been rung.  (laughing)

AJM:  (laughs)  Well listen, I’ll let you go.  And I’m going to be bugging you once JD gets a hold of you, and I’m going to ask you if you’ll be supported him over McCain.

DH:  OK.  Good

AJM:  I have a sneaking suspicion you’re going to. 

DH:  (laughs)  Well, thanks for calling up and….

AJM:  No more Amnesty Queens.  Have a good day.

DH:  OK.  Goodbye.