An Endangered America

By Alan Caruba

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” said Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and our third President. As usual, he was right.

Present day Americans take for granted the story of the American Revolution, but few consider what a fearful undertaking that was when the Declaration was published on July 4, 1776.

Thirteen colonies of the greatest power on Earth at that time, Great Britain, determined to establish a free and independent nation.

With some notable exceptions, we are mostly ignorant of the signers of that document and I would be willing to guess that few Americans realize how long the war for our independence lasted.

It began with a local militia engagement with the British in Lexington, Massachusetts in 1775. It would end eight years later in 1783 at Yorktown, Virginia. Estimates are that 25,000 Americans gave their lives over the course of the war; some 8,000 in battle and the rest by disease or as prisoners of war.

Eight years is a long time and it is generally conceded that the tenaciousness and will of one man led to victory. His name was George Washington.

“Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty,” said Louis D. Brandeis, a Supreme Court Justice.

What followed the Revolution were the Articles of Confederation that proved a dismal failure. On May 25, 1787, in great secrecy, a group of delegates from seven States, gathered to revise them. Eventually twelve of the thirteen States were represented.

The Constitution they devised was intended to ensure the process of passing legislation was a slow, laborious one, and that the federal government would have only a few, clearly enumerated powers, with all others reserved to the States and the People.

The men who wrote the Constitution feared both the mob and the concentration of too much power in the federal government. The States were and are independent, sovereign republics.

The U.S. Constitution officially became the law of the land when New Hampshire ratified it on June 21, 1788, being the ninth State to do so. The vote was 57 Yeas, 47 Nays.

The poet, Archibald MacLeish, said it best. “There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.”

The American dream is now the dream of billions around the world. It inspires hope everywhere. It draws to our shores those who want to live and thrive in freedom.

We are a nation in grave danger of being deprived of everything so many Americans worked, fought, and sometimes died to maintain.

We are being betrayed by a political and economic socialist theory that is the antithesis of the American system of governance. It killed millions in the last century.

We are being governed by fear as one “crisis” or another is announced and we are being governed by too many men and women in Congress who have heedlessly plunged the nation into unimaginable debt and propose to burden present and future generations with destructive taxation.

The limits on energy in the name of a non-existent global warming that the Congress is enacting are limits on America’s ability to compete in a world where other nations are using energy, not banning it.

America in 2009 must be reclaimed in the name of all those who came before us and in the name of generations to come. So long as we have the right to make our voices heard, we must demand an end to the plundering of the public treasury, an end to public ownership of private enterprises, and an end to the effort to control our lives through the takeover of the nation’s healthcare system.


Credit for the above story: Accuracy In Media

GAFFNEY: America's first Muslim president?

Obama aligns with the policies of Shariah-adherents

By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

COMMENTARY:

During his White House years, William Jefferson Clinton -- someone Judge Sonia Sotomayor might call a "white male" -- was dubbed "America's first black president" by a black admirer. Applying the standard of identity politics and pandering to a special interest that earned Mr. Clinton that distinction, Barack Hussein Obama would have to be considered America's first Muslim president.

This is not to say, necessarily, that Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim any more than Mr. Clinton actually is black. After his five months in office, and most especially after his just-concluded visit to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, however, a stunning conclusion seems increasingly plausible: The man now happy to have his Islamic-rooted middle name featured prominently has engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.

What little we know about Mr. Obama's youth certainly suggests that he not only had a Kenyan father who was Muslim, but spent his early, formative years as one in Indonesia. As the president likes to say, "much has been made" -- in this case by him and his campaign handlers -- of the fact that he became a Christian as an adult in Chicago, under the now-notorious Pastor Jeremiah A. Wright.

With Mr. Obama's unbelievably ballyhooed address in Cairo Thursday to what he calls "the Muslim world" (hereafter known as "the Speech"), there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself. Consider the following indicators:

• Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to "the Holy Koran." Non-Muslims -- even pandering ones -- generally don't use that Islamic formulation.

• Mr. Obama established his firsthand knowledge of Islam (albeit without mentioning his reported upbringing in the faith) with the statement, "I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed." Again, "revealed" is a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction that the Koran is the word of God, as dictated to Muhammad.

• Then the president made a statement no believing Christian -- certainly not one versed, as he professes to be, in the ways of Islam -- would ever make. In the context of what he euphemistically called the "situation between Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs," Mr. Obama said he looked forward to the day ". . . when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."

Now, the term "peace be upon them" is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men. According to Islam, that is what all three were - dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God.

In the final analysis, it may be beside the point whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim. In the Speech and elsewhere, he has aligned himself with adherents to what authoritative Islam calls Shariah -- notably, the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood -- to a degree that makes Mr. Clinton's fabled affinity for blacks pale by comparison.

For example, Mr. Obama has -- from literally his inaugural address onward -- inflated the numbers and, in that way and others, exaggerated the contemporary and historical importance of Muslim-Americans in the United States. In the Speech, he used the Brotherhood's estimates of "nearly 7 million Muslims" in this country, at least twice the estimates from other, more reputable sources. (Who knows? By the time Mr. Obama's friends in the radical Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) perpetrate their trademark books-cooking as deputy 2010 census takers, the official count may well claim considerably morethan 7 million Muslims are living here.)

Even more troubling were the commitments the president made in Cairo to promote Islam in America. For instance, he declared: "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." He vowed to ensure that women can cover their heads, including, presumably, when having their photographs taken for passports, driver's licenses or other identification purposes. He also pledged to enable Muslims to engage in zakat, their faith's requirement for tithing, even though four of the eight types of charity called for by Shariah can be associated with terrorism. Not surprisingly, a number of Islamic "charities" in this country have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.

Particularly worrying is the realignment Mr. Obama has announced in U.S. policy toward Israel. While he pays lip service to the "unbreakable" bond between America and the Jewish state, the president has unmistakably signaled that he intends to compel the Israelis to make territorial and other strategic concessions to Palestinians to achieve the hallowed two-state solution. In doing so, he ignores the inconvenient fact that both the Brotherhood's Hamas and Abu Mazen's Fatah remain determined to achieve a one-state solution, whereby the Jews will be driven "into the sea."

Whether Mr. Obama actually is a Muslim or simply plays one in the presidency may, in the end, be irrelevant. What is alarming is that in aligning himself and his policies with those of Shariah-adherents such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the president will greatly intensify the already enormous pressure on peaceful, tolerant American Muslims to submit to such forces - and heighten expectations, here and abroad, that the rest of us will do so as well.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy.

Credit: The Washington Times

A life and death situation...

Dear Readers,

Canadian Shona Holmes had a brain tumor and was told by her government health care agency to wait 6 months for treatment. In Canada she had no choice. The government had spoken. So Shona mortgaged her home and came to the United States for immediate treatment--that saved her life. Click her for Shona's story. It's powerful...and frightening.

When you hear the politicians in Washington talk about the idea of "fixing" our health care, do you know what it could mean for you and your family?

*Government between you and your doctor--with government regulations "guiding" your assigned doctor's decisions.

*Medical treatments denied if you, or a loved one, are deemed too old or chronically ill.

*Long waits for life-saving treatments and even longer lines for basic medical procedures.

We at Americans for Prosperity Foundation have launched a project called Patients United Now (PatientsUnitedNow.com) to educate patients like you and your parents and your children and other loved ones exactly on what's at stake in this health care policy debate.

Here are three key action items you can take to stop a Washington takeover of health care.

• Sign up on our website and join Patients United Now.

• Spread the message--forward the TV ad to a friend.

• Share your personal health care story online.

Our Patients United Now team is traveling the nation telling the truth about what a government takeover of health care will mean for all of us. Come out and be heard--bring your friends and family! Find an event near you.

You may see our new AFP Foundation Communications Director, Amy Menefee, on the road or on the news as our Patients United Now initiative continues to gain momentum.

My wife, Julie, and I have four children. We cannot imagine the government deciding which doctors they can see and the treatments for which they are "eligible."

Julie's mother faces Alzheimer's. We cannot imagine certain medical treatments being denied by the government because of her age, but that's exactly what bureaucrats could do in Washington.

As part of Americans for Prosperity Foundation, you've worked to defend our economic freedoms. Today, I'm asking you to stand up and defend your own health care.

Sincerely,

Tim Phillips

PS: All the details I mentioned in this post to you, all the research, all the facts about what policies the Washington politicians and bureaucrats are discussing are at www.PatientsUnitedNow.com. Please go to the site now and take action. Government should never come between your family and your doctor.

This was an email to me the blog owner from Tim Phillips that I modified slightly to post to my readers to help Tim in his effort.

Time For Tough Choices: California

From the LA Times:

Reporting from Sacramento -- With deficit forecasts growing darker by the day, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering a plan to slash California's safety net for the poor by eliminating the state's main welfare program, health insurance for low-income families and cash grants to college students.

Of course California is known for having "sanctuary cities", $200,000 pensions for firefighters and in general providing largess to everyone - even those who aren't citizens.

This is a problem, of course, but it didn't bother all the bleeding hearts so long as all the high-flying people out there were flipping houses and running up their credit cards.

Now, of course, the credit card is dead and the home is being foreclosed on, much like the rest of the nation as a whole - but of course the Federal Government can run deficits so long as it can con China - California can't.

Its time to set an example here folks:

• No more "freebies" for illegals. Period. No free medical care, no free schools, not even jailing people - you get caught here illegally you get sent home. Period, end of discussion, full-stop. Start right now and enforce the damn law; a HUGE percentage of California's prison population are in fact illegal aliens. We pay twice - first for the crime, then again to jail them. Stop being stupid.
• Stop paying civil service jobs (firefighters, teachers, etc) $100,000+, more than twice the per-capita income.
• Fix the pension system so it can't be gamed and double-dipped to the tune of $200,000+ for that same firefighter when they retire.
• Stop subsidizing people who want to have 8 embryos IVF'd into their uterus when they can't personally cover the cost of BIRTHING those eight new mouths, never mind attempting to raise them.
• If you're "poor" and need help, make receiving that help conditioned on working. If nothing else I bet there's a bunch of trash alongside roads that needs to be picked up. If you're able-bodied, no help without working in exchange - for the general benefit of society. Period.

What's happening here is entirely predictable and in fact has been predicted. You can't spend more than you make for very long; eventually your credit card comes back "declined."

California is first in this regard but won't be the last.

Wake up America.

And in the meantime (and as a hedge if the government tries to be even more stupid) go buy a gun and some ammo. When the "entitlement" checks stop going to those who think they have a right to pop out eight kids and bill the state for the medical, I'll make book on riots and other forms of general civil nastiness.

Credit: The Market Ticker

Don't Forget Who Got Us Into This Depression In The First Place

Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis.

NY Times Kills Game Changing Story During 2008 Election

Killing A Story: How It's Done

In today's New York Times, Public Editor Clark Hoyt reveals the result of his investigation into the charge that the paper killed a story during the 2008 Presidential campaign in order to help Barack Obama. Hoyt concludes that the claim is "nonsense."

ON March 17, a Republican lawyer, quoting a confidential source for a Times reporter, testified to Congress that the newspaper killed a story last fall because it would have been "a game-changer" in the presidential election.

The charge, amplified by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in April and reverberating around the conservative blogosphere, is about the most damning allegation that can be made against a news organization. If true, it would mean that Times editors, whose job is to report the facts without fear or favor, were so lacking in integrity that they withheld an important story in order to influence the election.

But the facts as related by Hoyt don't rebut the charge; they support it.

Times reporter Stephanie Strom was looking into ACORN, and she had a source, a former ACORN employee named Anita Moncrief. Moncrief told Strom that she had evidence of "constant contact" between ACORN's Project Vote and both the Obama and Clinton campaigns:

On Sept. 7, Moncrief wrote to Strom that she had donor lists from the campaigns of Obama and Hillary Clinton and that there had been "constant contact" between the campaigns and Project Vote, an Acorn affiliate whose tax-exempt status forbids it to engage in partisan politics. Moncrief said she had withheld that information earlier but was disclosing it now that the conservative columnist Michelle Malkin was "all over it."

"I am sorry," she wrote, "but I believe in Obama and did not want to help the Republicans."

A key part of Moncrief's story was that the Obama campaign had furnished ACORN with lists of maxed-out donors so that ACORN could mine them for contributions. In fact, Moncrief provided the Times reporter, Strom, with such a list that ACORN allegedly obtained from the Obama campaign. Hoyt does not dispute that this story, if true, was evidence of violation of the campaign finance laws.

So why did the Times pull the plug on Strom's ongoing investigation? The story became public because a Republican lawyer named Heather Heidelbaugh testified, apparently based on information she got from Anita Moncrief, that the Times had been working on an Obama-ACORN story but that "Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, 'it was a game-changer.'" Hoyt undertakes to show that this charge was false.

He admits, though, that Strom's editor, Suzanne Daley, "called a halt to Strom's pursuit of the Obama angle." So the Times did kill the investigation and any further reporting. The only question is why. Hoyt uncritically accepts Daley's explanation:

"We had worked on that story for a while and had come up empty-handed," Daley said. "You have to cut bait after a while." She said she never thought of the story as a game-changer and never used that term with Strom.

But wait! Hoyt also relates that shortly before Daley pulled the plug, "Moncrief finally agreed to go on the record" and Strom had scheduled a meeting with her. It was when she called Moncrief to cancel the meeting that Strom allegedly told her that her bosses had killed the investigation to protect Obama. Obviously, if Strom was about to hit pay-dirt with an on-the-record witness, Daley's assertion that she killed the story because Strom "had come up empty-handed" is false.

Hoyt doesn't appear to notice the contradiction. He does, however, labor manfully to defend the Times. He goes to great lengths to refute the claim that Strom told Moncrief the Times killed the story because it was a "game-changer," as though that particular phrase had some talismanic significance. Yet, if you read Hoyt's column to the end, you find that in an email to Hoyt Moncrief attributed exactly that statement to Strom:

She said Strom told her "it was their policy not to print a game-changer for either side that close to the election."

Hoyt also argues that the story about Obama and ACORN would not have been a "game-changer" in that it would not have swung the election to John McCain. I agree. But since when is that the standard? Is Hoyt telling us that the Times' policy is only to print stories that have the potential to change the result of a Presidential election? Of course, if the story did have the potential to change the outcome of the election, that, too, would have been offered as a reason not to print it.

Hoyt also volunteers that Moncrief had a "credibility problem" because she had been fired by ACORN for putting private expenses on an ACORN credit card. So she is that classic newspaper source, a disgruntled former employee. Is Hoyt telling us that the Times doesn't run stories on the basis of leads from disgruntled former employees? Hah! If the paper followed that policy, it would lose out on its best exposes. And it bears repeating that Moncrief was attesting to first-hand information, not just passing along a rumor she had heard at ACORN. By her account, "it was her job to identify" maxed-out Obama donors who might contribute to ACORN's Project Vote.

Hoyt interviewed Strom, of course, but--rather remarkably--he does not reveal what Strom told him about her conversation with Daley in which Daley killed Strom's ongoing investigation. That's a rather significant omission, isn't it? Instead, Hoyt merely quotes Strom's observation that she did write a story on ACORN that appeared on October 22:

[B]efore they were to meet, Strom said, another source gave her an internal report detailing concerns about impermissible political activity by Acorn and its tax-exempt affiliates. The resulting article was published on Oct. 22.

That story is here. It addresses another topic entirely, the lack of any real distinction between ACORN and Project Vote. It does, however, address the Obama controversy, very briefly:

Republicans have tried to make an issue of Senator Barack Obama's ties to the group, which he represented in a lawsuit in 1995. The Obama campaign has denied any connection with Acorn's voter registration drives.

There you have it. That's the last word the Times' readers got on Obama's very likely illegal relationship with ACORN.

If the Times didn't kill the story for the reason illogically asserted by Daley--it hadn't panned out--then why did they kill it? Perhaps Stephanie Strom's email reply to Anita Moncrief, quoted by Hoyt, suggests an answer:

Am also onto the Obama connection, sadly. Would love the donor lists. As for helping the Repubs, they're already onto this like white on rice. SIGH!

For the New York Times, Republicans are simply the enemy. By October 2008, it was time to circle the wagons.

Credit: Power Line

Muslim Demographics

Islamic Sharia Law In The USA... Obama's Appoints A Man Favorable To The Idea.

Tolerance Must Go Both Ways

The below article is copied\pasted and well worth a read however I would like to point out this blog owner sides with Miss California and agrees 100% with her on this issue: Marriage should be between a man and a woman period. That's not taking anything from gays it's just promoting a societal norm if gays want to live together and visit in hospitals so be it, they can have a union for that, but not a marriage because that would be promoting gay as a norm. In real life some gays have learned to be gay not all are born gay (FACT). Also many gays are militant and intolerant in real life, at least the many I've encountered. Gays tried to push themselves on me many a time while I was a young man away from home... now older and wiser thank God.

Tolerance Must Go Both Ways

By Alex Lindquist

On Sunday, people were stunned upon watching as Carrie Prejean, AKA “Miss California,” made comments about her beliefs that marriage should be between one man and one woman. She revealed her opinion in a modest way about how it was the way she was raised, and that no offense is intended for anyone.

While I completely disagree with her opinion, I admire her courage for speaking the truth. Many women in contests such as these will compromise their personal beliefs in an attempt to butter up the judges with answers that they believe will earn them that top spot. Miss Prejean didn’t cave into that pressure, which makes her a rarity among the contestants.

I feel bad for her that the backlash was so great against her. I especially don’t approve of judge Perez Hilton saying she didn’t win “because she’s a dumb bitch.” That right there is an example of being just as intolerant on the other team. Within the gay communities I know, there are homosexuals who hate this woman. Just leave her alone and learn some tolerance of your own. How can anybody be expect others to tolerate them if they haven’t learned any tolerance of their own?

Too often, it seems the gay media focuses too much on opinions of who’s right, and anytime a public figure discusses an opinion that isn’t in favor of gay marriage, that person faces the wrath gays and gay supporters. Suddenly everything becomes about who is right rather than focusing on what the real dilemma is, which is equality. Homosexuals should have the right to marry, and it’s a crime that people from a religious background are fighting it. However, no matter what the outcome, people also have the right to not agree with gay marriage. Being against gay marriage is an opinion, but being part of a movement against equality of gays is a completely different story.

Perez Hilton, YOU are dumb bitch, and you should learn some tolerance of your own before calling names like a schoolyard bully. It’s reasons like this why I hate beauty contests.... a girl can never win just by being herself.

Credit: Original post

Arrogant Americans, Mr. President?

As I was sitting in church waiting for the start of the service, my grandpa came walking towards me pointing his finger. No matter how old I get, and no matter how long he's been out of the U.S. Navy, that's still an intimidating sight. As he approached me, his voice quivered as he said, "We saved that continent twice...how dare my president apologize for this country's arrogance." My grandpa is right. Americans need not apologize to the world for their arrogance; rather, Americans should apologize to their forefathers for the arrogance of their president.

Barack Obama's first foreign trip as President of the United States has confirmed the naiveté so many of us feared during the election cycle. But worse than that, it has also demonstrated that our president suffers from either a complete misunderstanding of our heritage and history, or an utter contempt for it. Neither is excusable.

Garnering cheers from the French of all people, President Obama declared, "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." Consider that Obama spoke these words just 500 miles from the beaches of Normandy, where the sand is still stained with 65-year-old blood of "arrogant Americans."

Indeed, columnist Mark Whittington observes, "One should remind Mr. Obama and the Europeans how America has 'shown arrogance' by saving Europe from itself innumerable times in the 20th Century. World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the wars in the Balkans were largely resolved by American blood, treasure, and leadership." But all that appears lost on the president's seemingly insatiable quest to mend fences he imagines have been tarnished by the bullish George W. Bush.

If Obama wishes to continue trampling the presidential tradition of showing class to former office holders and publicly trash Bush for his own personal gain, so be it. But all Americans should make clear that no man – even if he is the president – will tarnish the legacy of those Americans who have gone before us. Ours is not a history of arrogance. It is a history of courage, self-sacrifice, and honor.

When abusive monarchs repressed the masses, Americans resisted and overthrew them. When misguided policies led to the unjust oppression of fellow citizens, Americans rebelled and overturned them. When millions of impoverished and destitute wretches sought a new beginning, Americans threw open the door and welcomed them. When imperial dictators were on the march, Americans surrendered their lives to stop them. When communist thugs threatened world peace, Americans bled to defeat them. When an entire continent was overwhelmed with famine and hunger, Americans gave of themselves to sustain it. When terrorist madmen killed the innocent and subjugated millions, Americans led the fight to topple them.

This is the legacy that generations of Americans have left. If President Obama seeks stronger relations with the world community, perhaps he should begin by reminding them of these very truths, rather than condemning his own countrymen on foreign shores.

This "obsessive need to put down his own country," has caused blogger James Lewis to call President Obama a "stunningly ignorant man" who has evidently never spoken to a concentration camp survivor, a Cuban refugee, a boat person from Vietnam, a Soviet dissident, or a survivor of Mao's purges.

Unfortunately, I can no longer bring myself to give Mr. Obama that benefit of the doubt. Not after looking at the pain in my grandpa's eyes...a man who still carries shrapnel in his body from his service to this country.

As a student and teacher of history, I recognize that America has made mistakes...plenty of them, in fact. But one of the great things about our people has been their courage and humility in admitting and correcting those mistakes. God willing, they will prove that willingness again in four years and correct the mistake that is the presidency of Barack Obama

Credit: Perspectives

The Greatest Play In Baseball