EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson claims that safeguarding our health, welfare and environment is merely a matter of imposing more regulations on American factories and power plants – spending billions of dollars to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, and billions more to make our air and water quality imperceptibly better than our pollution control efforts have achieved since 1970.

In reality, it is these EPA and other Obama Administration regulations themselves that are the gravest threat to our health, welfare, environmental quality and pursuit of justice.

By raising the price of electricity and transportation fuel, they put more families into fuel poverty … make it harder for hospitals, schools and churches to serve their communities … force companies to lay people off or simply close their doors – and leave millions of families struggling to pay their household and medical bills, put nutritious food on the table, save for retirement, or enjoy any of the other most basic elements of health, welfare, and pursuit of happiness, justice and civil rights progress. All for little or no actual health or environmental benefit.

This is not a discussion EPA wants to have. However, it is a discussion America needs to have – now, before unelected and unaccountable regulators destroy even more hopes, dream and opportunities.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says we face grave threats to human health, welfare and justice. She’s absolutely right. However, the dangers are not due to factory or power plant emissions, or supposed effects of “dangerous manmade global warming.”

They are the result of policies and regulations that her EPA is imposing in the name of preventing climate change and other hypothetical and exaggerated environmental problems. It is those government actions that are the gravest threat to Americans’ health, welfare, and pursuit of happiness and justice.

By hyper-regulating carbon dioxide, soot, mercury, “cross-state air pollution” from sources hundreds of miles away, and other air and water emissions, EPA intends to force numerous coal-fired power plants to shut down years before their productive life is over; sharply reduce emissions from cars, factories, refineries and other facilities, regardless of the costs; and block the construction of new coal-fired power plants, because none will be able to slash their carbon dioxide emissions to half of what average coal-fired plants now emit, without employing expensive (and nonexistent) CO2 capture and storage technologies.

EPA has also issued 588 pages of rules for hydraulic fracturing for critically needed oil and natural gas, while the Obama Administration has vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline and made 95% of all publicly owned (but government controlled) energy resources unavailable for leasing, exploration, drilling and mining.

These actions reflect President Obama’s campaign promises to “bankrupt any company that tries to build a new coal-fired power plant,” replace hydrocarbons with heavily subsidized solar, wind and biofuel energy, make energy prices “necessarily skyrocket,” advance rent-seeking crony-corporatism – and “fundamentally transform” America’s constitutional, legal, energy, economic and social structure.

Energy is the lifeblood of our nation’s economy, jobs, living standards and civil rights progress. Anything that affects energy availability, reliability and price affects every aspect of our lives. These federal diktats put bureaucrats and activists in charge of our entire economy – seriously impairing our health and welfare.

Moreover, the anti-hydrocarbon global warming “solutions” the Obama Administration is imposing will bring no real world benefits – even assuming carbon dioxide actually drives climate change. That’s largely because China, India and other developing countries are increasing their use of coal for electricity generation, and thus their CO2 emissions – far beyond our ability to reduce US emissions. These nations rightly refuse to sacrifice economic growth and poverty eradication on the altar of climate alarmism.

Even worse, the health, welfare and environmental justice benefits that EPA claims will result from its regulations are equally exaggerated and illusory. They exist only in the same dishonest computer-generated virtual reality that concocted its alleged climate change, health and environmental cataclysms, and in junk-science analyses that can best be described as borderline fraud.

Implementing EPA’s regulatory agenda will inflict severe economic dislocations and send shock waves through America’s factories, farmlands and families. Far from improving our health and welfare – they will make our economy, unemployment, living standards, health and welfare even worse.

EPA’s new automobile mileage standards alone will result in thousands of additional serious injuries and deaths every year, as cars are further downsized to meet its arbitrary 54.5 mpg requirements. Its anti-coal and anti-fracking rules will severely impact electricity generation, reliability and prices; factory, office and hospital operations and budgets; American industries’ competitiveness in global markets; employment, hiring and layoffs; and the well-being of families and entire communities. Especially for areas that depend on mining and manufacturing – and the 26 states where coal-based power generation keeps electricity rates at half of what they are in states with the least coal use and toughest renewable energy mandates (6-9 cents versus 13-17 cents per kilowatt hour) – it will be all pain, for no gain.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a White House letter to House Speaker John Boehner inadvertently acknowledged that EPA alone is still working on new regulations that the agency itself calculates will impose $105 billion in additional regulatory burdens and compliance costs. Win or lose in November, the Administration will likely impose these and other postponed rules after the elections. We, our children and grandchildren will pay for them in countless ways.

Utilities will have to spend $130 billion to retrofit or replace older coal-fired units, says energy analyst Roger Bezdek – and another $30 billion a year for operations, maintenance and extra fuel for energy-intensive scrubbers and other equipment, to generate increasingly expensive electricity.

Duke Energy’s new $3.3 billion coal gasification and “carbon dioxide capture” power plant will increase rates for its Indiana customers by some 15% the next two years. Hospitals, factories, shopping malls and school districts will have to pay an extra $150,000 a year in operating expenses for each million dollars in annual electricity bills. That’s four or five entry-level jobs that won’t be created or preserved.

Nationwide, 319 coal-fueled power plants totaling 42,895 megawatts (13% of the nation’s coal fleet and enough for 40 million homes and small businesses) are already slated to close, the Sierra Club joyfully proclaimed. Illinois families and businesses could pay 20% more for electricity by 2014, the Chicago Tribune reports. Chicago public schools may have to find an extra $2.7 million a year to keep the lights and heat on and computers running.

Higher electricity prices will further strain refineries already struggling with soaring electricity costs and EPA’s sulfur and other regulations, restrictions on refinery upgrades and construction, constraints on moving crude oil to East Coast refineries, and other compliance costs – all for dubious environmental or health benefits. Three East Coast refineries have already closed, costing thousands of jobs and causing the Department of Energy to warn that pump prices are likely to soar even higher in Eastern states.

When we include discouraged workers who have given up looking for jobs, and people who have been forced to work fewer hours or at temporary jobs, our unemployment rate is a whopping 19 percent – and double that for black and Hispanic young people. America’s labor force participation rate is at a 30-year low. Our nation’s 2011 economic growth rate was a dismal 1.7 percent.

Well over a million US workers age 55 and older have now been out of work for 27 weeks or more. Not only do prospects plummet for re-employment of older workers. The longer they are unemployed, the more they are disconnected from society, the further their living standards fall, the more their physical and emotional well-being deteriorates, and the more likely they are to die prematurely.

The cumulative effect is that families have even less money to buy food, pay the rent or mortgage, repair the car or house, save for college and retirement, take a vacation – and keep people comfortable (and alive) on frigid winter nights and sweltering summer afternoons. Workers lose jobs. Health and welfare, family relationships, future prospects and psychological well-being plummet. Because they spend the highest proportion of their incomes on energy, poor and minority families suffer disproportionately.

And yet the EPA and White House regulatory agenda, regulatory onslaught and horse-blinder definition of health, welfare and justice ignore these realities – and ensure that this unconscionable situation will only get worse. In fact, the only welfare EPA’s rules will ensure is the expansion of our welfare rolls, unemployment lines and already record-setting food stamp programs.

EPA is also giving billions of taxpayer dollars to activist groups, to advance its agenda and dominate our media and hearings with false or misleading information about the costs and benefits of its programs.

Worst of all, our Congress and courts have completely abdicated their obligations to provide oversight and control of this dictatorial agency and Obama Administration. If this is the hope, change and future we can look “forward” to, our nation’s health, well-being and justice will be rolled backward.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

 

WesternFront America

The sesquicentennial “150^th Anniversary” of the War Between the States continues this year. The Jefferson Davis State Historic Site located in Fairview, Kentucky will mark this event with the 204th Birthday Commemoration of Jefferson Davis, first and only president of the Confederate States of America, on June 1-3.

Read more here.

Do you and your family know what is considered by some folks the largest monument to an American? I will give you the answer at the end of this article.

Look at your calendar and see what dates in history are shown for June 3rd. It more than likely excludes that of a great American, the birthday of Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. The birthday of Abraham Lincoln is shown for February, but no mention for Davis in June.

In 2008, Bertram Hayes-Davis, the great-great grandson of Jefferson Davis, recreated the 1861 swearing-in ceremony of his grandfather as Confederate President in Montgomery, Alabama. He told reporters:

“I stand here representing a family that is very proud of their ancestor.”

Jefferson Finis Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian County later Todd County, in the horse racing (Derby State) of Kentucky.

His grandfather was a colonist from Wales, living in Virginia and Maryland, and rendering important public service to those southern colonies.

The time is long overdue to teach our children not only the historical facts about Abraham Lincoln, but also those about Jefferson Davis. Please allow me to give you a few facts about Davis.

Jefferson Davis, the first and only President of the Confederate States of America, was a strong Unionist and defender of the United States Constitution. Our founding Fathers believed in the sovereignty of the states and so did Jefferson Davis.

Here are a few of his many accomplishments:

· Graduate of United States Military Academy at West Point.

· Fought valiantly in the War with Mexico.

· United States Senator.

· Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.

· First to suggest the transcontinental railroad to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, first to suggest the Panama Canal Zone and suggested the purchase of Cuba.

To better understand Davis, you and your family should visit “Beauvoir” on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Biloxi. This was the last home to Jefferson Davis and where he wrote his famous book, “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.” You can read more information about Beauvoir at: http://www.beauvoir.org.

Jefferson Davis’ last marriage is said to have been a very good one to Varina, who gave her husband two sons and two daughters (Jefferson, Margaret, Winnie and Billy). One child was killed by an accidental fall at the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia in 1864, and an abused black child named Jim Limber was adopted by the Davis’. In 1865, Jim was forcibly removed by Union soldiers and never seen again. It is said that the Davis children were crying at the scene and poor Jim was kicking and not making it easy for his abductors. After the War Between the States, Jefferson Davis tried to locate the whereabouts of Jim Limber, but was not successful. The Davis family prayed that Jim was well and did well in his life.

There are few people who have touched so many as did Jefferson Davis. His funeral services were attended by tens of thousands of mourners. Milo Cooper, a former servant, traveled all the way from Florida to pay his last respects. It is written that, upon entering Davis’ sick room, Cooper burst into tears and threw himself on his knees in prayer that God would spare the life of his old master and bless Davis family. Davis was first buried in New Orleans but later was removed to the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.

The answer to the question, “What is the largest monument to an American?” is:

The Jefferson Davis National Highway, which begins in Washington, D.C., and covers 3,417 miles as it passes through 173 counties and 13 states.

The success of the Davis Highway is attributable to the dedicated work of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).

Calvin E. Johnson, Jr., Speaker, Writer of Historical Essays, Author of book “When America Stood for God, Family and Country” and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

 

WesternFront America

Having spent most of my life in the last century and the rest in the new one, it affords me the opportunity to look back at the blunders, the slaughters, and the triumphs of a considerable period of time.

I often wonder why people like scary movies when all they have to do is read the daily newspaper or tune into the news on radio and television—what little there is of it after the mainstream media gets through ignoring what it deems insignificant or contrary to their beliefs.

Huge challenges to the U.S. Constitution should be the big news of the day, but the MSM reduce them to chatter about an Obamacare utopia in which everyone receives medical care for virtually nothing—paid for with high taxes by ‘other’ people—or that the right to be free of governmental assaults on your personal religious beliefs is really about the right to have unprotected sex.

This past week we were treated to a President who seems to think he can tell any lie, even one as grossly out of synch with a reality Americans see around themselves every day, and people will believe it. Even the White House press corps has been roused from their torpor to dispute the latest whopper.

Some moron, writing for MarketWatch, absurdly said “There has been no huge increase in spending under the current President, despite what you hear.” This is akin to “who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes?”

Suffice to say, Obama added $4 trillion to the national debt in just three year’s time. Not since the end of World War Two has the U.S. spent more than 23.5% of its Gross Domestic Product. Obama has exceeded that every year he’s been in office. The national debt exceeds the total annual GDP.

For really childlike idiocy though, one need only cast their eyes in the direction of Europe. Despite the glaring example of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Europeans cling to their belief that a socialist economy is the answer to what Wall Street Journal columnist, Bret Stephens, described as the “economic stagnation, policy paralysis, and national bankruptcy on the continental scale we are witnessing today.”

There is hope for America. According to the most recent Rasmussen polls, fully 64% of likely U.S. voters “prefer a government with fewer services and lower taxes” over the European model of more services and higher taxes.

Despite the financial chaos occurring within the European Union, voters in France and Germany are shunning “austerity” in favor of candidates from the Left. Need it be said that President Obama is pumping for more stimulus spending? Need it be said you cannot spend your way out of debt?

A Global Economic Slowdown

What is the result of all this “party now–pay later” fun and frolic? People who have to grapple with reality are making the kinds of decisions that are resulting in a global economic slowdown. Those who purchase things like computers, machinery, and aircraft—long lasting goods—are reducing their spending. Even the hard-charging Chinese, the world’s second largest economy, have gone through seven decreases in their manufacturing index.

A lot of what is occurring is normal and sensible caution being exercised as nations watch to see if the EU can solve its financial crisis. A lot of it stems from the 2008 U.S. financial crisis and the last four years in which the economy has barely budged in terms of any growth.

If the general public loses confidence in its banking system, the economy will truly falter. As it is, polling suggests that many Americans believe the government will default on its obligations, the bulk of which are based on European-style “entitlement” programs, Social Security and Medicare. Neither is sustainable in their present form.

From the U.S. to Europe, Asia to South America, the global economic outlook has not been this bad since the days of the Great Depression which was also a global phenomenon.

It is as if we are all living in a giant playpen and the problem is that too many nations—including our own—have too many people who prefer to remain infants, taken care of from birth to death.

It’s called Communism or Socialism and it has never worked, not in the last century, nor in this one.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

 

WesternFront America

I worry about America … a LOT.   We have become so removed from our heritage, our history, and the core values upon which this country was founded that we have lost our way and we are foundering and in real danger of collapse.

Our culture is now so crude so repellent and repugnant that the good people of Sodom and Gomorrah would blush — were they to see us today.

America has become the sort of country to which WE (America) used to send missionaries!

There IS a struggle in progress for America — but the soul of the country has long been lost.  Nothing much is left today but a hollowed-out husk of a nation that once led the world from the pinnacle of power and influence.  Like the Roman Empire, America died at its own hand.

All we have left today are memories of a time of grandeur.  And even those pictures from the past are fading into nothingness.

And it was quick. Oh, how swiftly we succumbed to the assault on our foundation.  We thought it was solid — built on granite of the ages — only to learn that it wasn’t granite, it was, in fact, sand, a house built on sand.  And like that proverbial house, it was swept away by our own avarice, our own covetousness, our own selfishness, laziness, our inability to grasp the obvious, which was simply — that America had chosen the lap of luxury over the eternal fight for freedom. Added to all the above was the loss of American’s will to preserve the most precious gift their ancestors had to give — freedom and liberty.

When Americans finally reached a point in the evolution of the country that they no longer VALUED freedom, the fate of the country was sealed.

America’s founders knew — and understood fully — that freedom is not free.  It exacts a price. It is bought, over, and over again, with blood.  It can be obtained no other way.  Blood is the ONLY acceptable currency when purchasing one’s freedom.  A peoples simply GIVEN freedom do not value it.  They cannot — for the know nothing of its cost. And they soon lose it.  Freedom once lost is almost never regained.

Once a people have acquired their freedom — it must be maintained.   It, too, requires blood payment.  Even more important is the fact that to maintain one’s freedom WILL is required.  A people must have the will to do that which is necessary to maintain their freedom — or they will most certainly lose it.

Americans used to take pride in the expression: It’s a free country.”  You don’t hear that much anymore.  Because we are not a free country — anymore.

The state America finds herself in today is the culmination of a process that was begun many decades ago to slowly distance Americans from their birthright.  Yes, freedom is, or at least WAS, a birthright of modern Americans.  It bought and paid for by the men and women we are supposed to be remembering on this Memorial Day.

G. K. Chesterton once said:  “The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost.”  America has had at least two generations without the realization that “freedom” MIGHT be, or COULD be, lost.  They were the low hanging fruit for the leftist/globalist/multiculturalist agenda that has so successfully stripped America of its liberty.

So, how do you go about separating a people, a nation from its heritage, its history, and its core values?   Consider the following words carefully:  “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history, Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster …”  ……- Milan Kundera

Mr. Kundera was spot-on.  Today we use the word “revisionist” to describe the process he lays out above.  And it is absolutely effective.

We have a generation of Americans who haven’t a clue WHO they are.  They have been taught that American culture is no better or worse than the culture of any other nation on earth.  “Multiculturalism” has been force-fed our young scholars in the government controlled public education system in America.  Their young minds were soaked in leftist propaganda for twelve years before they are delivered up to the masters of socialist and Marxist thought at the thresholds of the nation’s colleges and universities we laughingly refer to as “institutions of higher learning.”  I submit, they are a lot of things, but institutions of higher learning they are not.

They no longer believe in American Exceptionalism.  Even the American President denies the existence of an exceptional America pushing his own country from a leadership position in the world to just another member of the pack following … WHOM or WHAT … exactly?

Our young have been taught that the way to accomplish anything is to compromise.  Even when you are right … compromise.

Right never wins in compromise.

One of the greatest politicians ever produced by the state of North Carolina was Senator Jesse Helms.  As far back as 1959, Mr. Helms said:  “Compromise, hell!  If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who belive in freedom treat it as if were a roll of Bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”

But that is precisely what America did.  We compromised — and we traded our freedom away.  We made a Faustian deal and the bill has come due.

What happened to our reason and to our common sense?  Regrettably, we traded and compromised it away, as well.

Our national memory?  Almost gone.  Does anyone even remember what Memorial Day is all about, anymore?

Memorial Day was a day originally set aside as a day to remember our war dead and to honor those men and women who fought in all the wars of the United States.  Here, in the American South, we celebrate the Confederate dead as well as the US dead.  After all, Memorial Day began as a Southern holiday to honor the Confederate dead by cleaning their grave sites and cemeteries.

No longer.  Today we “celebrate” Memorial Day.

There is something fundamentally WRONG about that. Where’s the quiet contemplation owed America’s warrior’s for their sacrifice.  After all, Memorial Day, indeed, every day of freedom in America is a day bought and paid for in the blood of America’s warriors.  This calls for solemnity — not celebration.

No, I don’t expect anything to change as a result of my comments here.  Unfortunately, we are too far down that slippery slope to ever climb back up.  But — it needed saying.  A friend reminded me, only a couple of days ago, “someone needs to say these things.”   And now– someone has.

J. D. Longstreet
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J. D. Longstreet’s commentaries can be found at
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Longstreet blogs daily at his home site
“INSIGHT on Freedom” at: http://www.insightonfreedom.blog.com/
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ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES! REMEMBER THAT IN NOVEMBER.
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WesternFront America

Good news for Neighborhood Watch celebrity, George Zimmerman. The Associated Press reports that in 23 years only 2,000 people have been exonerated after being wrongly convicted of a serious felony.

Each year there are nearly one million felony convictions, over 10,000 times more than the 90 innocent defendants wrongly convicted. The findings are particularly encouraging for Zimmerman as he faces criminal prosecution for second–degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin and simultaneously a trial–by–media for the same offense.

The miscarriage of justice rate compares very favorably with the hospital medical error rate of 18 percent, where presumably the doctor doesn’t have any animus toward the customer, as opposed to prosecutors who do.

And public opinion is starting to come around. A new Rasmussen Reports national survey found 40 percent think Zimmerman acted in self–defense.

This finding is in sharp contrast to a survey of mainstream journalists that found 85 percent believe Zimmerman should already be doing time in Guantanamo.

Then when it appears justice may finally be allowed to take its course, the Washington Post uses a discredited CNN idea to attack George.

You may recall CNN reporter Gary Tuchman examined Zimmerman’s 9–1–1 call and discovered RACISM! Which is to be expected from someone with a white father. Using “one of the most sophisticated audio edit suites in the broadcast news business” CNN heard Zimmerman saying “(bleeping) coons” after technicians “enhanced” the recording.

Naturally to demonstrate even–handed news judgment, the tape was played for viewers about 300 times during the segment. As the reporter intoned, “Listen closely for “coon,” a word only bigots use. Remember it starts with a ‘c’ and ends with ‘oon.’”

Except the word wasn’t “coon.” Two weeks later, with much less fanfare, CNN re–enhances the tape and sure enough Zimmerman was saying “(bleeping) cold.”

How fortunate Zimmerman didn’t have to hide in the weeds to observe Martin. I can only imagine what the media would have done if George had muttered something about being bitten by a (bleeping) chigger.

Which brings us back to the sound–enhancing WaPo and its recording of a witness call, which FBI analysts have already termed “inconclusive.” The WaPo recycles the lie that Zimmerman ignored an order from the dispatcher. And in a nice touch, writes “…cursing under his breath, Zimmerman got out of his truck and began to follow (Martin).” But, thanks to CNN, we know Zimmerman was cursing the weather, a common activity worldwide, and not Martin.

Martin’s father heard the WaPo tape and told police the voice was not his son’s, But that was before lawyers got to him and visions of wrongful death lawsuits began dancing in his head. In contrast, the WaPo’s expert — who wouldn’t have known Trayvon if the kid had approached him at 7/11 and asked for a loan to buy Skittles — imagines Martin yelling, “I’m begging you!” “Help me!” And then, “Stop!”

Since the story was written by two females, I won’t fault them for their lack of expertise when it comes to fight dynamics. But in the real world the person who lands the first punch usually wins. Since witnesses place Martin on top of Zimmerman repeatedly punching him “MMA” style, it’s reasonable to assume his was the first punch.

Someone winning a fight is also not the one calling for help. The puncher is usually concentrating on pounding the punchee. Evidence shows Zimmerman’s back was wet from ground contact and he had a broken nose, two black eyes and cuts on the back of his head, so Trayvon evidently was doing a thorough job.

You can find the recording on the Post website and identifying any one element is like trying to isolate a single razzberry in a Spike Jones recording. One of the edited audio segments purports to be Martin’s “Stop!” But I’ve been in recording studios for 35 years and I hear “Help!” in both recordings, which stands to reason since Zimmerman is losing the fight.

But this is where it gets interesting. The “expert” asserts those 45 seconds aren’t Zimmerman calling for help during the fight, but Martin pleading with Zimmerman not to shoot him AFTER the fighting was over.

So by his reckoning, the fight is concluded. Zimmerman has his gun out. Martin begs for his life for almost a minute and then Zimmerman executes him in cold blood.

But lab results reveal the gunshot was so close it burned Martin’s skin. We know there was a single shot. If the entry wound is low and travels upward, it supports Zimmerman. But even without that information, if the fight was over and Martin was pleading for his life, chances are he would have been backing or running away, putting distance between himself and Zimmerman.

Common sense would dictate waiting for the evidence and using practical experience to evaluate it, but the Post, along with the majority of the media, has already found Zimmerman guilty and they want us to join them.

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at
michael-shannon@comcast.net.

Michael R. Shannon
MANDATE: Message, Media & Public Relations
703-583-6277
571-969-1995 Google Voice
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelrshannon

 

WesternFront America

A wise man once said: “When your rob from Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul!”

“Redistribution of the wealth” is a phrase we hear a lot during election campaigns in America. You folks already living in countries more socialist than the United States  understand what it REALLY means.

Americans, for the most part, it would seem,  do not.

You see, here in America we built a country based on a citizen’s ability to better himself using the talents God gave him. He is limited only by the limits of his own imagination and his own capabilities.

Here in America a child can dream of becoming rich and, if he has it in him, he can make that dream come true.

Government interference is considered not only an inconvenience; it is an impediment to success in America. But that holds true in any society. Once the government intrudes into your business, you can close the doors, because they will smother your business with their rules and regulations, applied layer upon layer, until the death of your dream is imminent. Small businesses are the first to succumb.

“Redistribution of the wealth” is the watch word (watch PHRASE, maybe?) of the Democratic Party in America. Since America has been able to hold off a complete socialist take over of our government, since FDR’s term in office, they have yet to accomplish, completely, the redistribution of the American family’s money. But that doesn’t stop them from continuing their drive to do so.

For the edification of my non-American readers … how do they do it? With TAXES!

The Democratic Party LOVES TAXES. They create them. They raise them. They use them to embellish their own power over American business and the American citizen.

So, now… their  democratic candidate for President (The incumbent President Obama) is preaching the same sermon as all those Democrats seeking that same office before him: Redistribution of the Wealth.

Let’s be clear:  B. Hussein Obama is not Robin Hood. No matter what he and his legion of cohorts would like you to believe. What he is… is a democrat! He was the most liberal democrat in the US Senate and what he is preaching these days is socialism!

Why would we want to change a country as successful as America has been? For the most part Americans don’t want to change our system of government and our free market economic system. Unless of course, change means getting the government’s intervention out of the way of success for so many small businesses in America. THAT kind of change we can support.

We think Obama has bought into the United Nations nightmare scheme called The United Nations Millennium Declaration in which the UN calls for: “the eradication of poverty by redistribution of wealth and land,” wiping the slate clean of “the debts of developing countries,” and, it continues… a fair distribution of Earth’s resources.” Wow! Can you say: S O C I A L I S M??? That’s what is described in those short little phrases.
Larry Petrash has a piece we highly recommend. It is titled: “Is Obama’s change the change we want?” You’ll find it at:

http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2008/aug/17/obamas-change-change-we-want/

If you still question Mr. Obama’s socialistic leaning, understand that he pushed for socialized medicine in America. We call it Obamacare. If the Supreme Court allows it to stand it will eventually mean the complete takeover of the healthcare system in America by the US government… you know, the folks who run the Post Office and the Veterans Administration… remember?

We no know the change Mr. Obama touted in his first campaign was, in fact, a thorough trashing of the US Constitution, changing America from a democratic republic to a socialist country under a socialist government, giving up the miracle of capitalism for the nightmare of socialism, giving up the idea of private property, you know, so the wealth can be “redistributed”, reducing the size and strength of our military and giving that money away in the form of “social” programs, again to redistribute the wealth, and finally, placing the US firmly in the grasp of the United Nations, which is, in my opinion, one of the most corrupt organizations ever designed by the mind of man.

No. Obama is not Robin Hood. Robin Hood was not a socialist. What Robin Hood was… WAS A THIEF! No matter that his victims were the rich folks of Prince John’s realm, and the recipients of Hood’s largesse were the poor, what Robin Hood did was thievery, plain and simple!

Somehow socialists have completely warped their thinking to believe that certain types of thievery is good, is kind, and is acceptable. It’s not. Judeo-Christian faith teaches us that thievery is wrong, is a sin, is a violation of God’s law. Why, the eighth commandment is: “Thou shalt not steal.” It makes no difference if it is an individual actually doing the deed of thievery, or if it is the government, it is still thievery — and it is still wrong.

So, next time you are being regaled with the Democratic Party’s calls for redistribution of the wealth by taxation, and more and more social programs, remember the eighth commandment. Remember too, that Christ’s call to take care of those less fortunate was a call for individual action, not government action. Our friends on the Left simply cannot tear themselves away from their belief that government can do it better… no matter what “IT” happens to be..

No. Mr. Hood was not a socialist. Recall, if you will, the government had seized Mr. Hood’s possessions. After all, Mr. Hood WAS a rich aristocrat prior to going off to war in the Middle East for HIS Commander-in-Chief. No, the analogy just does not fit.

J. D. Longstreet
*********************************************
J. D. Longstreet’s commentaries can be found at
conservative websites across the Internet.
Longstreet blogs daily at his home site
“INSIGHT on Freedom” at: http://www.insightonfreedom.blog.com/
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WesternFront America

Monday, May 28, 2012, 11 a.m. A wreath-laying ceremony and concert will be held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in honor of Memorial Day.

Read more at: http://dc.about.com/od/hoildaysseasonalevents/a/MemorialDay.htm

Arlington National Cemetery is the final resting place for those who fought for the Confederacy and Union during the War Between the States. It is also the burial place for men and women who fought our nation’s wars since the War Between the States.

There are 245,000 Servicemen and Women, including their families, buried at Arlington?

The world famous Arlington National Cemetery in located in the shadow of the Custis-Lee Mansion (Arlington House) that was home to General Robert E. Lee and family until 1861 at the beginning of the War Between the States. This cemetery is on the Virginia side of the Potomac River and Washington, D.C. is across the river.

In 1864, Union soldiers were first buried here and by the end of the war the number rose to 16,000.

The Union burial site at Arlington National Cemetery is located at (section 13). Also buried at Arlington include: President John F. Kennedy, General Jonathan M. Wainwright, Actor-War Hero Audie Murphy and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

About the turn of the century 1900 the USA also honored the men who fought for the Confederacy. The burial site for Dixie’s soldiers is located at (section 16).

A beautiful Confederate monument at Arlington cemetery towers 32.5 feet and has an inscription that reads, “A Obedience To Duty As They Understood It; These Men Suffered All; Sacrificed All and Died!”

Some people claim the Confederate monument at Arlington may have been the first to honor Black Confederates. Carved on this monument is the depiction of a Black Confederate who is marching with the white soldiers.

In 1898, President William McKinley, a former Union soldier, spoke in Atlanta, Georgia and said, “In the spirit of Fraternity it was time for the North to share in the care of the graves of former Confederate soldiers.”

In consequence to his speech, by act of the United States Congress, a portion of Arlington National Cemetery was set aside for the burial of Confederate soldiers. At this time 267 Confederate remains from and near Washington, D.C. were removed and re-interred at this new site at Arlington.

In 1906, The United Daughters of the Confederacy asked for permission from William Howard Taft to erect a Confederate monument. Taft was at the time serving as the United States Secretary of War and was in charge of National Cemeteries.

With permission the Arlington Confederate Memorial Association was formed and the ladies of the UDC were given authority to oversee work on the monument.

An agreement and contract was made with Sir Moses J. Ezekiel who was a Jewish Confederate Veteran by the record of his service at the Battle of New Market while he was a cadet at Virginia Military Institute. Work started at his workshop in Italy in 1910, and upon his death in 1917, the Great Sculptor, was brought back home and buried near the base of the Arlington Confederate Monument.

The year was 1914, and the Arlington monument was unveiled to a crowd of thousands that included former Union and Confederate soldiers.

This memorial event was presided over by President Woodrow Wilson and the people applauded the stirring speeches given by: General Bennett H. Young—Commander In Chief of the United Confederate Veterans, General Washington Gardner—Commander In Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, Colonel Robert E. Lee—grandson of General Robert E. Lee and Mrs. Daisy McLaurin Stevens President General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The Arlington Confederate Monument unveiling was concluded by a 21 gun salute and the monument was officially given to the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the UDC gave it back to the United States War Department for keeping and was accepted by President Woodrow Wilson who said:

“I am not so happy as PROUD to participate in this capacity on such an occasion—proud that I represent such a people.”

Since President Wilson wreathes have been sent to both sections of Arlington.

Let us never forget!

Calvin E. Johnson, Jr., Speaker, Writer of Historical Essays, Author of book “When America Stood for God, Family and Country” and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

 

WesternFront America

The Obama Administration has dragged the Law of the Sea Treaty back before the US Senate this week.

The treaty, if approved by the Senate will amount to the rape of America.

Here’s what the Center for Security Policy has to say about the Law Of The Sea Treaty:  “If, on the other hand, the members of the U.S. Senate trouble themselves to study, or at least read, the text of the Law of the Sea Treaty, they would immediately see it for what it really is: a diplomatic dinosaur, a throwback to a bygone era when UN negotiations were dominated by communists of the Soviet Union and their fellow-travelers in the Third World.

These adversaries’ agenda was transparent and wholly inimical to American equities. They sought to: establish control over 70% of the world’s surface; create an international governing institution that would serve as a model for bringing nation states like ours to heel; and redistribute the planet’s wealth and technology from the developed world to themselves.  LOST codifies such arrangements – and would subject us to mandatory dispute resolution to enforce them via stacked-deck adjudication panels.”
SOURCE: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p19005.xml

Still, many, if not MOST, Americans  have never heard of it — the Law Of The Sea Treaty.
So why is it important?

OK, lets look at some reasons why the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is important to you as an American and to all inhabitants of the earth:

Why We Lose if LOST Wins

By asserting UN authority over seven-tenths of the Earth’s surface, LOST would be the largest territorial conquest in history.

In principle, the treaty would assert UN jurisdiction over U.S. territorial waters, and eventually over waterways within our country.

It would create a huge bureaucratic entity called the “Enterprise” which would regulate and tax all commercial uses of the high seas.

By taxing all efforts to develop the wealth of the seabed, the UN would be given a huge revenue stream, independent of national governments, to push its agenda for international socialism.

The treaty would require the redistribution of cutting-edge technology from the U.S. to all governments in the “developing world,” including extremely repressive governments.
Get the picture???  It’s that cussed “One World Government thing again!  (Otherwise known as “Global Governance) You know… the “GLOBALISTS” at work.

Apparatchiks from the Obama Administration will trudge over to the US Senate this week to sing the praises of LOST.  They will applaud it and explain to the Senators that it is the best thing since the US Constitution for America, indeed, for the whole world.
It will be a pack of lies.

So, where do we stand today on LOST?  Not good, I’m afraid.

The National Center for Public Policy Research has a website providing educational resources on the Law of the Sea Treaty (also known by the acronyms LOST and UNCLOS).

“The Law of the Sea Treaty is a terrible deal for the U.S.  It would threaten our sovereignty, place a significant portion of the world’s resources under the control of a U.N.-style body, and complicate our efforts to apprehend terrorists on the high seas by subjecting our actions to review by an international court unlikely to render decisions favorable to the U.S.,” said National Center Vice President David Ridenour.

“The Law of the Sea Treaty would help radical environmentalists achieve what they haven’t been able to achieve through legislation,” Ridenour added.  “Greenpeace has said ‘the benefits of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea are substantial, including its basic duties for states to protect and preserve the marine environment and to conserve marine living species.’  The Natural Resources Defense Council challenged the Navy’s use of ‘intense active sonar,’ arguing that it violates the treaty by posing a danger to marine life.  The Navy ultimately agreed to scale back use of this technology.  The Law of the Sea Treaty has also been used by Australia and New Zealand in an attempt to shut down an experimental blue fin tuna fishing program and by Ireland in an attempt to shut down a plant on land in England”

The website, the United National Law of the Sea Treaty Information Center, contains a collection of research papers, commentaries and blog entries about LOST from a variety of think-tanks, scholars, opinion writers and bloggers.  It can be accessed at: http://www.unlawoftheseatreaty.org.

“Although the Law of the Sea Treaty has been around for decades — the National Center for Public Policy Research first worked on it in 1982 — relatively few people know much about it,” said Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research.  “The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty Information Center website is designed to help correct this.”

The National Center for Public Policy Research is a non-partisan, non-profit educational foundation based in Washington, D.C.

It is more important now then ever before to contact your senators and urge them to oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Look. This Law Of The Sea Treaty is serious socialist, global governance, trickery!  And NOBODY IS Talking ABOUT IT!  Of course, we cannot expect the so-called “Mainstream Media” in America to bring it up, being so deep in the bunker for Obama, that is.  The near incestuous relationship between the MsM and Obama prevents them from actually informing their readers, listeners, and viewers, of important, pending, life-changing policy being considered in the nation’s legislature.

We urge you to educate yourself about the Law Of The Sea Treaty — and do so quickly.
In the meantime, however, we suggest that you get on the phone, or send an e-mail or fax to the offices of your US Senators and ask them to vote NO on the Law Of The Sea Treaty.

Every so often, we get a chance to use our constitutional rights for good.  This is one of those times.

J. D. Longstreet
*********************************************
J. D. Longstreet’s commentaries can be found at
conservative websites across the Internet.
Longstreet blogs daily at his home site
“INSIGHT on Freedom” at: http://www.insightonfreedom.blog.com/
*********************************************
Follow J. D. Longstreet on TWITTER at: @JDLongstreet
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ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES! REMEMBER THAT IN NOVEMBER.
SAVE AMERICA. VOTE CONSERVATIVE.
***********************************

 

WesternFront America

Suppose, as a newborn, the government implanted an identification chip somewhere in your body.  Suppose that chip constantly fed information about you, your whereabouts, your health, your, uh, well — you fill in the blank.

No this is not a script from the popular TV show “Fringe.”  Its much worse.  Its from the real life version of “Fringe” known as DARPA.

It’s called MMEA or Multiple Micro Electrode Array.  It leaves an ID chip in the dust. And it is scary as hell!

So, who, or what, is DARPA?

DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  It is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military.

Here’s a bit more on DARPA:  “The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). It manages and directs selected basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.  SOURCE:  http://www.darpa.mil
Now, about that scary implant:

“MMEA, Multiple Micro Electrode Array: Multiple Micro Electrode Array, this is the actual Chip. This chip will be surgically implanted directly into a human nerve or into specific area of the brain. The Chip at the moment is a little smaller than a Tic Tac breath mint. The chip implanted into the pioneer, a Professor Kevin Warwick, had 100 Electrodes; each electrode looks like a small needle and is capable of detecting electric signals traveling through the nervous system and also sending electrical signals to the nervous system, this was all performed via a RF (Radio Frequency) device connected to the MMEA.”

Source:  http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1875.cfm

And then there is this:

“NEWS BRIEF: “Defense Department funding brain-machine work”, Tuesday, August 5, 2003, BY GARETH COOK,
The Boston Globe, reprinted in The Post and Courier, Chareleston.net, http://www.charleston.net

“What most people don’t know is that the Department of Defense is already funding a research program with far creepier implications. The $24 million enterprise called Brain Machine Interfaces is developing technology that promises to directly read thoughts from a living brain — and even instill thoughts as well. The research, some of which is being done at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is already surprisingly advanced.”  SOURCE: http://noidchip.free-forums.org/the-defense-advanced-research-projects-agency-darpa-vt26.html

OK, so all this is far too complicated for this ole country boy.  But suffice it to say — it is more than a little worrisome.  I suggest that you go over to the source above and read the article(s) for yourself.

Already, fundamentalist religious groups are referring to this implant as the biblical “mark of the beast.”  Heck, I’m so old, I remember when they referred to trading stamps one got when one purchased groceries at the supermarket as the “mark of the beast!”
What worries me about all this is the threat to our freedom.  It has been within the last 4 or 5 decades that Americans have begun to suspect their own government of seeking extra-constitutional power over them.  Even then, it did not really hit home until the last and current administrations.

Now we see the President giving an order and an aircraft, flying so high that it can hardly be seen, if at all, streaks a Hellfire missile down on an American citizen’s head and kills him — anywhere on the globe.  No death warrant necessary.   It is now absolutely true that one can run, but one cannot hide.  Not for long, leastways.

I believe many Americans would say, with me, that they felt much safer on September 12th, 2001 than they do today.  You see, today we must worry, not only about the terrorist, but about our own government and their power grab — in the name of national security, of course.

The founders of America were concerned for the freedom and the liberty of America’s citizens.  They were concerned that the American government they created never have the power over its citizens that it does today.  This powerful central government ruling Americans today was never meant to ever exist by America’s Founding Fathers.  They would be aghast at the power we have allowed the government to gather to itself.

How did this happen?  WE ALLOWED IT TO HAPPEN!   We have forgotten that freedom lost — is nearly impossible to reclaim.

What will the government do with that MMEA chip mentioned above?  I have no idea.  But — with the knowledge that we have of how our government is already abusing its authority over American citizens, I have to believe it will be used for nefarious purposes — at some point.

America’s youth has no idea what has been lost.  They will grow up in a world that they are told is free but won’t be.  But having no experience of a truly free America, they will accept that and live their lives in servitude to the government.

I suspect my Grands will not even be able to read these scribblings by their old grandpa because, by then, the liklihood is that the thoughts I write today, on this old antiquated computer, will be considered “subversive” and illegal to even have in one’s possession.
I know it is terrible to consider but had we considered it fifty-sixty years ago, I dare say we would not be so burdened by this yoke of a too-powerful government today, a government that has its tentacles in everything we do every moment of our lives.

A week ago, as I lay in a hospital bed and listened to the nurses rattling off all the info they had on me from their roll-around computer, which was reading a hard drive somewhere, a feeling of deep remorse swept over me.  George Orwell would have difficulty believing our world today.  I reached over, picked up the remote of the PCA pump, and pressed the button for another hit of morphine.  Maybe it is all a bad dream, I thought,  and when next I surface from the narcotic fog, it will be all better.  But it wasn’t.

J. D. Longstreet
*********************************************
J. D. Longstreet’s commentaries can be found at
conservative websites across the Internet.
Longstreet blogs daily at his home site
“INSIGHT on Freedom” at: http://www.insightonfreedom.blog.com/
*********************************************
Follow J. D. Longstreet on TWITTER at: @JDLongstreet
*********************************************
ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES! REMEMBER THAT IN NOVEMBER.
SAVE AMERICA. VOTE CONSERVATIVE.
***********************************

 

WesternFront America

How Many Minutes Are We From Total Tyranny?

by Roger Toutant

The Doomsday Clock, maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is meant to indicate how close the world’s chieftains are in bringing the experience of bright, white flashes and enveloping mushroom clouds to a neighborhood near you.

Even though the Bulletin’s clock has merit, I propose that we adopt a new clock that foretells a different kind of doomsday: a time when we live under Total Government, which means Total Tyranny. History teaches us that the closer we get to Total Tyranny, the closer we get to the breakdown of society, pervasive poverty, slavery and war (including nuclear war).

My version of the clock is divided into twelve five-minute slices, and the hands sweep towards midnight as follows:

1. Private property ownership: Presently, the state claims ownership and control over all private property through its self-appointed powers of taxation, eminent domain and regulation. Private property ownership is now only an illusion, a historical artifact. (+5 minutes; Clock at 11:05 p.m.)

2. Personal privacy: The state is now employing an ever-increasing, omnipotent, spy apparatus to single-out threats to its power. However, there are still pockets of privacy and it is possible to escape the information dragnet. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:09p.m.)

3. Freedom of movement: Increasingly, citizens are randomly stopped in their travels on public and/or private property because every person is now considered to be a potential enemy of the state. Efforts are underway to make it illegal for some people to leave the country, though such restrictions are not yet the law. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:13 p.m.)

4. Freedom of the family: Children are now considered to be the property of the state and can be legally kidnapped. Parents are increasingly arrested for failing to meet arbitrary government criteria on the raising of children including how they are fed and disciplined. However, most parents still have the freedom to legally home-school their children. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:17 p.m.)

5. Morality of the justice system: Everyone knows that the judicial system is bought and paid-for by the ruling elite. Rarely are laws overturned or opposed even though the laws may be corrupt and immoral. Occasionally, justice is dispensed based upon moral principles, but it is becoming increasingly rare. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:21 p.m.)

6. The rule of law: The smokescreen of public law is used as a means to allow the state to get away with crimes for which private individuals would be arrested. State bureaucrats and police are rarely, if ever, charged with criminal acts and they literally can get away with murder. Today the rule of law is essentially dead. (+5 minutes; Clock at 11:26 p.m.)

7. Victimless crime: Most laws on the books today make criminals out of non-criminals. No longer is harm required to constitute crime. Also, laws are so complex that it’s no longer possible to know if a law is being broken. Anyone can be a criminal without knowing it. The arbitrary will of the bureaucratic class now reigns supreme. (+5 minutes; Clock at 11:31 p.m.)

8. Economic freedom: Citizens are presently taxed at a total rate that far exceeds that of medieval serfs. The state mandates the use of its monopoly currency which it continually devalues to fund its pet projects and to enrich its politically-connected friends. The government is on the path of tracking every bit of money that changes private hands, though cash exchanges and barter can still go unnoticed. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:35 p.m.)

9. Sate control over business: The decisions made by businessmen are entirely within the purview of government bureaucrats. Every enterprise is highly regulated and hampered by red tape. Free market competition has taken a back seat to government-corporate fascism. Being politically connected is required to get ahead and corporate welfare is pervasive. The state has taken over major segments of private industry, including health care. Small private enterprises can still succeed, but it is becoming more difficult. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:39 p.m.)

10. The police and society: The local police are becoming increasingly politicized and militarized. Military outposts that once operated overseas now operate in your local shopping center parking lot. Drones buzz overhead. Torture with Taser guns is now viewed as acceptable police enforcement. Thankfully, most police encounters don’t end with torture or death at this time. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:43 p.m.)

11. Perpetual war: The state is in a perpetual state of war engaging in a multitude of invented battles that cannot be won. They have no definite end. The enemies are contrived on an as-needed basis. We are now the Oceania of Orwell’s 1984. (+5 minutes; Clock at 11:48 p.m.)

12. War on the citizen: Anyone who opposes the will of the state is said to be a traitor. Indefinite time in jail in the absence of supporting evidence and a public trial can be a reality for any individual. Citizens can be imprisoned or murdered at the whim of a bureaucrat or political leader, though today the murdering is limited. (+4 minutes; Clock at 11:52 p.m.)

According to my clock, then, we have eight minutes before the hands strike midnight. Would your version of the Doomsday Clock of Tyranny look much different? The good news is that it’s still possible to turn-back the clock once the average voter realizes how dark things have become. At least now we have a clock against which we can measure our progress.

May 22, 2012

Roger Toutant [send him mail] has practiced electrical engineering in private industry for more than 20 years and is currently licensed in Ontario.

Copyright © 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

 

WesternFront America