Let's Review Shall We?

Barack Obama's 36 Month Report Card
by Rich Carroll
The following article was written by Rich Carroll. Rich is a veteran of the VietNam war and he wrote "Orphaned Heroes" a book about his command there. Since his retirement from Reader's Digest, Rich has been a free lance writer. He is a well known op-ed writer whose articles often appear in Two Sisters From The Right and other conservative blogs. His book "Terrorists' Crossing" available through Amazon.com is about our southern border with Mexico .

Mr. Hope and Change wants to create a nation humbled; humiliated, casting-aside capitalism and individual freedoms for one where we the people are government controlled. This would be a system that genuflects mediocrity, steals personal aspiration and opportunity, and punishes those who strive to succeed.

A gallon of regular gasoline the day Obama was inaugurated was $1.79 on average in the U.S. Today that price is $3.59, a 100.6% increase. The number of food stamp recipients has risen since Obama took office from 31,983,716 to 43,200,878, a 35.1% jump. Long term unemployment soared 146.2% during the same 36 month period from 2,600,000 to 6,400,000. Staggering hope and change isn't it?

American citizens living in poverty have risen 9.5% from 39,800,000 to 43,600,000, and the number of unemployed has jumped almost 25% from 11,616,000 to 14,485,000 as of August 31,2011. The number of unemployed blacks has risen from 12.6% at the end of George Bush's term to 15.8% today, a 25.4% increase, and finally, our national debt is up 34.4% from 10.627 trillion to 14,278 trillion *

Keep these figures in mind as we recount the number of firsts for this presidency:

First President to refuse to show a valid birth certificate.
First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.
First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.
First President to preside over a cut to the credit rating of the United States.
First President to violate the War Powers Act.
First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico .
First President to defy a Federal Judges court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.
First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.
First President to spend a trillion dollars on shovel-ready jobs and later admit there was no such thing as shovel-ready jobs.
First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S. , including those with criminal convictions.
First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
First President to terminate Americas ability to put a man in space.
First President to encourage racial discrimination and intimidation at polling places.
First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.
First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly speak-out on the reasons for their rate increases.
First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state they are allowed to locate a factory.
First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN)
First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
First President to appoint 45 Czars to replace elected officials in his office.
First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office.
First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.
First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.
First President to coddle American enemies while alienating Americas allies.
First President to publicly bow to Americas enemies while refusing to salute the U.S. Flag.
First President to go on multiple global apology tours.
First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends, paid for by the taxpayer.
First President to refuse to wear the U.S. Flag lapel pin.
First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000.00 a year at taxpayer expense.
First President to repeat the Holy Qur'an tells us, and openly admit the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

Remember that 36 months of Obama White House we the people have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our nation's entire history, as the Obama's plan their next extravagant vacation to the Indonesian Island nation of Bali .

Hope and change anyone?????????

* sources: U.S. Energy
Information Administration, Wall Street Journal, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US
Dept of Labor, Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller, Federal Reserve, US Treasury,
Heritage Foundation.

A huge H/T to one of my VN brothers for sending this out, and my addition to the list:
First President to fire the CEO of a publicly traded corporation and install one of his campaign fundraisers.

West/Palin 2012

No I haven't lost what's left of my mind. I haven't been eating the funny-looking mushrooms growing in my basement. This is serious.

LTCOL Allen West (R) FL-22, gave the keynote speech last night at CPAC. I managed to catch the first 5-7 minutes.

If you remember, LTCOL West was the officer who used fear-tatics to extract information from a Taliban terrorist and saved lives. He immediately notified his command and he was discharged. The Army's loss is Florida's, and now OUR, gain.

LTCOL West has presence of mind, a grasp of fundemental conservative values, and the cajones to run this country. He is National Security personalized. Coupled with Sarah Palin, who has Domestic Energy credentials, I believe we could actually return this country to a position of independence and security.

More On the Offshore Oil Bravo Sierra

Obama opens up offshore drilling...or does he?

The headlines read that President Obama is opening up the oil spigots and attempting to wean America off its dependence on foreign oil. But that's what the headlines read - what's the rest of the story? Rep. Mike Pence says this: “As usual the devil is in the details. Only in Washington, D.C., can you ban more areas to oil and gas exploration than you open up, delay the date of your new leases and claim you’re going to increase production."
Michelle Malkin has the details HERE.

Employers 'unexpectedly' cut jobs
Experts should really stop trying to predict the jobs numbers because they never get it right and Americans are mislead to think it's shocking news. The latest numbers are no exception - experts say the month of March saw 'unexpected' job reductions by employers. Unexpected to who? The Marxists who think big government actually works? Get the latest on the economy HERE

Scientist: We can't save Earth
According to a top scientist, it's too late. Humans are at the mercy of mother Earth. The scientist who achieved fame for his theory that the whole Earth is a single organism now believes the only hope is that the Earth will take care of itself. Excellent! Now it’s time to fire up the SUV's, get our incandescent light bulbs back - and leave them on! Read the full story HERE.

I Got Yer Fatwad, Right Heah

Exclusive: Will Terrorists Be Allowed to Sidestep Security?
Gadi Adelman

Muslim-American groups are supporting a “fatwa” – a religious ruling – forbidding Muslims from going through body scanners at airports saying that the body scanners violate Islamic law. In a statement on February 9th, the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) asked that scanner software be altered to produce only an outline of the body and urged Muslim travelers to avail themselves of alternative pat-down searches. (The term "fiqh" refers to Islamic jurisprudence.)

In a press release on February 10th, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) supported the statement. In the press release CAIR stated:

“It is a violation of clear Islamic teachings that men or women be seen naked by other men and women. Islam highly emphasizes ‘haya’ (modesty) and considers it part of faith. The Qur’an has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts. Human beings are urged to be modest in their dress. See Holy Quran, 7:26-27; 24:30-31; 33:59. Exception to this rule can be made in case of extreme necessity, such as medical treatment, to investigate a crime or in a situation of imminent danger. There must be a compelling case for the necessity and the exemption to this rule must be proportional to the demonstrated need.”

I don't need a book or a pedophile to "command" me to get dressed. I know enough to do that.

A "compelling case for the necessity"...."the exemption"..."must be proportional to the"..."need"

Weeelll alrighty then...I'd say protecting the public makes a "compelling case" and a simple scan certainly is "proportional to the need".

Here's my take on this:
It is a clear violation of international law and common decency for wackjobs, whether they be male or female, moooslim, Christian or Jew, to strap on fanny packs or crotch sacks of PETN and murder innocent civilians. Therefore I am issuing a fat wad to stop it.

Here's some more advice for CAIR...buy your own damn airline or learn to walk faster.

There, that should take care of things.

Zero Screwed the Pooch and the Spies

EDITORIAL: Obama's havoc to the intel system
The president establishes intelligence death panels

President Obama blamed "the system" for failing to stop al Qaeda's Christmas Day bombing plot. The weakness with that excuse is that Mr. Obama fails to connect the dots between the systemic failure and his administration's year-long record of destroying the morale of the intelligence community.

The intelligence process works in large part because of trust. A reliable sense of
confidence must exist between superiors and subordinates, agents and sources, and the intelligence community and policy makers. Without trust, people will not take the risks needed to do their jobs successfully.

Mr. Obama has destroyed this sense of trust. On his watch, the intelligence community has suffered a year of body blows. He made great theater of signing an executive order closing the terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In April, the president authorized the release of the so-called "torture memos" on enhanced interrogation techniques used against detainees, and suggested that Congress establish a bipartisan review panel to look into the authorization of
extraordinary interrogation methods.

Mr. Obama should be seeking ways to repair the breach, restore trust and make good on the promises he made to intelligence operatives to support them in their dangerous professions. Instead, he brandished a new stick.

On Thursday, the president announced he has directed the heads of intelligence agencies to institutionalize "internal accountability reviews" to be monitored by the White House. These ominous-sounding punitive processes may become death panels for intelligence careers.

There is an old saying in intelligence circles: Big operation, big risk; small operation, small risk; no operation, no risk. The president's proposed "solution" to the failures of the intelligence system will reinforce a climate of mistrust in which it will be difficult to take the risks necessary to make the system work. And next time we may not be so lucky.

Atlas Shrugs On Sarah Palin

and Pamela, as always, nails it.

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska announced yesterday that she is resigning and will not seek a second term as governor. Many conservatives are characterizing this as an abdication of responsibility and a failure of will.

Quin Hillyer wrote in the American Spectator that "Sarah Palin's resignation is an appalling dereliction of duty and a highly cynical move to set herself up for a presidential run for which she is manifestly unqualified."

I vehemently disagree. She did not quit. From what I saw of her speech before Fox inexplicably cut it off (after seven days of wall-to-wall Michael Jackson coverage), this is not a woman who is retiring or "cutting and running," as Hillyer put it.

She is getting into the fight to save America. Palin committed herself to fighting "for our state and our country, and campaign(ing) for those who believe in smaller government, free enterprise, strong national security, support for our troops and energy independence."

Obama's treasonous presidency has made this struggle necessary.

Palin, like all patriotic Americans, is shocked by what is happening.

Obama is destroying this country. She knows it. We all know it. We need a leader.

Palin is that leader.

On Friday she assumed the mantle. She delivered a campaign speech. She spoke on the eve of Independence Day about the sacrifices great Americans have made, and what our Founding Fathers fought and died for.

Without naming Obama, she went after his disastrous policies, saying that "living beyond our means today is irresponsible for tomorrow," and noting that as governor she had "vetoed debt-ridden stimulus dollars." She believes in and wants to fight for free enterprise, small government and national security.

Zero Cares More About China Than America

China has no environmental concerns, no EPA, no controls.

China buys into U.S. off-shore oil leases.
Mark Tapscott, Beltway Confidential
"If the administration approves the deal, it will be more vulnerable to charges that the White House is being careless with U.S. national security issues in the energy sector, and that it is putting the interests of a foreign power before those of U.S. energy consumers."

UPDATE: Bishop says Obama policy aids foreign nations, not U.S.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-UT, says the Statoil/CNOOC deal is indicative of the Obama administration's failure to protect U.S. consumers from foreign nations seeking to tap into this country's abundant energy resources:

“Unemployment will continue to exceed acceptable levels and the economy will continue to suffer until this administration reverses its anti-energy policy. China and other foreign countries are gaining access to the abundant natural resources located in the American OCS, meanwhile an energy starved U.S. continues to experience the detrimental effects of Secretary Salazar’s decisions to place special-interests before the American people.

Since taking office this administration has made great strides in helping countries gain access to American energy resources, it’s just too bad the U.S. isn’t one of them.”

Bishop is chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, which includes a number of representatives from Western states with significant energy and other natural resources.

Krauthammer On Domestic Energy

Weekly Standard via DCExaminer

There are, of course, major threats to the American economy. But there is nothing inevitable and inexorable about them. Take, for example, the threat to the dollar (as the world's reserve currency) that comes from our massive trade deficits. Here again, the China threat is vastly exaggerated.

In fact, fully two-thirds of our trade imbalance comes from imported oil. This is not a fixed fact of life. We have a choice. We have it in our power, for example, to reverse
the absurd de facto 30-year ban on new nuclear power plants. We have it in our power to release huge domestic petroleum reserves by dropping the ban on offshore and Arctic drilling. We have it in our power to institute a serious gasoline tax (refunded immediately through a payroll tax reduction) to curb consumption and induce conservation.

Nothing is written. Nothing is predetermined. We can reverse the slide, we can undo dependence if we will it.

There are things to be done. Resist retreat as a matter of strategy and principle. And provide the means to continue our dominant role in the world by keeping our economic house in order. And finally, we can follow the advice of Demosthenes when asked what was to be done about the decline of Athens. His reply? "I will give what I believe is the fairest and truest answer: Don't do what you are doing now."

This article - condensed from The Weekly Standard - is based on syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer's 2009 Wriston Lecture delivered for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York on October 5.

VoteVets Is Dishonest and Despicible

They have never endorsed a conservative candidate, veteran or otherwise.

From Wikki:
Initially composed of United States Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, the organization views defense policy as an American priority. The stated goal of the PAC is to put in Congress Afghanistan or Iraq war veterans who are critical of the execution of the war in Iraq.

They run this ad thanking Perriello for voting for the Wacky-Marxist Cap and Tax Bill. (I'm not cluttering up our site with a bunch of videos from these asshats)

Then, they have the audacity to run radio spots encouraging Sens Warner and Webb to support the Senate version of Cap and Tax and use the sacrifices of our nations' Warriors to justify what VoteVets calls a fight "against big oil and special interests".

If they had a true American agenda, they'd be working to insure this country had resources to help returning veterans, not working to reduce or eliminate jobs in domestic energy production here in Virginia and across the Nation.

Shabby and tasteless, especially when you consider this:

Now We Know Whose Side They Are On

No Oil for Blood
Thanks to three American senators, China will be pumping Iraqi oil
by Frederick W. Kagan 09/16/2008 3:15:00 PM

If they are so concerned about the sacrifices of their brothers in arms, why do they endorse candidates who divert critical funding for fuel and ammunition to pork barrel projects?

Why are they only endorsing candidates who are against the Global War on Terrorism?

This Ain't Hell (but you can see it from here), has some more background and current information on votevets.

Priorities

Suppose you work for a veterans service organization and you have $400,000 to spend on that service to veterans. What would you spend it on? Maybe lobbying to get the President to make a timely decision about supporting the troops engaged in Afghanistan?

Maybe an outreach program to veterans who suffer from traumatic brain injuries or PTSD? Perhaps use the money to influence Congress to exempt veterans who rely on the VA or other military health care from the impending penalty for having free healthcare?

Maybe something like a memorial to people who serve? An outward-bound program for disabled veterans?

Something to let those currently deployed know that we’re thinking of them?

Well, not if your organization is named VoteVets - you’d spend your $400,000 on RADIO spots for pushing a clean energy bill.

Yeah, they’re calling it an “ad blitz” but how hard is it to “blitz” a 19th century technology? And a “clean energy” ad buy? Of course, their strategy is to perpetuate the “war for oil” lie;

Coal, National Security and Virginia Jobs

We have a petition opposing the Wacky-Marxist legislation.

It goes like this:

We, your constituents, have signed this petition against the passage of the Waxman-Markey bill and the Senate version of the Cap and Trade Bill and the trillions of dollars and the 100’s of thousands of jobs it will cost the Commonwealth and all of America.

This legislation will increase the cost of energy in the Commonwealth at a time when every feasible source of domestic energy should be explored and used, and at a time when Virginians can afford it least.

Virginia is a coal state. There are thousands of Virginians whose livelihood depends upon the production and use of coal; hard working, tax-paying Virginians who deserve better.

Coal is a reliable source of energy.

It is plentiful.

Clean coal technology works.

The theory of so-called “global warming”, or “climate change” is junk science.

CO2 is not a pollutant.

Ya'll know how I feel about domestic energy production and specifically, the use of coal. You know I help build clean coal facilities for Dominion Power. I've told people over and over, clean coal works its viable, and its cheap.

This is, IMAO, a states' rights issue. A 10th Amendment Issue. Its Virginia's coal. We should be able to use our resources as we see fit, within the guidelines of good sense and economic viability.

The current crop of new candidates seeking election to the House of Delegates and VA Senate would be well-served to address this issue now. Do not allow the radicals and outside agitators to dictate Virginia's economy. The future of Virginia jobs and her citizens depend on you for protection.

Thanks to one of my Facebook friends I found a link to a website supporting coal production in Appalachia. You'll see a new avatar on the left hand side of this website.

Go and sign the letter, please.

From the website:
Coal energizes our communities and the nation. It fuels our economy and powers our homes and businesses. It provides good jobs and an economic future for our families. But radical activists are determined to end coal in Appalachia. They don't care about our jobs, our communities or our future. Without coal, our thriving communities will not survive. Sign the letter today.

Dear Elected Officials,
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has arbitrarily decided to halt for further review 79 pending coal mining permits in the Appalachian states. These permits have been reviewed and approved by both state and federal regulatory authorities, after the EPA had commented, or chosen not to comment, on each of the permit applications.

Only when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wholly rejected the challenges by outside environmental activists, did EPA decide to intervene and reassert the same arguments the courts had already rejected.

EPA's action, or inaction, is threatening more than 100,000 jobs and further destabilizes communities that have been battered by the recession. Moreover, millions of Americans depend on coal for affordable electricity, and the Appalachian states depend on coal for tax revenue that keeps their budgets afloat.

When nationwide unemployment is at its highest level in years, the government should not stop Americans from going to work. When states are facing major budget shortfalls and even bankruptcy because of the weak economy, the federal government should not kill significant sources of revenue.

The consequences of the EPA's actions will be severe. Please take action today to pressure the EPA to lift these bureaucratic roadblocks. The future of families across Appalachia depends on you.

Thank you,

More On Sarah from Pam

The more evil succeeds and overwhelms our foreign and domestic policy, our culture, our discourse and the very social fabric of our lives, the clearer it becomes that Palin is the antidote, the answer to fighting this morally bankrupt sewer in which we find ourselves during the Obama Administration. Pam Geller

When Sarah Palin gets the nomination in 2012, I hope she has the good sense to pick Pam Geller as her campaign press spokesperson, and then when she wins the election, Ms. Geller can be the press secratary. I miss the class acts we had with Tony Snow and Dana Perino and Ms Geller would definitely be a class act.

Her speech embodied what a great American sounds like, and what a President ought to sound like. Palin made no apologies. She said nothing like Obama's inane drone of "America's best days are behind us." No tearing down of our nation. Obama ranks on us; Palin raises us up and speaks of national pride.

First and foremost, she thanked our brave men and women defending this great nation and ripped the media, warning: "You represent what could and should be a
respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you, and that is why, that's why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how about, in honor of the American soldier, you quit makin' things up?

She briefly outlined her plans for real energy independence -- American resources for Americans -- speaking of commercializing our clean natural gas (AGIA) as the first private sector energy project in the history of America. Palin believes (and rightly so) that the pressing issue of our time is energy independence.

"There is," she said, "an inherent link between energy and prosperity...We will prove you can be pro-development and pro-environment because no one loves their clean air, and their land, and their wildlife more than an Alaskan. We will protect it!" She invoked America's pioneering spirit. She urged us to resist enslavement to big central government: "Be wary of accepting government largess."

Sarah Palin embodies what an American is. She is what Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin envisioned when they carved out the American idea. Anyone who wants write her off, proceed at your own risk.

The more evil succeeds and overwhelms our foreign and domestic policy, our culture, our discourse and the very social fabric of our lives, the clearer it becomes that Palin is the antidote, the answer to fighting this morally bankrupt sewer in which we find ourselves during the Obama Administration.

The low state of the world is a fact, but so are great Americans who will fight tooth and nail to stop what Obama is doing to America.

Clear thinking Americans see what is happening. America is being tested in a way she never has been before. The President has in every decision reinforced the impression that he is a radical, even a communist/Islamist: the usurpation of the Constitution, the bankrupting of our nation, the illegal grab of private wealth, the infiltration of Islamic supremacism, the abandonment of our allies, the weakening of our military.

It's stunning.

Sarah Palin sees it, too.

Smart, sharp, patriotic, she best represents the majority of Americans. Not Obama's shills in the press, not the chattering elites and the Beltway insiders, but Americans.

Read it all and feel good.
Download Atlaska on KBYR 28July09

AFP Update on Cap and Trade

Last week we had an unbelievably tight, down-to-the-wire fight in the U.S. House of Representatives over the massive Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade energy tax bill, the largest tax hike in American history and an unprecedented intrusion of the federal government into our economy and our lives.

Thank you so much for everything you did to give the side of economic sanity a fighting chance. Your calls and emails made a huge difference, and AFP members like you were clearly one of the driving forces last week.

We weren’t quiet able to win in the House (see how they voted here), but we’re confident that if we can keep educating and mobilizing regular common-sense Americans, we can beat this disastrous bill in the Senate.
Here are few reasons to be hopeful:

* Just two states, California (32) and New York (25) provided more than a quarter of the 219 total yes votes

* Democrats in several key targeted Senate states voted majority no, including Indiana (3 of 5), Arkansas (2 of 3), and West Virginia (2 of 2)

* Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, both statewide elected Democrats, vote no

Unfortunately, we also learned that the White House is willing to do anything to get this bill passed, including misleading and intimidating members. That means the Senate fight will be right down to the wire, and pressure from back home will be the only way to stop this from passing.

We also know the stakes, in the President’s own words:"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."There is no time to waste, so I’m asking you to please click here to send a strong message to your Senators to oppose this outrageous cap-and-trade bill.

Thanks for everything you do to make AFP great.

Phil Kerpen

Director of Policy

www.AmericansforProsperity.org

I Had To Do It

and I'm not running for President, I was just getting a background check to get a security clearance to enter the shipyard to check floor flatness. I went down to the Viginia Vital Statistics Building and had a copy of my birth certificate in my hand in 15 minutes. Every day, normal average Americans are required to produce their birth certificates to gain employment, or to access secure sites to perform their jobs. It's no big deal. Happens all the time. So why is it such an issue with the B. Hussein Obama campaign? Why can't this Marxist half-wit grasp the concept?

The following is an excerpt from Frank Salvato's column at Family Security Matters:

The recent ruling by the Hon. R. Barclay Surrick dismissing the lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship, brought by former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Democrat county chair Phillip Berg, presents the genesis of a Constitutional Crisis. While Barack Obama’s refusal to satisfy the citizens’ request to validate his citizenship illustrates his unbridled arrogance and that of his campaign and supporters, it also exposes the fact that politics, at the hands of political opportunists and ideologues, has usurped the legitimate execution of the supreme law of the land; the United States Constitution.

Make no mistake. I do not support Barack Obama in his quest for the presidency. I find his political ideology to embrace a one-world ideology borrowing heavily from the Marxist-Leninist dogma. But, if in fact he is a legal and naturally born citizen of the United States of America, if he thoroughly satisfies the requirements as set forth in Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, then I will defend his right to be placed on ballots across our nation. My concern is not partisan, it is constitutional.

Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution reads:

"No Person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States."

In what may come as a surprise to many, the Federal Election Commission does not have authority to verify whether or not a presidential candidate has satisfied the constitutional requirements set forth for candidacy.

The FEC’s mission statement reads:

“In 1975, Congress created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) - the statute that governs the financing of federal elections. The duties of the FEC, which is an independent regulatory agency, are to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections.”

So, a singular question becomes self-evident; what entity requires proof be filed of a candidate’s satisfaction of the constitutional requirements needed to become President of the United States?

In Marquis v. Reed, one of the eight lawsuits filed in an attempt to verify that Barack Obama is indeed eligible to hold the office of President of the United States, Steven Marquis takes a different tract than Berg. Marquis challenges the Washington State Secretary of State, Samuel Reed, to verify Obama’s eligibility.

In this lawsuit Marquis establishes:

“As we do not have a federal ballot per se, Washington State, through the office of the Washington State, Secretary of State creates its own ballot and supervises the same, electing electors to represent our choice for the Office of President...and presents a state question within this Court’s jurisdiction.”

Still, while establishing that the States, rather than the federal government, have jurisdiction over their individual election processes, it still doesn’t quest for the answer to the self-evident question of what entity requires proof be filed of a candidate’s satisfaction of the constitutional requirements needed to become President of the United States? Instead, it adds to the immediacy of the question and brings to the forefront a more refined question; is there an entity that verifies a candidate’s satisfaction of the requirements?

Exclusive: Obama, It’s Time to Grow Up

Family Security Matters

Someone please tell me why any candidate for the White House exhibiting a pattern of distorting, hiding from and twisting the truth is not a matter of national security. Better yet, someone please tell me that it is not the height of absurdity that someone who represents the kind of ideology that our brave men and women have fought and died to stop is now on the brink of taking the helm of our government. If we let this man win this election, we will make a mockery of the blood they shed to keep precisely his kind of thinking out of this country.

Foreign Policy Experience?

Depends on what you tried to accomplish.

From Family Security Matters:

....Sarah Palin's views on some key national issues remains a mystery. For example, there is the issue of illegal immigration. I spent hours searching without success for any writings or statements about illegal immigration. As best as I can tell, none exist. Should we therefore assume that her position on the issue is identical to that of McCain - who has generally been a strong supporter of open borders? People who follow this issue very closely have no idea about Palin's views on the issue, and given McCain's past collaboration with Teddy Kennedy in support of mass amnesty, the mystery is troubling.

But by far the biggest issue about Palin will be foreign policy. Get ready for an onslaught of news reports on the major networks and articles in the Washington Post and New York Times comparing her unflatteringly with Biden - articles that will tout at great length his foreign-policy experience. The point of the pieces will be: "Sure, Obama is an ingenue who got Iraq completely wrong. And yes, he has only been paying attention to the stuff for a few years, but he has a lot of smart advisors around him. And even though he has a lot less experience than John McCain when it comes to foreign policy, Obama's inexperience is compensated for by the fact that Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has 35 years of foreign policy experience, while Palin has none."

This could gain traction for the Democrats unless Palin in the coming weeks begins to give interviews explaining her own worldview (think about a very compressed version of what former California Gov. Ronald Reagan did between 1975 and 1979) and contrasts it with Obama- Biden.

......on so many of the foreign policy issues he has addressed during his Senate career, Joe Biden has simply been on the wrong side of history.

In 1972, for example, he was elected to the Senate at age 29, running as an anti-war candidate, as John McCain's time in the Hanoi Hilton was about to end. Biden should be asked about his opposition to the war and what happened after the United States was defeated in the spring of 1975 - including the horrific sagas of the "Boat People" and Cambodian genocide.

Perhaps Mr. Biden could talk about his advocacy of President Carter's SALT II Treaty and his opposition to the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s that helped win the Cold War: Mr. Biden was tireless in working against it, and he also opposed President Reagan's efforts to fight communism in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Biden also fought tooth and nail against the 1991 Gulf War that drove Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Although he voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002, Biden has spent much of the past five years or so mobilizing opposition to what the United States has been doing in Iraq, including the very successful surge.

He has been a strong advocate of dialogue with Iran. And he has opposed efforts to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to ensure that the United States can eavesdrop on foreign terrorists operating outside the United States without obtaining warrants beforehand.

The bottom line is that much of Biden's experience consists of pursuing policies that have undermined U.S. strength in the world. If McCain and Palin are unable or unwilling to make this case, Biden will continue to have a free pass when it comes to foreign policy. And he will try to use it to pound Sarah Palin (and McCain's hopes of winning the election) right into the ground.

Papers, please.

"Papers, please."

What reaction does that phrase get from you? If, like me, you grew up watching WWII movies where the Gestapo is searching for the hero, or read spy novels during the cold war, you probably have an instinctive negative reaction.

Why? We are asked this every time you have to show your driver's license or provide your SSN ( which was not originally supposed to be for ID purposes. My card still says that. The new ones do not.) Think of all the info out there on you. And since when does the government need an ID to persecute you. Think of the IRS......or for 2nd Amendment enthusiasts, the BATFE. Or just the local police/prosecutors if you've come to their attention......

My gut feeling is that national ID is a bad idea. My brain says otherwise. I cannot decide.
Here's an article by Roger Simon that may convince you one way or another.

"We are spying on you.

No, I’m serious. Pajamas Media is spying on you, as is—assuming you have cookies enabled—nearly every other website you have visited in the last couple of years. At PJM we try to keep this snooping to a gentlemanly minimum but others, like Amazon, seem to know more about us than do our mothers. Then there are the credit card companies and the banks, the department stores and utilities and insurance companies, credit reports, stock brokers, internet providers, cable and satellite companies, the federal and state governments, social security, the IRS, Medicare and your mortuary. I could go on, but you get the point.

Privacy, to paraphrase the great Preston Sturges, is not only dead, it’s decomposed.

So what’s the big deal about a national ID card already?

...our whole country is being turned upside down by the immigration issue, a problem that cannot be resolved in any real way without knowing who is who. And we don’t. Not even close. That renders all solutions bogus, except for the one advocated by pure open border types who, it would seem, aren’t overly concerned with jihadists running around Chicago masquerading as undocumented workers from El Salvador as long as the world runs according to Milton Friedman. And it’s not just potential terrorists. We are experiencing something of a crime wave —a rise anyway— and some of that comes from illegal alien criminals who should have been in jail, ours or somebody else’s.

...A national ID card would be easier to control than the Patriot Act because it deals in public information. It is not and should not be covert.

And here’s another potential benefit of the card. Right now, we all have literally dozens of supposedly authoritative files on each of us (see the second paragraph for just a few). Many of these are inaccurate and contradictory. Ever seen your credit report? Ever tried to get it corrected? I’m not saying a national ID card would or should be fixing that, but it could consolidate a lot of basic information that would then all be in one place with a simplified process for righting mistakes. Identity theft, currently a huge problem, would also become much more difficult."

He's got a convincing argument. Perhaps we should try it on a state, first. You go first.

Hilton out of jail! Now to other news. Paris still out of jail.

"Terrorist Nuke Network Neutered"

However, in our news, the origin of cats and the status of that all important American, Paris Hilton, was front page news. Don't y0u wish that the US had a news industry?

Generals To Congress: Get The Lead Out!!!

It is time for Congress to quit playing games with our Troops and the security of our country.

‘Sixteen-Star Letter’ Calls for Supplemental Passage

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2007 – In a “16-star letter” to Congress, the services’ uniformed leaders are urging a quick passage of the fiscal 2007 emergency supplemental request.
The four service chiefs, all four-star generals, signed the letter.

The request will fund operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa through the end of the fiscal year.

The letter, signed by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael G. Mullen, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Marine Commandant Gen. James T. Conway, asks Congress to “expeditiously complete its work” on the supplemental.

DoD requested $93.4 billion to fund operations in the combat zones. Both the Senate and House have passed bills that provide the funding but contain amendments that call for combat troops to be out of Iraq on a certain timetable. President Bush has vowed to veto any bill containing these provisions.

The Senate has come back from recess, but the House will remain out through April 13. House and Senate negotiators must meet to reconcile the different portions of their respective bills. If the bill contains the withdrawal provision, it is “dead on arrival” at the president’s desk, White House officials said.

“Without approval of the supplemental funds in April, the armed services will be forced to take increasingly disruptive measures in order to sustain combat operations,” the four general and flag officers wrote in their letter. “The impacts on readiness and quality of life could be profound. We will have to implement spending restrictions and reprogram billions of dollars.”

The uniformed leaders said such reprogramming is an inefficient solution that wastes money.

The spending restrictions could also slow or halt training for follow-on units. With no supplemental by April 15, the Army will be forced to consider curtailing and suspending home-station training for Army Reserve and National Guard units, DoD officials said. The service would slow the training of units slated to deploy next to Iraq and Afghanistan and would cut funding for the upgrade or renovation of barracks and other facilities that support quality of life for troops and their families. Leaders also would stop the repair of equipment necessary to support pre-deployment training, officials said.

If the supplemental funding is not passed by May 15, the Army would consider reducing depot repair work. The service also would delay or curtail the deployment of brigade combat teams for training rotations. This may force the service to extend units in Iraq or Afghanistan, officials said.

No supplemental funding would also delay forming new brigade combat teams, force the service to implement a civilian hiring freeze and prohibit new contracts and service orders, officials said.

Biographies:
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, USA
Adm. Michael G. Mullen, USN
Gen. T. Michael Moseley, USAF
Gen. James T. Conway, USMC

Had Enough Yet? National Guard Attacked & Overrun In U.S.

This is un-freakin'-believable.

Guardsmen overrun at the Border
(Video available at the link also)

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.

The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.

The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.

The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.