Finally, It’s Over

President Obama has finally done something I approve of; he has produced his birth certificate. No, I don’t count myself as a ‘birther’, but I do believe they raised some legitimate concerns that could have been resolved a long time ago. I believe that we should adhere to all of the constitutional requirements for holding office regardless of which office that might be.

While I have never been convinced that Obama was not born in the U.S., until he finally provided the official documentation, I had also not been convinced that he was born here. We basically had his word on the matter, but I rarely take the word of a liar, so that certainly didn’t settle anything. Thanks to the relentless hammering from Donald Trump, the whole birth certificate issue has finally become a political liability for the President, forcing him to cough it up.

I, for one, am glad this issue has been resolved.

Yes, I know there are those who still want to pour over the document and look for some tell-tale evidence that the birth certificate is a fake, and there is certainly a razor-thin chance that it might well be; but let’s give it a rest, shall we?

While the concerns raised by the ‘birthers’ were certainly valid, from a political standpoint the issue was not one that was going to help our agenda. The fact that Obama has now documented his citizenship does not suddenly make him a good President, and proving he wasn’t a citizen would not have convinced anyone that he was not. Unless someone could have convinced the Democrats in the Senate to remove him from office, nothing would have ever come of it. The fact is, even if he could produce a home movie of his birth under the Capitol rotunda with JFK there to cut the cord, the man is still not fit to hold the office of President, and his place of birth wouldn’t change that fact either way.  

The problem with pinning your hopes on an accusation that you may or may not be able to prove is that, once the accusation is proven false, re-establishing your credibility will take a lot of time and effort. In the battle we now find ourselves fighting, we don’t have the time to waste on such efforts. From my point of view, the only effective way we can defeat Obama in 2012 is to attack his policies just as relentlessly as Trump attacked the birth certificate issue. This is a winning strategy because we can make a credible case that his policies are harmful to our nation, and provide more than enough evidence to back up that case.

For instance, most people in this country can understand that spending more money than you can ever hope to have is never a good financial decision. For every new spending proposal that Obama proposes, and for every cut he opposes, we simply need to ask the question: “How much money do you want our kids to borrow from the Chinese to pay for that?”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that Obama’s energy policies are driving up the cost of energy, just as he promised. As people continue to pay more and more at the pumps, we need to hammer that point home. At the same time, we need to clearly explain, in terms the average person can easily understand, how his monetary policies are exacerbating the problem.

A majority of Americans still want to see Obamacare repealed, and we need to keep that issue alive, making clear the link between the program and the lack of job growth. We can certainly make the case that this is Obama’s economy, and blaming it on Bush has become a joke. Obama owns it, and we need to make sure no one misses that fact.

Republicans also need to contrast Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize with the fact that he has now involved us in another war, one for which there is no clearly stated goal nor is there an end in sight. I’ve been waiting, but so far I haven’t heard anyone use the phrase “Obama’s Vietnam” with regards to Libya. Please, allow me to be the first.

If we are going to save this nation from the damage Obama is bent on inflicting, now is the time to take up the fight. While I am not convinced that Donald Trump should be our nominee, it would be foolish to ignore how well his tactics have worked. I am not a fan of some of Gov. Christie’s positions, but his style certainly is effective. Our best shot at ending the Obama reign is to find a candidate who can be both confrontational and persuasive in his or her pursuit of the issues that really matter. It’s time to take the battle to the enemy camp, and we need to find a leader who is willing and able to get us there.

What Now for Libya?

It really is pretty easy to predict the outcome of Obama’s policies, but sometimes I wish I had gotten it wrong; actually, most of the time I wish I had gotten it wrong. This is one of those times.

An article in the Los Angeles Times reports that the NATO effort to aid the rebel forces in Libya is not going quite as well as hoped. Retired Army Gen. Barno, who formerly commanded U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was quoted in the article. “We rushed into this without a plan,” Barno said. “Now we’re out in the middle, going in circles”.

Gen. Barno certainly has this situation pegged. To be fair, the situation in Libya is a difficult one at best, but that is why we need a President with courage, wisdom, and experience. Unfortunately, all we have is Barack Obama.

By now, most Americans are familiar with the basic common sense rules for committing troops into battle. First, there should always be a pressing need for military action, based on protecting our vital national interests. Second, there needs to be a clear goal for defining victory, and at least a semblance of a plan for achieving that goal. Finally, there should be a plan for ending the conflict.

You will note, I said “most Americans”. Apparently, no one in the Obama administration is included in that group. President Obama entered into this conflict without being able to define a vital national interest, no ultimate goal, and consequently no plan for achieving that goal. Since we have no goal, we cannot define victory and it is pretty obvious there is no plan for ending the conflict.

We have since learned that the rebels we are helping are at least partly made up of Al Qaeda members, and they are so poorly equipped and organized that there is very little chance they will ever defeat Gaddafi’s forces. Someone forgot to tell Gaddafi that he was supposed to cower at the harsh words from Obama, and he shows no inclination to step down. In fact, his only direct response to Obama’s attack was to endorse his campaign for re-election.

Now that Obama has pulled NATO kicking and screaming into the battle and left them to flail about on their own, we can see the folly in his non-plan of ‘kinetic military action’. The rebellion is currently at best at a stalemate, and forces loyal to Gaddafi have adapted to the presence of the NATO air cover and are proving to be more than capable of working around it.

The question now is where to go from here. There is zero chance that the rebel forces will prevail without serious reinforcement from NATO, including equipment and troops. If NATO ends it’s support operations, Gaddafi will make good on his promise to show the rebels “no mercy”, making the entire operation a colossal waste of time and money. If NATO continues what they are doing now, they will accomplish nothing more than being a nuisance to Gaddafi. The third option would be to escalate NATO’s involvement to include ground troops. Such an action would accomplish nothing more than to involve NATO in the dreaded “quagmire” that no one wants to see.

The need to have a reason to go to war, a clearly defined goal accompanied by a well thought out plan, and a plan to end it is to avoid a situation exactly like the one we how now created in Libya. The anti-war left must be sorely tormented by their overwhelming desire to protest the war and their blind devotion to the One.

How do we get ourselves out of this mess? I have no advice for NATO other than to never let Barack Obama talk you into anything else. Frankly I don’t see a good way out of this mess, which is why we should never have gone down this path in the first place. As for America, the only way I can see that we will get ourselves out of this mess is to make a better choice for President in 2012.   

My Dog Zack

Meet my dog Zack. Zack is a Karakachan, and his job is to protect our livestock. Zack is very good at his job, keeping all manner of predators away including an occasional black bear. He is a very friendly dog until he senses a threat; and then he becomes ferocious until the threat is eliminated. He knows his boundaries, and is happy to keep within those limits. Although Zack is a great dog, he doesn’t do tricks. If I wanted him to lie down and roll over, I would have to physically wrestle him down and roll him over. When you consider the fact that Zack weighs about a hundred and twenty-five pounds; you can imagine that it would be quite a task.

It is much easier however, to get House Speaker John Boehner to lie down and roll over. In fact, as is evidenced by his recent performance on the budget negotiations, the Democrats seem to have him trained to obey on command. I have to take Speaker Boehner at his word when he says this is the best deal we could get, but that fact does not give me confidence that he has the backbone necessary to handle the negotiations on the debt ceiling or Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal. Like many of our more prominent Republican leaders, Boehner has all the right positions to be a good conservative, but he does not have the fire in his belly to lead the fight that is coming.

Conservatives are desperate for leadership that will be an effective voice for our position. We are fed up with politicians who say all the right things on the campaign trail, but can’t seem to find a voice when it really counts. America has reached the point that our survival as a nation depends upon the choices that will be made over the next few years. The fight we face is one that is not only worth fighting; it is also one that we must win if we are going to pass along to our children the kind of freedoms that made this such a great nation.

We are hungry for leadership that recognizes how important this fight is going to be, and is not afraid to take up the conservative banner and charge right into the battle. We want leaders who are passionate about freedom, and committed to upholding and defending the Constitution that guarantees that freedom.

There are many rising stars in the Republican Party who show great promise. Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Allen West, Marco Rubio and Michelle Bachman are a few of the names that come to mind. Donald Trump has created quite a stir by letting it be known that he is seriously considering a run for the White House. Although I have some significant reservations about Trump, I love the fact that Trump has already come out swinging. He is not afraid to say the things many people are thinking, and he has enough bravado and intelligence to pull it off.

I first became politically aware in the late 1970’s during the Carter administration. What I remember most about the Carter years was the feeling of misery that permeated the nation. When Ronald Reagan came along, it was like a breath of fresh air, and “Morning in America” was much more than just a campaign slogan. Reagan brought with him new energy and a sense of hope that we had all been missing.

America has once again fallen into the same kind of malaise that Carter gave us, but this time around there is a real possibility that we may never recover. This is the critical time that we need to see a genuine leader emerge who can boldly face the problems that confront our nation.

This is not a time for someone who seeks to meet the opposition half-way. Compromise will only result in half-measures at a time when only bold, decisive action will achieve what is needed. We cannot settle for almost enough, America needs to find her passion for freedom once again.

The hunger for real leadership is there. People get excited when they see a Chris Christie or Allen West refuse to back down from those who challenge them. They like what they hear when Donald Trump talks about making the rest of the world respect us again. There are several capable people in the running for the Republican nomination, and there may yet be others. As we consider our choices, leadership ability must be one of our primary considerations.

Obama's Budget Goals

How did I know this was coming?

Word is out that President Obama will soon present his budget plan. Never mind the fact that it is a year too late and you can be sure it comes up a few hundred billion dollars short. The big news of course, is that along with his budget proposal will be some proposed tax increases. I have not yet seen the details of those increases, but I’m sure they will only be on the “rich” and will immediately save our troubled economy from the devastation brought on by President Bush. Of course they will.

These tax increases he will argue are unfortunate but necessary because of the growing debt our nation faces. Make no mistake; this was his goal from the beginning. All of the massive spending increases served one very important purpose; to create the conditions necessary to justify the tax increase that would allow the government to confiscate more money to be used in their redistributive schemes.

Socialism has one grand goal in mind, to concentrate power into the hands of those who control the government. This is accomplished by confiscating all that we can produce, and handing it back out to us as they see the need. This concept is best expressed in a phrase popularized by Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

President Obama is considered by many to be an abject failure as a President, but that is far from true if you understand his primary objectives. In order to redistribute wealth, he must first confiscate it by raising taxes, and taxes must be raised because of the debt he has amassed. To preempt any serious discussion of spending cuts to avoid the need for higher taxes, he makes sure that as many Americans as possible are dependent upon the federal government.

With soaring unemployment exacerbated by Obama’s policies, government employment at record highs, inflation rates that have deliberately been driven up, and energy prices skyrocketing as Obama promised, more Americans than ever are dependent in some way on government funds. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that nearly twice as many Americans work for government (22.5 million) than all of manufacturing. Another staggering statistic reported by the Wall Street Journal is that nearly 44 million Americans are now using food stamps, an all time high.

Understanding all of this makes Obama’s seemingly inept policies more logical. It explains why the Democrats are screaming like stuck pigs at the mere mention of common sense spending cuts, and why they insist of fiscal and regulatory policies that can only hurt job growth and the overall economy. It also helps us to understand why, at a time when the federal deficit is growing at a record pace, the federal government is still hiring more employees.

Please, what ever you do, don’t buy into the notion that there is any reason at all to raise taxes on anyone (with the possible exception of those who are guilty of voting Democrat). We cannot solve our budgetary problems with tax increases any more than you can cure an alcoholic with a case of whiskey. Our treasury does not suffer from a lack of tax revenue; it suffers from a lack of fiscal responsibility.

The Democrats will of course, use class envy to make the case for their tax increases by saying they will only raise taxes on the rich. When you hear that, there are a couple of things to remember. First, 98% of our tax revenue comes from the top 50% of income earners. It is also true that most of our jobs are provided by that same group of people. The question to ask when they make their case is, how high will taxes need to be raised to match government spending? Will it ever be enough?

We cannot tax our way into a balanced federal budget because that is not the goal of those who control our government. Remember, the goal is to concentrate power, and that cannot be done with a government that spends wisely and operates within its constitutional limits.

How did I know this was coming? I knew it was coming because I understand their goals and their strategy for attaining them

Cowboy Poets and Starving Seniors

As the deadline rapidly approaches for a deal to keep the government running, President Obama and the Democrat leadership in Congress have made it clear that the political game is more important that providing the country with responsible leadership. Sen. Harry Reid has drawn a line in the sand, setting the spending cut bar at the Cowboy Poet level. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed her concern that cutting the federal budget will cause old people to starve, and President Obama has made it clear to all that he will not let efforts to pay the salaries of our military members be a distraction.

It would appear that the Democrats have come to the conclusion that a government shutdown will help them politically, so you can rest assured they won’t let the good of the country stand in the way of their political fortunes. President Obama is hoping that the expected shutdown won’t stand in the way of his planned family trip to Colonial Williamsburg.

First, let’s dispense with the notion that the Democrats are standing firm to prevent Republicans from making draconian cuts to the federal budget. While the players in this political game might want us to believe otherwise, the cuts proposed by both sides are laughably small, even when they are combined. When you consider the fact that the interest on our national debt amounts to more than $400 billion per year, these cuts don’t amount to much.

While Democrats are bound and determined to bring any serious talk of spending cuts to a screeching halt, they have failed to make even a half-hearted attempt to justify their position. Does Harry Reid honestly believe that a Cowboy Poet Festival is so vital to our nation that we should add to our debt to fund it? Does Nancy Pelosi genuinely believe that our senior citizens will starve to death without money from the federal government? The simple answer to both questions is no, of course not.

Reid, Pelosi, and Obama don’t bother with debating the issue because they know their base understands the reason why they oppose budget cuts. Massive federal spending is important to Democrats because it buys them power by funneling tax dollars into the pockets of their union backers, and by creating a culture of dependency that serves only to build their voter base.

The Left no longer makes an effort to disguise their socialist Utopian dreams, and the reckless spending that has been going on in Washington is a means to that end. The unions and various other special interest groups that support the Democrats feed off the government teat and the Democrats know they will turn on them if that teat runs dry. Already we can see signs that the socialist pig has begun to suffer from hunger pangs.

Wisconsin is a prime example. When Gov. Walker began to dismantle the money laundering operation the Democrats had established with the unions, the left went nuts. Democrats lawmakers fled the state in desperation to prevent the will of the people from being carried out, and when the Governor found a way around them, they took their fight to the courts. Their plan was endangered however, by a conservative state Supreme Court judge, so they have done their best to unseat that judge in favor of a challenger who they believe will be more favorable to their cause. That effort first appeared to have succeeded, but a recount has turned things around. It will be interesting to see what their reaction will be when Justice Prosser holds onto his office.

Get ready folks, this fight has just begun, and it will certainly become more interesting in the next few months. Be prepared for outlandish claims of the evil intentions of Republicans, and for violence and a complete disregard for the rule of law when the left does not get its way.

H.J. Res 46 – Proposed Constitutional Amendment

The freshman Congressman representing Virginia’s 9th district Morgan H. Griffith has recently introduced H.J. Res 46, which is a constitutional amendment that will allow any federal law to be nullified by a two-thirds super-majority of state legislatures. The text of the bill is as follows:

H.J.RES.46 -- Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to allow the several States to nullify a law or regulation of the United States. (Introduced in House - IH)

112th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. J. RES. 46

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to allow the several States to nullify a law or regulation of the United States.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

March 3, 2011

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

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JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to allow the several States to nullify a law or regulation of the United States.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

Article--

`Whenever the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States approve resolutions to nullify the same law or executive regulation of the United States, such law or executive regulation shall be null and void and any portion of another law or executive regulation amended by the nullified law or executive regulation shall be deemed to read as if the repealed law or executive regulation had not been enacted.'.

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Sometimes, you just know something is right, and this is one of those times. Rep. Griffith’s proposed amendment just makes sense. To be sure however, let’s examine the basis for this idea.

First, we know from studying American history that our founding fathers were fairly convinced that the powers of the federal government should be limited to those enumerated in the Constitution. They believed, and rightly so, that the most responsive government is that which is closest to the people. They established a federal government with strict limits placed upon its authority, leaving everything else to the state governments and to the people; a principle that was expressed in the tenth amendment.

Today we are all witness to what happens when the federal government exceeds its authority, and is so removed from the American people as to flagrantly ignore our expressed will. Even when the policies one party has been utterly rejected at the polls, the opposition party seems timid in carrying out its responsibility to reverse those policies and set things right. It is obvious that we now see the defining reason why such an amendment to the Constitution is needed.

The concept is not one that our founding fathers would find foreign. Article V of our Constitution provides two methods by which the Constitution can be amended. The first is the one with which we are most familiar, and act of Congress ratified by three-fourths of the states. The second method is by a call for a Constitutional Convention by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states.

By adopting the standard of the two-thirds super-majority, Rep. Griffith has ensured that his proposed amendment would not result in frivolous challenges to the rightful exercise of authority by the federal government, but at the same time it does provide a means of relief to the states when the federal government seeks to expand its authority beyond its Constitutional mandate.

Obviously, this proposed amendment will take a long time to go through the legislative process, especially considering the presence of so many proponents of big government who currently reside in Washington D.C. It is however, a start in the right direction, and this legislation deserves our full support. I would encourage everyone to contact their member of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor this important amendment to our Constitution.