News You Need To Know

Wade Rathke, who founded ACORN, announced on his blog that ACORN International has officially changed its name to “Community Organizations International.” Too much bad press and 14 lawsuits is making it difficult for them to do business - so they are hoping a name change will provide cover for them..... They are also dismantling a New Orleans non-profit named Citizen's Consulting Inc. which is connected to several of over 200 ACORN affiliates. ACORN currently works in 12 countries.

Stating that SPEED is needed in order to pass the energy and health care bills, Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats have cut off debate regarding the group
ACORN and it's wide-ranging possible violations of the law..... they recently authorized an unprecedented change in House rules, curbing the right of the minority to offer amendments to appropriations spending bills.

While President Barack Obama is not creating another Czar, via Executive Order he is creating a White House council to handle issues that affect American communities and workers tied to the automotive industry, the White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers. It is little wonder that the unemployment number in Washington, DC is only 5.6% or so.....

In a display of pure arrogance, pettiness and narcissism, California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer admonished Brig. General Michael Walsh of the Army Corp of Engineers (while he was testifying to the Senate), "Do me a favor, can you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am'? It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it. Thank you." Ms. Boxer SHOULD have been telling Walsh of her appreciation that he and all in the military are protecting our country so that she CAN be a Senator. If she understood the military, she would know that "Ma'am" is a very respectful way for a military person to address someone. How petty, small and embarrassing can one be?

From Politico, by Patrick O'Connor:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will roll the dice on a top priority this week, bringing a contentious climate-change bill to the floor despite strong misgivings from her rank-and-file and an outspoken chairman who remains a major impediment. The speaker filed the legislation with the Rules Committee on Monday night, her spokesman said, even though its authors, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, are still working out a deal. [I'm sure this will be presented as a dire emergency which needs to be addressed NOW, along with everything else they are attempting in their desire to "never let a serious crisis go to waste". We can watch the farmers, among others, try to keep this from passing.] On the Global Warming front, Thursday was the 14th consecutive day in Arizona to stay below 100 degrees, the longest period in June to be recorded since 1913. When considering a national health care program for America, keep in mind that in Canada, where government provides health care for all of its citizens, patients must wait an average of 7 weeks for treatment of life-threatening cancer, and 9 hours for emergency room care.

The Latest Obama Plans

DEPARTMENT of DEFENSE has now declared that "protests" (such as Tea Parties) are considered by them to be "Low Level Terrorist Threats"
What HAS this government come to? And when WILL we stand up and be counted??

Consumer Financial Product Safety Commission is the name for yet another new idea of Obama's. He wants to name this commission to oversee the credit card and mortgage industries, among others. "However, the commission could end up limiting consumer credit options and innovation just as the economy is beginning to rebound", said Bill Himpler, the executive vice president for government affairs of the American Financial Services Association, the trade association for the consumer credit industry. "The last thing we want to do is scare the consumer. And we're afraid that creating an agency that would put government in control of personal finances would undermine that confidence that seems to be being restored," he said.

Prior to watching the ABC Prime Time show from Obama's Whitehouse next Wednesday - know this:

In another arena, Obama now overtly and formally controls US network news, according to a writer in Canada who calls this a substantive sign of Tyranny. Following are her words.

Reminiscent of Orwell’s book 1984, soon all television broadcasts may carry Dictator in Chief Barack Hussein Obama and his message all of the time. Joining NBC (the New Barack Channel), ABC (the All Barack Channel) will now begin broadcasting from the White House. We assume CBS (perhaps the Central Barack Station?) will follow its betters soon and announce that it too will officially become an Obama mouthpiece. By the way, no opposing viewpoints will be carried or allowed. ABC also plans to run a free-to-Obama campaign promoting the dictator’s healthcare plan [this Thursday night]. Does anyone at all remember the name Hugo Chavez? Obama now overtly and formally controls US network news. This is a substantive sign of Tyranny.

And in the true spirit of his tyranny, Obama has been releasing at least one horrific piece of information almost each and every day—the latest being his control of the news. Tyrants release shocking information each and every day until the now-ruled member population becomes numbed to it. When the members (once know as “We-the-People”) become “numbed-down”, they become more compliant and are far easier to control. These members then begin the process of ignoring or denying the fact that they have become slaves to the tyrant. This is also a substantive sign of Tyranny. [Again, American needs to wake up!]

Plans of Obama

In an article by Terrence Jeffrey:

President Obama used the first-person singular pronoun "I" 34 times on Monday when he announced he was nationalizing General Motors. He used “Congress” once and “law” not at all. As Obama described it, the government takeover of General Motors was Obama’s decision made for Obama’s reasons.

What law now gives Obama authority to buy General Motors? The White House says, when pressed, it is the Troubled Asset Relief Program. But that legislation was written specifically to allow the Treasury Department to purchase assets from “financial institutions.” It says nothing about buying auto companies. And where does the Constitution say the government can take ownership of an auto company, let alone at the individual initiative of a president who cannot point to a duly enacted law that clearly expresses the deliberated will of the people that he should have that power. [I add that a 39 yr. old who admits that he knows NOTHING about automobiles has been put in charge - by President Obama.]

Capturing the news this week is the fact that President Obama has fired AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin. Top executives at the corporation which runs Americorps were unhappy with his investigation into the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California and a prominent supporter of President Obama.
President Obama’s options here are circumscribed by the Inspector-Generals Reform Act of 2007, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama. The IGs are appointed by presidents but do not serve at the Chief Executive’s pleasure as do other presidential appointees. The AmeriCorps case illustrates why IG independence must be maintained. Walpin found that Johnson used about $850,000 of AmeriCorps funds for personal and political benefit. Johnson was not charged and the half of the grant money that was supposed to be returned under an agreement with the government has not been received. The key issue now is whether Congress will permit this latest illustration of what The Examiner’s Michael Barone calls Obama’s “gangster government". News comes today that there are also similar problems regarding the NYCU....and the ways in which government have been put to use at that institution.


Last week President Obama appointed yet another “czar” with massive government power, answering only to him. Even before this latest appointment, the top-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Robert Byrd, wrote President Obama a letter saying that these czars are unconstitutional. President Obama’s “czar strategy” is an unprecedented power grab centralizing authority in the White House, outside congressional oversight and in violation of the Constitution, said Byrd.
He criticized the president’s strategy of creating czars to manage important areas of national policy, saying that these appointments violate both the constitutional system of checks and balances and the constitutional separation of powers, and is a clear attempt to evade congressional oversight. [Didn’t this White House promise unprecedented transparency?]


The man behind the plan to bulldoze a wide area of depressed Flint, Michigan, in order to bring it back to some state of abundance, is Dan Kildee, the treasurer of Genesee County, Michigan. President Obama absorbed his vision and now believes that it would be a good thing for the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to choose parts of 50 failing cities which he, or his next Czar, perhaps, would deem ripe for bulldozing. These cities include Detroit and Philadelphia. Big Brother is expanding his grasp of America...

More taxation ideas

• News from the Guardian U.K. reveals that fifty of the least developed countries on this earth have suggested a way to get billions of dollars from others to fund their climate change abatement. They have proposed a tax on international air travel . Curiously, they have not chosen to actually make any behavior changes, nor to consider that humans have not caused the "climate change" and cannot therefore halt it. In fact, as shown later in this blog, temps are getting ever colder over the last 10 years, even setting new lows not seen since 1943, when manmade "climate change" was not being suggested. This taxation "suggestion" could be matched by a shipping fuel surcharge, according to Connie Hedegaard, the Danish environment and energy minister who will host the final UN climate summit in December.. Haven't we already been paying that surcharge when we fly? I think so, but not enough for poor countries to help in making the US another poor country so that we can all be equal....

In another move to supress those Americans who have worked hard to earn a good living, Bloomberg reports that President Barack Obama wants Congress to consider taxing the wealthy instead of workers to pay for a health-care overhaul, as House Democrats discuss a plan to require health insurance for most Americans. Beware! The "lucky" rich will never have paid enough taxes to satisfy Barack Obama. In yet another move to prevent Obama's promise of lowering taxes for 95% of American tax payers, Democrats are now considering the taxation of everyone's employer paid health care insurance.

Concerning the Obama Stimulus Plan, the Federal Reserve announced a $1.2 trillion plan three months ago designed to push down mortgage rates and breathe life into the housing market. Quite the opposite is occuring, as rates are heading higher in response to concern for inflation brought on by our massive National Debt.


In the latest news about "global warming", Green Bay, Wisconsin recorded a high temperature of 52, the lowest high temp there since 1943, according to the National Weather Service.

And snow has fallen in Dickinson, North Dakota in June, the first time in nearly 60 years the city has seen snow past May.


A follow-up on Obama's desire to force a"Buy American" policy on any stimulus monies: in retaliation, Canadian mayors have passed a resolution that could shut out U.S. bidders from local city contracts. One wonders what other countries will decide to block American companies from gaining business in theirs.

Gov't plans

OPINION/ANALYSIS: some thoughts of Wesley Pruden of the Washington Times

Barack Obama's legacy is coming sharply into focus, four years early. He's out to transform "a nation of laws," once the pride of the Anglo-Saxon heritage and exemplar to the world, into "a nation of feelings." We won't need judges, just social workers damp with empathy. This is in line with the president's larger vision, to cut America down to a size a community organizer could manage, making it merely one of the nice nations of the world, like Belgium or Brazil. The home of the brave and the land of the free would become what our English cousins call "wet," weak, ineffectual, fragile, fearful, and inconsequential.

President Obama himself leaves no one under any misunderstanding about how he intends to remake America. "It is experience that can give a person a common touch of compassion," he said on introducing Sonia Sotomayor, "an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live. And that is why it is a necessary ingredient in the kind of justice we need on the Supreme Court." Not much there about the law and the Constitution. This is scary enough, but he told a Hollywood audience this week that "you ain't seen nothin' yet." The twinklies suddenly felt limp, wet and warm. Senators should rise above that, but a prudent man bets the other way.

So Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declared, "I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they've decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation." Not just careful, but "exceedingly careful"! Senator Chuck Schumer warned that Republicans "oppose her at their peril." These are pretty heavy-handed attempts at intimidation. One wonders whether a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experience, might have found a better way to make that point than a hapless white male like Gibbs.

The White House said Friday that Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor now regrets saying in 2001 that a Hispanic woman would tend to arrive at a "better conclusion" in making legal decisions than a white male. (snip)"I think she would change that word," Mr. Gibbs said.

From George Wittman of American Spectator:
The past few weeks have contained a sharp dose of reality therapy for a person who had become used to gliding through complicated issues like a traveling preacher expounding on the evils of sin. While exhorting the public to accept sacrifice, Pastor Obama laid out pat answers to all questions only to have to change his positions as he and his staff actually studied the problem.

And from Pravda, on America: First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

So it should be no surprise that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride. Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper. So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

[Are many Americans getting this message? Certainly they are not getting this view from our fawning media.....].

Our President's Agenda.....

Did you know that our President's Justice Department recently declared that the civil suit against some New Black Panther members has been dropped? These men, wearing military-style uniforms and wielding nightsticks (verified by UTube video) intimidated voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day. This violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but that matters little to Barack Obama, apparently.

And now word comes that in the state of Georgia, the government was planning to actually check their voter files against drivers licenses, SSNs and death notices in an attempt to prevent the dead, illegal and multi-addressed people from voting. Barack Obama's Justice Department has rejected those plans, saying it would be discriminatory! And here I thought our Constitution actually limits voting to live American citizens!

President Barack Obama, who during his campaign declared that using his middle name (Hussein) was racist, has stated in an interview in France that America is one of the world's largest Muslim nations, in spite of the fact that only 1% of us are Muslims... Though stating that he is now a Christian, such is the new presidential honesty and diplomacy that he is now proud to be counted among the Muslims of the world..... In Cairo he declared that ""No single nation should pick and choose which nations should hold nuclear weapons," he said. He naively assumes that our enemies, who are even now not allowing inspections and are repeatedly saying that they will "wipe Israel off the map", can be counted on to be true to their word. As one with a Muslim background, he should well know that in their world a good lie is celebrated as a good way to meet their objectives. And this: "ANY WORLD ORDER THAT ELEVATES ONE NATION OVER ANOTHER WILL FAIL..." I ask if this is Obama's way of telling us that American exceptionalism will not be tolerated, that Americans will give their assets to the rest of the world until we are all equal? After all, this is possibly the agenda of Obama's desire to form a Global Welfare program thru the United Nations.

Rush Limbaugh points out the lengths to which Obama will go to praise Muslims:

Where do we start here [concerning Obama's speech]? "It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra." No. The origins of algebra trace back to the ancient Babylonians. They were not Muslims. Algebra was temporarily developed by the ancient Greeks and later the English. "Our magnetic compass, tools of navigation," Islam gave us these? No. "Recent research suggests that the compass may have been discovered by Central Americans, but if they didn't do it, the Chinese are then its discoverers. In either case, be it the Chinese or the Central Americans, the compass was discovered centuries before the advent of Islam." "Our mastery of pens and printing..." Has anybody ever heard of Gutenberg? I didn't know Gutenberg was a Muslim. "Our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed..."? Are there Nobel Prizes for Medicine awarded to Muslims I have missed? "Islam has given us some majestic arches and soaring spires..." Well, sorry, folks, but arches and spires predate the arrival of Islam by centuries. He also talked about the great gift, "timeless poetry and cherished music." The only problem there is that music -- and musical instruments especially -- are forbidden in most Islamic traditions. And it should be unnecessary to have to note Islam's "religious tolerance" has been demonstrated. If President Obama can give a speech like this about all of the quote-unquote 'contributions to humanity from the ancient Muslim world,' then take heart, my friends, says Rush. Be optimistic! Because it may be that someday Barack Obama can give one speech about America and all of our accomplishments.

And a quote from none other than Hugo Chavez: "Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right," Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.

On another topic, from the Telegraph Blog: "The British press, especially the Telegraph, has been singled out [by our President's Press Secretary] because they frequently publish articles critical of the Obama administration and are not afraid to take on the status quo in Washington. Increasingly, millions of Americans are turning to online UK news websites for cutting edge reports on American politics and U.S. foreign policy that the mainstream media refuses to cover in the States, especially if it is unflattering. In the current climate of "engagement" with America's enemies the White House is far more likely to attack its own allies. Congratulations Gibbs - you've just made an enemy out of the entire British media, quite an achievement for the man in charge of selling the President's message."

Cap and Trade Legislation

I am sending this letter to my Congressmen, and give you permission to copy and send to yours.....

I am writing in regard to your current deliberations of the Climate Change/Cap and Trade legislation. Most of your constituents will be pointing out their concerns regarding the enormous expenses such legislation will add to the burdens on American taxpayers. Even the watered down Waxman/Markey version of this bill, with it’s proposal to give away 85% of it’s credits, will produce many unintended consequences. These will include, but not be limited to: more government control over who shall receive the credits; increased lobbying in order to gain the government favors; a disincentive to produce cleaner energy or to use less energy; a large increase in consumers’ expenses for energy due to less money coming in to pay for your Budget; and difficulties in understanding and following the 932 pages of rules. Indeed, even the sponsor of the bill, Henry Waxman, did not know of the terrible cost of one section of the bill which will underwrite income and healthcare insurance for anyone who loses his job because of this bill. Spain, which has endeavored to use these ideas, found that for every job the green agenda produces (and our President declares this to be 5 million), job losses will be twice as high. This means that over 10 million more US citizens will likely need to be covered for income and insurance!

But I am writing to plead that we back up a step to consider if this global warming, or as it is now being called, global climate disruption, has truly been caused by man in the first place. I wish for you to consider these facts: global warming has occurred every 1500 years throughout the ages; global temperatures have stabilized and slightly cooled since 1998 - at the same time that CO2 levels have been steadily rising; some scientists are now saying that global cooling is perhaps more likely and will be much worse for humans than is global warming; and the end result of jeopardizing the world's as well as our economy for this agenda, especially at this most difficult time, would be to prevent only 0.1 degrees F in temperature rise from occurring.

It troubles me that Chairman Waxman prevented Lord Monckton from testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This proves to me that no debate will be entertained - only fear tactics. Contrary to the UN's 2100 folks who expound on the problem, Lord Monckton, former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was to represent over 31,000 scientists , including the founder of the Weather Channel, who have signed a Global Warming Petition expressing their doubts over the cause being manmade. This is your proof that there is no consensus. Two hundred of these scientists recently attended the 2nd Annual International Conference on Climate Change in NYC - and yet the media failed to inform us about it and it was never considered by our Congress. Until true debate and consideration of the problem is undertaken, any move by Congress to further our debt and increase our government in this way is the wrong thing to do.
Thank you for your consideration.

ReplyReply All

Move...Inbox2006 Contributions2008 donations2008 tax paymentsAmerica Is GoodAncestryBarb TerwilligerBrianbusiness card templa...Chubb InsuranceconservativecornerEtakEthan BrooksFoster and MotleyFounding Fathersfraud protectionglobal warmingGood StuffGreeting CardsGrizzled VeteranGTBHBCSHealth Insurance Opt...IllegalsInconvenient TruthsInternet FavoritesInvesting IdeasIslamKAPKevin ElsenheimerLake CharlevoixLKPMadelineMain Line Health Pen...Matthew Scott PetersMedAssetsninth street bridgeOffersPaddle TennisPeters Pearsall Matt...petoskey news reviewPhilipPhoto AlbumsPoliticsRailroad Right of Wa...Rainbow BridgeRaspberry Lane 2004RecipesSchwab - KAPSchwabSoldiersStanding OvationTaxestennisTravelU of M - foreign stu...weddingWeddingWeight Watchers

Foreign Leaders' Comments on Obama

How is our President doing at wooing the world's leaders?

At a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the Americas Summit, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared that Venezuelan socialism has begun to reach the United States under the Obama administration. (Snip) ''It would seem that the changes that started in Venezuela in the last decade of the 20th century have begun to reach North America''

Bavarian EU Parliament member, Bernd Posselt, told Germany’s Der Spiegel, “The EU is not Obama's plaything…He should accept Turkey as America's 51st state instead.”

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the rotating EU president, is calling Obama’s policies “socialist”. He said of Obama, to the old Agence France Presse several weeks ago: “The same chimera of equality, which we rejected with the fall of communism, is taking hold again.”

Prayer leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami referred to Hillary Rodham Clinton as the "immature and newcomer" secretary of state.

Ahmadinejad has boasted of telling a prime minister at the Durban II conference in Geneva that America and the Zionists -- how the Iranian regime refers to Israel -- "are on the verge of death."

Amnesty Bill Particulars

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine

The Next Big Obama Push:
As reported by none other than CNN's Lou Dobbs: The Particulars of the Amnesty Bill currently being presented :

1) Z Visas must be given within 24 hrs., whether a background check has been completed or not. These Visas are to be renewed indefinitely, making them permanent

2) WE pay for all the attorneys who work for the illegals to become visa holders

3) Illegals who are gang members can get a Visa by simply saying they don't want to be gangsters anymore

4) WE must pay for programs which are intended to encourage Mexicans to stay in Mexico

5) Illegals do NOT have to pay back taxes to get a Visa

6) SPP, the Security Prosperity Program, is to be fast-tracked, erasing our borders

7) The Dream Act will provide college tuition to illegals

8) Illegals will cut in front of those who have been going thru the legal route to become citizens

9) Amnesty will be granted even to those who were ordered departed

10) Illegals don't have to learn to speak English for 9 years

11) Illegals will qualify for Earned Income Credit, a government check for not working

As a consequence of all this, we can expect illegals, whom Nancy Pelosi has declared to be oh so patriotic, to always vote for Democrats! What will they think of next? Oh, yes - paying back the gay rights groups for their campaign support by enacting a new Hate Crimes bill which makes it illegal to "put someone in fear of their safety." This may morph into criminalizing anyone who is not politically correct, perhaps even by speaking unkindly of any minority group, that's what...

Gitmo Releasees

From Rep. Frank Wolf: " The Obama administration is ready to release a number of Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 into the United States, according to several recent press reports.
Information I have received, however, indicates that the 17 Uighurs being held at Guantanamo may be more dangerous than the public has been led to believe. Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have reportedly raised serious concerns about the release of the 17 detainees, who are said to be members of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, a terrorist organization affiliated with Al Qaeda".

Here's how Dennis Blair, President Obama's Director of National Intelligence, rationalizes their plan for welfare for terrorists: "If we are to release them in the United States, we need some sort of assistance for them to start a new life," Blair said last month. "You can't just put them on the street."

The House Appropriation Committee yesterday denied President Obama's request for the $81 million dollars closing Gitmo. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is demanding to know just where the prisoners will go and what will be done with them.

Then there is this from Times Online:

"BARACK Obama is on the verge of breaking two key campaign promises in his troubled attempt to shut Guantanamo Bay, with plans to revive the military tribunal system set up by George W. Bush and to continue the indefinite detention of up to 100 inmates".

It has been admitted that up to 100 of the 241 detainees remaining are either too dangerous to release or cannot be tried in a military or civilian court because the evidence against them contains issues of national security which should not be revealed. Mr Obama’s lawyers are concerned that a civilian judge could throw out much of the evidence against the detainees, allowing allegedly dangerous men to walk free.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked if this administration would abandon the Guantánamo tribunal system, to which he replied,“Not at all. The commissions are still very much on the table.” Hopefully this shows that our neophyte President is capable of learning on the job. In this instance it would be learning that we should not give aid to our enemies. When any of the detainees are put into our country, to move around freely, it is we the people who will be paying their hotel bills, food and other expenses, by the way. Doesn't that make us feel oh, so compassionate? I wonder if they will inform the neighbors, as they inform neighbors when a pedophile moves into the neighborhood.....

American University Chair of Islamic Studies said today, "Obama's biggest challenge is not Rush Limbaugh, it is Pakistan and Afghanistan". And still we will be closing Gitmo so that we American citizens can get to better know our terrorists.

Canada Free Press on Obama

Once again, the unvarnished truth about our President comes not from the USA, but from the Canada Free Press.
From Joan Swirsky: In decades of commenting on the political scene, [including those of dictators and despots], I cannot recall a single leader of any country or regime who has ever spoken negatively of his country or tolerated others speaking ill of the land or the people he represented
Until now. Bizarre and, yes, repugnant as it is to our essentially centrist country, America now has a president who has broken that time-honored tradition. Barack Obama, on the campaign trail and as the leader of the free world is the first U.S. president to proclaim to anyone within earshot that he, like his wife, is not proud of his country, and is all-too-willing to offer serial apologies – for America! – to Americans and foreigners alike. As Ed Lasky writes: “We know that during the campaign [Obama] warned that criticismof his wife was `off-limits’. But criticism of America – well, that is fine.
We also know that during his run for the presidency, Obama expressed sneering condescension towards all those bible-clasping, gun-owning yahoos who “cling” to those silly things, and that in Europe he consistently gave voice to America’s supposed “sins.” But all that pales in comparison to the clear contempt – looks more like hatred to me – that Obama feels for the United States of America and for it's Constitution.
In true utopian-kindergarten fashion – Obama pledged “with conviction” that America will “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” In other words, destroy big bad America’s ability to defend itself!

• In London, Obama made clear that the world’s financial wealth was no longer made by those inferior leaders Roosevelt and Churchill, effectively ceding America’s leading role in creating and sharing wealth to nations that have never measured up to our country’s bountiful generosity or spirit of free-market entrepreneurship.
• In Venezuela, Obama sat passively while the Marxist Chavez handed him an American-bashing book and delivered another revile-America speech, while never once rising to defend our country.
• In Nicaragua, Obama again sat passively while the Marxist Ortega blamed the United States for a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America, again emitting not a whisper of defense on our country’s behalf.
• In Turkey, Obama said – incredibly and inaccurately – that America was not a Christian nation.
• And in his recent trip to Mexico, Obama said that the escalating border violence was essentially America’s fault.

Scan you memory. Can you think of any other leader in world history who so consistently badmouths his own country, or fails to defend it? I can’t.

Historian Victor Davis Hanson also noticed something odd about Obama’s apology tour. “Despite this fresh climate of atonement, there was a complete absence of a single apology from any other foreign leader…not a word came from Britain about colonialism…nothing from Germany on the Holocaust…not a peep from France about Algeria or Vietnam. Turkey was mum on the Armenian killings…Russia said nothing about the 30 million murdered by Stalin…Nothing came from China about the 70 million who perished under Mao…Mr. Medvedev said nothing about Putin’s brutish rule…We saw no concrete evidence of any help — or hope and change — from any foreign leader. Zilch.”

In addition, Hanson continues, “We hear nothing about our Gettysburg, or our entry into World War I. Iwo Jima and the Bulge are never alluded to. Drawing the line in Korea and forcing the end of the Soviet monstrosity are taboo subjects. That we pledged the life of New York for Berlin in the Cold War is unknown. Liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from the diabolical Taliban and Saddam Hussein is left unsaid. The Civil Rights movement, the Great Society, affirmative action, and present billion-dollar foreign-aid programs apparently never existed. Millions of Africans have been saved by George Bush’s efforts at extending life-saving medicines to AIDS patients — but again, this is never referenced.”

Blogger James Lewis says that Obama’s “obsessive need to put down his own country shows a stunningly ignorant man who has evidently never spoken to a concentration camp survivor, a Cuban refugee, a boat person from Vietnam, a Soviet dissident, or a survivor of Mao’s purges.”

And speaking about appeasing Iran, the Obama administration recently asked a federal judge to throw out a $6.6-billion class-action lawsuit against Iran filed by 52 American diplomats and military officials held hostage for more than a year at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago. Nothing like selling out Americans to make brownie points with a bloodthirsty dictator!

How Is This Playing in the Arab world of our Enemies?
On Friday, prayer leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami referred to Hillary Rodham Clinton as the "immature and newcomer" secretary of state.

Ahmadinejad has boasted of telling a prime minister at the Durban II conference in Geneva that America and the Zionists -- how the Iranian regime refers to Israel -- "are on the verge of death."

Wonder Why Obama Changed His Mind?

President Obama has surrendered national security with a radical appointment at the Defense Department. Rosa Brooks, this month made adviser to Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy, will be in a position to do significant damage to U.S. security. She is formerly an LA Times columist.

And from a Washington Times Editorial: This position is unknown to most outside the Beltway but is at the critical locus of defense policymaking. The undersecretary for policy's office is the nerve center producing most of the Defense Department's strategic documents and governing policies. According to a George W. Bush-era occupant of that office: "If she wanted to write her wacky ideas into policy controlling the entire defense establishment, that would be the place to do it." A review of Ms. Brooks' published work reveals her hard-left, rabidly ideological positions on defense matters. She regularly referred to Mr. Bush as a war criminal, and argues that Bush-era policies on terrorism - which prevented any major attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001 - made America less secure. Referring to Mr. Bush and former Vice President Richard Cheney, she wrote, "They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment." She has called al Qaeda "little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs" and wrongly predicted that the surge in Iraq was "a feckless plan" that would prove "too little, too late." Putting her in the policy shop "is like Lyndon Johnson making Jane Fonda a senior adviser on Vietnam," the former Pentagon adviser says. She frequently criticizes what she sees as a pro-Israel bias in U.S. policy.
[And we still wonder where our President's overnight change of opinion on this matter might have originated?]

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Obama's First 100 Days

Though I don't know who is the author of this political cartoon, it does a good job of summing up this administration's agenda.

Picture the following words over a picture of President Obama: So we'll put money in the economy by taking money out of the economy then putting it back in the economy and taxing it as it passes through. Yeah, that ought to work.

BREAKING NEWS: On a 51-45 vote, the Senate, with the votes of 15 Democrats, just defeated the proposed bill that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgage contracts to reduce the amount people owe on their mortgages. Led by Arizona's Jon Kyl and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, President Obama's high priority bill became his first legislative defeat. By relieving troubled homeowners today, banks would have been forced to charge higher rates on the next generation of mortgagees. Speaking for millions of renters and nondelinquent borrowers, Mr. McConnell said that the vote "ensures that homeowners who pay their bills and follow the rules won't see an interest-rate hike at the whim of a bankruptcy judge". Nor, I add, will the binding contracts we sign be allowed to be altered at the command of the government.

ABC ran a report showing the names and faces of two present CIA contractors who may have had a role in the waterboarding of KSM and Abu Zubaydah. This puts them at extreme risk from our enemies, and is against the law. When it isn't a Republican who can be falsely accused as in the Valerie Plame case, I doubt that any recriminations will be coming.

Barack Obama, while celebrating his first 100 days as our "hero", said "those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.” I guess he doesn't know that Fox News Network has more viewers than all the other cable channels put together, and that Fox only began to cover the tea parties after we the people began to organize them. By the way, the Petoskey, Michigan tea party will be held today at 6:00 pm, and Joe The Plumber will be in attendance. Our President denigrated those citizens who attend tea parties and totally misrepresented their focus: his and Congress's dismantling of capitalism, their extreme spending and debt production, and their disrespect for the very Constitution which they have pledged to uphold. While willing to discuss with us the various ways in which we can save money on health care (just as Castro and Chavez promised to listen to anything and everything Americans wish to discuss, but to change nothing), he is not willing to do anything except listen. This is demonstrated by his Congress which is about to pass a simple majority as the voting method to give to us national healthcare, without debate. He must have forgotten that when questioned on his agenda, he told a Republican Senator, "I won". And I would remind our President that though he won, there were nearly 60 million Americans who did NOT vote for him, and he is the President of us all. His speech demonstrates what he truly thinks of those of us who might question his wisdom. He said, "opposing our approach on every front is probably not a good political strategy." And I thought that is why our Constitution provides for at least TWO political parties! He and his party certainly exercised their rights to oppose the President's agenda during the last administration.

Marxists believe in the following: "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". Is this not reminiscent of Obama's response to Joe the Plumber? As a reminder, he said to Joe: "It's not that I want to punish your success, I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too." Obama then explained his trickle-up theory of economics. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Marxists believe that goods should be produced for usefulnesss and not for profitability. Wow! That sounds so much like a recent Obama quote about how we Americans need to stop working because of the importance of the money it provides and more for the goodness it can provide to others. No, Mr. President, some of us work very hard to provide for ourselves and our families. American conservatives then become the world's largest donators to charities world-wide. Statistics show, however, that liberals tend to donate almost nothing to charities, for they want to use OUR money to do that.

On another subject, some of the arguments against the Obama administration's release of classified documents regarding "enhanced interrogation", as well as plans to prosecute those who approved the aforementioned techniques (which would include a large number of Congressmen) have been voiced by his own CIA director Leon Panetta and four previous CIA directors. Declassifying the memos will make it more difficult for the CIA to defend the nation. It communicated to our enemies the limits of our techniques, enabling them to practice their resistance (just as our SEAL members all do as part of their training). It is believed that it will discourage intelligence professionals from offering their frank opinions in sensitive counterterrorist cases for fear that they will be prosecuted by a future administration. That will make it ever more difficult to recruit good people to our government whose job it is to protect our country.

"The quote of the day from GM, on their new Obama contract : "The U.S. Treasury will be able to elect all of our directors and to control the vote on substantially all matters brought for a stockholder vote." The government who couldn't even successfully run it's own cafeteria knows SO much about running ANY business, don't you know! The government is also refusing to accept repayment of loans it made to various banks -- for it wishes not to lose control over those banks.

"That is the true genius of America , a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door." That is a direct Obama quote. I have not yet heard a knock on my door, but I and all conservatives have been targeted for surveillance, as we might become terrorists, according to our government. Why has our President not condemned this National Security edict as he refuted the naming of veterans as possible terrorists?

New Latin America Leaders Not Leftist??

To the Petoskey News Review:
Your Editor Kendall Stanley asked for opinions on which columnist he should choose for dismissal. I am writing to offer my opinion regarding Georgie Anne Geyer, as I find it almost laughable that he considers her to be a moderate. In her last article for instance, she describes new leaders in Latin America as "not leftist in traditional Marxist terms, but rather broadly and emotionally leftish, essentially nonideological". I can only assume that since the very definition of Marxism is from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, Geyer recognizes that they do not fulfill that definition due to their “nonideological” total authoritarianism, the jailing of their political critics, the running of their countries with an iron fist, and their disrespect of basic human rights. Our US State Department has declared there are “numerous rights violations under Chavez”, that he represses opposition to his administration. "I sting those who rattle me," Chavez has said in one weekly TV address, "so don't mess with me, Condoleezza!" The recent warning given by our own Department of Homeland
Security's leader Janet Napolitano, by the way, makes me understand that now in the United States political critics of our government are being isolated and threatened by being named as possible terrorists which all local police departments have been warned to watch. Do we not recall Hillary Clinton’s screech, “I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration". I guess we conservatives are not being called unpatriotic, just ripe for being terrorists. Does that make you feel better?
Ideology by definition is supposed to mean "the body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual group, class or culture." I guess Latin leaders ARE non-ideologues, as they don't CARE about the needs and aspirations of anyone but themselves. Take Chavez, for instance. I do not find Chavez to be "mystical", nor Messiah-like, as Geyer does. His getting chummy attention, with not a condition required, from what used to be the greatest power on Earth is definitely not helpful to America. Chavez has recently suggested that Venezuela and Iran must build a New World Order, along with a new bank which shall replace the IMF and World Bank. How do you think Obama's new “good neighbor policy” is working so far?
While admitting that Cuba is impoverished, she does not connect the dots to the agenda and policies of Castro in making it so. If Castro is such an "historic inspiration" to Geyer, perhaps she should note that even though Raul Castro said last week that he was open to talk about "everything, everything with the Americans", he also has no intention of changing a thing. Nor does she mention that the health care of those in Cuba is rationed by Castro's government, just as it will have to be in the USA if we indeed institute government paid health care and health insurance, as was admitted by none other than Tom Daschle, President Obama’s first, but flawed by being a tax cheat, choice to be head of this effort.. President Obama's "Good Neighbor Policy" includes new $200 million in loans to Cuba. These come rife with the probabilities of the loan money never reaching those who actually are impoverished, which is often the case with American money sent abroad. Geyer admits that "these leaders actually accomplish little palpable for their people", which she says is not the point! What, pray tell, should the point be, then?
Ms. Geyer saw in Chavez a "Messianic Glow". I assume Geyer must also see in our new President a “Messianic Glow”, for he has already declared that he and his followers are “the change we have been waiting for”, predicting that “this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." In my view, President Ronald Reagan is our “historic inspiration”. Ms. Geyer is no moderate, but she does continue to give me plenty of material for presenting a conservative’s viewpoint.

Global Warming InThe News

• I know this is not fun reading, but it is SO important to our future!
• 
  
• The 2nd annual “International Conference on Climate Change” was recently held in New York, bringing together hundreds of climate skeptics from around the world. European Union President Vaclav Klaus is quoted as saying that the climate debate is not just about temperature.
  "Environmentalists want to change us and our behavior” because “their mission is control.” [This is change you shouldn't have to believe in..., I say. I've always wanted Al Gore to explain what it was that caused the last global warming, or Ice Age, for that matter. But Gore refuses to actually have a scientific debate...] And today Al Gore has said in Congress that Cap and Trade, and the Waxman Bill currently being discussed, is the most important bill ever presented to Congress, likening it to the Marshall Plan and to the fight for Civil Rights! Well, it WILL make Al Gore and his cap and trade company much more rich.... Every American family will pay this tax in the form of higher gasoline, heating, and electric bills. MIT has recently stated that the price tag WILL be $4000 per household per year.

Recently the EPA has been given broad powers to prevent Global Warming, whether it can be proved to be manmade or reversible or not. It wants to tax greenhouse gases - from livestock and cars..... and that would be without any new laws being passed by our Congress.. They are also proposing to tax our use of energy used to heat and cool our homes. In their best case scenario they wish for a power "smart grid" that allows the government to dial down our thermostats!

Included in the current Waxman bill are provisions that will allow anyone who feels they are being adversely affected by anyone else's pollution including the government's, (making them a "victim"), the right to SUE that entity; the liberal National Academies of Science will unilaterally make recommendations to the gov't.; the gov't must seek the opinion of liberal environmental groups when creating or revising their regulations; our government will institute yet another gov't program, this time to train the work force to do the work of curing our planet of Global Warming - thru college grants.

• AND THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS STORY includes items such as these:
• 
  
• A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.
• 
  

More than 650 prominent international scientists now oppose the findings of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC)., which are the basis of the Waxman proposal. The 52 authors of the IPCC report who are climate scientists are out-numbered 12-to-1 by their scientific critics.The UN’s Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change claims to be the world’s “most authoritative body” on the subject. However, only “something on the order of 20%” of the panel’s scientists “have some dealing with climate,” admits a senior member. Even the IPCC chairman is an economist, not a scientist.


It has been shown that the West Antarctic ice sheet has collapsed and regrown at least 60 times in the past few million years. David Harwood, a palaeoecologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a founding member of the Andrill project says, "We can see the sea level come and go and we can see the ice sheets advance and retreat." Harwood, Fielding and 50 other scientists have detailed their findings from this critical period in a paper in Nature last month (vol 458, p 322). "The cores show at least 60 cycles of glacial collapse, retreat, and re-advance during the last 14 million years. To see the physical evidence for what we had suspected from other information was pretty exciting."

As we go back into history, into past millennia, we can see that our atmosphere has in fact had much more CO2 - up to 6,000 parts per million, compared to the 380 parts per million that we have now - and it has responded and it has settled. Earth didn't destroy itself.

Watts has found that temperature data from nearly 70 percent of the weather stations is of questionable accuracy because the stations do not adhere to the USHCN's own quality-control guidelines. Some are placed on airport runways and beside exhaust vents on buildings, for instance! Data from last September was repeated for October, skewing the readings to be much warmer than they were. In fact, our planet has been cooling over the last 10 years, forcing the Global Warming crowd to now warn us of "climate change" instead.

And a few items regarding our banning of DDT and our use of ethanol:
From Amy Herzog of Townhall.com: Thanks to Westerners’ fear of all things inorganic—and Rachel Carson’s scare-mongering book “Silent Spring”—one million inhabitants of third-world countries die of malaria every year. Although studies show that DDT has no harmful effects on humans, environmentalists have pressured Western governments to ban imports from countries that use the chemical for disease control. Under threat of trade sanctions from the West, African nations have been forced to use less effective and more expensive methods to fight the malaria epidemic, such as mosquito-repellent bed nets—even though many Africans don’t own beds.

Last spring, several Third World nations erupted in riots because the people didn’t have enough to eat—the cost of food staples had soared over 80 percent in three years. Among the chief causes? The West’s decision to divert food resources toward the development of Earth-friendly “biofuels.” “When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels,” Palaniappan Chidambaram, India's finance minister, said during the food riots.

EMERGENCY! CONSERVATIVES ARE NOW POSSIBLE TERRORISTS!

Department of Homeland Security released a controversial 10-page report warning against "right-wing extremism," despite a disclaimer: "The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis has no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but right-wing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emerging issues". And from Guy Benson of Townhall.com: Although the details vary, the overarching message is consistent. To conservatives: Be quiet. Your political speech is irresponsible and might conceivably encourage violence. To other Americans: Be afraid of these borderline-insane people. Their ranting radio hosts and wild-eyed tea party/hate fests (“not really family viewing” according to one CNN correspondent) are frightening and creepy. Welcome back, fear. Hope, we hardly knew ye. [Where were our government warnings about community organizers and their "in your faces" tactics, for instance - or warnings about possible ill-effects from listening to a Black Liberation Theology minister for 20 years? ]

And I say that while refusing to refer to Muslims who kill infidels terrorists, Janet Napolitano DOES warn all police departments to be on the look-out for good American citizens who disagree with Barack Obama and this Congress as potential terrorists! As Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, once famously shrieked: "I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration". To my knowledge she was never declared by the Bush Administration to be an extremist and possible terrorist for speaking up against her government's policies.....

For further elucidation, read the following paragraph, and realize that if you are reading this, your government has labeled you a possible terrorist!

"Right-wing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." Right-wing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures," the assessment warns. When asked, DHS spokeswoman Sara Kuban could not name who was responsible for this "extremist chatter".

Obama, speaking after Ortega and Fernandez, said the U.S. is seeking a new beginning in its relationship with Cuba and wants an “equal partnership” with other countries in the Americas. Regional leaders “cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements,” Obama said. “You can’t blame the U.S. for every problem in this hemisphere,” Obama said. “I am very grateful that President Ortega didn’t blame me for things that happened when I was three months old.

This begs this question for Obama, and do notice he didn't say America, as everything is only about "the One": If you think it wouldn't have been right for YOU to be blamed for things that happened even in the 1980's, does this mean you will STOP blaming Americans for what happened here regarding slavery?? The 13th Amendment, passed in 1865, freed all slaves. WE don't wish to be blamed for "things that happened when" we were 150 years away from even being born.


Barack Obama has recently named 18 administration Czars. Carl Browner is the energy czar and Gil Kerlikowske is the drug czar, for instance. Even Senator Robert Byrd believes that these czar appointments are a slick way for Obama to govern without needing to work with Congress, for czars do not even have to go thru Senate confirmation hearings. This seems to be anti-Constitutional, as powers were granted to only Congress by that Constitution to make laws. Former Rep. Ernest Istook said he doesn't like the term czar either because it's too Russian.

Inexcusable Lapse:By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY -

War On Terror: Imagine a president of the United States, within his first hundred days, revealing secrets that help terrorists kill. The secret memos on enhanced interrogation, now made public, do exactly that.

Houston Chronicle, by Jennifer A. Dlouhy:

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency’s declaration Friday that greenhouse gases endanger the public paves the way for new federal regulation of cars, power plants and factories that spew pollutants blamed for climate change. [This will happen without Obama's promise to "restore science to it's rightful place", for there will be no debate on the statistics and facts concerning the ability of man to reverse what the planet and it's sun is doing once again. Worse than that, major expenditures will be put in place without any law being passed by Congress!] A Must See: three minutes with Jonathan Krohn, speaking at CPAC. He is 11 years old, and quite amazing as he defines his book on conservativism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vz1TVpwme0