Winning through intimidation

Muslim appeasers seem like some Republicans; though Muslims want to blow up things American, Democrats want to blow up American institutions – when Republicans appease Democrats, as some will in voting to confirm Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, they will behave like Muslim appeasers. Democrats with help from their media house organs intimidate to get their way just as Muslims do.

But as good as Democrats are at the intimidation game, they are nothing compared to Muslims who skillfully use the political correctness tool and outright threats of violence.

Want some examples, how about these:

The Vanderbilt Loews Hotel in Nashville, Tenn., summarily cancelled a meeting scheduled in its facilities by the New English Review, which was to hold a conference called "Understanding the Jihad in Israel, Europe and America" and featuring a video presentation by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, Holocaust author Richard L. Rubenstein, Jihadwatch senior analyst Hugh Fitzgerald, "Legacy of Jihad" author Andrew G. Bostom, New English Review Publisher Rebeccca Bynum, Center for the Study of Political Islam Director Bill Warner and Paul "Dave" Gaubatz, a former federal agency who is directing a major research project into activities of Islamic centers in the U.S. that "advocate terrorist acts against U.S. interests."

Hotel Manager Director Tom Negri told WorldNet Daily that the symposium was cancelled by the hotel for the "health, welfare and safety of our guests and team members."

He refused to explain.

The New English Review announced its first annual symposium, 'Understanding the Jihad in Israel, Europe and America,' will be held at a secure, undisclosed location. Loews Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel succumbed to intimidation and cancelled hosting our event."

A 17-minute documentary on the Quran showing images of Islam's holy book together with terror attacks and bombings by Muslim extremists was taken down from a British video-sharing website, LiveLeak.com, after the organization reported "serious" threats to its staff members.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali who has been a critic of Islam was forced to leave the U.S. because American authorities will not finance her personal security. The Dutch government says that since Ali has been in the States for more than a year, it no longer would pay the expenses for her security. Ali, 37, had been working for the Washington-based think tank American Enterprise Institute since August 2006. As a critic of Islam, she has been living under strict personal security measures provided by the Dutch government since 2004, when her life was threatened by a Muslim radical (Mohammed Bouyeri).

Here in this country syndicated radio talk-show host Michael Savage has had his radio show advertisers threatened by the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to force him off the air because of his criticism of radical Muslim activities. CAIR recently issued an announcement that OfficeMax, a leading office products retailer, had joined "a growing list of companies" withdrawing advertising from Savage's program because of his opinions regarding Islam.

CAIR issued an advisory "Call the OfficeMax office headquarters … and when you get an operator, in a polite but firm manner, tell the operator you will no longer shop at OfficeMax until OfficeMax reverses this ill-advised decision (to advertise on the Savage radio show)."

Brigitte Gabriel who leads an organization to call public attention to Muslim anti-American activities (ACT) said "If CAIR can succeed in this effort to silence Michael Savage, consider the chilling effect this will have on every talk radio host in America."

Reacting to an effort by the city council of San Francisco (where the Savage show originates) to censure Savage, he said "This is a dry run against free speech in America by the Islamists and the illegal aliens who are now becoming one and the same. It's the same organizational structure. … I am the target of this dry run. They want to see how far they can get in silencing a voice of freedom in the United States of America. They want to see which, if any, governmental agencies will stop them."

"Guess what they learned so far?" he continued. "That not only will no governmental agency stop them in their attempts to kill free speech, they will aid them in their attempts to kill free speech.”

To show how successful has been the CAIR campaigns for preferred rights of Muslims, The Transportation Security Administration whose mission is to safeguard America's airports – is providing Islamic sensitivity training to 45,000 airport security officers so they'll know what to expect when Muslims fly from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia to participate in the annual "hajj," or pilgrimage to Mecca.

Can you imagine the TSA providing special training to protect Jews and Christians who want to visit the holy land?

Incidentally, not long ago six Muslim imams were ejected by federal authorities from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis because they were deemed a potential security threat. Among the various behaviors that unnerved fellow passengers was the group's prayers in the airport prior to their flight.

This incident of special treatment for Muslims does not stand alone. CAIR has developed a wide-ranging advisory and teaching relationship with government on the subject of protecting Muslim interests. Last year a senior Department of Homeland Security official from Washington personally guided CAIR officials on a behind-the-scenes tour of Customs screening operations at O'Hare International Airport in response to CAIR complaints that Muslim travelers were being unfairly delayed as they entered the U.S. from abroad. During the airport tour CAIR was taken on a walk through the point-of-entry, Customs stations, secondary screening and interview rooms. In addition, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were asked to describe for CAIR representatives various features of the high-risk passenger lookout system. (Isn’t that just dandy, now Muslims know how we try to protect ourselves from Muslim terrorism.)

By the way, CAIR – which is bankrolled by the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates, two countries that formally recognized the Taliban – also offers religious and cultural sensitivity training about Islam and Muslims to the military. For example, recently CAIR trained more than 300 military personnel at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona.

If you aren’t aware of the danger posed to Americans by CAIR, you may be interested to know that CAIR’ chairman, Omar Ahmad, is reported by a California newspaper as saying that "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant," and, "The Koran, (the Muslim book of scripture) should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

Muslim intimidation takes other forms; they also use law suits for damages to get their way and threaten critics of Islam. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed a $1.35 million lawsuit against the founder of a website that accuses CAIR of supporting terrorism, despite the fact that the U.S. government has labeled them an un-indicted co-conspirator in criminal proceedings against terrorists.

CAIR charges statements made by its Internet critic, Anti-CAIR, amount to "libelous defamation." CAIR seeks $1 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages in addition to its legal fees and interest.

This is one of the statements CAIR charges as libel:

"Why oppose CAIR? CAIR has proven links to, and was founded by, Islamic terrorists. CAIR is not in the United States to promote the civil rights of Muslims. CAIR is here to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States and convert our country into an Islamic theocracy along the lines of Iran. In addition, CAIR has managed, through the adroit manipulation of the popular media, to present itself as the 'moderate' face of Islam in the United States. CAIR succeeded to the point that the majority of its members are not aware that CAIR actively supports terrorists and terrorist supporting groups and nations. In addition, CAIR receives direct funding from Islamic terrorists supporting countries."

As far as I am aware everything written is true; and truth is a defense to a claim of libel.

Furthermore, last year a member of CAIR's national staff, Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, was among 11 men indicted for conspiring to train on American soil for a "violent jihad."

Another CAIR official, Bassem Khafagi, was arrested in January 2003 while serving as the group's director of community relations. The previous December, Ghassan Elashi, the founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, was indicted for financial ties to Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzook.

Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes also has been a target of CAIR criticism. Pipes insists there is substance to Anti-CAIR's claims and wonders if the "highly secretive" Muslim group has made a tactical error. The legal proceedings, Pipes noted in a FrontPage Magazine column, open CAIR to the discovery process. For Whitehead to defend himself in court, Pipes wrote, "he is entitled to ask for the production of documents relating to such matters as CAIR's founding, funding, mission, and goals, then to grill persons associated with CAIR."

CAIR is a spin-off of the Islamic Association for Palestine, labeled a "front group" for Hamas by two former heads of the FBI's counterterrorism section. The group's leaders also have provided evidence it has aims beyond civil-rights advocacy.

Here is an example of how Muslims try to get their way through political correctness and threats of violence.

Muslims in Seattle wanted to prevent the appearance of Daniel Pipes who had been invited to an event sponsored by the Jewish Foundation of Greater Seattle at the university’s school of international studies. Calling Pipes a "rabid Muslim/Arab-hater," Jeff Siddiqui of the American Muslims of Puget Sound distributed a letter expressing "profound shock" that Pipes had been invited and urging organizers to cancel the event. "Indeed, it is not unlike having a Nazi speak about the security of the U.S.A., or a KKK member speak about crime," Siddiqui wrote to event organizer Edward Alexander, an English professor at the university.

The Muslim leader suggested that if Alexander did not cancel the speech he should at least send out a letter of contrition for inviting Pipes and allow a 10-minute response by a Muslim.

Pipes had to be escorted into the auditorium by police, who were notified in advance of possible trouble, along with the U.S. Department of Justice.

In the beginning of this article I pointed out how Muslim intimidation and other tactics were similar to those employed by Democrats and other liberals. Examples of Muslim activities bring to mind efforts to stifle criticism of Obama and his socialist programs such as attempts to re-impose the unfair “Fairness doctrine”, threats by Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs to be “careful” about criticizing Sonia Sotomayor and attempt to label Obama critics as “racists,” to name just a few.

Opponents of Obama’s efforts to destroy American institutions, traditions and constitutional safeguards against the federal government should be met by committed freedom lovers in and out of government, not by wishy-washy appeasers as those who fail to respond to the clear and present danger of Islam and the Obama administration.

Sotomayor is the wrong choice for the Supreme Court and Republicans should step up

Iran’s Ahmadinejad often speaks about the destruction of Israel and of the Jews, but if Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs were spinning for the Iranian crazy man he might say Ahmadinejad just used “a poor choice of words.” Having given that explanation, we should all be content and no longer criticize him. Or, perhaps Gibbs would follow that up with a threat like "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," – but substitute “Ahmadinejad” for “this impending confirmation.” The point is that when someone favored by President Obama is shown to be off the wall, we are all to ignore that condition and nonetheless sing Hallelujah to the Messiah.

Sonia Sotomayor is the wrong choice for the U.S. Supreme Court for many reasons and should be categorically rejected. Yes, she may echo Obama’s political and racial beliefs but that is not how Justices should be chosen for the high Court. It is to the utter shame of the Republicans in the Senate and those claiming to speak for the Republican Party that there will be virtually no opposition to the Sotomayor appointment.

What does this statement Sotomayor made in 2001 mean to you? She said in a lecture, titled "A Latina Judge's Voice," she gave at the law school of the University of California, Berkeley: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Whatever you may think about what Sotomayor said, Obama defended his nominee saying her message was on target even if her exact wording was not.

"I think that when she's appearing before the Senate committee, in her confirmation process, I think all this nonsense that is being spewed out will be revealed for what it is." (And what is that Obama, is it less than a racist remark?)

Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, told reporters about Sotomayor: "I think she'd say that her word choice in 2001 was poor." But Gibbs said he did not hear that from Sotomayor directly. He said he learned it from people who had talked to her, and he did not identify who those people were. Sotomayor herself has made no public statements since her nomination became official
and was not reachable by any in the press concerned about what she said (and of course there are not many) for comment.

As has been pointed out by many on the radio and in the blogosphere, what would have been the reaction to a similar statement made by a white judge?

Obama made it clear what kind of person his choice (probably “choices if there are more openings on the court) would be. In announcing Sotomayor as his selection, Obama said he wanted a judge who would "approach decisions without any particular ideology or agenda, but rather a commitment to impartial justice." But he also called her life experience essential, saying she had an understanding of "how ordinary people live." Obama does not want an impartial judge on the high Court who would apply the Constitution in court decisions, he wants someone, i.e. an activist judge, willing to ignore or rewrite the Constitution, who will “empathize” with so-called down-trodden people, especially people of color (white folks need not apply).

That Senate republicans should mount an all out opposition to Sotomayor’s appointment is a no-brainer but that is not the reality. But Republicans are divided over how aggressively to go after federal judge Sonia Sotomayor because she is a Hispanic (though a Porto Rican one not one from Mexico) and they are afraid of alienating Hispanic voters – how nonsensical that is. Consider how Bush, McCain and many Republicans fell all over themselves trying to get amnesty for illegal aliens and where did that get them – McCain and a host of Republicans running for office lost and did not get much of the Hispanic vote? Why do Republicans think that opposing Sotomayor will some how get Republicans fewer Hispanic votes?

Even more annoying (but not astonishing) a growing number of GOP lawmakers and conservative strategists are voicing concern over the strident rhetoric some prominent Republicans have used to describe Sotomayor, and some are denouncing right-wing groups for swiftly launching negative advertisements against her.

Instead of curling up in a corner, Republicans like radio host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia say the answer is to harshly criticize Sotomayor. They both branded the federal judge — the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was born and raised in New York — a "racist" this week for past remarks about how her ethnicity affected her judging. On Friday, Limbaugh likened picking Sotomayor to nominating former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke for the job.

Unfortunately other Republicans like Senator John Cornyn of Texas criticized Limbaugh and Gingrich: "I think it's terrible. This is not the kind of tone that any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional responsibilities of advice and consent," Cornyn told NPR. "Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials. I just don't think it's appropriate. I certainly don't endorse it. I think it's wrong."

Of course so-called GOP strategist Peggy Noonan also urged her party to "play grown-up," and dismissed as "idiots" conservatives who were out to attack or brand Sotomayor. (Whoa Peggy, if Limbaugh and Gingrich are “idiots” for opposing Sotomayor, what is Obama for nominating her?)

Nothing better illustrates the absence of male parts in Republicans these days than the following:

In an AP article by Julie Hirschfield Davis laid out the problem for the GOP, she wrote:

“A leading organization on the right, the Judicial Confirmation Network, launched an advertising campaign the day Obama named Sotomayor that bashes her record and concludes that ‘America deserves better.’

‘These things just taint the debate because it causes (people) to become callous toward our message. It becomes a 'cry wolf' situation," said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a conservative group, and a former senior Senate GOP aide. "They're just out to bash the nominee. This isn't about bashing the nominee; it's about engaging on issues.’

Miranda said he is concerned that Senate leaders — knowing that they don't have the votes to beat Sotomayor and worried about the political consequences of a prolonged effort to do so — will pass up the opportunity to have a drawn-out debate about her record and the two parties' dueling philosophies about the role of a judge. I am afraid that (Senate Republicans) will miss an opportunity.’"

The reality as noted by Gary Marx, the executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network, Republican divisions are more about style and tone than substance. He said conservatives agree that Sotomayor is a "judicial activist" — someone who puts her own views above the law — regardless of how they express themselves.” As a consequence "Our ads are focused on highlighting her published writing and her own words, making sure those are raised because we feel they speak to the issue of judicial activism. We can have a healthy debate when we focus on her own (sic) writings, her published writings and spoken words."

Sotomayor fails as a candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court for other reasons than her racist view of judicial behavior; Sotomayor will be a classic activist judge on the high court who will ignore the Constitution when it conflicts with her social views. Everyone should see the video tape of Sotomayor where she says the Court of Appeals sets "policy." How outrageous for a judge who acknowledges her own judicial activism should ride into the Supreme Court without so much as a squawk from the Republican "opposition."

One example of Sotomayor's predilection to decide cases on the basis of race is the Ricci case. This is the report of the case that appeared in an AP article.

“In 2003, the New Haven fire department had several vacancies for new lieutenants and captains. Candidates for promotion had to take a written and oral test. Candidates had three months to prepare. Ricci gave up a second job to study. Because he is dyslexic, Ricci paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read textbooks onto audiotapes. He studied 8 to 13 hours a day. And he succeeded. Ricci's exam ranked sixth among the 77 candidates who took the test.

But New Haven's civil service board ruled that not enough minorities earned a qualifying score. The city is more than a third black. None of the 19 African-American firefighters who took the exam earned a sufficient score. The city tossed out the exam. No promotions were given. Ricci and 17 other white firefighters, including one Hispanic, sued New Haven for discrimination.

A Federal District Court ruled that the city had not discriminated against the white firefighters. Judge Janet Bond Atherton argued that since "the result was the same for all because the test results were discarded and nobody was promoted," no harm was done."

But in reality, the decision meant that Ricci and other qualified candidates were denied promotions because of the color of their skin. This is the essence of discrimination. The exclusion of a person from earned advancement because of his or her race. The Ricci case exemplifies decades of faulty policy that mistook equal opportunity for equal outcome.

When the case came before the three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, Atherton’s ruling was upheld in an unsigned and, as the New York Times described it, "unusually terse decision." One of the judges who upheld the ruling was Sotomayor.

Judge Jose Cabranes' dissenting opinion noted that the ruling "lacks a clear statement of either the claims raised by the plaintiffs or the issues on appeal" and "contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case," concluding that the "perfunctory" actions of the majority in their decision "rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal."

In April, the Supreme Court took up the case in oral argument. The ruling is expected in June. Most legal scholars expect Ricci to prevail. But the debate over affirmative action will continue and no doubt Sotomayor will side with minorities regardless of the law.

Sotomayor’s racist comment about superiority of Latina ability to render judicial decisions was not the only comment that spinmeister Gibbs would have to excuse as a poor choice of words.

Judge Sotomayor's judicial temperament and choice of words were raised during her 1997 confirmation hearing to the appeals court. Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who recently became the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Judge Sotomayor that she was out of bounds when she criticized mandatory minimum sentences from the bench during one sentencing proceeding as an “abomination."

"I do think that a judge, would you not agree, has to be careful in conducting themselves in a way that reflects respect for the law and the system," Mr. Sessions said.

Judge Sotomayor said she probably should not have used the word "abomination" to describe the guidelines, but that her record showed she didn't let her personal opinions affect her rulings. (Oh really?)

Sotomayor’s judicial ability is often taken for granted because of her many years as a judge but her reversal rate by the Supreme Court indicates a contrary conclusion. With Judge Sonia Sotomayor already facing questions over her 60 percent reversal rate, the Supreme Court could dump another problem into her lap next month if, as many legal analysts predict, the court overturns one of her rulings upholding a race-based employment decision. Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed.

"Her high reversal rate alone should be enough for us to pause and take a good look at her record. Frankly, it is the Senates duty to do so," said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

I agree.

Supreme Court nominee Sotomayor belongs to a subversive group and should be rejected

With the disclosure that Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, is a member of La Raza, it’s appropriate to look at what La Raza stands for to understand Sotomayor’s mindset as she decides critical cases on the court.

According to the American Bar Association, Sotomayor is a member of the NCLR (National Council of La Raza), which bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States but take a look at what the organization really advocates. To reinforce the importance of this association note that Sotomayor has said "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." The remark was made in a 2001 speech at the University of California's Berkeley School of Law. The lecture was published the following year in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal.

It is not an overstatement to say Sotomayor’s approach to decisions of the Court would be influenced significantly by her roots which is not the asset Obama would like us to believe.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote: "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman. Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism. A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."

Rush Limbaugh in his inimitable way noted, "And the libs of course say that minorities cannot be racists because they don't have the power to implement their racism. Well, those days are gone because reverse racists certainly do have the power to implement their power. Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he's appointed one. ..."

La Raza is more than a civil rights advocacy group; in earlier days it would have been considered a subversive group. First, consider that La Raza means "the Race" and also has connections to groups that advocate the separation of several southwestern states from the rest of America.

Michelle Malkin has listed are the top ten positions of La Raza that should give everyone reasons why Sotomayor should not be confirmed to the high court because of her association with La Raza alone:

“10. La Raza supports driver’s licenses for illegal aliens.

9. La Raza supports in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding US citizens and law-abiding legal immigrants.

8. La Raza opposes cooperative immigration enforcement efforts between local, state, and federal authorities.

7. La Raza sponsors militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars, including the “Aztlan Academy” in Tucson, AZ, the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, AZ, and Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn.

6. La Raza gives mainstream cover to a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, led by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), which the late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized as “a radical racist group… [and] one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West.”

5. La Raza opposes a secure fence on the southern border.

4. Former La Raza president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton’s Hispanic outreach advisor said this:

“US English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.” He was referring to US English the nation’s oldest, largest citizens’ action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. La Raza also pioneered Orwellian open-borders Newspeak and advised the Mexican government on how to lobby for illegal alien amnesty while avoiding the terms “illegal” and “amnesty.”

3. La Raza is currently leading a smear campaign against staunch immigration enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable TV networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves–in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes.

2. La Raza has consistently opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.

1. The National Council of La Raza means The National Council of “The Race,” for God’s sake.”

In this age of political correctness and cow-towing to preferred special interest groups, La Raza has been the recipient of tax dollars to further their extreme agenda.

For starters, La Raza gets annually millions of U.S. federal grant dollars and will receive even more taxpayer money in the next few years thanks to a Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank’s multi million-dollar earmark to counsel Hispanics about housing.

The National Council of La Raza already got $1.3 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to conduct “comprehensive housing counseling’’ for Hispanics, whether they are in the country legally or not. Now the radical group that advocates the return of the American Southwest to Mexico will get an additional $15 million thanks to an earmark inserted by Democrat Barney Frank in a housing bill.

Frank, the House Financial Services Chairman, gave the National Council of La Raza $5 million in 2008 and $10 million in each of the next two years. The new law (FHA Housing Stabilization and Homeownership Retention Act of 2008) includes $100 million for mortgage counseling to be administered by non-profit groups like the National Council of La Raza, which has raked in millions of taxpayer dollars over the year. In fiscal 2006 alone, the group got $15.2 million in federal grants.

Groups like La Raza, ACORN and the National Education Association (NEA) have already received billions of tax dollars under Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan. Yet they now stand to rake in even more federal money under the $410 billion omnibus spending bill now wending its way through Congress.

Obama campaigned on the promise to reduce earmarks, which are essentially handouts to the favored few, but the Taxpayers for Common Sense found 8,570 earmarks worth $7.7 billion in the current omnibus bill.

Adding those to the $6.6 billion in earmarks passed last fall, TSC calculates there are a total of $14.3 billion in for FY09. Democrats have clearly not eliminated the “culture of corruption” rampant on Capitol Hill, just changed the names of the beneficiaries.

Voters should be outraged that their tax dollars are going to a group that, not only advocates open borders but organized many of the country’s disruptive pro illegal immigration marches a year ago. La Raza is a radical movement that says California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas belong to Aztlan.

The takeover plan is referred to as the "reconquista" of the Western U.S. and it features ethnic cleansing of Americans, Europeans, Africans and Asians once the area is taken back and converted to Aztlan. While this may all sound a bit crazy, this organization is quite powerful, its leaders regularly attend congressional hearings regarding immigration and has great influence in Congress; including among Republicans who labor under the false impression the Party can get more Hispanic votes by appeasing radical groups like La Raza and adopting immigration schemes harmful to the country,

The group uses its U.S. tax dollars to fund projects like a Southern California elementary school with a curriculum that specializes in bashing America and promoting the Chicano movement. The school's founder and principal, a Calexico-educated activist named Marcos Aguilar, opposes racial integration and says Mexicans in the U.S. don't want to go to white schools or drink from white water fountains.

At the risk of making this piece too long, here is a story reported in the press and described by Michelle Malkin.

“John A. Ward, a former teacher at a Tucson High School magnet school that peddles a Raza/Race curriculum, gives an insider’s look at what’s being taught on your dime. Ward has been attacked as a “sellout” because of his Hispanic heritage. Here’s a key excerpt, but read the whole thing:

During the 2002-2003 school years, I taught a U.S. history course with a Mexican-American perspective. The course was part of the Raza/Chicano studies department. Within one week of the course beginning, I was told that I was a “teacher of record,” meaning that I was expected only to assign grades. The Raza studies department staff would teach the class.

I was assigned to be a ‘teacher of record’ because some members of the Raza studies staff lacked teaching certificates. It was a convenient way of circumventing the rules. I stated that I expected to do more than assign grades. I expected to be involved in teaching the class. The department was less than enthusiastic but agreed. Immediately it was clear that the class was not a U.S. history course, which the state of Arizona requires for graduation. The class was similar to a sociology course one expects to see at a university.

Where history was missing from the course, it was filled by controversial and biased curriculum.

The basic theme of the curriculum was that Mexican-Americans were and continue to be victims of a racist American society driven by the interests of middle and upper-class whites. In this narrative, whites are able to maintain their influence only if minorities are held down. Thus, social, political and economic events in America must be understood through this lens. This biased and sole paradigm justified teaching that our community police officers are an extension of the white power structure and that they are the strongmen used “to keep minorities in their ghettos.”

As you can see the purpose of the course was to tell the class that there are fewer Mexican-Americans in Tucson Magnet High School’s advanced placement courses because their “white teachers” do not believe they are capable and do not want them to get ahead.

It also taught that the Southwestern United States was taken from Mexicans because of the insatiable greed of the Yankee who acquired his values from the corrupted ethos of Western civilization and that the Southwest is Atzlan, “the ancient homeland of the Aztecs,” and still rightfully belongs to their descendants - to all people of indigenous Mexican heritage.

As an educator, John Ward refused to be complicit in a curriculum that engendered racial hostility, irresponsibly demeaned America’s civil institutions, undermined our public servants, discounted any virtues in Western civilization and taught disdain for American sovereignty. But when he raised these concerns, he was told that he was a “racist,” despite being Hispanic. Because of his Hispanic heritage, the Raza studies staff also informed him that he was a “vendido,” the Spanish term for “sellout.”

But the real “sellout” is the U.S. Congress that goes along with the strategy to reward radical subversive groups like La Raza (and yes, ACORN too) with taxpayer money to further their anti-American programs.

That’s what Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor stands for and her vote on the Court will be another nail in the country’s coffin.

You may be surprised who will knock on the door in an Obama world

Ever since Obama called for a new domestic army many people waited for the next shoe to drop after his election as president but who would have expected the jackbooted knocker on your door to come from the Federal Communication Commission – “I’m from the FCC and I’m here to confiscate your computer.”

You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cell phone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it. For many years the agency has followed this rule to monitor licensed television and radio stations and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters but now the FCC says the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.

Speaking for the FCC, spokesman David Fiske said “Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference.” That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

The FCC claims it derives its warrant-less search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority.

I believe it’s a major stretch to assert what the FCC claims is its authority with respect to a private home; this is at the core of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The idea that a cell phone or a Wi-Fi connection suddenly makes the federal government able to invade your home for a warrant less search is more than bizarre.

George Washington University professor Orin Kerr, a constitutional law expert, also questions the legality of the policy.

According to Kerr, “The Supreme Court has said that the government can’t make warrant-less entries into homes for administrative inspections,” referring to a 1967 Supreme Court ruling that housing inspectors needed warrants to force their way into private residences. The FCC has not explained how the agency gets around that ruling.

The FCC rules came to public attention this month when an FCC agent investigating a pirate radio station in Boulder, Colorado, left a copy of a 2005 FCC inspection policy on the door of a residence having an unlicensed 100-watt transmitter. “Whether you operate an amateur station or any other radio device, your authorization from the Commission comes with the obligation to allow inspection,” the FCC statement says.

A corollary of the newly claimed and enforced FCC policy is that if inspectors should notice evidence of unrelated criminal behavior — say, a marijuana plant or stolen property — another Supreme Court decision suggests the search results can be used against the resident. In the 1987 case New York v. Burger, two police officers performed a warrant-less, administrative search of Joseph Burger’s automobile junkyard. When he couldn’t produce the proper paperwork, the officers searched the grounds and found stolen vehicles, which they used to prosecute him. The Supreme Court held the search to be legal.

Refusing the FCC admittance can carry a harsh financial penalty. In a 2007 case, a Corpus Christi, Texas, man got a visit from the FCC’s direction-finders after re-broadcasting an AM radio station through a CB radio in his home. An FCC agent tracked the signal to his house and asked to see the equipment; Donald Winton refused to let him in, but did turn off the radio. Winton was later fined $7,000 for refusing entry to the officer. (The fine was reduced to $225 after he proved he had little income.)

The new government claimed authority takes on even more dire prospects when you consider that it is reported Obama is considering a “preventive detention plan.” President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House recently that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, according to two participants in the private session.

The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came before a speech Obama gave on a number of national security matters.

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting “dismayed.” If it were me I would have said “downright terrified.”

The participants also said Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself. It is reported Senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said.

The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held but rather for those captured in the future. “The issue is,” the participant said, “What are the options left open to a future president?” To that I say “balderdash”; with Obama’s record of expanding government power and intruding on civil rights, it is more likely Obama wants to couple his new Socialist/Marxist society with Nazi-like powers.

In the World War II era people had to play their radios in the dark; have we come to the time when we will have to secret our computers and cell phones?

New credit card law does not address the problem of high interest rates

Amid all the glowing reports and Obama’s teleprompter taking credit for credit card reform is one glaring deficiency of the new law; it says nothing about interest rates credit cards may charge.

One important element failed to survive the trip through Congress. The Senate rejected an amendment that would have capped the interest on credit cards. Putting a ceiling on interest and fees is something that should have been done and it wasn’t. Even the ridiculous cap Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed, capping total interest and finance charges at 36 percent, was shot down. The worst abusers of high interest charges are "payday loans" where, in exchange for a few days' advance in pay, borrowers often have to repay two or three times the amount of the loan.

A cap should apply to all consumer credit, from car loans to credit cards to mortgages, but we have no cap so lenders can charge whatever the traffic will bear; and those in need the most pay the highest.

Limiting interest rates isn't a radical concept. By 1886 every state had some interest rate cap in place. Most credit was local, and little changed until the 1950s, when banks started issuing credit cards. Banks didn’t like having to comply with so many low state caps which cut into their profit, so Banks in states that allowed higher rates began applying those rates to customers in other states where the caps were lower.

So how did it come to pass that state usury laws were bypassed – the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 1978 court case between Marquette National Bank of Minneapolis and First Omaha Service Corp. that the National Bank Act trumped state usury laws and allowed lenders to charge the highest interest rate permissible in their home state. Card companies moved their operations to states that repealed the caps and the era of usurious interest rates began.

To put this in perspective, the credit card industry made more than $15 billion in penalty fee income last year. What they did was to turn what use to be fees for penalties into really a profit center. How did they do that you might ask, well here are some typical credit rate charges I found on the internet:

Capital One 16.90%
Citi 14.24%
Master Card 14.99% or 21.99%
Visa 16.90%
Visa Vision $0.95 weekly
Visa New Millennium19.50%

How about that Visa New Millennium Card; $0.95% weekly works out to over 50 percent APR?

The American Bankers Association and other industry spokespeople argue that if they can’t charge 15 billion dollars of penalty fees, then they will have to charge that amount is some other way and “you don't want us to have to charge you some other way."

Credit card companies have made huge profits in recent years and a lot of those profits have come from deceptive practices; the new law will change some of that but charging ridiculously high interest rates on unpaid balances is not affected. Sure you can avoid paying high interest rates by not using credit cards but that is virtually impossible these days. Besides, this solution is like to avoid car jacking you shouldn’t have or drive a car.

It is generally assumed that when the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates that makes it cheaper for consumers to use credit cards. But credit card interest rates remain high and in many cases even climb. It isn’t true that higher interest rates only apply to customers who don’t pay on time, even some cardholders who pay on time have not benefited from lower interest rates charged by the Federal Reserve, according to analysts banks raise rates and fees to make up for losses in their mortgage departments.

For example, the annual percentage rate on Chase Business Visa cards in Fairfax County, Virginia, went from 8 percent to 24 percent in December, three months after the Fed's first rate cut.

Card companies say they are exercising their right to protect themselves from risky borrowers and market conditions but that’s nonsense; what they are doing is better described as protecting the huge $15 billion in profits they make from credit cards in penalties alone. Credit card profit helps banks deal with the sub prime mortgage problem but why should the burden fall on those of us who rely on credit cards in every-day transactions so large amounts of cash don’t need to be carried with us?

"Credit cards historically have been a very profitable segment for the banking industry, so what they're doing is trying to squeeze customers as much as they can, particularly for accounts they don't see as profitable or as high risk," said Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com, an independent consumer resource on credit cards.

Bank of America, for instance, notified some customers recently that their rates would increase as a result of a periodic review of their credit risk. Chase late last year increased the rate paid by new customers of its Freedom card. Bank of America and Chase are also among some banks that have increased ATM fees for other banks' customers to as much as $3 per visit. Capital One has raised its cash-advance fee for new customers from 19 percent to 23 percent.

One insurance agent said he called Chase when his rate skyrocketed on his balance of $4,500, which he said he was paying more than the minimum on time every month. The caller was told that he should have received a letter giving him the option to close the account if he did not want the new rate, he said. He did not recall seeing that letter. He wrote to the bank requesting that his previous rate be restored. Last month, he said, he received a letter from Chase notifying him that the account was closed.

A Tacoma Park, Maryland, resident has a Chase Visa credit card. In November, she said, she received a letter saying her 8.9 percent rate would rise to 21.24 percent.

Congress has been examining other industry practices such as increasing cardholders' rates for making late payments to other creditors or decreasing their limits, which hurts their credit scores by increasing the percentage of the available credit they have used.

Recently Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House financial institutions and consumer credit subcommittee, introduced the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, which would, among other things, restrict fees and rate changes that companies could impose. We’ll wait and see if this bill goes anywhere but we shouldn’t hold our collective breadth; banks have enormous power in congress (or we wouldn’t have the Federal Reserve Act).

There are things Congress can do to address the unfairness of high credit card rates; for one thing they can pass a law to enable states to apply state usury laws to all business transactions occurring in their state. That would be the best solution; however here are some additional minimum changes congress should enact:

1. Prohibit universal default in most circumstances (a credit card company can increase your rate, if you paid another card late, even if you’ve always paid their card on time).

2. Prevent credit card issuers from changing the terms of a credit card contract as long as the holder remains current on payments.

3. Freeze interest rates and fees on canceled cards so you can pay off your balance at your current rate.

4. Prohibit issuance of a credit card and certain affinity cards to anyone under age 21 unless certain requirements have been met.

5. Bar double-cycle billing, the practice of computing interest charges on outstanding balances from more than one billing cycle.

6. Increase the information disclosed to customers in monthly statements.

7. Require credit card statements to be mailed at least 21 days before the bill is due. This is a week more than what is currently mandated.

But to me it seems there is no reason for banks to be exempt from usury laws.

Get the car you want now, tomorrow you have to buy the car Obama wants you to

The most recent Obama proclamation in his fast track approach to expand government intervention in the lives of all Americans is announcement of national standards for fuel efficiency required for cars. Very likely many Americans will see this as a good thing; after all, who doesn’t want to have a car with good gas mileage, especially as gasoline costs continue to rise. But as good as all this may sound we shouldn’t be fooled about the real Obama motivation.

Obama’s new standard for gas mileage is another indirect approach to achieving the real goal - telling you that the government knows what's best for you; just as Obama has done in other areas. Effecting changes and increasing government control can be done indirectly and by misleading the public with the help of the Democrat Party media house organs. For example, if you want to attack obesity you don’t need to enact regulations to directly address obesity, you can just tax, and therefore make more expensive, foods that are likely to increase weight like snack foods, soda, etc. Obama can sell socialized medicine by erroneously claiming there are millions of people with no health insurance without also pointing out that no one needs to go without health care because hospitals are legally required to provide care to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. So it is with cars; if you want to dictate what kind of cars are available to the public, just keep increasing the gas mileage requirements and pretend that’s the only way to achieve energy independence while ignoring that the United States has the greatest reserves of oil that can be recovered in the world if not restricted by government regulation.

Increasing gas mileage requirements for cars sold in the United States is done by establishing rules for “Corporate Average Fuel Economy”, generally referred to as “CAFÉ” standards. CAFE ratings aren’t based on the cars a company makes, but the cars that they sell (this is another example of doing indirectly what you choose not to do directly). The advantage of this approach to government regulators is that if an automaker puts a 200 mpg car in its showroom, and no one buys it, it doesn’t do them any good in the eyes of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) so it doesn't count in the average fuel efficiency of the auto makers' fleet. Furthermore, the fuel economy numbers used to calculate it aren't the same as the ones on the widow sticker of your new car.

Take a look at the following example reported by Fox News.

“Consider a fictional company called Two Motors that builds just two models that it sells through a single dealership. One is a full-size sedan that seats five and gets 29 mpg, the other a two-seat hatchback rated at 49 mpg. On the showroom floor the cars average out at 39 mpg, and the automaker is set to be in compliance with the new rules.

Then the Catch-22 begins. Two customers come in and decide that they prefer the sedan over the hatchback and both purchase one, dropping the CAFE rating to 35.6 mpg.

The next day the dealer sells three more sedans, and its CAFE falls further to 32.3 mpg, putting it in the tough position of having to sell five of the unpopular hatchbacks to get the average back up.

If it doesn’t there is a $5.50 fine for every tenth of a mpg they come up short, multiplied by the total number of vehicles sold that year.”

Eventually the car company must decide whether it’s worth paying the penalty and sell more cars, or if it should simply stop making the larger cars available until it moves enough small cars to get the CAFE number back up. A number of automakers have chosen the former, and $775 million in fines have been paid since 1983.

How’s that for more government deception?

President Obama has announced what he called a "historic agreement," to speed-up fuel economy standards that will require all auto-makers, including Detroit's foreign competitors, to increase fleet fuel efficiency by 5 percent per year starting in 2012.

Obama said "The status quo is no longer acceptable" and warned that the American appetite for oil comes at a "tremendous price." (This is the attempt to use the idea of energy independence to support the new CAFÉ standards.)

It is not surprising that auto makers got on board with Obama because the national standard will supersede fuel standards established by separate states, a practical approach for businessmen.

Speaking for the auto industry, Ford issued a statement endorsing the Obama regulations: "We are pleased that President Obama is taking decisive and positive action as we work together toward one national standard for vehicle fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions that will be good for the environment and the economy."

And Obama added: "This rule provides the clear certainty that will allow these companies to plan for a future in which they are building the cars of the 21st century. Yes, it costs money to develop these vehicles. But even as the price to build these cars and trucks goes up, the cost of driving these vehicles will go down, as drivers save money at the pump."

However the new standards are expected to add $1,300 on average to new cars. Of course, Obama said drivers would make that back within three years due to savings on gas, and he will help that along by refusing to increase domestic oil production so oil prices will increase in the future.

The new rules will require a fleet fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 miles per gallon by model year 2016, a big jump from the 2009 model year requirement of 25 mpg. A senior administration official said the changes (when compared to current pollution and vehicle use totals) will have the effect of removing 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air, taking 177 million cars off the road, and shutting down 194 coal-fired power plants. An amazing accomplishment – reducing carbon dioxide emissions notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant (regardless what the U.S. Supreme Court said) and does not contribute to or cause climate change.

In the year, 2016, the year that new the rules will be fully implemented - the fleet fuel efficiency standard for all domestically sold passenger cars will be 39 mpg. It will be 30 mpg for all domestically sold light trucks and sport utility vehicles. The average of these two equals a passenger car and light truck fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 mpg. The current requirements are 27.5 mpg for cars and 23.1 mpg or trucks. The tighter standards will first affect the 2011 model year for cars and trucks so if you want to get in before the new CAFÉ increases cost of cars and you have fewer choices, you may want to get the car of your choice now (which of courses will increase auto sales; another desirable end result).

Naturally the new regulations will not depend on self policing; the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency will, for the first time ever, jointly monitor and enforce fuel efficiency and tailpipe emission standards.

California under the direction of an incompetent short-sighted governor, established draconian rules for cars sold in California. The new Obama rules will incorporate California's tougher standards. California approved tougher fuel efficiency standards and was expecting a ruling June 30th from the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce them. California ordered a fleet average of 35.5 mpg by 2016. The old federal standard sought that efficiency by 2020 (thus reducing the time period for implementation by four years). The new federal standards will match California's.

To comply with the new standards auto makers will have to produce and sell small cars with higher gas mileage capability but drivers will pay a price in safety. Small cars can give motorists better fuel efficiency but the insurance industry says they do not do well in collisions with larger vehicles. In crash tests released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Institute found that drivers of 2009 versions of the small cars Smart “fortwo”, Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris could face significant leg and head injuries in severe front-end crashes with larger, mid-size vehicles.

"There are good reasons people buy mini cars. They're more affordable, and they use less gas. But the safety trade-offs are clear from our new tests," said Adrian Lund, the institute's president.

The tests involved head-on crashes between the fortwo and a 2009 Mercedes C Class, the Fit and a 2009 Honda Accord and the Yaris and the 2009 Toyota Camry. The tests were conducted at 40 miles per hour (17 kilometers per liter), representing a severe crash.

In the Smart fortwo collision, the institute said the Smart, which weighs 1,808 lbs, went airborne and turned around 450 degrees after striking the Mercedes C Class, which weighs nearly twice as much. There was extensive damage to the fortwo's interior and the Smart driver could have faced extensive injuries to the head and legs. There was little damage to the front seat area of the Mercedes.

In the Fit's test, the dummy's head struck the steering wheel through the air bag and showed a high risk of leg injuries. In the vehicle-to-vehicle test, the Fit was rated poor while the Accord's structure held up well.

In the Yaris test, the institute said the mini car sustained damage to the door and front passenger area. The driver dummy showed signs of head injuries, a deep gash on the right knee and extensive forces to the neck and right leg.

Less safety for you and yours in the family car doesn’t matter to Obama and his environmentalist wacko supporters; what difference if more people are injured or die in green cars as long as you buy the kind of car the government wants you to.

What we got is not what we saw during the Obama campaign, its worse

The Obama administration continues to confirm almost daily the worst; that the president won’t rest during his first administration until his plans to change our country into a replica of a socialist state are complete.

First huge sums of money were authorized for the purpose of dealing with toxic mortgages and then the administration henchmen changed the rules and used the money to extend government control over the banking industry going so far as to dictate executive compensation. Then Obama worked with the Democrat-dominated congress and renegade Republicans to pass a so-called Stimulus Bill that gives billions to organizations supporting Obama, some nefariously, and which does little or nothing to stimulate the economy or increase employment. After these successes Obama got the Congress to approve the largest budget, and accompanying deficit, in the history of the country all the while proclaiming that “Bush made me do it.” Additional government takeovers are in the works and are also likely to become law – like “cap and trade” and government “healthcare for everyone.”

Now if all this isn’t bad enough Obama flexes government muscles in another way. The Obama administration has been forced to release documents by Judicial Watch which shows that on October 13, 2008, the Treasury Department had a meeting with major banks where they were coerced into allowing the government to take $250 billion in equity ownership. The documents released also confirm former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told the CEOs of nine major banks that they had no choice but to allow the government to take equity stakes in their institutions. The documents reveal that Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, FDIC Chairman Shelia Blair and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke co-hosted the meeting with Paulson.

The CEOs present at the October 13 meeting were Vikram Pandit of Citigroup, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, Richard Kovacevich of Wells Fargo, John Thain of Merrill Lynch, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Robert Kelly of Bank of New York and Ronald Logue of State Street Bank.

After months of government stonewalling, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about the October 13, 2008 meeting with bankers. The Judicial Watch lawsuit was filed against the Obama Treasury Department on January 27, 2009. Incredibly, on February 4, 2009, Treasury responded it had no documents about the coercion meeting but continued pressure from Judicial Watch forced Treasury to reevaluate its response, which resulted in this document release. Included in the released documents are:

1. "CEO Talking Points" used by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson confirming that the nine bank CEOs present at the October 13 meeting had no choice but to accede to the government's demands for equity stakes and the resulting government control. The talking points emphasize that "if a capital infusion is not appealing, you should be aware your regulator will require it in any circumstance." Suggested edits of the "talking points" by Tim Geithner, then-New York Fed President, were withheld by the Obama Treasury Department.

2. "Major Financial Institution Participation Commitments" signed by the nine bankers on October 13. The CEOs not only hand wrote their institution's names but also hand wrote multi-billion dollar amounts of (convertible) "preferred shares" to be issued to the government.

3. E-mail documenting that, on the very day of the meeting, the Chief of Staff to the Treasury Secretary and other top Treasury staff did not know the names of any of the banks that would be in attendance. E-mail showing Treasury officials wanted to use the Secret Service to help keep the press away from the CEOs arriving at the meeting. E-mail showing a public relations effort, initially run by the Bush White House and then taken over by the Obama administration, to calm down public concerns about "nationalizing the banks." E-mail that showed Paulson was able to brief President Obama about the bankers meeting almost immediately, but could not reach Senator John McCain. The government skullduggery evident at this meeting is the kind that Putin's Russia or Chavez's Venezuela would use. This government control began during the Bush presidency but has metastasized like cancer under the Obama administration – giving Obama effective control of not only these major banks but the domestic auto industry as became evident a bit later.

Not bad for just a few months work wouldn’t you say? But, the worst is yet to come; there is no limit to the harm Obama will do with a Democrat-controlled legislature and a compliant Republican minority.

Here’s some of what Dick Cheney wanted you to know about the national security success of the Bush administration

It looks like this will be another case where Democrats and their media house organs are willing to release whatever they believe is politically useful but will make sure the public does not get the truth or even the whole story about the usefulness of enhanced interrogation techniques. Former Vice President Dick Cheney makes a valiant effort to correct the public record and all he gets for his patriotic remarks is ridicule and harassment. However the fact is that many attempted terrorist acts on US soil have been prevented and release of additional internal government memos would show us that the Bush administration did in fact keep us safe. Obama’s policies will endanger the country just as Dick Cheney has said.

Detainees have provided names of approximately 86 individuals – many of whom we had never heard of before – that al-Qaeda has deemed suitable for western operations. These names were shared by the United States with law enforcement agencies here and with intelligence services in friendly countries. Reports I found on the internet indicate that nearly half of these individuals have been compromised. For example, Jafer al Tayer was described by Abu Zabaydah who named him as one of the people to be used by al-Qaeda for operations in the United States or Europe. Other detainees added more details and helped us confirm he is an al-Qaeda operative and reveal his true name (Adnan El Shukrijumah).

Here are only some of the additional terrorist plots that were thwarted as a result of information obtained by interrogators:

The West Coast Airliner Plot – In mid-2002, thanks to leads from many detainees, the US disrupted a plot by the 9/11 mastermind (who had been water boarded) to attack targets on the West Coast using hijacked airplanes.

The 2004 UK Urban Targets Plot – In mid-2004, the US and its counterterrorism partners, with leads from detainees, disrupted a plot involving attacking city targets in the UK with explosive devices.

The 2003 Karachi Plot – In the spring 2003, the US another country detained key al-Qaeda operatives who were in advanced stages of plotting an attack against several targets in Karachi, Pakistan, saving hundreds of lives.

The Heathrow Airport Plot – In 2003, the US working with other countries again upon information from the same 9/11 mastermind disrupted a plot to attack Heathrow Airport with hijacked airplanes.

The 2002 Arabian Gulf Shipping Plot and the Straits of Hormuz Plot – In late 2002 and early 2003, plans to attack shipping by al-Qaeda operatives were disrupted because the key operative was in detention.

The Tall Buildings Plot – Information from detainees enabled the US to prevent destruction of tall buildings in the US. (The 9/11 mastermind had instructed the operatives to make sure the buildings were high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping out of windows to assure their death from smoke inhalation.)

The Camp Lemonier Plot – In 2004, shortly after his capture, al-Qaeda facilitator Gouled Hassan Dourad revealed that in the previous year al-Quaeda East Africa cell leader Abu Talha al-Sudani sent him from Mogadishu to Djibouti to case the US Marine base at Camp Lemonier as part of a plot to send suicide bombers into the base. The information provided enabled the US to enhance security at the base.

In the years after 9/11 many detainees helped us evaluate our progress in the in preventing al-Qaeda attacks by providing updated information on the changing command structure of the terrorist group. Information obtained by interrogating detainees has also enabled counter terrorism agencies in the US and other countries to better assess threat information as it becomes available. Detainees have also provided information about locations of al-Qaeda operatives and cells. As a result of information gained through interrogation of detainees the US has been able to work with other countries to root out al-Qaeda safe havens and set back attempts to mount additional attacks against the United States.

The foregoing is just a bit of the information denied to the public about successful action by US counterterrorism experts that Dick Cheney wanted to have the Obama administration release to give a fuller picture of what America has been able to accomplish by the interrogation of detainees, “enhanced” and otherwise.

Of course, the Obama-adoring news media won’t let the public know for fear that they might actually get a good impression of the national security provided during the Bush administration in keeping our homeland safe from terrorism after 9/11.

Heil Obama

Picture young people lined up in special uniforms, maybe with arm bands, holding their arms out stretched in a salute to President Barack Obama as he stands before his teleprompter inspiring the youth of the nation to do the bidding of a socialized state; scary isn’t it?

I came across a photo from Germany in the 1940’s recently of just such a vision and it reminded me that many of us have not properly understood and reacted to a law signed by President Barack Obama on April 21, 2009. The law was known in Congress as H.R. 1388 and has the glorious title: Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, or the GIVE Act. Of course, the Act doesn’t give anything; it does take however – it takes away our freedom a bit at a time by lending physical support to the other Obama laws that “change” our country from the one we started with to a country of the kind envisioned by Obama’s mentor, communist Saul Alinsky, and it authorizes $5.7 billion to get it off the ground.

The National Civilian Community Corps formed by the law is year-round and will impose itself on children away at summer camp. Even private schools will not be immune from its membership. Down through the generations, wearing a uniform has always appealed to followers. According to H.R. 1388, “the Director determines appropriate “Uniforms” (just like the German Youth Bund).

The GIVE ACT is modeled after Saul Alinsky’s “Peoples Organizations” which operated under Michelle Obama with an alleged operating budget of more than $75-million a year. According to a Fact Sheet About Public Allies, “President Obama was a member of the founding advisory board of the non-profit organization. Michelle Obama was the founding Executive Director of Public Allies Chicago from spring, 1993 until fall 1996. She served on Public Allies national board of directors from 1997 until 2002. Obama was no longer on the board when Michelle was hired.

Michelle was also a pioneer in the social entrepreneur movement--leaders who create new approaches and organize to provide new solutions to social problems.

Like most things Saul Alinsky, H.R. 1388 sounds noble in stating why wide-sweeping change is necessary. “The Give Act” aims to “leverage investments to increase State, local, business and philanthropic resources to address national and local challenges.” H.R. 1388 is comprehensive in its power; it goes straight to the heart of volunteerism in America and encompasses every walk of life in America.

The Act (GIVE) authorizes funding for AmeriCorps and other volunteer programs, and the creation of new programs for seniors and veterans. It establishes a goal of expanding from 75,000 government-supported volunteers to 250,000, and would increase education funding and establish what is called a summer volunteer program for students, but it is not really a “volunteer” program for young people. The “GIVE” act requires the US government to develop a plan to implement a “mandatory service requirement for all able young people”. Already males ages 18 through 25 living in the U.S. must register with Selective Service to keep records in the event Congress and the President authorize a draft.

HR 1388 specifically targets Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) which Congress expects will reach 250,000 participants by 2014. From school-based service learning programs to focusing on severely economically depressed communities, the GIVE act sounds good until you get to part about the mandatory service requirement for youth. How can volunteerism be mandatory?

Section 6104 of The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act requires that a commission be established to investigate, “Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”

I imagine cadres of minority youth working on environmental projects such as tree planting; however, I can’t get on board with the involuntary servitude. It’s even scarier when you consider Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel coauthored The Plan: Big Ideas for America that calls for compulsory service for Americans ages 18 to 25.

Here’s how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They’ll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we’re hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities’ most pressing needs.

In fact, Obama ran on the idea of required community service for our youth but no one paid any attention to it when there were so many other issues of “change and hope” to focus on.

The Obama initial goal is that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year, and will establish a new tax credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year. Like all far reaching government programs, the lure is money – either a tax incentive or an outright grant. I do not like the idea of mandatory service (except for military purposes in time of war) for anyone – youth or not. Furthermore mandatory requirements are not necessary since many churches and high schools already have such requirements for students. I am also concerned about what the government will deem service, like biochemical attack training mentioned in Emanuel’s book? What happens if a child does not complete their mandatory service requirement?

Anyone supporting this law is going to tell you “It’s just about supporting volunteer organizations that already exist!”– And will insist that there’s "Nothing Mandatory” about any of it (don't believe it - mandatory can be direct or indirect). For example, there are “requirements” attached to being a recipient of ‘Grants’- Authorized Benefits for Corps Members.”

‘(a) Required National Service Corps- The recipient of a grant under section 121(a) and each Federal agency operating or supporting a national service program under section 121(b) shall, directly or through grants or sub grants to other entities, carry out or support the following national service corps, as full- or part-time corps, including during the summer months, to address unmet educational, health, veteran, or environmental needs: And oh, that list does go on.

Also consider that in this law of ‘Volunteerism’:

“Section 1508:

(a) In general The Director shall provide for members of the Civilian Community Corps to receive benefits authorized by this section.

(b) Living allowance The Director shall provide a living allowance to members of the Corps for the period during which such members are engaged in training or any activity on a Corps project. The Director shall establish the amount of the allowance at any amount not in excess of the amount equal to 100 percent of the poverty line that is applicable to a family of two (as defined by the Office of Management and Budget and revised annually in accordance with section 9902 (2) of this title.[1]

(c) Other authorized benefits while receiving training or engaging in service projects as members of the Civilian Community Corps, members may be provided the following benefits:

(1) Allowances for travel expenses, personal expenses, and other expenses. (2) Quarters. (3) Subsistence. (4) Transportation. (5) Equipment. (6) Clothing. (7) Recreational services and supplies. (8) Other services determined by the Director to be consistent with the purposes of the Program (and there’s more).

Reading through that list of ‘Benefits’, what is clear is that it’s difficult to see where “Volunteering” ends and where “Working on the Government Collective” begins…. or is it just me?

The most troubling parts of this are, as such things tend to be, is at the bottom:

TITLE VI--CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSION ON CIVIC SERVICE

SEC. 6103. ESTABLISHMENT. There is established in the legislative branch a commission to be known as the ‘Congressional Commission on Civic Service’ (in this title referred to as the ‘Commission’).

SEC. 6104. DUTIES. (a) General Purpose- The purpose of the Commission is to gather and analyze information in order to make recommendations to Congress to--

(b) Specific Topics- In carrying out its general purpose under subsection (a), the Commission shall address and analyze the following specific topics:

(5) The effect on the Nation, on those who serve, and on the families of those who serve, if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service.

(6) Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.

(7) The need for a public service academy, a 4-year institution that offers a federally funded undergraduate education with a focus on training future public sector leaders.

(8) The means to develop awareness of national service and volunteer opportunities at a young age by creating, expanding, and promoting service options for elementary and secondary school students, through service learning or other means, and by raising awareness of existing incentives.

(9) The effectiveness of establishing a training program on college campuses to recruit and educate college students for national service.

(11) The constraints that service providers, nonprofit organizations, and State and local agencies face in utilizing federally funded volunteer programs, and how these constraints can be overcome.

So – No, nothing in the current Bill, in its current form is ‘Mandatory’ but it does lay down the infrastructure needed for an eventual movement toward ‘Mandatory’ – if that becomes the intention, which according to the Commission’s “Specific Topics” – pretty clearly is the intention.

Here are some interesting prohibitions on participants:

SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:

(1) Attempting to influence legislation.

(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.

(3) Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing.

(4) Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements.

(5) Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office.

(6) Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials.

(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, engaging in any form of religious proselytization.

I wish I could show you the picture of the German Youth Bund I saw but I can't figure out how to insert it in this blog. If you saw it, you might also be tempted to write an article like this.

It’s going to be a long four years

Is it just me or are others also tired of seeing Barack Obama and hearing his teleprompter? It seems Obama makes a TV appearance almost every day in person or on the TV news reels. Watching him is difficult to avoid if you want to keep up with news, even on Fox and other cable channels. Obama is still revered by the press and most talking heads despite his incredible record of lies and misleading comments. For sure any Republican in office or not would be reamed for any of the things the teleprompter makes Obama say. Surely a Republican President saying even some of the Obamarisms would be pilloried and hounded out of office by the press after convincing the public of the Republican’s incompetence.

The above are not idle, unsubstantiated accusations, as the following examples will show.

1. "Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of 'earmarks,' urging changes in the way that Congress adopts spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 earmarks, some that members of his own staff added in last year when they were still members of Congress. 'Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,' Obama said." -- McClatchy, March 11, 2009. This year's budget deficit: $1.5 trillion.

2. Obama says Federal Departments must cut costs in their departments by $170 million -- a whopping .0027%, in a budget of over $3 trillion.

3. "The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties." -- ABC News, April 15, 2009.

4. First the 2010 census was sought to be moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House. Politicizing the census affects how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn. ACORN – the disreputable community organizing arm of the Democrat Party – will be participating in the census. What do you suppose ACORN will do with the census?

5. Obama selected Nancy Killefer for the new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer -- to police government spending. But Killefer is discovered to have had a tax lien on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She was another Obama appointee who had to withdraw for tax problems.

6. Obama said if the 790 billion stimulus bill was not passed immediately, the country would suffer a catastrophe - then "President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway” (before signing the bill into law). -- New York Post, February 15, 2009.

7. Obama had a chance to reduce unemployment but then eliminated a "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill.

8. Obama released the torture memos thereby making American citizens at risk to prosecution by international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else it violates the Geneva Conventions.

9. After dissing our best friend, England, by returning a gift to the United States of a bust of Winston Churchill, Obama followed up by giving British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama also gave the British Prime Minister 25 DVDs that don't work in Europe. Not to make Brown the only disrespected British leader, he gave the Queen of England an iPod full of his own speeches.

10. Obama demonstrated his thoroughness in vetting political appointees by tapping quite a few with tax problems. Everyone is familiar with Tom Daschle’s appointment as our country’s health czar and discovery of his extensive tax cheating that caused his withdrawal, but he is only one of many.

I believe the most egregious was appointing Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary; an appointment that would put him in charge of the IRS. It didn’t deem to matter to Obama and the Democrat-dominated Senate that Geithner had failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes and that he also employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper. He was confirmed anyway.

Here are a couple of other lesser known inappropriate appointments:

Annette Nazareth was nominated for Deputy Treasury Secretary. She withdrew her name for undisclosed "personal reasons" after a month long probe into her taxes.

Obama appointed Louis Susman, who is one of Obama’s biggest fundraisers, as the new US Ambassador Great Britain. Susman is a lawyer and banker from the president's hometown of Chicago and not an experienced diplomat; another slap in the face to our English friends. Telegraph, February 22, 2009.

Candidates for ambassador to the Vatican -- including Caroline Kennedy -- were turned down by the Holy See because they supported abortion.

11. The teleprompter said in an attempt to show what Obama is doing to cut taxes, "We have begun to modernize 75% of all federal building space, which has the potential to reduce long-term energy costs by billions of dollars on behalf of taxpayers. We are providing grants to states to help weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes, which will save the families that benefit about $350 each year. That's like a $350 tax cut." – Only problem this has nothing to do with cutting taxes but it sounds good to an audience mesmerized by Obama and doesn’t actual hear what he says. [Is this the tax reduction for 95% of Americans Obama promised in his campaign?]

12. Obama wrote a letter to Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev, and offered to drop plans for a missile shield in Europe in exchange for Russia's help in resolving the nuclear weapons issue in Iran. Medvedev embarrassed Obama (again) when he said he would not "haggle" on Iran and the missile shield.

13. Obama was one of the vigorous opponents of President Bush’s Iraq policies and the Iraq war but he changed horses in the middle of the stream and asked Congress for an extra $83.4 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a special funding measure of the kind he opposed while in the senate. As a candidate, Obama promised to cut the cost of military operations.

14. Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London but his staff later says "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah."; but Queen Elizabeth is even shorter than the Saudi King and she didn’t merit a similar response when Obama shook her hand (furthermore the “bow” was quite explicit on the video tape).

15. After saying he wouldn't have lobbyists in his administration, Obama made 17 exceptions in the first two weeks in office.

16. Before Obama would speak at Georgetown University April 14th, the administration asked the university to cover up all signs and symbols -- including the letters "IHS" in gold, a symbol for Jesus.

17. Showing his belief in the super power of the federal government over free enterprise, Obama fired Rick Wagoner as president of GM, threatened to fire Vikram Pandit as CEO of Citigroup and anyone the administration doesn't like from any company.

18. On Earth Day Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One to get to Iowa, burning more than 9,000 gallons of fuel (and he says he is concerned about the environment).

19. Obama floated a plan to tax injured military personnel for cost of treatment of their wounds. "President Obama's plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service has infuriated veterans groups who say the government is morally obligated to pay for service-related medical care." -- Fox News, March 17, 2009.

20. Obama failed to consult Congress, as he had promised, before carving out exceptions to the omnibus spending bill he signed into law – “breaking his own signing-statement rules two days after issuing them -- and raised questions among lawmakers and committees who say the president's objections are unclear at best and a power grab at worst." - Washington Times, March 24, 2009.

21. In March, Barack Obama sent his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and spokesman Robert Gibbs, out to attack a non-politician -- Rush Limbaugh (but Obama came out the loser in this episode).

22. Forced banks that didn't want TARP money to take it, then added on stipulations about pay and government control after the fact. After Obama’s Treasury Secretary secretly forced Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, he criticized the bank for overpaying.

23. "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." -- Obama in Strasbourg, France

24. In the third sentence of his first speech as president, Obama said, "44 Americans have now taken the presidential oath." The correct number is 43, as Grover Cleveland served twice. (Don’t forget his reference to “all fifty seven states” during the campaign.)

25. After saying "The United States government has no interest in running GM. Your [GM] warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been, because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty," GM is given $15.4 billion in loans from the government and turns over a major portion of the company to the United Auto Workers union.

26. Did you know the Obama Administration is trying to shut down a lawsuit filed in federal court against Iran by former US embassy hostages? The lawsuit alleges that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers who interrogated the captives.

27. Ten days before his inauguration, the President's chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Rohmer, released a report describing what to expect economically during the first 100 days and beyond. It presented two starkly different scenarios: one good (if the stimulus were to be passed), and one terrifyingly bad (if we did nothing). Amazingly, the report estimated that if the stimulus package were to pass, the unemployment rate would not go above 8% at any time until at least 2014.

Unemployment is already almost 9%.

28. "Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." -- Obama to Representative Peter DeFazio, after the Democratic congressman voted against the stimulus bill.

29. Who can forget the photo op to take a picture of Air Force 1 in a flyover that scared the pajeeses out of New Yorkers still shaking from 9/11? Nothing is too lame for the Narcissist President if he thinks it will enhance his image.

30. Contending that Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal is not a tax increase is just a plain lie.

It’s going to be a long four years.

Obama says “close tax loopholes” to bring in more money, but the amount is small compared to the multi-trillion dollar budget – so the real purpose is

to flex government muscles

Newspapers are full of Obama’s “crackdown” on so-called tax loopholes; but is Obama trying to bring more money into government coffers or is he just asserting the power of government against those who have won “life’s lottery” and “spreading the wealth?”

Obama has announced that his tax plan would eliminate some tax deductions for companies that earn profits in countries with low tax rates and change the burden of proof when taxpayers are accused of violating tax laws. Obama wants the courts to consider U.S. citizens who use tax havens such as the Bahamas or Cayman Islands to be guilty of violating U.S. tax laws. So in tax cases, the tax payer will be presumed guilty unless he can prove he is innocent. I don’t know about you but I think this turns everything around in our system of criminal jurisprudence where the accused has been presumed innocent until proven guilty. If Obama gets his way, what will be next for those accused of some other crime, will they have to prove their innocence like some other countries require?

Of course Obama says these changes are necessary to increase the amount of tax money collected, but in reality it is estimated that these changes would produce $210 billion over the next decade. Does that seem like a lot of money for the government when Obama’s budget includes spending over 3.5 trillion dollars in one year alone?

In exchange for these tax law changes, Obama said he was willing to make a research tax credit that was to expire at the end of the year permanent. Wow, what a trade-off, particularly since officials estimate that making the tax credits permanent would “cost” taxpayers considerably less than the 2010 Obama budget.

Companies that shelter profits over seas will lose billions if Obama's plan becomes law. Current regulations require companies to pay taxes only if they bring the profits back to the U.S. If they keep the profits offshore, they can defer paying taxes indefinitely -- and many do. A few years ago Bush let companies bring back over seas profits without penalty and government revenue went up significantly.

Obama’s folks say the changes are a way to close unfair tax loopholes that encourage companies to send jobs overseas and to encourage companies to keep jobs in the United States. They also say the changes would close a Clinton-era provision that would cost $87 billion over the next decade by letting U.S. companies treat international subsidiaries as branch offices as a legal way to avoid paying billions in taxes on international operations. However this is still a long way from the trillions Obama wants to spend in the coming budget and in the foreseeable future.

But the real show of Obama power is in his plan to ask Congress to crack down on tax havens and implement a major change in the way courts view guilt. Under Obama's proposal, Americans would have to prove they were not breaking U.S. tax laws by sending money to banks that don't cooperate with tax officials. It essentially would reverse the traditional presumption of innocence in U.S. criminal courts.

With a new intrusive government program introduced by Obama seemingly every week, one can only wonder what tinkering with constitutional rights will be next.

California Propositions – vote no May 19th on 1A to 1E – and here’s why

[NOTE to followers of this blog: I am devoting this posting mainly to California voters for obvious reasons - do come back again and there will be articles of more general interest.]


The California legislatures dominated by Democrats and disappointing governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have made an enormous mess of state finances. This is especially ironic in the case of muscleman Schwarzenegger because he was elected in a special election to replace former governor Gray Davis because Davis mucked up California finances; the terminator said he was going to fix everything and naïve Republicans believed him because he ran with an ”R” next to his name.

After starting with a budget deficit of over $40 billion dollars, Arnold and Co. reduced the deficit by getting Obama bailout money but still remained with a deficit exceeding $16 billion and a “budget crisis.” [Democrats love the word “crisis”; they can’t let one go to waste, in the words of Rahm ‘Thug’ Emanuel and slippery Hillary Clinton.] Not to worry, the legislature has come up with a series of mislabeled, and falsely described, propositions identified as “1A” through “1F” for the May 19th ballot.

The key proposition is “1A.” This proposition if approved would ratify a deal made by Democrats with the governator to “solve” the crisis (for this year) with the largest TAX INCREASE, $16 billion, in California’s history. Even if you are sick of mind and like tax increases, you may not like this one because it will cost a typical California family over $1,600 per year.

Of course in the current climate of Democrat Orwellian “double speak”, Proposition 1A is promoted as a “spending limit” or “cap.” The alleged purpose of the “cap” is to put the legislature on a money diet so they will not overspend; but this is like asking an alcoholic not to over drink.

The wool Democrats and Schwarzenegger pull over voters’ eyes is what they assert is a spending limit is phony because Proposition 1A adds a two-year extension of the massive tax increase that is supposed to expire in two years (thus making the tax increase last for four years). This additional language would double the damage to California tax payer budgets.

In another slight of hand that would make Houdini proud, Senate Democrats put pro-tax increase colleagues in charge of drafting the official ballot arguments – you know, the cheesy paper brochure you get in the mail that describes and discusses the ballot measures and also contains arguments for and against the propositions. By selecting pro tax increase senators for this job, arguments by anti-tax lawmakers Republican Senator Bob Dutton and Republican Assembly member Chuck Devore, as well as the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association were REJECTED for the brochure so arguments pointing out the TWO-YEAR EXTESION of the tax increases are not even mentioned anywhere in the official for and against arguments regarding proposition 1A. If you want more information about these issues, visit http://www.hjta.org/ – the Howard Jarvis web site.

Here are some things California voters should know about Proposition 1A:

The Democrat legislature and RINO governor will make California the highest taxed state in the country for at least the next two years.

Proposition 1A will extend these higher taxes for an additional two years costing taxpayers another $16 billion. The already-approved tax increase will cost a typical California family more than $1,100 each year.

We will also pay a higher car tax (remember Schwarzenegger ran on lowering the car tax to get elected).

There will be a reduction in tax credits for dependents which will cost California families $200 per child.

Under Proposition 1A every time taxes are raised the so-called spending limit can be adjusted upward.

Proposition 1A is not a budget reform as Democrats tout; it is a massive $16 billion tax increase.

Vote NO on Proposition 1A.

Propositions 1B, 1C, 1D and 1E are all companion propositions to Proposition 1A and should also be rejected by voters.

Proposition 1B would amend the California Constitution and REQUIRE that the state undertake a $9.3 billion “Supplemental Education Obligation.” This would become part of the base budget when writing and calculating the budget in all future years. (NOTE: no argument against this proposition appears in the brochure; I wonder why, do you?)

Vote NO on Proposition 1B

Proposition 1C supposed to “modernize the state lottery” but what it really does is to give the legislature the right to raid the lottery funds for general budgetary purposes and to make debt-service payments. The net result is that lottery funds will not be available for original education uses and other funds will have to be allocated, likely requiring still further increases in taxes.

Vote NO on Proposition 1C.

Proposition 1D will take away $1.6 billion from local health and education programs and give it to the Democrat legislature to spend as it will. County budgets are already hard hit by budget deficits due to reduced tax income in this harsh economic climate. Further reducing money available to County Supervisors as they struggle to make budget cuts is totally unnecessary; state Democrat legislators already spend too much money they don’t have.

Proposition 1D would reshuffle money for Mental Health Services and reduce money available to assist adults needing such services. In 2004 California voters passed Proposition 63 to make money available to rebuild California’s public mental health system. These programs have been shown to reduce homelessness, hospitalization and school placements and relieved financially strapped school districts and hospitals. This proposition would divert funds from Mental Health Services to the general fund, leaving less money to assist children and adults with mental health problems.

Vote NO on Proposition 1D

Most Republicans in the Assembly and Senate voted in favor of Proposition 1E but I personally oppose it on humanitarian grounds. Nothing is worse than suffering a mental health problem and not being able to receive some help.

Proposition 1F says no pay raises for Assemblymen and Senators when the California State Budget is at a deficit. This is a feel-good proposition for state voters. The point is why should the governor and other state politicians be able to vote themselves a raise when the state is running at a deficit – makes sense to me. But, does the state actually run at a deficit or does it find needed money to balance the budget somewhere, some how – either through issuing more bonds, raising taxes, or both?

I guess I will vote for Proposition 1F but I don’t really think it will make any difference. In any case, if our elected folks are in it for the money, it’s not salaries they will depend on.