“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.” -Mark Twain
So in a 100+ days we have seen more sweeping changes in our government than we have in the last 25 years, but is it the change we want? We have witnessed a full scale assault on our system of government, our economy, our security, states’ rights and our national sovereignty. Government spending, intervention, regulation and oversight is at an all-time high. Our Constitution is being shredded by an arrogant approach to governing that starts with the premise that the government knows what is best for us. Ironically, the Constitution was written and designed to protect our rights from just this type of governing.
Here is a quick list of some of the adventures the new administration and the current Congress have taken us on so far, in no particular order:
The Stimulus Bill – (N.Y. Times) Feb 14th “The president made clear when we started this process that this was about jobs,” Mr. Boehner (R) Ohio, said after the vote. “Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. And what it’s turned into is nothing more than spending, spending and more spending.” “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” – White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel This was undoubtedly part of the logic behind the $787 million stimulus bill that nobody in Congress read. The bill was a democrat’s wish list which contained such stimulating items as $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons. Plus $252 billion is for income-transfer payments — that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There’s $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren’t job creators.* source* -The Wall Street Journal The only jobs we are creating are government jobs – 66,000 census workers and 800 IRS agents. (Category – Excessive Spending)
Closing Guantanamo Bay – On Jan. 22nd, President Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay. On May 18th, the democrats denied President Obama’s request for $80 million to close Guantanamo Bay. “When they (the administration) have a plan, they’re welcome to come back and talk to us about it.” – House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI) Apparently, lawmakers are concerned about what would happen to the roughly 245 current Guantanamo inmates, many considered hardened terrorists particularly which congressional districts they would land in. Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) said the Justice Dept. was prepared earlier this month to release Guantanamo prisoners into his district — which the administration denied — and he called for a moratorium on such releases. “We need a plan. We need to know where these men will go,” Mr. Wolf said. (Category – National Security)
Release of the “torture memos” – April16th, (CBS News) -“Withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time,” Mr. Obama said. “This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.” (WSJ) – “The four memos from 2002 and 2005 revealed new details about the interrogations, including a detailed description of water boarding, or simulated drowning, and descriptions of lesser-known methods such as “walling” and using insects. Sections involving names of some detainees and the way techniques were applied to particular prisoners were blacked out.” This should really improve our national security and relations with Muslims everywhere. The administration’s arrogance was on full display as this was done over the objections of their own CIA Chief Leon Panetta and others in the U.S. intelligence community. (Category – National Security)
Greenhouse gases are harmful – April 17th, The Obama Administration used its’ regulatory power to circumvent the need to try and force unpopular legislation. Instead, the EPA announced that greenhouse gas emissions were a threat to public health because they contribute to climate change. This sets the stage for the EPA to regulate emissions from a wide spectrum of sources including vehicles, power plants, manufacturing facilities, oil refineries and airplanes. The executive branch trumped the legislative process to further their agenda by cutting off a congressional debate that they couldn’t win. We still live in America – don’t we? (Category – Excessive Government Regulation)
The apology tour – President Obama has made a habit of using his speeches abroad to apologize for American behavior in the past. Here are some highlights.
Jan. 26: “All too often the United States starts by dictating … and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved. So let’s listen. And I think if we do that, then there’s a possibility at least of achieving some breakthroughs. … My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect.”
— President Obama, in an interview with Al Arabiya
April 1: “If you look at the sources of this crisis, the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to a regulatory system that was inadequate.”
— President Obama, at a press conference ahead of the G20 in London
April 2: “It is true, as my Italian friend has said, that the (economic) crisis began in the U.S. I take responsibility, even if I wasn’t even president at the time.”
— President Obama, at the G20 in London, as reported by Germany’s Der Spiegel
April 6: “I know there have been difficulties these last few years. I know that the trust that binds us has been strained, and I know that strain is shared in many places where the Muslim faith is practiced. Let me say this as clearly as I can: the United States is not at war with Islam.”
— President Obama, in Ankara, Turkey
April 16: “Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors. We have been too easily distracted by other priorities and have failed to see that our own progress is tied directly to progress throughout the Americas. My administration is committed to renewing and sustaining a broader partnership between the United States and the hemisphere on behalf of our common prosperity and our common security.”
— President Obama, in an op-ed that appeared in U.S. and Latin American newspapers prior to the Summit of the Americas
April 18: “We have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations.”
— President Obama, at the Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad
Is this a new form of “statesmanship”? Are these the positions that we want our leader expressing to the rest of the world. We are not a perfect nation but we are a good and generous one. We give the rest of the world billions of dollars a year in foreign aid and relief efforts trying to make it a better place. Let’s be honest – the hardworking people of our country are not the ones who are benefiting from the political hi-jinx that our politicians pull around the world – they and their cronies do! The only thing, “We, the people” need to apologize for is electing some of these idiots, in the first place.
Remember the words of George Washington – “’Tis folly in one Nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its Independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favors from Nation to Nation. ‘Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. …….. ‘Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.” (Categories – National Security/Foreign Policy/National Sovereignty)
The Chrysler Bailout/Bankruptcy – (N.Y.Times) WASHINGTON — President Obama forced Chrysler into federal bankruptcy protection on Thursday so it could pursue a lifesaving alliance with the Italian automaker Fiat, in yet another extraordinary intervention into private industry by the federal government. – This intervention resulted in the UAW getting a 55% ownership share in Chrysler for about $4.2 billion while the taxpayers got about 8% for our $12 billion. Really! This is the kind of good deals you get when the government gets involved with business. So far the buy out has only saved union and management jobs . On the other side of the equation, the 789 dealerships closing will result in the loss of another 30,000 jobs in communities of every size nationwide. Many of these are family run businesses left holding inventories of cars and parts. Watch out GM is next. (Categories – Excessive Spending/Government Intervention)
The G20 Rollover – (Telegraph.co.uk) A single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order. “We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,” it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century. In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global “quantitative easing”. With this agreement President Obama helped lay the groundwork for global financial regulation. The creation of a Financial Stability Board is the first step towards an international financial regulator. These moves are designed to strengthen the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and possibly create a new world currency. In the future, the FSB could/will technically be able to impose global financial regulations that the SEC would be obliged to follow. Welcome to the New World Order, goodbye sovereignty! (Categories – Economic Security/Foreign Policy/National Sovereignty)
Executive Pay Limits – May 15th , (N.Y. Times), Obama Administration officials are contemplating a major overhaul of the compensation practices in the financial services industry, moving beyond banks to include more loosely regulated hedge funds and private equity firms. Federal policymakers have been discussing ways to ensure that pay is more closely linked to performance. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Financial Services Committee, said he believed giving the government new authority to take over troubled companies could be adopted by the House. “This would give the government the same powers that you would get as if the company were in bankruptcy,” Mr. Frank said in an interview shortly after meeting with Mr. Geithner on the plan. But Mr. Frank and other lawmakers said other elements of the plan could take more time, like expanding the authority of the Federal Reserve to become a systemic regulator. Among the ideas under consideration are incorporating compensation as a “safety and soundness” concern on official bank examinations as well as expanding the existing regulatory powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Reserve to obtain more information. This sounds an awful lot like socialism, today banks, financial services companies and hedge funds – tomorrow? Is your job next? And ….. Where in the constitution does the government get this authority? I guess if you control salaries the redistribution of wealth model is easier to manage. (Categories – Government Intervention)
The administration will tell you that all of this is being done to protect the country and for the general welfare of its’ citizens. To which our founding fathers would have responded as follows:
“With respect to the two words ‘general welfare,’ I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” — James Madison
This only a handful of the examples that illustrate that the federal government is out of control. There are many more spanning a broad spectrum of categories from nationalizing private businesses, retroactive taxes, state’s rights, financial regulation and continued bailouts to plans to “reform” health care , gun laws, cap & trade and card check. It is the time to this stop madness.
We are careening down the road toward socialism at an incredible rate of speed. Politics long ago replaced leadership, statesmanship and governing. The elected officials and bureaucrats in Washington have thrown our constitution and all the values used to create it out the window. The federal government has pushed citizens and the states aside, in an effort to take total control. We can not let this happen. You need to write or contact every elected official in your voting district. Tell them to cease and desist or they will lose their jobs. The time to act is now. Let’s take back America!
Uncommon Sense 