Once again, Barack Obama proves he is not fit to serve as commander-in-chief to our armed forces. In a continuing despicable act, Obama is refusing to honor WWII veterans who fought for our nation in it’s darkest hours.
WASHINGTON — In a strongly worded message to Congress outlining its priorities for a military spending bill, the Obama administration today said it disapproved of including money for pensions for 26 elderly members of the World War II-era Alaska Territorial Guard.
The Guardsmen are among those assigned to protect Alaska from the Japanese during World War II.
….Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who along with Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, sponsored the fix [to the pensions], called the administration move “deeply disappointing, bordering on insensitive.” The legislation honors 26 elderly Native people who are the few remaining survivors of a military unit that served the country with valor, Murkowski said.
“The administration’s justification, which is that the legislation will set the precedent of treating service as a state employee as federal service, defies logic and history,” she said in a statement. “Sixty-two years after the Territorial Guard was disbanded, the Obama administration minimizes the contribution of this gallant unit to America’s success in World War II by calling its service ‘state service.’ “
This is beyond contemptible. It’s dangerous and even un-American. This guy, our supposed “commander-in-chief,” is beyond description here. He’s Neville Chamberlain, wrapped up in Jimmy Carter, with a order of Code Pink on the side.
Not interested in victory?
The only real job a President has that is spelled out in the Constitution is protecting the Constitution, and protecting the nation, and this guy has blown it both times. Obama hasn’t followed the Constitution since day one with all of his communistic programs, like cap and tax, and the freedom and liberty destroying ObamaCare fiasco.
Oddly enough, when it comes to Obama himself, victory is cool. After he took office and the complaints were flying that he wouldn’t engage with the Republicans, that he didn’t care about the bipartisanship he ran on, the first of hundreds of lies he has told, Obama famously said “I won.”
Lest you think this is an isolated incident:
“I’m always worried about using the word victory.”
____Barack Obama
Are you kidding me?
This man is not fit to sit in the Oval Office. Period!
We have North Korea testing long range missiles, we have Russia flexing it’s muscles, and helping Venezuela start on the path towards nuclear weapons. We have a shaky Iraq, Afghanistan is in trouble, and this pathetic man cannot step up to the pump. Iran may possibly have a nuclear weapon this year, and Obama is at the U.N and the G20 talking rainbows, unicorns, and nuclear disarmament! (For us)
The world has become exponentially more dangerous since this inexperienced “community organizer” has taken office. Obama is totally asleep at the wheel on national security and foreign relations.
Actually, that’s only partially true. For the entire time George W Bush was President, he sent messages to the Iranian people that we were not their enemy, that our quarrel was with their leaders. The implication was if they decided to rebel against the mullahs, we’d be there. Well, after the last “election” in Iran, evidently run buy ACORN’S Islamic subsidiary, the Iranian people finally decided they had indeed had enough of their oppressive government, and took to the streets, en masse.
Where was Obama? It took him weeks to formulate a response, and it was weak, and basically a hands off deal, saying it wasn’t our problem. Meanwhile brave Iranians who, like all human beings, merely desired freedom and liberty, were being slaughtered in the streets.
Nice going Obama!
On the other hand, down in Honduras, we had a dictator wannabe legally and constitutionally removed from office. Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who like our President, is term limited, was trying to manipulate the population into allowing him to remain “president for life” much like his communist pals Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers. In fact, world wide, Hugo Chavez, the Castro Brothers, and Barack Obama, all communists, are the only ones rooting for Zelaya!
Obama went so far as to call this an illegal coup de’tat, which is ridiculous. The Honduran military, Congress, and most importantly, their Supreme Court, had all ruled against Zelaya’s attempt to usurp their Constitution, and removed him from office, by force. This was perfectly legal. It fact, it’s exactly how a functioning government should work.
Unfortunately, the checks and balances in our own country are no longer working as well.
It’s despicable that we have one nation that is a threat to the entire world, whose leadership could have been toppled, with a possible democracy replacing it, and yet our so-called “president” did nothing, while at the same time, another nation, a functioning democracy, is about to be toppled by a communist dictator, and he sides with the dictator, and is still actively trying to force this free nation into installing this obvious traitor to his nation back in power!
This would be as if the Germans had figured Hitler out before he went off the deep end, and ousted him, only to have Roosevelt demand the Germans put him back in office! It would have been outrageous then, and it’s just as outrageous now!
The point of all of this is simply one thing. It’s obvious that Obama is not fit for office. Obama has left the United States, and the entire free world, vulnerable to attack from any number of rouge nations. Obama has abdicated America’s role as the leader of the free world.
While we have brave men and women serving, and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama couldn’t care less. Obama is still in campaign mode trying to force his liberty destroying ObamaCare monstrosity down an angry America’s throat!
America has clearly spoken, they want no part of ObamaCare. None! But it seems Obama is very interested in a victory there, because it will usurp our Constitution, and fundamentally change America into a communist nation. Clearly THAT victory would be acceptable for Obama. But victory against nations that want to destroy all of mankind, not so much.
We have our theater commanders telling Obama, in no uncertain terms, that we need more troops in Afghanistan, or we will lose. General McChrystal is requesting 30,000-40,000 troops. What is Obama doing? Nothing.
Here’s a hint Obama, this isn’t like your Senate job where you can just vote “present” you are actually expected to make a decision!
Where is Congress?
The Republican party should be demanding this man’s resignation. Obama has clearly abdicated his constitutional duty to protect our Constitution and to protect our nation. Are there no patriotic democrats left? Are the members of both parties so interested in holding on to their phony-baloney jobs that whatever Obama wants to do is fine?
What happens when Iran sends a nuke into Israel and wipes them out? How about Iraq? Europe? How about when Hugo Chavez gets some nukes from Russia and decides to let them fly?
It’s time for the American people to demand Obama step down, resign. He is clearly not a leader and clearly does not have America’s best interests in mind. The world is too dangerous for an “on the job training” president.
Growing up, our greatest enemy was the Soviet Union. When Ronald Reagan became President, he had a very simple strategy: “We win, they lose!”
After we were attacked on 9/11 George W Bush stated “you are either with us, or against us.”
We need leaders in this nation, not “community organizers.”
As expected, Sarah Palin made a worldwide splash with her speech at the 16th Annual CLSA Investor’s Forum. According to CLSA’s website it was standing room only with over 1100 institutional fund managers and heads of leading Asian, Australian and US corporations.
Reports are Sarah received a lengthy standing ovation at the end of her speech. It’s also reported that a couple of whiny liberals left before she was finished., I guess they couldn’t handle the truth! They also wouldn’t go on the record. No guts, no glory!
In his introduction, CLSA Chairman and CEO, Jonathan Slone, quoted President Eisenhower on the responsibilities of citizens in a democratic society to debate issues that matter.
Following her remarks, Governor Palin responded to questions from CLSA’s clients.
You know how one knows this thing was a home run? The New York Times ran a fair story about Sarah’s speech without an ounce of snark! I imagine Maureen Dowd had a stroke!
HONG KONG — Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first speech overseas, spoke on Wednesday to Asian bankers,investors and fund managers.
A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling.
“The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners.
“She didn’t sound at all like a far-right-wing conservative. She seemed to be positioning herself as a libertarian or a small-c conservative,” he said, adding that she mentioned both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. “She brought up both those names.”
Of course, the comparison’s of Sarah Palin to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are inevitable We’ve done it ourselves. No less than Michael Reagan, son of the great Renaldus Magnus, has compared the two favorably as well, as he did in his piece: “Welcome Back Dad.”
Last December, writing in the Wall Street Journal, John O’Sullivan wrote a piece called “Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin.” In his article, he compares Sarah favorable to Lady Thatcher, and cites Sarah’s executive experience as a major reason for why she will be successful on the larger stage. It should be noted that O’Sullivan was a special adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Now let’s be honest. Sarah Palin is not Ronald Reagan, or Maggie Thatcher. Sarah is her own person, with her own ideas, and her own brand of conservatism. But Reagan was a huge influence on her, and as Reagan and Thatcher really dominated the world stage in their day, I’m sure some of that interaction made an impression on a young Sarah Palin.
“Common sense conservatism” was a common theme from those that heard her speech.
Here’s the reason why everyone and their uncle compares Sarah Palin favorably to Ronald Reagan. Like Reagan, Sarah Palin is strong, and unwavering in her beliefs. She will tell you what she thinks, straight up, just like Reagan. And like Reagan, Sarah says what she means, and means what she says.
Sarah also articulates conservatism, real conservatism better than anyone out there today. This too is something she shares with Reagan, along with an unabashed love for America, and an unbridled optimism. Reagan’s optimism was key to his success. Reagan, like Sarah, was a realist, he knew we had issues, but at the end of the day, He knew America had it in her to shine. You hear that same spirit in Sarah Palin every time she speaks.
So fairly, or unfairly, this is why the two are always compared, and compared favorable. As a recent Rasmussen poll pointed out, “being like Ronald Reagan” is the only positive political description that voters care about. It’s the gold standard that all conservatives are judged by.
More from the Times:
Cameron Sinclair, another speaker at the event, said Mrs. Palin emphasized the need for a grassroots rebirth of the Republican Party driven by party leaders outside Washington.
A number of attendees thought Mrs. Palin, the former vice presidential candidate, was using the speech to begin to broaden her foreign policy credentials before making a run for the presidency in 2012.
“She’s definitely a serious future presidential candidate, and I understand why she plays so well in middle America,” said Mr. Coulter, a Canadian.
And this from a New Yorker and an Obama supporter who attended:
Melvin Goodé, a regional marketing consultant, thought Mrs. Palin chose Hong Kong because, he said, it was “a place where things happen and where freedom can be expanded upon.”
“It’s not Beijing or Shanghai,” said Mr. Goodé . “She also mentioned Tibet, Burma and North Korea in the same breath as places where China should be more sensitive and careful about how people are treated. She said it on a human-rights level.”
Mr. Goodé, an African-American who said he did some campaign polling for President Obama, said Mrs. Palin mentioned President Obama three times on Wednesday.
“And there was nothing derogatory in it, no sleight of hand, and believe me, I was listening for that,” he said, adding that Mrs. Palin referred to Mr. Obama as “our president,” with the emphasis on “our.”
Mr. Goodé, a New Yorker who said he would never vote for Mrs. Palin, said she acquitted herself well.
“She was articulate and she held her own. I give her credit. They’ve tried to categorize her as not being bright. She’s bright.”
Appearing Wednesday night “On The Record” with Greta Van Susteren, Wall Street Journal’s Asia page editor Mary Kissel, who was in Hong Kong, told Greta that Sarah’s appearance generated the most interest in the forum’s 16 year history. That the media even followed her to the airport as she was leaving the country.
Speaking of which, the Wall Street Journal, had this to say:
The former vice presidential candidate understands Beijing better than the Obama Administration does.
The Journal added:
Sarah Palin was pounded by the media as a foreign-policy novice during last year’s presidential campaign. But when it comes to the U.S. approach toward China, she has ideas worth listening to.
“Twenty years ago, many believed that as China liberalized its economy, greater political freedom would naturally follow,” the former Alaska governor and Republican nominee for the vice presidency told a Hong Kong audience yesterday. “Unfortunately that has not come to pass.”
Mrs. Palin sees China’s authoritarian nature as a security concern for the U.S. and its allies in Asia-Pacific, and she has a point. North Korea, Burma and other rogue regimes couldn’t sustain themselves without Chinese support. Not to mention the hundreds of missiles Beijing has pointed at Taiwan and its navy’s increasingly muscular attitude in the South China Sea. “How many books and articles have been written about the dangers of India’s rise?” she asked.
The solution, she argues, is to encourage political change from within China—a movement that regained momentum last year with the launch of Charter 08, a democratic manifesto.
Such developments, she argued, are in everyone’s interest. “The more politically open and just China is, the more Chinese citizens of every ethnicity will settle disputes in courts rather than on the streets,” she said. The more open China is, “the less we will be concerned about its military buildup and intentions.”
Mrs. Palin also espoused the value of alliances with like-minded democratic countries in the region such as Japan, Australia and India. The U.S. “can, must and should” work with China to address issues of “mutual concern,” she said. “But we also need to work with our allies in addressing the uncertainties created by China’s rise.”
The Obama Administration could take a page from this book. So far, the White House has gone out of its way to downplay human rights in China and tiptoe around recent crackdowns in Tibet and Xinjiang, preferring to focus on hipper issues like climate change. This “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to Beijing does no favors to the Chinese people, much less to the West’s core interests in Asia. At the same time, America’s other alliances in the region have been largely ignored.
Mrs. Palin also made a timely call against trade protectionism—an issue that will be high on the U.S.-China agenda this week at the Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh. She spoke up for the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, now stalled in the U.S. Congress. She also called the Obama Administration’s decision to slap a 35% duty on Chinese tires a “mistake,” while adding that China needed to respect intellectual property rights and “improve its rule of law.” Again, she made the connection with human-rights: “Our economic relationship will truly thrive when Chinese citizens and foreign corporations can hold the Chinese government accountable.”
Mrs. Palin’s speech will almost surely be dismissed by her critics as a scripted exercise. What we heard was a balanced and realistic view of China, founded on universal values that Westerners and Chinese alike can believe in.
Appearing on Sean Hannity’s “Great American Panel” Wednesday Night, famed Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz has this to say:
“Sarah Palin excites me. She stands for something.”
Holtz went on to expand on this, noting that Ronald Reagan’s successes came from standing for something, and that this recent tendency to “moderate” the message in an attempt to draw people in is a mistake. This echoes what we have been saying for a long time. Be who you are, true to your school. Reagan had the same conservative message for every single American.
People want someone who stands for something, believes in something. Those are the people we know we can trust. Those are the people we know will never, ever waver under pressure.
Sarah herself, recognizing folks wanted to hear a little bit of what she had to say in her address, released excerpts of her speech on her Facebook page, which we covered here.
Having read the excerpts from her speech, it’s simple to say this was some serious red meat, a nice, thick, grilled ribeye steak with garlic mashed potatoes and some veggies on the side, in fact! A good solid meal that was very filling.
It’s going to be a lot of fun watching Sarah Palin out there being Sarah Palin. For long time Palinistas, this is the Sarah Palin we liked before it was really cool to like Sarah Palin!
Airport photo courtesy Asia Media, Speech photos courtesy CLSA.
Gary: Copy and Paste does not qualify as “original research, reporting, commentary, or analysis,” as the Write Post page says the diaries section is reserved for. So I’m closing this diary. In the future please provide analysis of Palin’s words, rather than just regurgitating them. Further copy and paste diaries are subject to deletion. – NS
As a lot of people have been interested in what Sarah Palin had to say in Hong Kong to the CLSA Investors Summit, she has posted some excerpts on her Facebook page.
Many have asked to see my remarks as presented in Hong Kong. Here is an excerpt.
___Sarah Palin
So far, I’ve given you the view from Main Street, USA. But now I’d like to share with you how a Common Sense Conservative sees the world at large.
Later this year, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – an event that changed not just Europe but the entire world. In a matter of months, millions of people in formerly captive nations were freed to pursue their individual and national ambitions.
The competition that defined the post World War II era was suddenly over. What was once called “the free world” had so much to celebrate – the peaceful end to a great power rivalry and the liberation of so many from tyranny’s grip.
Some, you could say, took the celebration too far. Many spoke of a “peace dividend,” of the need to focus on domestic issues and spend less time, attention and money on endeavors overseas. Many saw a peaceful future, where globalization would break down borders and lead to greater global prosperity. Some argued that state sovereignty would fade – like that was a good thing? – that new non-governmental actors and old international institutions would become dominant in the new world order.
As we all know, that did not happen. Unfortunately, there was no shortage of warning signs that the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of history or the end of conflict. In Europe, the breakup of Yugoslavia resulted in brutal wars in the Balkans. In the Middle East, a war was waged to reverse Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. North Korea’s nuclear program nearly led to military conflict. In Africa, U.S. embassies were bombed by a group called al Qaeda.
Two weeks ago, America commemorated the 8th anniversary of the savagery of September 11, 2001. The vicious terrorist attacks of that day made clear that what happened in lands far distant from American shores directly affect our security. We came to learn, if we did not know before, that there were violent fanatics who sought not just to kill innocents, but to end our way of life. Their attacks have not been limited to the United States.
They attacked targets in Europe, North Africa and throughout the Middle East. Here in Asia, they killed more than 200 in a single attack in Bali. They bombed the Marriott Hotel and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Last year in Mumbai, more than 170 were killed in coordinated attacks in the heart of India’s financial capital. In this struggle with radical Islamic extremists, no part of the world is safe from those who bomb, maim and kill in the service of their twisted vision.
This war – and that is what it is, a war – is not, as some have said, a clash of civilizations. We are not at war with Islam. This is a war within Islam, where a small minority of violent killers seeks to impose their view on the vast majority of Muslims who want the same things all of us want: economic opportunity, education, and the chance to build a better life for themselves and their families. The reality is that al Qaeda and its affiliates have killed scores of innocent Muslim men, women and children.
The reality is that Muslims from Algeria, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries are fighting al Qaeda and their allies today. But this will be a long war, and it will require far more than just military power to prevail. Just as we did in the Cold War, we will need to use all the tools at our disposal – hard and soft power. Economic development, public diplomacy, educational exchanges, and foreign assistance will be just as important as the instruments of military power.
During the election campaign in the U.S. last year, you might have noticed we had some differences over Iraq. John McCain and I believed in the strength of the surge strategy – because of its success, Iraq is no longer the central front in the war on terrorism. Afghanistan is. Afghanistan is where the 9/11 attacks were planned and if we are not successful in Afghanistan, al Qaeda will once again find safe haven there. As a candidate and in office, President Obama called Afghanistan the “necessary war” and pledged to provide the resources needed to prevail. However, prominent voices in the Democratic Party are opposing the additional U.S. ground forces that are clearly needed.
Speaker of the House Pelosi, Defense Subcommittee Chairman Murtha, the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair, and many others, recently expressed doubts about sending additional forces! President Obama will face a decision soon when the U.S. Commander in Afghanistan requests additional forces to implement his new counterinsurgency strategy.
We can win in Afghanistan by helping the Afghans build a stable representative state able to defend itself. And we must do what it takes to prevail. The stakes are very high. Last year, in the midst of the U.S. debate over what do to in Iraq, an important voice was heard – from Asia’s Wise Man, former Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who wrote in the Washington Post about the cost of retreat in Iraq. In that article, he prophetically addressed the stakes in Afghanistan. He wrote:
“The Taliban is again gathering strength, and a Taliban victory in Afghanistan or Pakistan would reverberate throughout the Muslim world. It would influence the grand debate among Muslims on the future of Islam. A severely retrograde form of Islam would be seen to have defeated modernity twice: first the Soviet Union, then the United States. There would be profound consequences, especially in the campaign against terrorism.”
That statesman’s words remain every bit as true today. And Minister Lee knows, and I agree, that our success in Afghanistan will have consequences all over the world, including Asia. Our allies and our adversaries are watching to see if we have the staying power to protect our interests in Afghanistan. That is why I recently joined a group of Americans in urging President Obama to devote the resources necessary in Afghanistan and pledged to support him if he made the right decision.
That is why, even during this time of financial distress we need to maintain a strong defense. All government spending should undergo serious scrutiny. No programs or agencies should be automatically immune from cuts.
We need to go back to fiscal discipline and unfortunately that has not been the view of the current Administration. They’re spending everywhere and with disregard for deficits and debts and our future economic competitiveness. Though we are engaged in two wars and face a diverse array of threats, it is the defense budget that has seen significant program cuts and has actually been reduced from current levels!
First, the Defense Department received only ½ of 1 % of the nearly trillion dollar Stimulus Package funding – even though many military projects fit the definition of “shovel-ready.” In this Administration’s first defense budget request for 2010, important programs were reduced or cancelled. As the threat of ballistic missiles from countries like North Korea and Iran grow, missile defense was slashed.
Despite the need to move men and material by air into theaters like Afghanistan, the Obama Administration sought to end production of our C-17s, the work horse of our ability to project long range power. Despite the Air Force saying it would increase future risk, the Obama Administration successfully sought to end F-22 production – at a time when both Russia and China are acquiring large numbers of next generation fighter aircraft. It strikes me as odd that Defense Secretary Gates is the only member of the Cabinet to be tasked with tightening his belt.
Now in the region I want to emphasize today: The reason I speak about defense is because our strong defense posture in Asia has helped keep the region safe and allowed it to prosper. Our Asian allies get nervous if they think we are weakening our security commitments. I worry about defense cuts not because I expect war but because I so badly want peace. And the region has enjoyed peace for so long because of our security commitment to our longstanding allies and partners.
Asia has been one of the world’s great success stories. It is a region where America needs to assist with right mix of hard and soft power. While I have so much hope for a bright future in Asia, in a region this dynamic, we must always be prepared for other contingencies. We must work at this – work with our allies to ensure the region’s continued peace and prosperity.
I know that you all — like all of Asia and indeed the whole world – has a keen interest in the emergence of “China as a great power.” Over the past few decades China’s economic growth has been remarkable. So has the economic growth and political liberalization of all of our key allies in Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Asia’s economic growth and political development, together with our forward military presence in the region and strong alliances, have allowed the region to prosper in peace for a long time. We hope that Asia will continue to be an engine of world economic growth, will continue to democratize and will remain at peace.
Our future is now deeply linked to Asia’s success. Our children’s future. We must continue to strengthen our key alliance with Japan, a country going through its own democratic change. Together the U.S. and Japan built the security umbrella under which so many Asians prospered. While there is so much attention to China these days, we cannot forget the importance of Japan in helping to make this the “Pacific Century.”
The recent elections in Japan demonstrated that voters wanted reform and an end to debt and stagnation. We have a substantial stake in Japan’s success — our alliance with must continue to be the linchpin of regional security.
With its open political system and vibrant democracy, South Korea wants to play a larger role on the international stage as well. Of course it wants us to work together toward a future where the peninsula is irreversibly denuclearized, and unified. But it also wants to play a global role. We need to work together with Japan, South Korea and our steadfast ally to the south, Australia, to make sure Asia remains peaceful and prosperous.
Australia rightly reminds us to keep our eye on Southeast Asia, where Indonesia has proved that Islam and democracy can co-exist. Indonesia has fought extremism inside its own border and is consolidating a multi-ethnic democracy that is home to hundreds of millions of Muslims. Those who say Islam and democracy are incompatible insult our friends in Indonesia.
Our great democratic friend India is also “looking East”, seeking a greater role in East Asia as well. Together with our allies we must help integrate India into Asia. If we do so we will have yet another strong democracy driving Asia’s economy and working on shared problems such as proliferation and extremism. And we must continue working with the region’s most dynamic economy, China. We all hope that China’s stated policy of a “Peaceful Rise” will be its future course.
You know better than most the enormous change that has taken place in China over the last thirty years. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been pulled out of poverty as China has undertaken economic reforms that have resulted in unprecedented growth. Even today, China’s economy is projected to grow by some 8%. It is helping to edge the world out of recession.
China has amassed huge financial reserves. Chinese diplomats are engaged on every continent and, through its vote on the United Nations Security Council, China has become critical in gaining UN support on multilateral issues from Darfur to Iran to North Korea.
Just four years ago, then-Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick urged China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international system. He observed the many benefits to China of a “benign international environment.”
The peaceful regional environment that China has enjoyed was created through the hard work of Americans, Japanese, South Koreans and Australians. Secretary Zoellick urged China to step up and play its role too. We are working with China to de-nuclearize North Korea. But to be a responsible member of the international community China should exert greater pressure on North Korea to denuclearize and undergo the fundamental reforms it needs. Zoellick urged China to play a greater role in stabilizing the international energy market by ceasing its support of dangerous regimes.
China could play a role in stabilizing its ally Pakistan, and working for peace in Afghanistan. There are many areas where the U.S. and China can work together. And, we would welcome a China that wanted to assume a more responsible and active role in international politics.
But Secretary Zoellick also noted that many of China’s actions create risk and uncertainty. These uncertainties led nations to “hedge” their relations with China because, in Zoellick’s words: “Many countries HOPE China will pursue a ‘Peaceful Rise’ but NONE will bet their future on it.”
See: this is the heart of the issue with China: we engage with the hope Beijing becomes a responsible stakeholder, but we must takes steps in the event it does not. See? We all hope to see a China that is stable, peaceful, prosperous and free. But we must also work with our allies in the region and the world in the event China goes in a direction that causes regional instability.
Asia is at its best when it is not dominated by a single power. In seeking Asia’s continued peace and prosperity, we should seek, as we did in Europe, an Asia “whole and free” – free from domination by any one power, prospering in open and free markets, and settling political differences at ballot boxes and negotiating tables.
We can, must and should work with a “rising China” to address issues of mutual concern. But we also need to work with our allies in addressing the uncertainties created by China’s rise. We simply CANNOT turn a blind eye to Chinese policies and actions that can undermine international peace and security.
China has some 1000 missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer believes Taiwan poses a military threat to Beijing. Those same Chinese forces make our friends in Japan and Australia nervous. China provides support for some of the world’s most questionable regimes from Sudan to Burma to Zimbabwe. China’s military buildup raises concerns from Delhi to Tokyo because it has taken place in the absence of any discernable external threat.
China, along with Russia, has repeatedly undermined efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran for its defiance of the international community in pursuing its nuclear program. The Chinese food and product safety record has raised alarms from East Asia and Europe to the United States. And, domestic incidents of unrest — from the protests of Uighurs and Tibetans, to Chinese workers throughout the country rightfully make us nervous.
It is very much in our interest and the interest of regional stability that China work out its own contradictions – between a dynamic and entrepreneurial private sector on the one hand and a one party state unwilling or unable to adjust to its own society’s growing needs and desires and demands, including a human being’s innate desire for freedom.
I do not cite these issues out of any hostility toward China. Quite the contrary, I and all Americans of good faith hope for the Chinese people’s success. We welcome the rise that can be so good for all mankind. We simply urge China to rise responsibly. I simply believe we cannot ignore areas of disagreement as we seek to move forward on areas of agreement. Believe me, China does not hesitate to tell us when it thinks we are in the wrong.
I mentioned China’s internal contradictions. They should concern us all. We hear many Chinese voices throughout that great country calling out for more freedom, and for greater justice. Twenty years ago, many believed that as China liberalized its economy, greater political freedom would naturally follow. Unfortunately that has not come to pass.
Ummm, in fact, it seems China has taken great pains to learn what it sees as “the lesson” of the fall on the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union: any easing of political constraints can inevitably spin out of control. But, in many ways, it is the essence of China’s political system that leads to concerns about its rise.
Think about it. How many books and articles have been written about the dangers of India’s rise? Almost as large as China – and soon to be more populous – virtually no one worries about the security implications of India becoming a great power – just as a century ago the then-preeminent power, Great Britain, worried little about the rise of America to great power status. My point is that the more politically open and just China is, the more Chinese citizens of every ethnicity will settle disputes in courts rather than on the streets. The more open it is, the less we will be concerned about its military build-up and intentions. The more transparent China is, the more likely it is they we will find a true and lasting friendship based on shared values as well as interests.
I am not talking about some U.S.-led “democracy crusade.” We cannot impose our values on other counties. Nor should we seek to. But the ideas of freedom, liberty and respect for human rights are not U.S. ideas, they are much more than that. They are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many other international covenants and treaties. They apply to citizens in Shanghai as much as they do to citizens in Johannesburg or Jakarta. And demands for liberty in China are Chinese, not American, demands. Just last year, many brave Chinese signed Charter 08, a Chinese document modeled on the great Czech statesman Vlacav Havel’s Charter 77. Charter 08 would not be unfamiliar to our Founding Fathers and was endorsed by Havel himself. No, we need not convince the Chinese people that they have inalienable rights. They are calling for those rights themselves. But we do have to worry about a China where the government suppresses the liberties its people hold dear.
Nothing of what I am saying should be seen as meaning conflict with China is inevitable. Quite the contrary. As I said, we welcome China’s responsible rise. America and China stood together against fascism during World War II, before ravages took over in China – we were ready to stand together with China to shape international politics after World War II. Much has been accomplished since President Nixon’s fateful visit. And again, we stand ready to work with what we hope will be a more open and responsible China on the challenges facing the 21st century.
All of you here know how deeply integrated the economies of the United States’ and China’s are. We rely on each other, sometimes unfortunately in unhealthy ways. America spends too much that we don’t have, and then we go to China as a lender of first resort. Our fiscal policy, lately, seems to be “tax, spend, borrow, tax some more, repeat” and then complain about how much debt China holds. America needs to gets its own fiscal house in order. That’s a Common Sense Conservative perspective. We can hardly complain that China holds so much of our debt when it’s over spending that created the debt.
But here’s the reality. If in fact the United States does the “right” thing – if we spend less and save more – then China will also have to rebalance its economy. We need to export more to China – and we’d like China to consume more of our goods – just as we need to save and invest more. This vital process – so crucial to both countries – is impeded by problems of market access.
We must talk about these issues with more candor. If China adopts policies that keep our highest value products out of their markets, by manipulating technical standards or licensing requirements, our economic relationship suffers.
Our economic interdependence drives our relationship with China. I see a future of more trade with China and more American high-tech goods in China. But in order for that to happen, we need China to improve its rule of law and protect our intellectual property. We need to avoid protectionism and China’s flirtation with state-assisted “national champions.” On our part, we should be more open to Chinese investment where our national security interests are not threatened. In the end, though, our economic relationship will truly thrive when Chinese citizens and foreign corporations can hold the Chinese government accountable when their actions are unjust.
I see a bright future for America in Asia. One based on the alliances that have gotten us this far, one based on free and open markets, one that integrates democratic India into East Asia’s political life and one in which China decides to be a responsible member of the international community and gives its people the liberty – the freedom – they so desperately want.
Sadly, however, our largest free trade agreement ever in Asia, with South Korea, sits frozen in the Congress. In contrast, China is behaving wisely in negotiating free trade agreements throughout Asia. We want an Asia open to our goods and services. But if we do not get our free trade act together, we will be shut out by agreements Asians our making among themselves.
All of you here follow global financial markets and economic policy closely, I know that it will come as no surprise to you that United States leadership on global trade and investment is being sorely tested at this moment.
We are struggling with a monumental debate on whether fiscal discipline, or massive government spending, will drive a sustained recovery. We are struggling to repair the excesses that grew in our own economy and served as a trigger to a catastrophic collapse in the global financial system. And we are attempting to do so under the weight of a global imbalance of debt and trade deficits that are not only unbearable for the world’s mightiest economy, but also unacceptable in that they foster tensions between global economic partners like the United States and China.
I am proud to be an American. As someone who has had the tremendous opportunity to travel throughout the United States and listen to the concerns of Americans in towns and cities across the country, I can tell you that there is a sense of despair and even crisis afoot in America that has the potential to shape our global investment and trade policies for years, and even decades to come. Never has the leadership of our government ever been more critical to keeping my country, and the world, on a path to openness, growth and opportunity in global trade and investment.
It would of course be a mistake to put the entire burden of restoring the global economy on the backs of America’s leaders. There is plenty of work for all of us to do in this matter. Governments around the world must resist the siren call of trade protection to bring short term relief during a time of crisis.
Those who use currency policy or subsidies to promote their nation’s exports should remain acutely aware that if there ever were a time in which such policies could be viewed as “tolerable,” that time has now passed. All participants who seek to find benefit in the global trading system must also take the responsibility of playing by the rules.
The private sector has responsibilities as well. For instance, it should not be the responsibility of government to dictate the salaries of bankers or the ownership of companies. And yet, due of the excesses committed by some, this is exactly where we find ourselves now because government now owns substantial portions of the private economy – even, unbelievably, in the United States.
These are challenging times for everyone, but we in the United States must humbly recognize that if we are to lead and to set the direction for the rest of the world, it must be by our example and not merely our words. And we must tread lightly when imposing new burdens on the imports of other countries.
Well, CLSA: My country is definitely at a crossroad. Polling in the U.S. shows a majority of Americans no longer believe that their children will have a better future than they have had…that is a 1st.
When members of America’s greatest generation – the World War II generation – lose their homes and their life savings because their retirement funds were wiped after the financial collapse, people feel a great anger. There is suddenly a growing sentiment to just “throw the bums out” of Washington, D.C. – and by bums they mean the Republicans and the Democrats. Americans are suffering from pay cuts and job losses, and they want to know why their elected leaders are not tightening their belts. It’s not lost on people that Congress voted to exempt themselves from the health care plan they are thrusting on the rest of the nation. There is a growing sense of frustration on Main Street. But even in the midst of crisis and despair, we see signs of hope.
In fact, it’s a sea change in America, I believe. Recently, there have been protests by ordinary Americans who marched on Washington to demand their government stop spending away their future. Large numbers of ordinary, middle-class Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from all over the country marching on Washington?! You know something’s up!
These are the same people who flocked to the town halls this summer to face their elected officials who were home on hiatus from that distant capital and were now confronted with the people they represent. Big town hall meetings – video clips circulating coverage – people watching, feeling not so alone anymore.
The town halls and the Tea Party movement are both part of a growing grassroots consciousness among ordinary Americans who’ve decided that if they want real change, they must take the lead and not wait to be led. Real change – and, you know, you don’t need a title to do it.
The “Tea Party Movement” is aptly named to remind people of the American Revolution – of colonial patriots who shook off the yoke of a distant government and declared their freedom from indifferent – elitist – rulers who limited their progress and showed them no respect. Today, Main Street Americans see Washington in similar terms.
When my country again achieves financial stability and economic growth – when we roar back to life as we shall do – it will be thanks in large part to the hard work and common sense of these ordinary Americans who are demanding that government spend less and tax less and allow the private sector to grow and prosper.
We’re not interested in government fixes; we’re interested in freedom! Freedom! Our vision is forward looking. People may be frustrated now, but we’re very hopeful too.
And, after all, why shouldn’t we be? We’re Americans. We’re always hopeful.
Thank you for letting me share some of that hope, and a view from Main Street with you. God Bless You.
As we wrote several days ago, there is a battle going on between the American Farmer and the Obama regime. Barack Obama has turned the water off to the San Joaquin Valley of Central California, some of the most fertile farm land in the nation, and literally the nation’s food pantry.
Thanks to Barack Obama, unemployment in parts of the Valley is at 41 percent. Hard working American Farmers, Patriots, who have spent a lifetime growing our food, are now standing in lines for six and eight hours at a time to get canned goods from China just to survive!
This is a crime against humanity.
If you don’t know the story, here’s the deal. The Obama regime is using the excuse of a fish, a two inch bait fish, the Delta Smelt, which they claim is an “endangered species” to shut down all of the water to the San Joaquin Valley. They have created a modern day dust bowl out of some of the most beautiful farm land on earth. Some 400,000 acres have been destroyed with one million total acres in jeopardy.
This is not only a human tragedy, it’s a matter of national security.
A significant amount of America’s entire food supply has traditionally come from this Valley. According to the California Foundation For Agriculture In The Classroom, the percentage of our national food supply that comes from the San Joaquin Valley for the various crops are as follows:
Olives 100%
Almond 99%
Walnuts 99%
Figs 98%
Kiwi 97%
Pistachios 96%
Apricots 95%
Celery 94%
Tomatoes 94%
Broccoli 93%
Plums 93%
Nectarines 93%
Strawberries 90%
Carrots 89%
Lemons 89%
Grapes 88%
Garlic 86%
Avocados 84%
Dates 82%
Lettuce 78%
Peaches 76%
Honeydew 73%
Asparagus 55%
Cantaloupe 54%
Bell Peppers 47%
Onions 27%
Cabbage 22%
Milk and cream 21%
Artichokes 19%
Honey 18%
Spinach 18%
Looking at that list it seems fantastic that Obama and his democrat/communist party would even consider destroying this farmland and these Patriotic American Farmers. But as fantastic as it seems, every single democrat/communist in the United States Senate voted to table an amendment to the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 that was offered up by Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
Even more incredible, three Republicans joined the democrat/communist party in voting to destroy America. These absolute traitors to the nation are Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
And if you think calling these 61 members of the United States Senate traitors to the nation is harsh, then think again. Remember all of the food scares we have endured the last few years? Salmonella on fruits and vegetables has become a common occurrence. Why is this?
Well, it’s really pretty simple. We are having to import most of our fruits and vegetables from foreign countries. Why? Because the democrat/communist party has destroyed the American Farmer and his business. They have made it impossible for the Farmer to do his job, to grow our food for us.
That’s right, the democrat/communist party, the party that is constantly caterwauling about jobs going overseas has just turned the responsibility for growing our entire nation’s food supply over to a bunch of foreign countries who don’t have the same food safety standards that our Patriotic Farmers adhere to.
But why?
As I wrote my original story on this, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and it becomes even more clear each and every day. Anyone who has been paying even cursory attention to the so-called “green movement” knows it has been hijacked by communists, Marxists.
You’ll note the Apollo Alliance’s logo is very similar to other Obama/ACORN affiliated groups.
We know of this group because of it’s very close ties to Barack Obama. Two of the closet people to Obama are the recently departed “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones, a self described communist revolutionary, and racist. But the other man intimately involved with Obama is Jeff Jones. (No relation to Van Jones) Jeff Jones wrote most of the nearly one trillion dollar stimulus bill that Congress passed and Obama signed into law without ever reading a single word.
Jeff Jones, along with another longtime Obama adviser and mentor, unrepentant murdering terrorist William Ayers co-founded the ultra-violent Weather Underground, a Marxist organization. Once these two murderers realized they couldn’t destroy America by blowing it up, they cut their hair, took baths, put on business suits, and infiltrated “respected” fields of endeavor.
William Ayers went into teaching, along with his convicted felon ex-wife, Bernardine Dohrn. These two are considered “respected educators,” teaching teachers how to teach your kids. Infecting young minds with tails of Marx and Lenin. Reason number 8448 to home school!
Jeff Jones chose another path. Jones saw the “green movement” and realized that it was an effective way to slowly institute a communist agenda on America, and use fear and guilt to do it. The greens have been telling fairy tails about “climate change” for a generation, and so far none of it has been true. In the 1970′s the coming ice age was all the rage. All of the major newsers of the day screamed in fear of global cooling, a new ice age that was coming our way. When that didn’t work out, they came up with “global warming” another hoax to end all hoaxes. Looking stupid, because the earth is actually cooling, they finally changed the name to “climate change” when they saw that they couldn’t fool enough people or scare enough to go along with their plans.
Funny thing, we’ve had one of the coolest two years in decades, and now they are revving up the “global cooling” fears again.
So what the hell does this have to do with Patriotic American Farmers in Central California?
Everything!
We talked about this before, but let’s break it all down again.
What do we always hear from Obama and all of his communist cohorts? “Social justice.” “Re-distributive change.” Obama has constantly talked about. Here is Obama in a 2001 Chicago radio interview where he called the Constitution “flawed” because it didn’t address the re-distribution of wealth.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
Karl Marx
Now when Conservatives heard this communist nonsense coming out of Obama’s mouth we instinctively knew this guy was trouble, but unfortunately, this isn’t just about re-distributing wealth here in America. If only.
In an effort to illustrate how straw polls in small venues can be skewed, Politico.com ran it’s own reader’s straw poll asking who SHOULD have won the Values Voters Summit straw poll.
Now one has to say that Mike Huckabee winning the original poll is not surprising. This is really his crowd. And one also has to factor in that Sarah did not attend the Value Voters Summit, staying in Alaska to greet her son Track who was home on leave from fighting in Iraq.
Even so Huckabee had a respectable showing with 28 percent of the 597 votes cast. There is something to be said for actually being at the venue, for sure.
These results just don’t jibe with other straw polls that we have seen though. Usually you see either one of two things, either Sarah Palin has blown everyone out, or it’s a dead heat between her, Mitt Romney, and Huckabee, obviously depending on the venue. But more times than not, it looks a lot like this Politico.com poll:
Sarah Palin 53 %
Someone else 16 %
Mitt Romney 15 %
Mike Huckabee10 %
Tim Pawlenty 4 %
Mike Pence 2 %
This is based on 24,049 votes.
It’s really too early to put much stock in any of these, frankly. The 2012 election season is still a couple of years away. And that is a lifetime in politics. Absolutely anything could happen.
We do know this, Sarah is consistently the most popular Republican among Republicans. She also drives the communists insane! But past that, Sarah Palin has had the most impact on the national debate, with absolutely the least effort. A few well worded entries of Facebook really put a crimp in the Obama regime’s plans to ram Obamacare down America’s throat. Palin had the ability to cut to the chase and get the point across like no other politician in America, on either side of the debate.
It will be interesting to see if Sarah’s effectiveness as a politician, as well as her outside the Beltway status, will translate into White House win in 2012. I wouldn’t bet against it.
Turning the water off is not just bad politics, it’s an act of domestic terror.
Former Fresno, California Mayor Alan Autry
Forgive me if I am less than diplomatic here. I am not a fan at all of the radical environmental movement. I’m even less of a fan of radical, Big Government.
Let’s cut to the chase here. The rabid environmentalists have destroyed the economy in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Not only have they destroyed the economy, they have destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of farmers, as well.
According to the California Farm Water Coalition unemployment in parts of the San Joaquin Valley reached 41 percent in August. Over 400,000 acres of some of the richest farm land on earth are now dormant and unplanted. More than one million acres are in danger of destruction. .
These government stooges have created a modern day dust bowl. They have created something the government actually worked hard to educate people against doing again some 75 years ago!
Poor planting practices and a major drought caused much of the nation’s center to turn into one big dust bowl back in the 1930′s. Nothing would grow. This stretched from the Plains of Texas to the Canadian Prairie Lands. Throw in the Great Depression and it was a disaster. People’s lives were destroyed. Farms that had been in families for generations just dried up and blew away, literally. Many family farms were lost to foreclosure. American families lost everything they had.
One of the few things government got right was establishing the Soil Conservation Service, through the Soil Conservation Act of 1935. Studies were done, surveys made, and farmers were educated in best practices, so this would never happen again.
We have had more than a few severe droughts since 1935, but we have never had a dust bowl environment since, until now. And this environmental disaster is completely man-made.
Let me say that again. This is all man’s doing. Yes, there has been a bit of a drought in California. But there is more than enough water. This is not a natural disaster, you can’t blame God for this one. This is a man made disaster, you know, the name Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napoliotano wants us all to call domestic terrorism now!
A lot of us were angry when Napolitano came out with that liberal nonsense, but now I see the wisdom in it. I very much agree with Former Fresno, California Mayor Alan Autry. What Big Government has done is indeed domestic terrorism.
So what is this act of terrorism? What have the environmentalists done to destroy all of these Patriotic farmers lives? What has the federal government done to destroy the economy of the Central California Valley?
The federal government, Big Government, has ordered all of the water shut off to the farms. But why would they do that? That’s insane, isn’t it? Well, yeah, but we are talking the most liberal government ever assembled in America! A government filled with radicals.
You see, there is this fish, the Delta Smelt. I’m sure it’s a fine fish. This two inch long refugee from the bait hook is actually kinda cute. We don’t hate the fish. But in it’s infinite wisdom, and treachery, the federal government, Big Government, has put this minnow on the endangered species list. That’s right, a little fish we’d use for BAIT down here in Texas is now being considered almost extinct.
Species become extinct all of the time, but for every one that goes away, more new heretofore never known species are discovered. You read about them all of the time, especially water species, like fish!
This fish has no real value to the ecosystem. It’s not really food for any other fish or wildlife, and it doesn’t do anything to effect pollution, help keep the waters clean.
The problem with the Central Valley is the land is some of the best in the world for growing, but the water must be pumped in. The land must be irrigated. These tiny bait fish get drawn into the pumps and it’s all over for them.
So, because of a two inch bait fish, America’s bread basket is empty!
Almost every non-tropical fruit and vegetable you can name is grown in the San Joaquin Valley. Beautiful fruit and vegetables. In fact, much of the nation’s yearly food supply is grown right there! All sorts of nuts are grown there, like almonds and pistachios. Most of the asparagus consumed in America comes from the California Valley’s rich soil. Grapes are a huge crop and this is the birthplace of the raisin!
The world’s single largest cotton farm, at over 40,000 acres, is also located here.
Cattle and sheep ranching, as well as dairy farming, are also vital to the economy of the Valley, and the nation’s food supply. They need water too.
These Californian’s feed the world from this wonderfully blessed land. Or at least they did.
Now this land looks like the moonscape in places. It is literally turning into a desert with no water. Nothing is growing. It is a man-made dust bowl. A man-made disaster. It is also a crime against humanity.
This is rabid environmental craziness, teamed up with Big Government liberalism, run amok! The very idea that the federal government has been allowed to gain the power to do this should serve as a warning that we need to stop and think.
We need to take stock of our nation, our Republic. We need to go back to using our Constitution as a guide.
This is such a human tragedy. The very fact that Big Government can do this just goes against everything our founders stood for. In fact, we fought a Revolution, specifically, because the British were this controlling, this oppressive, this tyrannical.
Thankfully, today we don’t have to go to war. We just have to put pressure on the Obama regime and tell them to do what is right for the American people. We must put pressure on Lord Obama himself to do what is right.
Sean Hannity has aired several reports on his show, like this from Ainsley Earhardt:
The group of Patriots working to save this land and these wonderful Americans are part of the California Farm Water Coalition. Please go to their website and read just how vital this land is to our very lives, how they truly feed the nation. You can also learn more of the devastation the Obama government is allowing to happen by going to their website here.
As you can see, this once beautiful land is devastated, not by “global warming” or some other crackpot theory, but by man’s inhumanity to man. Man’s desire to dominate, to control, to oppress his fellow man. In fact, these are the same tyrants who preach global warming as reality. The funny thing is, if global warming was actually real, planting crops would be a SOLUTION to it!
The environmental crazies preach to us relentlessly that Co2, carbon dioxide, is bad, that it is the number one destructive element on earth. Of course, it isn’t. In fact, we release copious amounts of it when we all exhale! But if one was actually to believe this fairy tale of global warming, one would know that plants actually absorb Co2! Plants need Co2 like we need oxygen, they can’t live without it. It was actually a stroke of genius on our creator’s part. He made man and plants compatible, symbiotic, with plants not only absorbing our exhalations but using them to create the essential oxygen we need for life.
So one has to ask, knowing all of this, why is Obama and Big Government destroying 400,000 acres of the very crops that would help absorb the Co2!
That’s a question I can’t completely answer yet. I really don’t know what the entire motivation is. My guess is someone stands to make a lot of money out of this deal somehow. Or….
We know Obama has some certifiable loons in his Cabinet and employed as Czars. Obama’s recently confirmed Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein, yes this one actually was confirmed by Obama’s democrat/communist Senate, believes that animals have rights, and should be able have a lawyer and sue people! You have John Holdren, Obama’s Science Adviser, who has advocated forced abortions and adding sterilents to the nation’s drinking water to control human population growth! That is as long as the sterilants didn’t harm animals. And we all know about the insane ramblings of Obama’s recently departed Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, a self avowed communist who has advocated overthrowing our constitutional government.
Even so, as insane as these typical Obama appointments are, one has to know something else, besides insanity is involved here. Something more sinister.
Has anyone caught on, that while Obama is trying to destroy the greatest health care in the world, and pass an economy killing cap and tax bill, a bill that would double or triple energy costs and cause the price of every single product and service we purchase to skyrocket, has anyone noticed that Obama is doing absolutely nothing to create real jobs, real wealth, real stability.
These are radical communists roaming the halls of the White House. By destroying the economy, not allowing us to use our natural energy resources like oil, natural gas, and coal. By destroying our nations’s ability to feed itself. By doing all of this, they are creating multiple crisises they can use to justify completely usurping our Constitution and as Barack Obama has said on many occasions “remake American society.”
We are already broke, a debtor nation. We must rely on other nation’s economies to fund our government’s activities.
We are incredibly rich in natural resources. We have deposits of oil equal to the Middle East, natural gas deposits that equal the entire world’s oil supply, and over 250 years worth of coal! And yet, radical environmentalists, teamed up with the democrat/communist party, use the full force of Big Government to deny America of the ability to fuel the engines of freedom, democracy, and our economy. Just like we are forced to depend on other nations for our money, we are forced to depend on other nations for our energy.
And now, radical environmentalists, teamed up with the democrat/communist party are using the full force of Big Government to deny the nation the very food we need, all 300 million of us, for our very survival.
Let me recap, Big Government, the tool of the democrat/communist party, has made the United States of America, the greatest, strongest nation on earth, totally dependant on someone else for all of our money, most of our energy, and now much of our food! The last time we were in this predicament we were still a British colony!
To what end…….
All I know for sure is over 40,000 hard working Patriotic Americans, strong men and women who have literally helped feed America for their entire lives are now standing in lines at food banks eating canned goods from China!
These aren’t lazy welfare sponges, shiftless louts. These are the people who are the very heart and soul of America. The very fabric! These men and women have toiled in the hot sun working the earth to make sure all of us can eat.
Now they have no jobs, and no hope, all because some mindless drones have decided a fish is more important than the entire human race.
Or at least they are using it as an excuse!
This folks, is the danger of Big Government, and Barack Obama and his democrat/communist party are the absolute champions of Big Government. And if you put the pieces together, one starts to understand the end game here.
On Thursday night Sean Hannity went to the San Joaquin Valley and interviewed a number of those whose lives are being destroyed by Barack Obama’s Big Government. Please take time to watch these videos, they are essential.
Comedian Paul Rodriguez says, “We could feed the world with this valley!” “The only thing growing here is despair,” Rodriguez says. “We grew more food with less water, and for our reward, you cut the water off!” Rodriguez, who supported candidate Barack Obama, asks this very poignant question: “What’s up with that?”
This makes me sick to my stomach. Big Government, teamed up with environmental extremists and the democrat/communist party, are destroying peoples lives in some mad thirst for power. This thirst to fundamentally “remake America” in the image of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky!
We are in the middle of the worst recession in 25 years, we have Barack Obama and his buddy Jeff Jones crafting a one trillion dollar stimulus bill to “create jobs.” We have hard working Californians who are all but on their knees begging to work, but Lord Obama is denying them the human dignity of that work.
Regular readers know who Jeff Jones is. Jones, along with domestic terrorist and Barack Obama mentor William Ayers were the co-founders of the ultra-violent Weather Underground. They are life long Marxists, communists. When these two realized they couldn’t blow up enough stuff to destroy America and turn it into a Marxist state, they decided on a different path.
William Ayers has become a “respected educator.” Ayers writes books and lectures would-be teachers on education, infecting young minds with radical Marxist ideology.
Jeff Jones chose the “green movement” as the way to institute a communist revolution. Jones is part of the Apollo Alliance, a group of radical environmentalists, whose goal is to “remake America” using the environment as an excuse. Departed Green Jobs Czar, and self admitted communist revolutionary, Van Jones (no relation) is also a member of the Apollo Alliance.
Then you have Barack Obama, whose stated goal is to “remake America” and create a “green economy.”
As stated, Jones wrote much of the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package that Barack Obama was in such a hurry to have signed he convinced Congress to never even read it before passing it! And Obama started his political career in William Ayer’s living room, and set on the board of two “education foundations” where he, Obama, helped funnel tens of millions of dollars to ACORN.
What I am trying to say here, is the environment has absolutely nothing to do with what is happening to the American Patriots who are suffering greatly in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Fellow Americans who have fed our nation for generations.
This must not stand.
We cannot and will not be forced to depend on third world nations for our very survival. We are continually having issues from imported food. Bacteria like salmonella run rampant throughout these third world imports. It is unconscionable that a nation that can feed the world, and has, is being forced to become no better than an undeveloped colony.
This is a matter of national security. We must have a secure, safe food supply.
Californians are suffering. Men and women who are simply asking for the human dignity of putting in a good day’s work for a good day’s pay are forced to stand in line, for hours on end, for food imported from China, just to survive.
This is more than simply un-American, it is a crime against all humanity.
According to the Global Museum on Communism, close to 100 million people have been killed by communism worldwide. We will not let the brave men and women of the San Joaquin Valley become part of that statistic!
I urge every reader to contact Congress and demand they come to the aid of these outstanding Patriotic Americans, the very salt of the earth. Do not take no for an answer, and do not take speaking to an underling for an answer. Demand to speak to your Congressman and Senators. Demand they make this right!
Barack Obama could turn the water back on with the stroke of his pen. Obama has written many Executive Orders since taking office that further his far leftist agenda. He must sign that Executive Order. He must sign it now!
Turning the water off is not just bad politics, it’s an act of domestic terror.
Former Fresno, California Mayor Alan Autry
Forgive me if I am less than diplomatic here. I am not a fan at all of the radical environmental movement. I’m even less of a fan of radical, Big Government.
Let’s cut to the chase here. The rabid environmentalists have destroyed the economy in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Not only have they destroyed the economy, they have destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of farmers, as well.
According to the California Farm Water Coalition unemployment in parts of the San Joaquin Valley reached 41 percent in August. Over 400,000 acres of some of the richest farm land on earth are now dormant and unplanted. More than one million acres are in danger of destruction. .
These government stooges have created a modern day dust bowl. They have created something the government actually worked hard to educate people against doing again some 75 years ago!
Poor planting practices and a major drought caused much of the nation’s center to turn into one big dust bowl back in the 1930′s. Nothing would grow. This stretched from the Plains of Texas to the Canadian Prairie Lands. Throw in the Great Depression and it was a disaster. People’s lives were destroyed. Farms that had been in families for generations just dried up and blew away, literally. Many family farms were lost to foreclosure. American families lost everything they had.
One of the few things government got right was establishing the Soil Conservation Service, through the Soil Conservation Act of 1935. Studies were done, surveys made, and farmers were educated in best practices, so this would never happen again.
We have had more than a few severe droughts since 1935, but we have never had a dust bowl environment since, until now. And this environmental disaster is completely man-made.
Let me say that again. This is all man’s doing. Yes, there has been a bit of a drought in California. But there is more than enough water. This is not a natural disaster, you can’t blame God for this one. This is a man made disaster, you know, the name Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napoliotano wants us all to call domestic terrorism now!
A lot of us were angry when Napolitano came out with that liberal nonsense, but now I see the wisdom in it. I very much agree with Former Fresno, California Mayor Alan Autry. What Big Government has done is indeed domestic terrorism.
So what is this act of terrorism? What have the environmentalists done to destroy all of these Patriotic farmers lives? What has the federal government done to destroy the economy of the Central California Valley?
The federal government, Big Government, has ordered all of the water shut off to the farms. But why would they do that? That’s insane, isn’t it? Well, yeah, but we are talking the most liberal government ever assembled in America! A government filled with radicals.
You see, there is this fish, the Delta Smelt. I’m sure it’s a fine fish. This two inch long refugee from the bait hook is actually kinda cute. We don’t hate the fish. But in it’s infinite wisdom, and treachery, the federal government, Big Government, has put this minnow on the endangered species list. That’s right, a little fish we’d use for BAIT down here in Texas is now being considered almost extinct.
Species become extinct all of the time, but for every one that goes away, more new heretofore never known species are discovered. You read about them all of the time, especially water species, like fish!
This fish has no real value to the ecosystem. It’s not really food for any other fish or wildlife, and it doesn’t do anything to effect pollution, help keep the waters clean.
The problem with the Central Valley is the land is some of the best in the world for growing, but the water must be pumped in. The land must be irrigated. These tiny bait fish get drawn into the pumps and it’s all over for them.
So, because of a two inch bait fish, America’s bread basket is empty!
Almost every non-tropical fruit and vegetable you can name is grown in the San Joaquin Valley. Beautiful fruit and vegetables. In fact, much of the nation’s yearly food supply is grown right there! All sorts of nuts are grown there, like almonds and pistachios. Most of the asparagus consumed in America comes from the California Valley’s rich soil. Grapes are a huge crop and this is the birthplace of the raisin!
The world’s single largest cotton farm, at over 40,000 acres, is also located here.
Cattle and sheep ranching, as well as dairy farming, are also vital to the economy of the Valley, and the nation’s food supply. They need water too.
These Californian’s feed the world from this wonderfully blessed land. Or at least they did.
Now this land looks like the moonscape in places. It is literally turning into a desert with no water. Nothing is growing. It is a man-made dust bowl. A man-made disaster. It is also a crime against humanity.
This is rabid environmental craziness, teamed up with Big Government liberalism, run amok! The very idea that the federal government has been allowed to gain the power to do this should serve as a warning that we need to stop and think.
We need to take stock of our nation, our Republic. We need to go back to using our Constitution as a guide.
This is such a human tragedy. The very fact that Big Government can do this just goes against everything our founders stood for. In fact, we fought a Revolution, specifically, because the British were this controlling, this oppressive, this tyrannical.
Thankfully, today we don’t have to go to war. We just have to put pressure on the Obama regime and tell them to do what is right for the American people. We must put pressure on Lord Obama himself to do what is right.
Sean Hannity has aired several reports on his show, like this from Ainsley Earhardt:
The group of Patriots working to save this land and these wonderful Americans are part of the California Farm Water Coalition. Please go to their website and read just how vital this land is to our very lives, how they truly feed the nation. You can also learn more of the devastation the Obama government is allowing to happen by going to their website here.
As you can see, this once beautiful land is devastated, not by “global warming” or some other crackpot theory, but by man’s inhumanity to man. Man’s desire to dominate, to control, to oppress his fellow man. In fact, these are the same tyrants who preach global warming as reality. The funny thing is, if global warming was actually real, planting crops would be a SOLUTION to it!
The environmental crazies preach to us relentlessly that Co2, carbon dioxide, is bad, that it is the number one destructive element on earth. Of course, it isn’t. In fact, we release copious amounts of it when we all exhale! But if one was actually to believe this fairy tale of global warming, one would know that plants actually absorb Co2! Plants need Co2 like we need oxygen, they can’t live without it. It was actually a stroke of genius on our creator’s part. He made man and plants compatible, symbiotic, with plants not only absorbing our exhalations but using them to create the essential oxygen we need for life.
So one has to ask, knowing all of this, why is Obama and Big Government destroying 400,000 acres of the very crops that would help absorb the Co2!
That’s a question I can’t completely answer yet. I really don’t know what the entire motivation is. My guess is someone stands to make a lot of money out of this deal somehow. Or….
We know Obama has some certifiable loons in his Cabinet and employed as Czars. Obama’s recently confirmed Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein, yes this one actually was confirmed by Obama’s democrat/communist Senate, believes that animals have rights, and should be able have a lawyer and sue people! You have John Holdren, Obama’s Science Adviser, who has advocated forced abortions and adding sterilents to the nation’s drinking water to control human population growth! That is as long as the sterilants didn’t harm animals. And we all know about the insane ramblings of Obama’s recently departed Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, a self avowed communist who has advocated overthrowing our constitutional government.
Even so, as insane as these typical Obama appointments are, one has to know something else, besides insanity is involved here. Something more sinister.
Has anyone caught on, that while Obama is trying to destroy the greatest health care in the world, and pass an economy killing cap and tax bill, a bill that would double or triple energy costs and cause the price of every single product and service we purchase to skyrocket, has anyone noticed that Obama is doing absolutely nothing to create real jobs, real wealth, real stability.
These are radical communists roaming the halls of the White House. By destroying the economy, not allowing us to use our natural energy resources like oil, natural gas, and coal. By destroying our nations’s ability to feed itself. By doing all of this, they are creating multiple crisises they can use to justify completely usurping our Constitution and as Barack Obama has said on many occasions “remake American society.”
We are already broke, a debtor nation. We must rely on other nation’s economies to fund our government’s activities.
We are incredibly rich in natural resources. We have deposits of oil equal to the Middle East, natural gas deposits that equal the entire world’s oil supply, and over 250 years worth of coal! And yet, radical environmentalists, teamed up with the democrat/communist party, use the full force of Big Government to deny America of the ability to fuel the engines of freedom, democracy, and our economy. Just like we are forced to depend on other nations for our money, we are forced to depend on other nations for our energy.
And now, radical environmentalists, teamed up with the democrat/communist party are using the full force of Big Government to deny the nation the very food we need, all 300 million of us, for our very survival.
Let me recap, Big Government, the tool of the democrat/communist party, has made the United States of America, the greatest, strongest nation on earth, totally dependant on someone else for all of our money, most of our energy, and now much of our food! The last time we were in this predicament we were still a British colony!
To what end…….
All I know for sure is over 40,000 hard working Patriotic Americans, strong men and women who have literally helped feed America for their entire lives are now standing in lines at food banks eating canned goods from China!
These aren’t lazy welfare sponges, shiftless louts. These are the people who are the very heart and soul of America. The very fabric! These men and women have toiled in the hot sun working the earth to make sure all of us can eat.
Now they have no jobs, and no hope, all because some mindless drones have decided a fish is more important than the entire human race.
Or at least they are using it as an excuse!
This folks, is the danger of Big Government, and Barack Obama and his democrat/communist party are the absolute champions of Big Government. And if you put the pieces together, one starts to understand the end game here.
On Thursday night Sean Hannity went to the San Joaquin Valley and interviewed a number of those whose lives are being destroyed by Barack Obama’s Big Government. Please take time to watch these videos, they are essential.
Comedian Paul Rodriguez says, “We could feed the world with this valley!” “The only thing growing here is despair,” Rodriguez says. “We grew more food with less water, and for our reward, you cut the water off!” Rodriguez, who supported candidate Barack Obama, asks this very poignant question: “What’s up with that?”
This makes me sick to my stomach. Big Government, teamed up with environmental extremists and the democrat/communist party, are destroying peoples lives in some mad thirst for power. This thirst to fundamentally “remake America” in the image of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky!
We are in the middle of the worst recession in 25 years, we have Barack Obama and his buddy Jeff Jones crafting a one trillion dollar stimulus bill to “create jobs.” We have hard working Californians who are all but on their knees begging to work, but Lord Obama is denying them the human dignity of that work.
Regular readers know who Jeff Jones is. Jones, along with domestic terrorist and Barack Obama mentor William Ayers were the co-founders of the ultra-violent Weather Underground. They are life long Marxists, communists. When these two realized they couldn’t blow up enough stuff to destroy America and turn it into a Marxist state, they decided on a different path.
William Ayers has become a “respected educator.” Ayers writes books and lectures would-be teachers on education, infecting young minds with radical Marxist ideology.
Jeff Jones chose the “green movement” as the way to institute a communist revolution. Jones is part of the Apollo Alliance, a group of radical environmentalists, whose goal is to “remake America” using the environment as an excuse. Departed Green Jobs Czar, and self admitted communist revolutionary, Van Jones (no relation) is also a member of the Apollo Alliance.
Then you have Barack Obama, whose stated goal is to “remake America” and create a “green economy.”
As stated, Jones wrote much of the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package that Barack Obama was in such a hurry to have signed he convinced Congress to never even read it before passing it! And Obama started his political career in William Ayer’s living room, and set on the board of two “education foundations” where he, Obama, helped funnel tens of millions of dollars to ACORN.
What I am trying to say here, is the environment has absolutely nothing to do with what is happening to the American Patriots who are suffering greatly in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Fellow Americans who have fed our nation for generations.
This must not stand.
We cannot and will not be forced to depend on third world nations for our very survival. We are continually having issues from imported food. Bacteria like salmonella run rampant throughout these third world imports. It is unconscionable that a nation that can feed the world, and has, is being forced to become no better than an undeveloped colony.
This is a matter of national security. We must have a secure, safe food supply.
Californians are suffering. Men and women who are simply asking for the human dignity of putting in a good day’s work for a good day’s pay are forced to stand in line, for hours on end, for food imported from China, just to survive.
This is more than simply un-American, it is a crime against all humanity.
According to the Global Museum on Communism, close to 100 million people have been killed by communism worldwide. We will not let the brave men and women of the San Joaquin Valley become part of that statistic!
I urge every reader to contact Congress and demand they come to the aid of these outstanding Patriotic Americans, the very salt of the earth. Do not take no for an answer, and do not take speaking to an underling for an answer. Demand to speak to your Congressman and Senators. Demand they make this right!
Barack Obama could turn the water back on with the stroke of his pen. Obama has written many Executive Orders since taking office that further his far leftist agenda. He must sign that Executive Order. He must sign it now!
“Progressive” is becoming more of a dirty word, but all political labels – except “being like Ronald Reagan” – are falling into disfavor with many U.S. voters, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
“Liberal” is still the worst and remains the only political description that is viewed more negatively than positively. Being like Reagan is still the most positive thing you can say about a candidate.
So says the latest Rasmussen polling on the subject. Now for conservatives, “like Ronald Reagan” has been the only acceptable position for a politician to have, for a long, long time.
I’m sure the David Frums, Peggy Noonans, Colin Powells, and Kathleen Parkers of the world are hyperventilating right about now, as they are the ones always telling us the “era of Reagan is over.” I guess they are wrong once again! Shocking, huh?
It’s been twenty years since the great Renaldus Magnus, as he is affectionately known, has sat in the Oval Office, so why is he just as appealing today as he was back in his prime? I think it’s because Reagan was such a strong leader, and just a great man, but that is probably way too simplistic.
Ronald Reagan was part of the American consciousness for most of the last century. I won’t attempt to write a biography here, there are plenty out there for folks to read and enjoy, but some of the highlights of Reagan’s career and how we came to love the man are certainly something to talk about.
Reagan was an actor, and while some called him a “B-Movie Actor,” he also gave us one of the most memorable characters of all time when he played George Gipp in the movie “Knute Rockne, All American.” While the movie itself was about famed Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne, one of the most memorable performances was Ronald Reagan playing George Gipp. Gipp was a great football player who died too young of a strep infection.
Now I’m going to tell you something I’ve kept to myself for years. None of you ever knew George Gipp. He was long before your time, but you all know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame. And the last thing he said to me, “Rock,” he said, “sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, Rock,” he said, “but I’ll know about it and I’ll be happy.”
Pat O’Brien as Knute Rockne
Win one for the Gipper became part of the American lexicon. As for Reagan, the Gipper nickname stuck, and became just another affectionate name we know him by.
Reagan was much more than just an actor though. He was President of the Screen Actors Guild, and a solid spokesman. He was also a democrat, who famously said: “I didn’t leave the democrat party, the democrat party left me.”
And Reagan, who had a sharp wit, never missed the chance to have fun with that:
In fact, one of the things that we all loved about Ronald Reagan was his ability to speak well and deliver great one liners as well as funny stories.
But Reagan was more than a good line and a bright smile. Reagan was also someone who loved America with all of his heart. He saw America as a “shining city on a hill” the world’s last best hope. Reagan was always concerned that Americans understood our great gifts of freedom, and kept a constant watch for things that would cause Americans to lose those freedoms.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
Ronald Reagan
What really sets Reagan apart, at least for me, is how not only were his warnings appropriate for their time, but can be applied to today’s events as well. In fact, it’s uncanny how the same things Ronald Reagan warned us about, communism and the slightly less oppressive socialism, are still real threats today.
For example, no one understood the danger to freedom and liberty that socialized medicine posed better than Ronald Reagan. Back in 1961 as they had been trying for decades, the democrat party was trying to shove socialized health care down an unwilling America’s throat. Reagan took part in the “Operation Coffee Cup Campaign” and went on a speaking tour, forcefully warning about the dangers of allowing the government to control health care.
Anyone who has actually read H.R. 3200, the most likely version of Obamacare to pass, knows Reagan was right then, and even more right now! Obamacare is nothing less than a complete and total usurpation of the Constitution. It totally remakes American society, turning it into a communist state, with a centrally controlled government, and centrally planned economy.
America was designed to be a lose confederation of states, coming together as a Republic for mutual benefit, but with each remaining sovereign. It’s what the 10th Amendment to the Constitution is all about. Once Obamacare is passed, states rights, and most individual rights go right out the window.
If we as Americans are to retain our freedoms and liberties, it is imperative that we listen to Ronald Reagan. It is imperative that we stop the government’s attempt to “reform” health care.
Now I am not saying health care doesn’t have it’s issues. It does. But health care in America is still the best in the world, and has the highest quality, and is available in the most timely manner, to the greatest number of people.
There are common sense plans out there. Plans that include major tort reform, and the ability for Americans to shop for insurance nationwide rather than just within their state. There are thousands of insurance companies nationwide. The Obama regime claims to want “more competition” for the consumer’s dollar. What better way than to open the door for all Americans to shop all of the various insurance companies nationwide?
Ronald Reagan didn’t just warn us about socialized medicine though. Few understood better than Reagan that liberalism was a losing proposition. That liberalism made absolutely no sense whatsoever. That liberalism was a contradiction all unto itself.
“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
Ronald Reagan
In another speech that absolutely applies today, Ronald Reagan speaks out on the dangers of allowing liberals to be elected to positions of responsibility.
In 1964 Reagan gave this speech at the Republican National Convention in support of Barry Goldwater, the candidate for President. The speech, titled “A Time For Choosing” is one of the most iconic of all time. In fact, it has come to be known simply as “The Speech.”
If I had my way, this video would be required viewing by every school kid in America. It would be a required course, in fact, to get a high school diploma, and there would be advanced teaching on it in colleges and universities nationwide.
It’s just that important!
What is rather chilling, is how we can listen to Ronald Reagan 45 years later, and apply absolutely everything he is saying to our current situation.
This might help explain why “like Ronald Reagan” is still the best thing you can say about a politician!
Here’s a bit of an exercise for you. After watching the video, write down just how many things Reagan was talking about, that not only exist in our current climate, but are even a greater threat today. Reagan understood all too well just how dangerous it was to allow government to grow too large and too powerful.
Ronald Reagan also warned that the “once honorable democrat party” was on a strong march towards socialism, or Marxism, as he called it. Today, we understand it as communism, plain and simple. We now have a President who was raised by communists, mentored by communists, and is now surrounded by, and seeks advice from, self avowed communists.
“A socialist is someone who has read Lenin and Marx. An anti-socialist is someone who understands Lenin and Marx”
Ronald Reagan
We are left asking ourselves just how in the hell this happened!
Ronald Reagan was an inspiration to America at a time when we needed it the most. America was in a slump. The American moral was as low as it had ever been, and current national embarrassment, Jimmy Carter, had all but destroyed the economy forever. Carter had also allowed our military readiness to become dangerously low.
Our foreign policy was a joke. Under Carter, radical Islam was able to come to power in Iran and the greater Middle East. We are all suffering to this day because of Carter’s failures in this area. And frankly, our current White House occupant is following Carter’s lead.
I always laugh at the imagery surrounding Barack Obama. We were told when he was elected that the sea levels would lower, the skies would be brighter, and it would be rainbows and unicorns for all.
Well, I remember just how defeated Americans felt during the Carter years. Just how bad it was. We actually had a “misery index” concocted by the media just to tell us how bad our life sucked on any given day. Double digit unemployment, double digit inflation, and double digit interest rates on loans was the way of life in America.
Ronald Reagan represented real hope. It truly was “morning in America” once Reagan was elected. Reagan brought an intangible, an “it” factor with him that many leaders will never have. Reagan exuded optimism. He was our oldest President ever to take office, and yet he was the very picture of virility. Reagan was both a strong and forceful leader and America’s father figure, a kind man with a reassuring smile that simply told you everything was going to be just fine.
In no time America’s moral was high. America’s confidence was on the rebound. People were very proud to be Americans again. I remember those days well, and they were simply electric. The new feeling of optimism was amazing. You honestly felt like you could achieve anything.
I was a young man back then, but the feelings of this energy effected me greatly. Reagan had so much confidence that it spilled over onto the rest of us. It made us all see that absolutely anything was possible.
Now it took more than a few years for America to start to recover from the Carter fiasco, in fact, almost all of Reagan’s two terms. If a person were to go back, and just look at raw numbers, they would see that much of Reagan’s presidency saw economic numbers, that until the Obama presidency, wouldn’t have been all that stellar, but compared to where we had been, there were great.
The greatest affirmation of the difference Reagan made, and the love for him back then, was his 1984 re-election. Now Reagan won an absolute landslide when he defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980. Reagan won 44 of 50 states in a three way race that saw Republican John Anderson run as an independent. Anderson being what we would call a RINO today. Reagan got 50.7 percent of the raw vote and Carter got 41 percent.
In 1984 though, the American people rewarded Reagan with an incredible 49 state win against former Vice President Walter Mondale, who barely won his home state and carried D.C. The Electoral College victory was 525 to 13, raw vote 58.8 percent to 40.6. To me that says it all about the confidence America had in Ronald Reagan.
History tells us that Reagan wasn’t a perfect man, but he was a great man. Reagan was able to shepherd American through some tough times. He defeated the Soviet Union without firing a shot. He brought new confidence to America, something that had been lacking. In time, it was the Reagan revolution that would end the 40 years of disastrous democrat party control of Congress, leading to a stunning victory for congressional Republicans in 1994.
It was truly Reagan’s moral compass though, his strength and integrity, that made him such a great leader. A man among men. It was the moral clarity he had that allowed him to look into the eyes of the American people and tell them liberalism, communism, and socialism were evil. It was that same moral clarity to allowed him to stand at the Berlin Wall and demand “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
It was that same moral clarity, that same strength and integrity Reagan had then, that still makes being “like Ronald Reagan” so desired today.
So where do we take it from here? Who is “like Ronald Reagan”?
Some names that come to mind are people like Dick Cheney. Say what you will about the former Vice President, when he speaks, he speaks with moral clarity, strength, wisdom, and with the love of our nation in his heart.
Liz Cheney is her father’s daughter. She is sharp, tough, and has a solid footing. There is Michelle Bachmann. While not as well known, she is certainly cut from the Reagan cloth. Strong, forceful, and unwavering in her beliefs and values.
But one simply cannot talk about leaders who are like Ronald Reagan without bringing up Sarah Palin. The comparisons are easy to make. Like Reagan, Sarah Palin is a strong leader with moral clarity.
Sarah has shown this clarity throughout her career. From battling her mentor on the Wasilla city council over his attempt to use his position to set up a monopoly for his company, to her legendary battle with Frank Murkowski’s “Corrupt Bastards Club.”
For those that don’t know the story, Sarah had been appointed as Chairman of the powerful Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the agency that regulates oil and natural gas in Alaska. Sarah had been appointed by Governor Murkowski after she had lost her bid for Lt Governor. She was charged with overseeing ethics in her position.
Before long, Sarah realized she had a really corrupt shop. After being told to back off by her boss, the Governor, Sarah stepped down, “quit” as they say. Had to be a really tough decision. This was a high paying gig, six figures, and a powerful position from which to launch herself to even more powerful positions. After all, Sarah’s star was on the rise!
After Sarah “quit” she made it her project to go after the bad actors. As a result, she went after pretty much the entire Republican party leadership, a profile in courage in itself, and a sure fire case of political suicide. In the end, some went to prison, some paid fines, others were forced to resign. Then she ran and won the governorship.
Once in office, she was a strong leader. She was able to bring about sweeping changes and one by one fulfilled her campaign promises.
Claude Sandroff over at the American Thinker talks about the virtue of Sarah Palin. We all know the story of her post election experiences. Before Sarah ran for Vice President, the Republican party wasn’t exactly pleased with her, still smarting from the reforms she brought in, and the folks she took down, but she had a fairly cordial relationship with the Alaskan democrats in the legislature.
Then came the campaign. It has been well documented that Barack Obama brought Chicago style politics to Alaska through his campaign chief-of-staff, Pete Rouse, and Rouse’s longtime friendship with Alaska State Senator, Kim Elton. Their attempt to derail Sarah with the phony “Troopergate” witch hunt is also well documented
After Sarah lost her in her effort to be Vice President, no one would have thought the Alaska Mafia would have remained so dedicated to the Chicago masters, but how many times has a losing vice presidential candidate become even more popular and sought after!
The word came out from on high to keep the pressure on, and the Mafia started recruiting folks to file phony ethics complaints against her. There was already one misguided woman, Andree McLeod, who made a career out of filing outrageous complaints. But the rest were all manufactured to damage Sarah, a favorite democrat/communist tactic, right out of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules.”
This is where Sarah’s strength, courage, and moral clarity came into play. It would have been very simple to sit still and fight this stuff. I mean these charges were all nonsense, and all thrown out. But the more she resisted, the more the Mafia filed, and at a quicker pace. And these leaches on society had not cost Sarah personally, they had also effectively stopped her government from functioning, and cost the taxpayers almost $2 million processing this mess. And if the pace of the complaints stayed the same for the rest of her term, these thieves were on track to cost the Alaska taxpayers as much as $10 million.
A lot of politicians would have stayed. They would have clung to power at all cost. Not Sarah Palin. As Sandroff puts it, this was:
“The very essence of virtue. It was Sir Thomas More resigning as Lord Chancellor and George Washington returning to Mount Vernon. It showed how rare virtue has become in our politics. It shows why we adore Sarah Palin and why we need her. And it explains why, even without office, she has become the most important political figure in America.”
One can only imagine the struggle Sarah had with this, or maybe, it wasn’t a real struggle at all. Earlier in the year, just before a trip to visit her troops in Kosovo, Sarah Palin introduced Michael Reagan, the son of Ronald Reagan, at an event in Anchorage. While talking about how bad her critics wanted her to shut up and go away, she said this:
“They want me to sit down and shut up. But I won’t sit down, and I won’t shut up. Politically speaking, if I die, I die, but I will know I have spoken up! Stand up, speak up, be bold! Forget political correctness!”
History shows that Sarah has not sat down, and is not shutting up! Many, at the time, could not understand what Sarah was doing when she “quit.” These people simply didn’t understand her unwinnable situation. These are the types who would have “fought to the end” costing their constituents more tax dollars, and damaging their state.
This was a stroke of genius though, and one I believe Ronald Reagan would have understood. Sarah, a star basketball player, was simply passing the ball off to someone, Sean Parnell, who could continue on with her policies, and not be hassled.
“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.”
Sun Tzu, the Art Of War
Now that is a nice story, as far as it goes. A compelling one in fact. But it is not only the reason why Sarah Palin is “like Ronald Reagan”
No one can argue she is powerful. Who in the world, but Sarah Palin can change the entire national debate with a few paragraphs posted on a networking website?
Sarah Palin, not only had the moral clarity to understand exactly what Obamacare is, she was also able to distill it all down to a level of basic understanding. Her “death panels” said it all. And it wasn’t just the fact Sarah understood that Obamacare would most certainly lead to the rationing of care, she had the courage to say it the way she said it. She knew full well the wrath of both political parties, as well as the fringe media, Obama’s media, would come at her with full force. Sarah called Obamacare “downright evil.”
We all know Ronald Reagan had moral clarity regarding the Soviet Union. He called them an “evil empire.” His critics, in both parties, lost it every time he did this, but it didn’t stop him from saying it.
Before Reagan’s famous “tear down that wall” comment in his speech in Berlin, his advisers were telling him “no way” and to steer clear of that sort of thing. They had to be resuscitated after he said it! But Reagan knew in his heart it needed to be said.
Reagan lived to see the Berlin wall come down, and see millions of East Germans become free.
Before Sarah took up the fight, critics of Obamacare might as well have been talking to their houseplants. They were trying to nuance things. Trying to be “statesmen,” at least in their minds.
Sarah looked at this mess, saw great evil. She saw a situation, that if continued, would lead America to certain disaster, and cause all Americans to lose precious liberties and freedoms. It’s that ability to not only recognize evil, wherever you see it, but to also have the courage to do something about it.
While the other so-called leaders in the Republican party were saying “slow down” Sarah wrote, “Not no, but HELL no!”
Because of Sarah Palin, and her inspiration to others, Obamacare is in shambles. And that gives us another “like Ronald Reagan” trait. Sarah Palin inspires people.
Sarah has been inspiring people for a long time, but her speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention was huge. Expectations were high, and she hit a home run. As Michael Reagan wrote days later in a column titled “Welcome Back Dad“:
“I’ve been trying to convince my fellow conservatives that they have been wasting their time in a fruitless quest for a new Ronald Reagan to emerge and lead our party and our nation. I insisted that we’d never see his like again because he was one of a kind.
I was wrong!
Wednesday night I watched the Republican National Convention on television and there, before my very eyes, I saw my Dad reborn; only this time he’s a she.
And what a she!
In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene.”
After Ronald Reagan lost his presidential primary bid to Gerald Ford in 1976, most considered him washed up, a has been. Critics, in both parties called him stupid, lazy, naive, inexperienced, even though he had been Governor of California! He was a B-Movie actor. Some even said Reagan was dangerous!
Reagan was from tiny Tampico, Illinois. He went to the “wrong” school, Eureka College. And Reagan was a small town, country boy at heart, his whole life.
The democrats hated Reagan with a passion, and so did the blue blood, country club elite, Rockefeller Republicans. The American people loved Reagan though, and obviously still do. God bless Ronald Reagan, and may his spirit always remain the spirit that inspires us all.
Moe Lane
Dan McLaughlin
Dan Spencer
Jeff Emanuel
Neil Stevens
