Anatomy Of a Failing Presidency

This article was by written Geoffrey Hunt for the American Thinker in late 2009. The message is more ominous now than it was then. 

Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China 20.

But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.

But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?

No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. 

Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.

But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.

In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."

Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.

Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.

Margaret Thatcher: "The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money."

"When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both." - James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union

"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus

"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own." - Unknown

Dr. Geoffrey P. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist.  He has had nearly 30 years experience in planning, conducting, and managing research in the field of youth studies, and drug and alcohol research.  Currently Dr. Hunt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis and the Principal Investigator on three National Institutes of Health projects.  He is also a writer for American Thinker.

BP Increases Pay For Claims Czar Ken Feinberg's Law Firm To $1.25 Million Per Month

Talk about the fox looking after the hen house! Kenneth Feinberg, Obama's "Claims Czar" for the BP oil spill disaster, is being paid by...you guessed it. BP! WTF??!!

The "Czar" is doing such a good job saving BP billions of bucks by stiffing claimants he is getting a raise. 

Good job Hussein... You have screwed the taxpayer once again.

Wake Up America!

 

Documents provided by the administrator of BP's claims fund for Gulf oil spill victims show the oil giant agreed to increase his law firm's monthly compensation from $850,000 to $1.25 million.

The documents furnished Friday to The Associated Press include a letter from former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to claims czar Kenneth Feinberg. Mukasey stated his belief that the extra money was warranted because Feinberg's duties had grown. Mukasey was asked by Feinberg to weigh in on how reasonable his compensation was.

The pay hike, detailed in a Tuesday letter from Mukasey to Feinberg, is retroactive to Jan. 15 and runs through the end of 2011.

Feinberg has been criticized for the pace of processing the roughly 500,000 claims that have been filed since he took over handling claims for individuals and businesses from the $20 billion fund in August. Fishermen and others have complained that the money they have received is inadequate, and that in many cases their claims have been denied with little explanation.

An AP review published in February that included interviews with legal experts, government officials and more than 300 Gulf residents found a process beset by red tape and delay. At its center is a fund administrator whose ties to BP have raised questions about his independence.

Under Feinberg's plan for making final payments to victims, claimants would receive twice their documented 2010 losses. Oyster harvesters and oyster processors would be offered four times their losses.

The White House and BP appointed Feinberg last June to oversee payments from the fund to individuals and businesses. Since Feinberg took over the payment process, some $3.6 billion has been paid out to 172,000 claimants. Besides payments to individuals and businesses, the fund also can be used to pay for environmental damages and state and local response costs. Feinberg is not in charge of those payments.

Feinberg has said he believes the Gulf of Mexico should largely recover from BP's oil spill by the end of next year, and he doesn't think the entire $20 billion will be needed to compensate victims. Only half of that should suffice, he has said.

"He has performed poorly, and I'm being polite, and yet they are giving him a raise," said Orange Beach, Ala., Mayor Anthony Kennon, whose community was hard hit by the oil spill. "The real question is, how does BP view his performance? They are giving him a raise, so they must think it's good. That speaks for itself."

Article by Huffington Post

Vicente Fox: "Mexico at War". Obama's Approach a Failure. What's New??

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox says his nation is at "war" with drug cartels, and he offered sharp criticism of the Obama administration for failing to assist its beleaguered neighbor.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV on Tuesday, Fox said President Barack Obama's administration has failed to grapple with the deteriorating situation in Mexico.

“Obama is thoroughly mixed up with all these things he’s got," Fox said, adding: "He’s got to solve Libya. He’s got to solve Afghanistan. He’s everywhere. And this nation, I don’t know why it’s not showing the leadership and capacity to attend different issues at the same time.”

Asked if Mexico was entangled in a civil war involving the drug cartels, Fox responded: “We’re undergoing a war, no doubt — 35,000, maybe 40,000 people killed, either members of the cartels or members of the police force or members of the army. So yes, we’re undergoing a war, no doubt.

“Everybody’s trying to deny that we’re going through a war, but that’s what it is. That’s why we have to move to a new paradigm."

Recently, Fox has called for legalizing and decriminalizing drugs in the United States to throttle the demand for narcotics, which he argues is the root cause of his country's civil unrest.

"The United States has to think very profoundly how it is going to solve this problem of excess in the consumption of drugs, excess in building a market that is very profitable to the criminals," he said.

He continued: “I think the best move is to take away the business from criminals and put it in the hands of businessmen and producers, farmers, distributors.”

He compared the situation with illegal drugs to Prohibition in the United States, which enriched mobsters who provided alcohol just as the drug trade is now enriching the cartels.

“We are never going to eradicate drugs,” he added. “They will always be there. It is a free choice” to consume them.

Fox, who served as president from 2000 to 2006, also took aim at his successor, Felipe Calderon, who has enlisted the army in the fight against drug traffickers in Mexico.

“And this decision that President Calderon took, to bring in the army in trying to control drug trafficking cartels, I don’t think is the right measure. It has created violations to human rights and additional problems," he said.

“I think there are much better alternatives than that one. The army should go back to their assigned duties, and police should take the responsibility of fighting the cartels."

Fox was also critical of both the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and the Arizona law aimed at curtailing illegal immigration.

He stressed that he is “absolutely not” calling for an open border, but rather for the “wisdom and leadership" of this nation.

“There is [an immigration reform] bill in Congress, prepared by Senator Kennedy, Senator McCain, a bipartisan initiative, and it’s been sitting there for years, seven years, eight years. I discussed with President Bush a strategy for an integrated immigration reform. And it’s been sitting there without any solution.

“So if Arizona sees the federal government isn’t assuming its responsibilities, it creates local laws. But migration and keeping security on the borders is not a local or state issue, it’s a federal issue."

As for Obama's role in immigration reform, Fox said he “has not attended to it. It was a campaign promise he’s not even trying to do it.”

Fox is visiting the United States as part of an effort to promote the construction of the Vicente Fox Center of Studies, Library and Museum near his ranch in Guanajuato, Mexico, which he says is the world’s first presidential library outside the United States.

Article by Jim Meyer and Kathleen Walter, NewsMax

Obama Double Speak: Drill, Brazil, Drill!

As the world burns, B. Hussein Obama and family bask in the Brazilian sun seemingly without a care in the world.  The Obamination did take a few minutes with Brazilian officials to reiterated that "offshore drilling is good" and that the U.S. supports it. What does that backstabbing SOB have up his sleeve this time? 

Wake Up America ... The rug is being pulled out from under you while you sit idly by!

While leaving U.S. oil and jobs in the ground, our itinerant president tells a South American neighbor that we’ll help it develop its offshore resources so we can one day import its oil. WHAT?!?

We will help Brazil develop its offshore oil so we can one day import it.

We have noted this double standard before, particularly when — at a time when the president was railing against tax incentives for U.S. oil companies — we supported the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s plan to lend $2 billion to Brazil’s state-run Petrobras with the promise of more to follow.

Now, with a seven-year offshore drilling ban in effect off of both coasts, on Alaska’s continental shelf and in much of the Gulf of Mexico — and a de facto moratorium covering the rest — Obama tells the Brazilians:

“We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers.”

Obama wants to develop Brazilian offshore oil to help the Brazilian economy create jobs for Brazilian workers while Americans are left unemployed in the face of skyrocketing energy prices by an administration that despises fossil fuels as a threat to the environment and wants to increase our dependency on foreign oil.

Article courtesy of The Patriot Update

Saving Money? Not In This Economy – 22 Facts That Prove Middle Class Families Are Being Savagely Crushed

The 22 facts that you are about to read are all real, although admittedly they are hard to believe.  The sad truth is that millions of middle class families in the United States today are being savagely crushed by this economy.  Most American families would like to be saving money, paying the mortgage and living the American Dream, but with each passing month those things are becoming more difficult.  Rapidly rising prices for basic necessities such as food and gas are absolutely crippling the finances of millions of middle class American families right now.  How is a family even supposed to make a budget when the average price of gasoline goes up 42 cents a gallon in a single month?  What are we all supposed to do when we walk into our supermarkets and find that the old “regular prices” have become the new “sale prices”?  Should we all not be deeply concerned that the price of food in the United States went up at the fastest rate in 36 years last month?  How are we all supposed to keep our families above the poverty line when the number of good paying jobs keeps shrinking?  In America today, being a member of the middle class is like playing a game of musical chairs.  You know that they are going to keep pulling chairs out of the game, and you just hope that it is not going to be your turn next.

Sadly, large numbers of Americans do keep falling out of the middle class.  The number of Americans on food stamps just keeps increasing every single month.  The number of Americans on Medicaid just keeps increasing every single month.  The number of American children living in poverty just keeps increasing every single month.

If the U.S. economy is actually getting “better”, then why does the middle class keep on shrinking?  Everywhere you turn there are families in deep economic pain.  Unemployment is rampant and even those families that do have jobs are really struggling to make ends meet as prices rise rapidly.

Unfortunately, the global economy looks like it is going to get even worse.  The recent crisis in Japan is going to have a ripple effect across the entire globe.  The chaos in the Middle East is certainly not helping things either.  It certainly appears that we could be on the verge of another major economic downturn.

And that would not be good news for the U.S. middle class.  The truth is that the U.S. middle class has already been hurt enough.

The following are 22 facts that prove that middle class families across America are being savagely crushed by this economy….

#1 Last month food prices in the United States rose at the fastest rate in 36 years.

#2 The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States is now $3.55.  That represents an increase of 42 cents a gallon in just one month.

#3 According to the Oil Price Information Service, U.S. drivers spent an average of $347 on gasoline during the month of February, which was 30 percent more than a year earlier.

#4 According to the U.S. Energy Department, the average U.S. household will spend approximately $700 more on gasoline in 2011 than it did during 2010.

#5 According to the U.S. Labor Department, the cost of living in the United States is higher than it ever has been before.  The “Chained Consumer Price Index” hit a new all-time high during the month of February.

#6 During this most recent economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over 50 years.

#7 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.

#8 For most middle class American families, their homes are their most valuable financial assets.  Since the real estate peak, U.S. home values have fallen by a staggering 6.3 trillion dollars.

#9 In 2010, for the first time ever more than a million U.S. families lost their homes to foreclosure, and that number is expected to go even higher in 2011.

#10 Two years ago, the average U.S. homeowner that was being foreclosed upon had not made a mortgage payment in 11 months.  Today, the average U.S. homeowner that is being foreclosed upon has not made a mortgage payment in 17 months.

#11 Approximately half of all American workers make $25,000 a year or less.

#12 Approximately one-third of all Americans have no savings and no retirement funds.

#13 As 2007 began, only about 26 million Americans were on food stamps, but today over 44 million Americans are now on food stamps.

#14 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today,one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

#15 Only 47 percent of working-age Americans have a full-time job at this point.

#16 Many American families would love to be saving money, but the reality is that a huge percentage of them are drowning in credit card debt.  Total U.S. credit card debt is more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.

#17 The CredAbility Consumer Distress Index, which measures the average financial condition of U.S. households, declined in every single quarter in 2010.

#18 Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income.  In China, average household debt is only 17% of average household income.

#19 There are currently more than 4 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than a year.

#20 The U.S. economy now has 10 percent fewer “middle class jobs” than it did just ten years ago.

#21 The average CEO now makes approximately 185 times more money than the average American worker.

#22 According to the U.S. Census, the number of children living in poverty has gone up by about 2 million in just the past 2 years.

Do you need any more evidence that the middle class in the United States is being ripped apart?

The days of wine and roses are over.  The foolish economic policies of the last several decades are now starting to catch up with us and that is going to mean even more economic pain for the middle class.

If you are still part of the middle class, you should be very thankful, because more middle class Americans are falling into poverty every single day.

 
So what do all of you think about what is happening to the middle class in America?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion.

Article by The American Dream

American Patriot Raided by SWAT Under Patriot Act (Video)

Walter Reddy, the founder of the modern Committees of Safety, joins Gary Franchi for a special interview to recount the recent SWAT Team raid on his home. You'll never see this on the mainstream news.

Wake Up Americans! This could just as easily happen to you!! 

Note: Committees of Safety is a non-partisan, grass-roots advocacy organization active throughout the 50 United States. Its purpose is to exercise the freedoms of speech, association, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in order to educate Americans about, and mobilize them for political action around, the fundamental principles of liberty and self-government set out in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

To see their website, click here

As The World Struggles Obama Focuses On ..... Gender Inequality? What Is That Bonehead Thinking??

A conflict approaching civil war in Libya. An end-times tsunami in Japan. A Congress that can't reach a budget. 

And ... gender inequality?

The topic of President Obama's weekend radio address has raised some eyebrows, as Obama has met mounting crises with the same restraint and cool that characterized his slow-and-steady campaign for president. To some critics, the tone set by the White House in light of recent upheaval may hurt the president's public image.

Amid chaos around the world and on Capitol Hill, Obama's Saturday radio address was devoted to Women's History Month and a call to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, a proposal meant to address the income gap between men and women. Then, the president went golfing at Andrews Air Force Base. 

"I don't know if they don't realize the disconnect and maybe they don't care ... but it does matter," Dana Perino, former White House press secretary under George W. Bush, told Fox News. 

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove said that he doesn't "begrudge" the president for taking time out for recreation, but Libya and the budget in particular demand more involvement on Obama's part. 

Critics note that every time Congress works on a stopgap budget, it risks a government shutdown and does virtually nothing to cut spending, all the while creeping closer to a tricky -- and potentially disastrous -- vote on raising the debt ceiling; every day the administration defers to its international partners to weigh the best course of action in Libya, Muammar al-Qaddafi gains ground. 

With the clock ticking, lawmakers and analysts are calling on the president to show a little more moxie on Capitol Hill and the world stage. 

To see the rest of the article click here 

Article by Fox News

Obama Leads SEIU Chant After Vowing to Paint the Nation Purple (Video)

B. Hussein Obama chanting at an SEIU (the fastest growing union organization in the country) rally that he is "going to paint the nation purple." Notice his accent...gone is the Harvard moderation, replaced with some very ethnic urban black lingo.

This is the Obama that is ruining our nation.

Wake up America!

Did FDA Blunder and Cover-Up Kill Millions?

Has the "Fraud and Drug Administration" aka the FDA been exposed for subjecting millions of Americans to deadly  products due to their incompetence and bias...again? 

You decide!

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) has just recommended that drinking water contain 25-50 mg of magnesium per liter to prevent deaths from heart attack and stroke. www.MgWater.com/download American bottled water averages <5 mg of magnesium (Mg) per liter, while bottled water in the rest of the world averages about 20 mg of magnesium per liter.

The FDA and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) caused the Mg-deficient-water problem by unconstitutionally destroying the American mineral water industry in the 1930’s, in the mistaken belief that pure water was good, and that mineral water was just impure water. No other country has ever destroyed their mineral water industry. Book Ref: Crazy Water -- The Story of Mineral Wells and Other Texas Health Resorts, Gene Fowler, Texas Christian University Press, 1991.

For decades, the evidence has been overwhelming that Americans are very deficient in Mg, as evidenced by the 23% shortfall from the RDI, yet the FDA and DOJ have covered up their blunder, getting a Federal lawsuit dismissed before the evidence could be shown, and keeping silent about the millions of deaths indicated by over 50 epidemiological studies from nine countries. Recent studies clearly confirm that water-borne Mg is far, far better in preventing cardiovascular pathologies than food-borne Mg.

Epidemiological studies indicate that millions of Americans have died due to the FDA’s and DOJ’s destruction of the American mineral water industry. 

See:

www.mgwater.com/anderson.shtml 

www.mgwater.com/finland.shtml 

www.mgwater.com/lancet.shtml 

www.mgwater.com/singh.shtml

Now, it is up to the FDA and DOJ to end this travesty, requiring the Mg content of bottled or canned beverages to be put in labels’ nutrition panels, and requiring that all bottled or canned beverages contain at least 25 mg of Mg per liter. FDA and DOJ have ignored petitions and a lawsuit, continuing to kill Millions of Americans just to cover-up their blunder. 

Article by MgWater.com

New York Man Faces Five Years In Jail For ‘Linking’ To Online Videos

Why in the hell are Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencies meddling with copyright affairs on internet domains? Here's a little secret...shhhhh don't tell anyone. The government wants to control the web. Simple as that!

Wake Up America! Your rights are being stomped on!

 

You may want to think twice the next time you share a link to your favorite video.

In a case against a New York website owner, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is claiming that merely linking to copyrighted material is a crime.

DHS, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), seized Brian McCarthy's domain, channelsurfing.net, in late January. The site has now been replaced with a government warning: "This domain has been seized by ICE - Homeland Security Investigations, Special Agent in Charge, New York Office."

"It is unlawful to reproduce copyrighted material, such as movies, music, software or games, without authorization... First-time offenders convicted of a criminal felony copyright law will face up to five years in federal prison, restitution, forfeiture and fine."

The advocacy group Demand Progress has claimed that McCarthy never reproduced copyrighted material, and that his website simply linked to other sites.

A criminal complaint obtained by the group seems to acknowledge that agents knew that McCarthy was running a "linking website."

"Based on my participation in the investigation leading to the February 2011 Seizure, I know that Channelsurfing.net was a 'linking' website," special agent Daniel Brazier wrote in the complaint.

"Based on my training and experience, I know that 'linking' websites generally collect and catalog links to files on third party websites that contain illegal copies of copyrighted content, including sporting events and Pay-Per-View events," he added.

The special agent detailed 17 copyrighted sports programs he was able to watch when he "clicked on links" at channelsurfing.net.

While the criminal complaint alleges that McCarthy did engage in the "reproduction and distribution" of copyrighted material, it is never clear that he actually reproduced any of the specified broadcasts.

"Under that sort of thinking, everyone who's sent around a link to a copyrighted YouTube video is a criminal," Demand Progress warned, calling the prosecution a "radical shift" in the way the government polices the Internet.

The Phoenix Independent Examiner's Chris Greenwood expressed concern about what the case meant for freedom of expression on the Internet.

"You see, when you shut down the last truly free medium that absolutely anyone can use to call for justice, freedom, or democracy where they don’t exist, you leave the communication to the wealthy, who can afford the ad space in print media and air time on television and radio," he wrote.

"Bryan McCarthy is being used as an example," Greenwood added. "Someone who possesses no copyright material, broadcasts no copyrighted material and duplicates no copyrighted material is being held by authorities because he has a site that indicates to people that there are people who are possessing, duplicating and reproducing potentially copyrighted material for others to watch."

To see the full government complaint, click here

Article by David Edwards, The Raw Story

Is It Really Illegal Now To Sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' At The Lincoln Memorial?

Are you kidding me? Has this great nation turned so miserably liberal where we are actually allowing a policy that restricts the singing of our own National Anthem at a monument dedicated to one of the greatest presidents ever to serve the UNITED STATES?
Wake up AMERICA!!

Is it really against the law to sing America's  national anthem while you are visiting the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington, D.C. national mall?

Yes, according to the National Park Service, which administers the memorial.

The ban was discovered recently when a group of high school students touring Washington, D.C spontaneously broke into song - and were sternly told by a park ranger to knock it off.

The National Park Service says they are worried that someone might be offended by America's national anthem being sung by Americans visiting America's capital. So, some bureaucrat established a policy that requires that any singing at the Lincoln Memorial be "content neutral."

Patriotism isn't neutral. The Star-Spangled Banner is blatantly American. And the park service is afraid that might be offensive to somebody.

The policy was discovered by a group of high school students attending a leadership conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Young America's Foundation.

"They told them to stop singing," said Evan Gassman, an adult chaperone for the group. "I was taken aback. You wouldn't expect a display of national patriotism to be censored. They really did not provide the students a reason."

Singing the national anthem was a spur of the moment thing, says high school senior Shawn Balcomb, of Richmond Hill, Georgia. "We got maybe two lines in and a police officer came over and he was yelling. He quieted us down."

Balcomb, 17, said the officer told the group to quit it. 

 "I was dumbfounded," he said. After all, a number of famous people have sung the national anthem from the steps of the memorial -- such as Marian Anderson during the 1950s in another spontaneous concert when she was blocked from using a concert hall due to segregation laws. Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the memorial.

Balcomb said they didn't intend on creating a ruckus - they just felt patriotic as they looked up into the granite face of the Great Emancipator.

"So much for freedom of speech," commented Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, in a guest column for the Wall Street Journal.  She says she had a similar run-in with over-zealous National Park Service rangers, she says, however her run-in was at the Martin Luther King Memorial in Atlanta. 

There a park policeman, she says, "removed a bullhorn from the hands of Father Frank Pavone. We brought a wreath to lay at Uncle Martin's grave while we prayed, but we weren't allowed.

"The National Park Service said that would constitute a demonstration. So much for freedom of assembly." 

 It is a tad ironic that the National Park Service has decided that there can be no demonstrations at King's memorial ... even though King made his name leading demonstrations. It's ridiculous, says his niece.

"Americans are hungry to reclaim the symbols of our liberty, hard won by an unlikely group of outnumbered, outgunned, underfunded patriots determined not to live in servitude to the British Empire," she wrote in the Journal. "If we want to sing the national anthem at a memorial to Lincoln, the man who led this nation out of slavery, and made my people free, we should be able to send our voices soaring to the heavens."

No, says the U. S. Park Police. A spokesman confirmed that the students at the Lincoln Memorial were in violation of federal law. Their impromptu performance constituted a demonstration in an area that must remain "completely content neutral."

 "The area they were standing in and singing is an area that is restricted for this type of activity," said Sgt. David Schlosser.

Schlosser explained that performances, regardless of content, are banned to "maintain a contemplative and reverent area for the Lincoln Memorial, for the other guests and visitors."

Incidentally, the kids looked at each other, then at the park ranger, then continued singing - louder. Instead of doing as they were instructed, Gassman said, the kids resumed the song - an impromptu form of civil disobedience. [These kids should be given a medal for their patriotism!]

As they sang louder - and were joined by other tourists.

"If their idea of civil disobedience is singing the national anthem, then so be it," Gassman said. "Let them disobey."

 "We just wanted to pay respect to our nation - in our capital," said Balcomb.

Schlosser said the students were not cited and to his knowledge no report was filed.

"We need to make certain that all other visitors that don't want to be a part of that or just choose to be tourists are able to do so in the same light that probably President Lincoln wanted - which is completely content neutral," he said.

Article by Rob Kirby, Beliefnet.com

The Makeover Is Almost Complete

Wake Up Americans! 

The destruction of your nation, one intended to be governed "By the People and For the People", is happening right under your noses as you sit idly by and watch. Once done, there will be no turning back!

There will be wailing, weeping and teeth gnashing in Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks as the elected elites in Congress posture and moan about potentially cutting Federal spending.

Republicans will puff themselves up, declaring they are doing the will of those who went to the polls in November, 2010. “Look at us,” they’ll say. “We’ve made drastic cuts and are on the way to fiscal sanity.”

Democrats will cry foul. “You’re hurting old people, starving children, giving tax breaks to the wealthy, you evil Republicans,” Democrats will say. “How can you be so mean… so heartless?”

It’s all a fraud and a ruse for public consumption. No significant cuts will be made. In the end, nothing will change.

Weeper of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) has already surrendered on his insignificant cuts, negotiating himself down from $100 billion to $61 billion — out of a $3.6 trillion budget. Boehner’s retreat has sparked calls for his head by one Tea Party group.

The reality is Republican elected elites have no more interest in cutting Federal spending than Democrat elected elites. They made this plain when they promised pre-election to cut back to George W. Bush spending levels and cooed about how smart they were.

That’s not good enough for much — if not most — of the Republican-leaning electorate. They’re the middle class; the folks that bear the bulk of the nation’s tax burden, and will bear even more, if the elites have their way.

The middle class — tired of supporting the parasite class that makes up about 50 percent of the population, tired of bailing out “too big to fail” institutions and tired of an elected class that enriches itself off government — has sent a message that government is bloated… that it doesn’t work… that it needs to be reformed. They’ve shouted the message loudly, but the elected elites don’t take them seriously.

The middle class is being destroyed. When Federal, State and local taxes are added together more than half of the middle class worker’s paycheck goes to satisfy the government leviathan.

It’s almost impossible for a family to survive on one income, so both spouses have to go to work and farm the kid-raising duties off on a stranger at a daycare. But often that’s not enough and the husband or wife has to have a second job — and a greater tax burden.

Food prices rise. Oil prices rise. Making ends meet becomes a fantasy. Credit cards are tapped to keep up. Home equity lines are tapped to keep up, and the debt piles on.

But the elected elites aren’t concerned with the plight of the middle class. They cater to their corporate masters, to unions and to bureaucracies.

Federal subsidies go to foreign governments and foreign banks. Money goes to prop up dictators in foreign lands. Special tax breaks and subsidies go to large corporate farms and large corporations — perks that small farms and businesses don’t get. Bailouts and stimulus programs have finalized the transition of America from a free-market economy into a fascist corporatocracy. Sweetheart deals are made in back rooms and corporate CEOs get cushy appointments in the administration and companies rake in trillions of dollars in government contracts.

The appetite of the military-industrial complex continues to be sated with the blood of American service men and women and fiat money printed by the Federal Reserve. Overburdensome regulations and perplexing tax laws stifle innovation, create stumbling blocks for entrepreneurs and encourage businesses to take their jobs overseas.

As Republicans preach austerity they are nickel and diming us. They pick a little here and little there but make no move to eliminate unnecessary, unConstitutional and harmful government programs and agencies. They don’t mention cuts in corporate welfare. They don’t mention drawing down the war machine, paring back military bases and reducing empire America.

And President Barack Obama tries to pile on more socialistic, central planning-style spending programs while promising to cut government spending. It’s all doublespeak.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats have broached meaningful welfare reform. So-called entitlements are sacrosanct. The parasite class continues to bleed the host — the producers — white.

Never mind that the War on Poverty, like the War on Drugs, has hurt rather than helped the middle and lower classes. Huge sums of money spent on feckless programs to “help” the underprivileged and “get drugs off the street” have led to a breakdown of the family in some social strata and the incarceration of a large of number of people for victimless crimes.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats have broached the idea of tax reform, except in the context of raising the Federal taxes individuals pay — particularly those who through hard work and an entrepreneurial spirit have managed to exceed an arbitrary threshold that socialist-leaning politicians have decided makes one rich — and in instituting a value-added tax.

We have a system where the nation’s largest corporations pay no tax at all.

Bank of America, one of the many recipients of the government largess under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), paid zero Federal taxes in 2009, but did pay its top executives millions.

Citigroup, also a TARP recipient, paid a grand total of zero taxes for the third quarter of 2010, but paid John Havens, the head of the company’s investment bank, $9.5 million.

Boeing, recently the recipient of a $35 billion government contract to build tankers for the military and a regular government contractor that receives billions of dollars in government contracts annually, paid zero Federal taxes from 2008 to 2010.

General Electric — whose CEO Jeffrey Immelt is on the list of Barack’s closest friends and recently landed a gig on a White House economic advisory board — filed 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to the Federal treasury. Immelt was paid $9.89 million in 2009.

Wells Fargo, which was able to exploit the tax codes by writing off the losses it accrued through the government-mandated purchase of Wachovia, paid zero taxes. However, Wells Fargo’s CEO received a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million. 

In the United States, the top 50 percent of income earners pay 96.4 percent of the income tax, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. This progressive income tax system is right out of Karl Marx’s manifesto and the goal of the progressives — Republican and Democrat alike — is to roil the economy to get more into the class of leaches. Progressives want an electorate eager for handouts so they can appear benevolent as they transfer wealth.

The elected elites succeeded in creating a soft tyranny. But they fear their subjects. So, with the USA Patriot Act and through the Department of Homeland Security and its increasingly invasive program of screening, scanning, poking, prodding, watching and questioning, they work toward establishing a hard tyranny such as that seen under harsh dictatorships.

The makeover of America is almost complete.

Article by Bob Livingston, Personal Liberty Digest