“Doom” rhetoric seen by some as ‘not presidential’ The Washington Times From crisis to catastrophe. Off a cliff. Dark, darker, darkest. Mortal danger of absolute collapse. Armageddon.
“If we don’t move swiftly to put this plan in motion, our economic crisis could become a national catastrophe. Millions of Americans will lose their jobs, their homes and their health care. Millions more will have to put their dreams on hold,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio address.
President Obama and top Democrats on Capitol Hill are deploying these and other stark predictions of doom and gloom to push through their economic-stimulus package. In terms not heard in Washington since the late 1970s under President Jimmy Carter’s watch, the new president has sought to terrify Americans into supporting the $800 billion-plus bailout bill.
~snipet~
Mr. Obama is using ever-heightening hyperbole to hammer home his message. But the strategy brings great risk for the “Yes, We Can” man, who just three weeks ago told America in his inaugural address that despite “a sapping of confidence across our land,” his election meant Americans had “chosen hope over fear.”
“Mr. Hope has to be careful not to become Dr. Doom,” said Frank Luntz, a political consultant and author of the book “Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear.”
“The danger for him is using the Jimmy Carter malaise rhetoric, particularly for Mr. Obama, who was elected because people thought he was the solution. There’s only so much negativity they will tolerate from him before they will feel betrayed,” Mr. Luntz said.
Brad Blakeman, a senior aide to Mr. Bush from 2001 to 2004, said the new president’s language is immature.
“It’s not presidential. An American leader needs to be hopeful and optimistic – and truthful. Everything he says is parsed; everything he says is searched for deep meaning. When he goes to ‘DefCon 5’ on the economy and says that we’re on the brink of catastrophe, it’s absolutely insane.”
With his fiery rhetoric, the new president runs the risk of terrifying consumers and investors, which could depress the economy even further. While the economy is bad, it is a far cry from Great Depression levels, when as many as 30 percent of Americans were unemployed, compared with the 7.6 percent now.
Just Friday, Mr. Obama said a report that 600,000 jobs were lost in January meant “it’s getting worse, not getting better. … Although we had a terrible year with respect to jobs last year, the problem is accelerating, not decelerating.” Last week he said, “A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.”
But he isn’t the only Democrat ramping up the rhetoric while talking down the economy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said last month that our economy “is dark, darker, darkest.” Rep. David R. Obey of Wisconsin said, “This economy is in mortal danger of absolute collapse.” And Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said of the economic-stimulus bill, “If we don’t pass this thing, it’s Armageddon.”
Wild Thing’s comment…………
“It’s not presidential.”
LOL Let me count the ways! There is nothing presidential about O-dooma !!
Also…….
“I won.” – childish
“You can’t listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.” – childish
When I saw him speak to the Dems at their retreat last week, and saw him do his little rant, I expected to see him threaten to hold his breath until he turns blue if Congress doesn’t give him his way. The stimulus bill is a catastrophe in itself. It is a leap into the seductive arms of Marxism.
Senator Chuck Schumer caused a run on a bank when he exaggerated, and now President Barack Obama is trying to cause a depression.
Bill Ayer’s book says “need to weaken the UNITED STATES through entitlement plans and a trumped up economic disaster so the USA will not be a superpower. ”
O-Dooma is a fraud and a liar and a castastrophe pimp! Old theories (conservatism) did not bring about the current crisis. Massive spending and government expansion did.
True change would be to embrace conservative principles. Cut taxes, stop wasteful spending, and get rid of Congressional programs and projects which are not Constitutionally prescribed in Article I, Section 8. Leave them to the states.
If Congress would do their job, stop meddling in everything, and get out of our wallets, we would see a tremendous stimulus.
Democrat Insider Says “Obama Has Secret Plan to Fund a Patronage System”
**** If it says the video is unavailable, please come back again to see if it is running. Sometimes when it is getting a lot of hits the video will have the problem of being seen. And right now this video is being put all over the internet. ~ Thank you so much Wild Thing
Detail of video:
2/6/09 – This was a live caller to the Savage Nation – Michael Savage, Host
“”I was told by democratic officials in that meeting, that we were going to get billions of dollars that was gonna come down the pike our way, and we’re gonna build an army (bigger than the US army) of democratic patronage jobs, that is going to completely freeze off the republicans for ever and ever”
In Chicago politics, pinstripe patronage refers to a political payback system where instead of rewarding voter loyalty with city jobs, significant campaign contributors receive government contracts.
It’s a by-product of the age of big media. Obama learned about pinstripe patronage as an attorney at Davis Miner Barnhill & Galland, as a July 21, 2008 article by Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker, entitled “Making It: How Chicago shaped Obama,” documents.
E. J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post, wrote about this transition in a 1999 column after Daley was reëlected. Dionne wrote about a young Barack Obama, who artfully explained how the new pinstripe patronage worked:
A politician rewards the law firms, developers, and brokerage houses with contracts, and in return they pay for the new ad campaigns necessary for reëlection. “They do well, and you get a $5 million to $10 million war chest,” Obama told Dionne.
It was a classic Obamaism: superficially critical of some unseemly aspect of the political process without necessarily forswearing the practice itself.
Obama was learning that one of the greatest skills a politician can possess is candor about the dirty work it takes to get and stay elected.
At the time, Obama was growing closer to Tony Rezko, who eventually turned pinstripe patronage into an extremely lucrative way of life.
Despite the element of corruption indigenous to the pinstripe patronage that became part of executing Daley’s Plan for Transformation, back in 1999 Obama glossed over the approach, seemingly endorsing it.
Shortly after becoming a state senator in 1997, Obama told the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that his experience working with the development industry had reinforced his belief in subsidizing private developers of affordable housing.
“That’s an example of a smart policy,” the paper quoted Obama as saying. “The developers were thinking in market terms and operating under the rules of the marketplace; but at the same time, we had government supporting and subsidizing those efforts.”
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Stimulus Watch
CLICK on LINK below, to find your State, then click on it and you can see all that is coming from the Stimulus Bill. Or click on it further to look up the City where you live. http://www.stimuluswatch.org/project/by_state
Here is one of the most bizarre.
Projects in Puerto Rico
Below are the “shovel-ready” projects for which the mayors of this state have requested federal stimulus funding.
The total of cost of all the projects submitted by Puerto Rico is $22,093,054,016
Main home page for Stimulus Watch
Daley refuses to release stimulus project list Chicago Tribune
Mayor Richard Daley said today Chicago has compiled a wish list of “shovel-ready projects” to spend federal economic stimulus funds on should Congress approve a plan. Unlike hundreds of other cities, however, Daley said Chicago won’t make its list public.
“Yes, we do, we have our list, we’ve been talking to people. We did not put that out publicly because once you start putting it out publicly, you know, the newspapers, the media is going to be ripping it apart,” Daley said.
“It’s very controversial. Yes, we have ready projects from the Board of Education to the City Colleges to the Park District to the CTA and the city of Chicago. Oh yes. Us and New York decided not to do that. We thought we could go directly into the federal bureaucracies and the different departments,” the mayor added.
Later, Daley was asked why he wasn’t being more transparent.
“Read some of your newspapers. Heh heh,” he replied.
ACORN
Remember Obama’s favorite community activist group ACORN? They are the ones who helped the future president “get out the votes” registering Obama voters in two or three counties, or registering fictional and/or dead people. ACORN is under indictment in 12 states.
This spending bill provides them with up to $5.2 billion dollars for their housing oriented activities, at the same time, it empowers the organization to act as President Obama’s grass roots precinct captains.
Those that follow ACORN closely know that the organization is skilled in the fine art of Saul Alinsky and his strategies for organizing.
Alinsky put his rules together in order provide a textbook for this without money or natural power to organize and to affect change without the sort of power and connections that those with power would have.
ACORN uses these fundamentals in order to harrass, manipulate and ultimately extort money from powerful people and organizations.
Their tactics come from Alinsky rule #13: identify, isolate, freeze and escalate.
The blue print works like this. ACORN will identify an individual, usually a powerful head of a powerful organization. They will show up in front of that person’s home with several hundred protestors.
Since these powerful folks normally live in quiet and wealthy suburbs, such a commotion will soon be the talk of the neighborhood. The message for this person’s friends and neighbors will be clear “they are a bad person”.
By doing so, they will have isolated this person from their friends and neighbors. Soon, not only will the target themself be a pariah but so will their children. That is the process of isolation.
At this point, the target thinks that things can’t get worse, and it is then that ACORN only raises the stakes.
Not only will ACORN, and their protestors, show up everywhere the target frequents: the mall, the movie theater, the library, etc, but they will be there before the target even shows up.
As such, before the target even arrives to their shopping, ACORN will show up with a crew of several hundred to protest them.
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Reid blocks bipartisan amendment requiring citizenship verification for stimulus recipients Michelle Malkin blog
“While it is difficult to believe that Senate leaders might insist that illegal aliens have the same chance at new stimulus jobs as unemployed Americans, this scenario may now be at hand,” says Roy Beck of Numbers USA. “SA 239 is now unlikely to receive a floor vote.”
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Wild Thing’s comment…….
The pieces are falling into place. I have been taking notes the last few days and gathering some links and information up so we can all know exactly what is going on that maybe we did not know before. I know I sure had no idea about some of this, until I started doing some research.
Here is the thing everything will be timed for the 2012 election. That campaign has commenced. It is like in Mugabe’s Zimbawe, if you do not support him, you do not eat or Buying loyalty, the Chicago way.
Porkulus is nothing much more than a patronage bill. One of it’s tenets provides more billions to ACORN. What do people think that’s for? He’s lining all his favorite organization’s pockets.
FDR used gov’t contracts to reward friends and punish congressional districts and mayors who opposed him. It was blatant vote buying, some of the newly hired for Federal gov’t jobs were required to contribute a portion of their wages to FDR’s campaign funds. Totally corrupt, and totally ignored by MSM and liberal historians.
One of the first things that leaped out at me when the stimulus was first brought up was the 600,000 federal employees. That is outrageous. That’s way out of line, and you probably don’t even need a thousand to administer a stimulus.
From every corner, on every issue, the libs will quash dissension and assert control.
This is exactly what Rush Limbaugh said would happen. That is what made me curious to start looking things up. The bill gets passed and the Democrats will own people. They will have control for a very long time because people will have government jobs, and welfare, and free food and free gas and why would someone vote for a candidate who believes in fiscal responsibility when you have a party that believes in giving you free stuff. The Fiscal Responsible candidate will never have any shot of winning. This is the ultimate screw job but we all knew it was coming
Obama is a dangerous man. His being a Muslim also factors in imo and that concerns me more then words can say about our military. The cuts backs he will make in the things they need among many other things. Prayers for each one serving now, deployed and here at home. God bless them and keep them safe.
In case anyone is having trouble getting ammo etc. One of the Vets that reads Theodore’s World blog daily sent me this in an email. Thank you Trevor.
“This site has been pretty consistent. If they show it, they send it. A couple of people said they got shorted maybe one item out of a huge order. They are low on 223/556 right now but if you check it daily they will get huge shipments in and then they will be low again like they are now. They have lots of 9mm in right now.
A little advice, when they get it in, put it in your shopping cart fast because if you don’t it may be gone and they do dump your cart after about 20 minutes of no activity. I learned that the hard way. Had a full cart, came back 30 minutes or so later and cart dumped and some of the items I wanted gone from the site.”
Wild Thing’s comment……..
LOL I seriously LOVE this photo. hahahahahaha
I know this is a joke but I bet I could imagine how they would want to go to sleep. I think Obama is an extremely boreing speaker. More now then ever. I am tired of his constant whine and complaing.
……Thank you RAC for sending this to me. RAC has a website that is awesome.336th Assault Helicopter Company 13th Combat Aviation Battalion – 1st Aviation Brigade – Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Communist: Obama looking to nationalize U.S. economy wnd
Obama is “considering” a radical agenda to nationalize the U.S. financial system, the Federal Reserve Bank, and private industries such as energy and other sectors whose future is “problematic” in private hands, claims the leader of the Communist Party USA.
In a major speech focused on Obama titled “Off and running: Opportunity of a lifetime,” CPUSA leader Sam Webb also alleges Obama’s administration is considering turning education, childcare, and health care into “no profit zones;” rerouting investment capital from military infrastructure to “green economy” projects and public infrastructure; and waging a “full scale” assault on global warming.
“We now have not simply a friend, but a people’s advocate in the White House declared Webb at a recent speech in Ohio for People’s Weekly World Communist newspaper.
“An era of progressive change is within reach, no longer an idle dream. Just look at the new lay of the land: a friend of labor and its allies sits in the White House,” Webb proclaimed.
He stated Obama and the “broad coalition that supports him will almost inevitably have to consider – and they already are – the following measures: * Public ownership of the financial system and the elimination of the shadow banking system and exotic derivatives. * Public control of the Federal Reserve Bank. * Counter-crisis spending of a bigger size and scope to invigorate and sustain a full recovery and meet human needs – something that the New Deal never accomplished. * Strengthening of union rights in order to rebalance the power between labor and capital in the economic and political arenas. * Trade agreements that have at their core the protection and advancement of international working class interests. * Equality in conditions of life for racially minorities and women. * Democratic public takeover of the energy complex as well as a readiness to consider the takeover of other basic industries whose future is problematic in private hands. * Turning education, child care, and health care into “no profit” zones. * Rerouting investment capital from unproductive investment (military, finance and so forth) to productive investment in a green economy and public infrastructure. * Changing direction of our nation’s foreign policy toward cooperation, disarmament, and diplomacy. We can’t have threats, guns and military occupations on the one hand and butter, democracy, goodwill, and peace on the other. * Full scale assault on global warming. * Serious and sustained commitment to assisting the developing countries that are locked in poverty and misery.”
Webb lauded Obama’s $800-plus billion so-called stimulus package as “a good bill that will ease the pain of this crisis, create jobs, and begin to reflate the economy.”
He explained labor unions, which he said were instrumental in Obama’s election, must work to keep the White House in check by “exercis[ing] an enormous influence on the political process. Never before has a coalition with such breadth walked on the political stage of our country,” he said.
Indeed, in an article just after last November’s election titled, “Special Interest or Class Consciousness? How Labor Put Obama in the White House,” Political Affairs reported on polling data released that revealed the extent of union support for Obama.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, sponsored a poll showing union members supported Obama by a 68-30 margin and strongly influenced their family members.
According to the survey, Obama won among white men who are union members by 18 points. Union gun-owners backed Obama by 12 points, while union veterans voted for Obama by a 25-point margin. In the general population, Obama lost these groups by significant margins.
Wild Thing’s comment…….. “We now have not simply a friend, but a people’s advocate in the White House,” declared Webb at a recent speech in Ohio for People’s Weekly World Communist newspaper.
The U.S. Constitution and personal freedom are both on the thin line with Obama in the White House.
We should round up the CPUSA and send them to the peoples paradise of North Korea.
Those of us who actually looked into Obama’s history before November know that his mother was a Communist. His grandparents were Communists. His Mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a Communist and a pedophile. Obamoa himself was lauded by the Communist Party of Illinois, now the New Party, as one of their own winning a state senate seat in the 90’s. Only the sheep are left that don’t care or won’t listen to the truth about Obama.
It is also obvious he was a Muslim and a Communist as Rev Wright’s church provided cover for Muslims. People would not listen but they surely cannot be shocked. First interviews to Muslim media .
Barry Soetero aka Barack Hussein Obama has a long history of the psychology of hate being his best friends. You can take the Soetoro out of Kenya, buy you can’t take the Kenya out of Soetoro.
….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Obama backs away from war on terror examiner
It started two days after Obama became the president. Obama directed the closing of the terrorist detention center in Guantanamo Bay, even though he has no clue what to do with the terrorists detained at Guantanamo.
At the two-week mark of the Obama presidency, the president was asked in a television interview why he didn’t use the phrase “war on terror.” Obama’s Carter-like naive response was to say he believes the U.S. can win over moderate Muslims if he chooses his words carefully:
“I think it is very important for us to recognize that we have a battle or a war against some terrorist organizations,” Obama said Tuesday. “But that those organizations aren’t representative of a broader Arab community, Muslim community.”
He added that he believes the U.S. can convince Muslims “that we should be working together to make sure that everybody has got a better life.”
Obama continues to walk away from the war on terror at a quickening pace. Two days after Obama talked to Anderson Cooper about his choice of words, Obama ordered charges dropped against the terrorist mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole. In meeting with families of September 11 terrorist attacks and the 17 sailors killed in the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole, Obama made it clear that he was more concerned about the prosecution of terrorists than prosecution of the war on terror:
“The previous administration was very focused on the prosecution of the war on terror and keeping America safe from future attacks. The current administration is very focused on the prosecution of the detainees of the war on terror. The important thing for America is to find the right balance of both those approaches.”
Then, even though Obama said he will send more troops to Afghanistan as he withdraws combat soldiers from the war in Iraq, today we learn Obama has put the brakes on more troops for Afghanistan. This step back comes even as military commanders continue to plead for more troops.
In his 2003 commentary, A Bloody March to Peace, Tony Blankley reminds us that the Islamafacists and terrorists continue wage war against us because they doubt our staying power:
They remember Vietnam, where we lost the will to fight.
They remember Beirut in 1983, where we turned tail and ran after they killed our Marines in their barracks.
They remember the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993, when we turned to our lawyers instead of our soldiers.
They remember Mogadishu in October 1993, where we left our dead and skedaddled out of country.
They remember the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, where we ordered our ships to sea rather than our Marines to shore.
Obama’s walking away from the war on terror will only encourage our enemies. It is the functional equivalent of appeasement. We are no more able to successfully appease the Islamafacist terrorists, than Chamberlain was able to successfully appease Hitler.
We are involved in a long struggle. We didn’t choose this war, and we cannot back away from it. We cannot afford to be seen, or even be perceived, to falter in our determination to prevail. If we are, it will encourage our enemies and prolong the war.
Wild Thing’s comment……
Excellent article.
Obama is sending a clear signal that he is NOT interested in PREVENTING attacks, and waging the war against terrorists “over there”, instead of waiting until they come over here and murder us by the thousands or worse. “The previous administration was very focused on the prosecution of the war on terror and keeping America safe from future attacks. The current administration is very focused on the prosecution of the detainees of the war on terror. ”
His own words tell us of his agenda. And he is unilaterally surrendering us to the terrorists. VP Dick Cheney was exactly right when he warned Obama of terrorists attacks!
“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said.
“Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”
Mellinger in Army jump school in 1972, left, and on patrol in Baghdad in 2005.
Courtesy Jeffrey Mellinger
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source
America’s generals love to brag about their all-volunteer Army. That’s because they tend to overlook Jeffrey Mellinger. He donned his Army uniform for the first time on April 18, 1972, about the time the Nixon Administration was seeking “peace with honor” in Vietnam and The Godfather was opening on the silver screen. Nearly 37 years later, he’s still wearing Army green. Mellinger is, by all accounts, the last active-duty draftee serving in the U.S. Army.
“I’m a relic,” Mellinger concedes with a self-deprecating laugh. But the last of the nearly 2 million men ordered to serve in the Vietnam-era military before conscription ended in 1973 still impresses 19-year-old soldiers. “Most of them are surprised I’m still breathing, because in their minds I’m older than dirt,” the fit 55-year-old says. “But they’re even more surprised when they find out this dinosaur can still move around pretty darn quick.”
Mellinger was working as a 19-year-old drywall hanger in Eugene, Oregon, when he came home to find a draft notice waiting for him.
“I went down to the draft board and asked them if this was really serious,” he recalls, “or if it was like an invitation.” But it was an order, the first of many Mellinger would obey. He started his military career as a clerk in what was then called West Germany, and was looking forward hanging up his uniform after two years of service. “I was dead-set on getting out,” he says. “We had a lot of racial problems, drug problems, leadership problems.” But his company commander talked him into re-enlisting. The lure: the chance to join the Rangers, the elite warrior corps that Mellinger came to love (his 3,700 parachute jumps add up to more than 33 hours in freefall). Re-enlisting “was the best decision of my career,” Mellinger says.
The Army sent him all over the world, including tours in Japan and Iraq. General David Petraeus, who served as Mellinger’s boss during the draftee’s final three months in Iraq in 2007, calls him “a national asset” who kept the top generals’ aware of the peaks and valleys in battlefield morale.
“We lost count of how many times his personal convoy was hit,” Petraeus says. “Yet he never stopped driving the roads, walking patrols, and going on missions with our troopers.” (Mellinger’s 33-month Iraq tour was punctuated by 27 roadside bombings, including two that destroyed his vehicle, although he managed to escape injury.) Mellinger now serves as the Command Sergeant Major, the senior enlisted man in the Virginia headquarters of the Army Materiel Command, trying to shrink what he calls the “flash-to-bang time” between recognizing what soldiers need and getting it to them.
The son of a Marine, Mellinger had been turned down by both the Marines and the Army when he sought to enlist. “I was not a perfect child,” he says. He finds it strange that the compulsory military that launched his career no longer exists, but says the Army is better for it. “You get people who want to do this work,” he says of today’s nearly-all volunteer force. “If you had a draft at any other business in the world, you’d get people who maybe weren’t suited to be accountants or drivers or mathematicians.”
He doesn’t have much patience for those, like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who want to bring back the draft. to ensure that war’s burdens are equally shared. “We’re doing just fine, thank you, with the all-volunteer force,” Mellinger says. “Until the time comes that we’re in danger of losing our capabilities to do our missions, then we ought to stick with what we have — there is no need for the draft.”
Like many veterans of the Vietnam-era Army, he bridles at suggestions that the draftee force was riddled with misfits and druggies.
“We didn’t run off to Canada,” he says, taking a swipe at those who avoided the draft by heading north. “While it makes great rhetoric to stand up and say ‘We don’t want a draft Army because the draft Army was bad,’ the facts don’t support it,” Mellinger says. “Just because they didn’t run down and sign up doesn’t make them less deserving of respect for their contributions.” There’s a sensitivity evident in being viewed as less of a soldier for having been drafted. “I’m proud to be a soldier, and I’m proud to be a draftee,” he says. “I took the same oath that every other enlistee who came in the Army — there wasn’t a different one for draftees.”
His proudest moments are watching those he trained climb the military hierarchy themselves. “I can think of several soldiers who went on to become command sergeants major who were privates when I was either their squad leader or their drill sergeant,” Mellinger says. But such memories also trigger his lone regret. “I wish I were as smart as I thought I was when I was moving into those duty positions.”
Mellinger has told his wife, Kim, that this is his final Army posting, meaning he’s likely to retire sometime next year. The couple has no children, although Mellinger has three grown kids from a prior marriage. The last draftee then plans to move to Alaska, where he spent much of his career, and spend his days reading history and running with his two Dobermans. “When I tell my wife it’s my last assignment, she just rolls her eyes,” he concedes. “This is my sixth ‘last assignment’.”
Wild Thing’s comment………
Great story and I wanted to share it with all of you.
Thenk you so much Command Sergeant Major Jeffrey J. Mellinger . God bless you! Some additional information from ARMY.Mil.News
……Thank you RAC for sending this to me. RAC has a website that is awesome.336th Assault Helicopter Company 13th Combat Aviation Battalion – 1st Aviation Brigade – Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam
Lawmakers in 20 states move to reclaim sovereignty Obama’s $1 trillion deficit-spending ‘stimulus plan’ seen as last straw wnd
As the Obama administration attempts to push through Congress a nearly $1 trillion deficit spending plan that is weighted heavily toward advancing typically Democratic-supported social welfare programs, a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control is beginning to spread at the state level. So far, eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. Analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.
“What we are trying to do is to get the U.S. Congress out of the state’s business,” Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Randy Brogdon told WND.
“Congress is completely out of line spending trillions of dollars over the last 10 years putting the nation into a debt crisis like we’ve never seen before,” Brogdon said, arguing that the Obama stimulus plan is the last straw taxing state patience in the brewing sovereignty dispute.
“This particular 111th Congress is the biggest bunch of over-reachers and underachievers we’ve ever had in Congress,” he said.
“A sixth-grader should realize you can’t borrow money to pay off your debt, and that is the Obama administration’s answer for a stimulus package,” he added.
The Ninth Amendment reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The Tenth Amendment specifically provides, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Brogdon, the lead sponsor of the Oklahoma state senate version of the sovereignty bill, has been a strong opponent of extending the plan to build a four-football-fields-wide Trans-Texas Corridor parallel to Interstate-35 to Oklahoma. Rollback federal authority
The various sovereignty measures moving through state legislatures are designed to reassert state authority through a rollback of federal authority under the powers enumerated in the Constitution, with the states assuming the governance of the non-enumerated powers, as required by the Tenth Amendment.
The state sovereignty measures, aimed largely at the perceived fiscal irresponsibility of Congress in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have gained momentum with the $1 trillion deficit-spending economic stimulus package the Obama administration is currently pushing through Congress.
Particularly disturbing to many state legislators are the increasing number of “unfunded mandates” that have proliferated in social welfare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, in which bills passed by Congress dictate policy to the states without providing funding.
In addition, the various state resolutions include discussion of a wide range of policy areas, including the regulation of firearms sales (Montana) and the demand to issue drivers licenses with technology to embed personal information under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and the Real ID Act (Michigan).
Hawaii’s measure calls for a new state constitutional convention to return self-governance, a complaint that traces back to the days it was a U.S. territory, prior to achieving statehood in 1959.
“We are trying to send a message to the federal government that the states are trying to reclaim their sovereignty,” Republican Rep. Matt Shea, the lead sponsor of Washington’s sovereignty resolution told WND.
“State sovereignty has been eroded in so many areas, it’s hard to know where to start,” he said. “There are a ton of federal mandates imposed on states, for instance, on education spending and welfare spending.”
Shea said the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package moving through Congress is a “perfect example.”
“In the state of Washington, we have increased state spending 33 percent in the last three years and hired 6,000 new state employees, often using federal mandates as an excuse to grow state government,” he said. “We need to return government back down to the people, to keep government as close to the local people as possible.”
Shea is a private attorney who serves with the Alliance Defense Fund, a nationwide network of about 1,000 attorneys who work pro-bono. As a counter to the ACLU, the alliance seeks to protect and defend religious liberty, the sanctity of life and traditional family values.
Republican state Rep. Judy Burges, the primary sponsor of the sovereignty resolution in the Arizona House, told WND the federal government “has been trouncing on our constitutional rights.”
“The real turning point for me was the Real ID act, which involved both a violation of the Fourth Amendments rights against the illegal searches and seizures and the Tenth Amendment,” she said.
Burges told WND she is concerned that the overreaching of federal powers could lead to new legislation aimed at confiscating weapons from citizens or encoding ammunition.
“The Real ID Act was so broadly written that we are afraid that it involves the potential for “mission-creep,” that could easily involve confiscation of firearms and violations of the Second Amendment,” she said.
Burges said she has been surprised at the number of e-mails she has received in support of the sovereignty measure.
“We are a sovereign state in Arizona, not a branch of the federal government, and we need to be treated as such, she insisted
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Wild Thing’s comment……….
I wish Florida was on the list. I plan on writing our rino Gov about this. Woo Hoo!!
We can’t be blamed for wondering if there is any sanity left among elected officials anywhere in the United States. This is a welcome article.
….Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Petty Officer Gary G. Swenchonis, Jr
from Rockport, Texas
Gary Swenchonis Sr., the Father of murdered USS Cole Sailor, Fireman Gary Swenchonis, Jr. speaks out about what Obama has done with GITMO and the news of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri one of the Cole bombers that the charges against him dismissed on 02/05/09 by Judge Crawford according to President Obama’s order. Please read his post at his blog.
His latest post: Why We Chose Not to Meet with President Obama Terrorism Politicians and Victims blog
His voice needs to be heard!
“President Obama: Do you know how much it hurts to see you drop the charges against our sons killers? First the Dictator of Yemen freed our son’s killers. And now you sir. We had hoped for some justice here in our own country. But now it appears that politics are more important than justice and the truth. ”
Thank you so much.
Biden Urges Passage of Stimulus Despite Voter Backlash The Wall Street Journal Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged Friday that Democrats could face political repercussions in 2010 for their support of the economic stimulus package, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“But when we do approve it, I’m sure you’re going to be nailed in ads, ‘Well they voted on that’ 30 second ads,” Biden told roughly 200 members of the House Democratic Caucus gathered for their three day annual retreat.
“I promise you as a colleague once said to me, ‘I’ll come campaign for you or against you, whichever will help you the most in your district.’ And so will the president because, again, we’re all in this together.”
The vice president also offered some trademark candor about the prospects of success.
He recalled a recent White House meeting with the president and senior aides in which they were discussing the many challenges the country faces.
“If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong,” was his message at the meeting.
Biden warned that the consequences were too great for the country to allow politics to prevent action.
“The only thing we can get wrong is not reaching a consensus among ourselves … and demonstrating to the American people that we’re thinking small and politically -you [House Democrats] have not, you’ve thought big,” he said. All but 10 House Democrats voted for the bill.
Echoing President Obama’s remarks Thursday, Biden aligned this moment with other great challenges the country has faced.
“Not since World War II has a caucus gathered with so many challenges facing our country and the stakes so high,” he said. “The slope is pretty steep. The opportunities are great.”
Wild Thing’s comment……… “I’ll come campaign for you or against you, whichever will help you the most in your district.’ And so will the president because, again, we’re all in this together.”
Leave it to the twisted, disingenuous minds of socialists that you support someone by pretending to oppose them. A very revealing statement how much of their past campaigns have been based on lies.
……Thank you RAC for sending this to me.
….Thank you JohnE PFC U.S. Army for sending this to me.
….Thank you Lynn for sending this to me.
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