Obama is America’s New Jim Jones

On November 18, 1978 the world was shocked to learn that more than 900 members of the People’s Temple had committed suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. They took their lives at the urging of Jim Jones, the Temple’s founder.

Until 9/11 it was the single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster and the tragedy still ranks high among the largest mass suicides in history. Jones had been a charismatic preacher who founded the Temple in the 1950s in Indiana, later moving it to California.

It is increasingly evident with every passing day that Barack Obama is America’s Jim Jones, undermining the U.S. Constitution while urging Americans to drink his Kool-Aid lies. Need a reminder? Here are a few:

Stimulus Act Kool-Aid
Obamacare Kool-Aid
Financial Reform Kool-Aid
Reach out to Muslims Kool-Aid
Mosque at Ground Zero Kool-Aid
Amnesty for illegal Aliens Kool-Aid
Bailout General Motors Kool-Aid
Cash-for-Clunkers Kool-Aid
Union Card Check Kool-Aid
Green Jobs Kool-Aid
Close Down Gitmo Kool-Aid
Climate Change Kool-Aid
Regulate Carbon Dioxide Kool-Aid
Gulf Oil Drilling Moratorium Kool-Aid

Americans are resisting the behemoth of the federal government under Obama’s control. The Tea Party movement is evidence that the American spirit is far from spent. Many states are joining together in legal suits to oppose Obamacare and to demand the federal government shut down the border traffic that is breeding crime and other costs.

It is a life or death struggle for America. Niall Ferguson, a British historian and author of “The Ascent of Money”, recently gave a lecture for the Center for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia. He warned that “In the history of empires the end is abrupt and those that rely on them need to be ready.”

I have often referred to America as an empire and so have others, given its global military presence, the global reliance on the U.S. dollar as the standard against which other currencies are measured, its moral stature as a defender of human rights and advocate for freedom, and its vast worldwide cultural impact.

“Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly in Washington,” said Ferguson, “as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2010 of more than $1.47 trillion, about ten percent of GDP for the second year running.” He further warned that “half the U.S. federal debt in public hands is in the hands of foreign creditors. Of that, a fifth (22%) is held by the monetary authorities of the People’s Republic of China, down from 27% in July last year.”

“The United States is on a completely unsustainable fiscal course with no apparent political means of self-correcting,” said Ferguson.

The indicators are, however, that on November 2nd, the midterm elections will provide a self-correction IF the power in Congress changes from the Democrats to the Republican Party. It’s a very big IF because, short of anything less, the damage that President Obama can inflict is still significant. Even so, some of his more noxious programs can be defunded.

The President and the Democrats in Congress are possibly the most anti-energy administration in the history of the nation. Everything in our economy and our lives is dependent on access to plentiful and affordable energy whether it comes from oil, coal, natural gas or hydroelectricity.

The Obama administration has blandished billions on “alternative”, “clean” or “green” energy in the form of solar, wind, and biofuels. Nothing about any of these options represents a reliable and viable power source to replace or provide the nation’s huge energy requirements.

The most rogue federal agency in U.S. history, the Environmental Protection Agency, is pursuing the power to regulate “greenhouse gases” despite having no authorization to do so. The justification offered is the totally discredited “global warming” theory. Other nations that have invested in solar or wind power only to discover that neither provides sufficient energy and both eliminate jobs in the process.

That, I suggest, is the very reason why the Obama administration wants to impose them on the nation while at the same time gutting the oil and coal industries.

The moratoriums imposed on the drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, despite two court injunctions against them, will cost the Gulf Coast states an estimated 8,000 jobs or more, nearly $500 million in wages, more than $2.1 billion in economic activity, and nearly $100 million in state and local tax revenue. Outside of the states immediately affected, the moratorium will cost the nation 12,000 jobs and nearly $3 billion, including almost $200 million in federal tax revenues.

Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will raise taxes across the board at the worst possible time in the midst of a major recession.

This isn’t delusional, it’s intentional.

It is Barack Obama’s Kool-Aid for America.

Obama Suing DuPage County, Illinois For Enforcing Immigration Laws…

On the heels of news that the Obama administration is suing the state of Arizona over its new anti-illegal immigration law come news that the same treatment is being leveled at DuPage County, Illinois whose policies almost mirror the Arizona law…

Well, that is the headline that should be in the papers today if, that is, the Obama administration actually cared about law instead of only looking for a convenient political target which is all the administration’s focus on Arizona really is. It isn’t about immigration, illegals, the law, or any legitimate thing other than pure partisan politics. Obama thinks he has a great angle with which to pander to the Hispanic vote. That is all he cares about.

As the Chicago Tribune’s David Byrne notes, Obama is being wholly inconsistent with his attack on Arizona.

If it is unconstitutional and odious for state and local cops to enforce federal immigration laws, then why hasn’t the Obama administration sued dozens of Chicago collar counties and towns to stop them from doing it?

Byrne notes that rules for checking the status of illegals is required by… well, maybe you’ll be surprised, maybe not…

Suburban counties and some major suburbs here check the immigration status of anyone who has been booked, even for minor crimes. Even more surprising, this is done under the blessing and encouragement of … the Obama administration.

The so-called 287(g) program allows local law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status through an extensive Department of Homeland Security database of anyone who has been incarcerated and to hold anyone who has an immigration problem.

All this goes to show the hypocrisy of this current president and his lawless administration. None of them pay their taxes, none of them observe Obama’s “ethics” restrictions (Obama constantly waives them for his buddies), none of them observe the transparency rules that Obama claimed he’d implement… in short this administration just doesn’t care a whit about “law.” Byrne does a fine job exposing the hypocrisy.

Take a click over to Byrne’s piece and see all the details.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie?

I increasingly turn to the British Press in order to get assessments of what is happening here in the USA economy. It offers a somewhat different perspective.

I do not know what the Depression “felt like” in 1932. But we do have a historical record. It took from October 1929 until early 1932 before America really began to feel the effects of the Great Depression. Sanguine historians and the historical record argue persuasively that FDR’s New Deal Socialist Programs, begun in 1933, prolonged the Depression in America long after Europe and elsewhere had begun sustained economic recovery. Amity Shlaes’ excellent book, The Forgotten Man, shows [among other things] how FDR shamelessly politicized the Great Depression in order to consolidate Progressive Democrat political gains. In 1937 economic and employment conditions were simply awful in America. Unemployment in 1937 was higher than it was in 1931, fully two years after the Crash of ‘29. Yet, FDR was elected to a Third and a Fourth Term.

Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, recognized eventually that all of the Keynesian spending had not worked. In 1939, Morgenthau even testified before Congress that the spending had not worked. This made him very unpopular, but he remained very loyal to FDR to the end. In 1939, the unemployment rate was still above 17% and much higher in minority neighborhoods and isolated areas. It was mobilization for World War II that brought the US out of the Great Depression, not the New Deal. One wonders how the revisionist progressive history has survived this long. Amazingly, President Obama doggedly pursues the same failed Keynesian strategies eighty years later. Progressive is apparently not progressive. The “true believers” of this form of Socialism may claim that this is Conservative cherry-picking of statistics. But the total record of the New Deal is no lie, and the total record of the New Deal era is dismal failure.

Obama’s transformative Progressive-Socialism, redistribution, collectivist economic strategies

Obama’s transformative Progressive-Socialism, redistribution, collectivist economic strategies, government takeover of private industry, crony capitalism, and the emphasis on Party Ideology at the expense of “We the People” is leading us down a path to fimancial collapse and statism. This is a dangerous time for the US. There are serious ideological splits in American politics today. President Obama has transformed these divisions into a deep polarization. Note how Obama in full campaign mode every day: Bush is a demon; and the Republicans and Conservatives are the Devil. FDR used the same tactic against his ideological opponents and the GOP throughout his Presidency. To this day, Democrats still trot out the ghost of Herbert Hoover in order to scare the older generation. Bipartisanship? Tell me another fairy tale.

[Note: There have been deep political divisions in this country since the assassination of JFK. The Liberal media of the day tried to blame conservatives for that assassination. Many on the Left persist in asserting this nonsense. Their disappointment was shattering when it was adjudged that Lee Harvey Oswald, an avowed Marxist educated in Moscow, and an axe to grind with America’s young President Kennedy, was deemed to be the lone assassin. It is not beyond speculation that Oswald was employed by Fidel Castro. Castro clearly had motive and opportunity. Is it any wonder that the full Warren Report has never been released? Hence, Oliver Stone and others still manage to push the ridiculous CIA-Big Business-Republican Conspiracy theories.]

I don’t believe most of us fully understand what a full collapse of our economy would bring. A collapse of the economy means that our country’s credit-worthiness is seriously downgraded. There would be unemployment levels possibly 3-4 times higher than the current unemployment rate. The economy would seriously contract. Everything would be in short supply, including cash in your pocket. Collapse would call for folks to support each other and help one another. It could possibly be much worse than I describe depending on levels of crime and civil unrest.

However, in Obama’s ideologically divided America, blaming George Bush and the Republicans will ensure that this “crisis does not go to waste.” It might well be “Full Speed Ahead” for the Obama Fundamental Transformation of America. Collapse plays into the hands of unscrupulous politicians, demagogues and would-be tyrants. A collapse today, with Obama’s vision of governing, could result in a claim to vast and sweeping emergency powers. Would he use the Obama-friendly Mainstream Media to further demonize the opposition? Would he restrict or shut down the Internet? Would he use the FCC to shut down Talk Radio? Would he take over or shut down private enterprise in the name of the workers?  Would he recruit Party members and demand loyalty to a new one-party state? Would a Progressive Party Card [“Card Check” anyone?] be the only ticket to finding a job? Would membership in a Labor Union Front create special privileges for Progressive Party members? Would a collapse facilitate a gradual, and ever more public, blaming and purge of dissent and dissidents? This happened in Russia in 1917-30 during the Marxist-Communist Revolution and was narrowly averted in Western Europe in 1919 only to see them fall prey to Fascism and National Socialism from 1921-1935.

People may say: “This is nuts! This can’t happen here! This is crazy talk!”  Oh really?

American Revolution was about individual liberty and freedom

Ideological divides, when pushed, historically often lead to civil war and revolution. Become a student of History. The American Revolution was distinctly different in character, purpose, and level of violence from the later French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Nazi and Fascist Revolutions. Those later Revolutions were about collectivism, class warfare, and subjugation, not freedom. The American Revolution was about individual liberty and freedom. Our Constitution is a covenant between “We the People” and a subservient Government that protects our borders and our rights. But, Progressives like Obama believe that too much information is dangerous and that government knows what is best for you. This is not American thinking, this is collectivist thinking.

I recommend that everyone read [or re-read] Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm, Anthem, Atlas Shrugged, and We the Living, to see where all of this leads. These works’ authors all saw the horrors of the Totalitarian State and the Cult of Personality up close and personal. These works will inspire and motivate you to learn more and do more to protect our unique American way of life.

“We the Living is not a novel ‘about Soviet Russia.’ It is a novel about Man against the State. Its basic theme is the sanctity of human life … using the word “Sanctity” not in a mystical sense, but in the sense of “supreme value.” – Ayn Rand, 1958.

It is ironic isn’t it? Whether or not we celebrate another “traditional” Independence Day may depend on:

1. Studying history, and applying the lessons from history that extend freedom and personal responsibility.
2. Studying the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, The Federalist, and other period writings.
3. Going to the polls this November and voting for Freedom, even in the face of voter intimidation.
4. Electing Candidates in November who faithfully execute their Oath to the Constitution of the United States.

Freedom is never free; the price is knowledge, vigilance, and action.

Obama Says Stimulus Worked, Created Jobs… Here’s a Reminder of the Waste

In his recent trip to Racine, Wisconsin, President Obama claimed that his stimulus policies worked and “saved jobs.” He also said that his policies staved off another Great Depression. But lets take a look at some of the graft, waste and pointless, useless, wild-eyed spending that was in his so-called stimulus.

1. $5 million to create a geothermal energy system for a shopping mall in Tennessee. The mall is over half empty of tenants and has had falling shopper attendance for years
2. $1.57 million to Penn State University study fossils in Argentina
3. $100,000 to a puppet theater in Minnesota
4. $2 million to build a replica railroad tourist trap in Carson City, Nev.
5. A boat cruise company in Chicago got almost $1 million to “combat terrorism”
6. $500,000 went to Ariz. State Univ. to study ant genetics
7. Another $450,000 went to Uinv. of Arizona to study ants
8. Almost $400,000 went to Univ. of New York to pay students to drink beer and smoke marijuana for a study there
9. $219,000 to the Nat’l Institute of Health to study if young people “hook-up” after getting drunk
10. $210,000 to the Univ. of Hawaii to study bees
11. $700,000 to crab fishermen in Oregon to pay for lost crab pots
12. $5,000 a person tax rebate if you buy a new electric golf cart (Wall Street Journal)
13. Up to $1 million went to prisoners in $250 stimulus checks (FoxNews)
14. $54 mil to a New York Indian tribe to run its casino (New York Post)
15. $1 billion for a power plant in Mattoon, Illinois that is based on speculative science and may not even work
16. $15 million to back-road bridges that get little traffic in Wisconsin
17. $800,000 for a practically unused airport in Pennsylvania
18. $3.4 million for an animal walk way under a road in Florida
19. $1.15 million to install a guard rail for a lake that doesn’t even exist in Oklahoma
20. $10 million to renovate a rail station that has stood unused for a decade
21. $578,000 to battle homelessness in Union, New York even though the town says they have no homeless people there
22. $233,000 to the Univ. of Calif. to study why Africans vote… in Africa
23. $2 million to build a new fire house in a Nevada town that has no firemen
24. North Carolina schools got $4.4 million for literacy and math coaches… to teach their teachers!
25. $54 million for a railroad project in Napa Valley went to a minority-owned company that then hired a local construction company for half the price, pocketing the rest
26. A California company was given $15 million in stimulus money to monitor water quality in a stream it was under indictment for polluting previously

Well, obviously this is just a tiny list of the graft, waste, and useless spending in Obama’s so-called stimulus bill but it serves to illustrate the fact that stimulating the economy was far from the minds of those congressmen that voted for the bill. It was more about paying off constituents than stimulating the economy.

Obama and the Trouble With Voting ‘Present’

Weak and radical, the president looks more like Jimmy Carter all the time.

When Barack Obama announced he was running for president in February 2007, Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report wrote “Obama’s history of voting ‘present’” in Springfield, Ill.—even on some of the most controversial and politically explosive issues . . . raises questions . . . Voting ‘present’ is one of the three options in the Illinois Legislature (along with ‘yes’ and ‘no’) but it’s almost never an option for the occupant of the Oval Office.”

Mr. Gonzales’s words were prescient. Barack Obama may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present. That has been the case with his response to the environmental catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. The president was late recognizing the disaster’s magnitude, late in visiting the region, late in approving requests by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and late in feigning outrage. He has never offered an independent plan to stop the leak.

Mr. Obama also seems disinterested in hearing from experts about the spill. The White House’s “Deep Water Horizon Response Timeline” doesn’t list a single meeting between Mr. Obama and industry experts, though he did send Energy Secretary Steven Chu and others to Houston May 12 to meet with BP and others.

Yet while the president says his Noble Prize-winning energy secretary has been “examining every contingency,” Mr. Chu was clueless about BP’s plans to install a cap over the well to funnel oil to a vessel on the surface. As the New York Times reported last Saturday, “After the cap was successfully placed, Mr. Chu wondered aloud why oil was still spewing.” BP engineers had to explain that oil was still coming from vents that “would be closed very slowly to ensure that mounting pressure would not force the cap off.”

Even now, Mr. Obama looks like a spectator, albeit an angry one, barking at White House aides to “plug the damn hole” (now that’s a good idea no one has thought of) and telling NBC’s Matt Lauer he’s in search of an “ass to kick.”

But the main political behind that’s being kicked is Mr. Obama’s. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll says Americans give the federal government a 69% negative rating for its handling of the spill, compared to a 62% negative rating for Washington’s handling of Katrina in August 2005.

This pattern of being merely present has been apparent almost since the first days of the Obama presidency. He may unveil his mighty teleprompter to help pass what Congress has drafted, but this White House seems strangely disconnected from crafting legislation. For example, last year’s stimulus was largely drafted by House Appropriations Chairman David Obey of Wisconsin, one of Congress’s most liberal members. As a result, what passed was a wasteful spending bill rather than an economic growth package.

And faced with a growing mountain of debt, Mr. Obama passed the issue off to an ineffectual commission whose report is due after the election. After growing the size of the federal government by a quarter in just over a year, he now says he’d like agencies to try to find 5% cuts in their budgets.

On other controversies—the attempt of high-ranking aides to entice candidates not to challenge incumbent Democratic senators, the details of cap-and-trade legislation, the resolution of big conflicts between the House and Senate versions of financial regulation, and the drafting of comprehensive immigration reform—Mr. Obama appears to be removed, distant and detached, unwilling or unable to provide the adult supervision Washington requires.

The result is that he receives a 38% approval and 52% disapproval rating on his handling of the economy in the latest Economist/YouGov poll. The GOP enjoys a nine-point lead over Democrats in Rasmussen’s latest generic ballot.

This is causing the public to revisit concerns it’s had about Mr. Obama since he clinched the Democratic nomination in March 2008. Then the ABC/Washington Post Poll reported that 46% of Americans found him too “inexperienced” to be an effective president, the highest number ever for a major party presidential nominee. In October, just before the election, ABC/Washington Post asked the question again: 44% called Mr. Obama too inexperienced. On issue after issue, Mr. Obama is providing plenty of evidence to validate those concerns.

Americans might hope the president’s diffidence when it comes to the hard work of government might mitigate his more extreme liberal tendencies. No such luck. Mr. Obama is an odd mixture of passivity and radicalism. He’s happy to be a cheerleader for policies (like nationalizing health care) that many Americans find dangerously liberal.

The country has had another president both weak and radical at the same time: Jimmy Carter.

General McChrystal Tells Army He’ll Retire

WASHINGTON — Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was fired last week as the top U.S. general in the stalemated Afghanistan war, told the Army on Monday that he will retire.

Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins said McChrystal, 55, notified the service of his plans, but he has not yet submitted formal retirement papers. It is not clear when he will leave the service, but the process usually take a few months.

In announcing McChrystal’s ouster on Wednesday, President Barack Obama praised his long Army career but said his intemperate remarks in a magazine article that appeared last week could not be abided.

McChrystal apologized for the remarks in Rolling Stone magazine and flew to Washington last week to resign as commanding general of the war.

The Army has been McChrystal’s only career.

McChrystal was promoted to the selective and coveted rank of four-star general last year. It is not clear whether McChrystal will be able to retain that rank in retirement. Under Army rules, generals need to serve three years as a four-star officer to retain that rank, with its prestige and retirement benefits.

The secretary of the Army can allow officers with as little as two years of service to keep their retirement rank, Collins said.

Three military and defense officials in Washington said Obama may use his power as commander in chief to allow McChrystal to keep all four stars. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because McChrystal has not yet submitted his paperwork.

McChrystal was the Pentagon’s choice to run the war following a year of Taliban advances in 2008 and early 2009. He replaced Gen. David McKiernan, also a four-star Army general, after McKiernan was fired for failing to apply the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal represented. McKiernan retired from the Army almost immediately.

The Senate Armed Service Committee will hold a confirmation hearing Tuesday for Gen. David Petraeus, nominated to succeed McChrystal as the top U.S. and NATO general in Kabul.

Oil is Humanity’s Original Sin

The BP oil spill in the gulf has been the cause of an enormous amount of editorial. If you are a Democrat the villain is BP, Tony Hayward and “Big Oil” and if you are a Republican it is the federal government’s lack of oversight and more recently President Obama and his “Shake Down” of $20 Billion from BP.

I personally believe the villain in this story is all of humanity and that oil, for now, is our original sin.

Consider the morality of eating meat. Meat, being made from animals, requires the death of the animal to fulfill our consumption of it. Would it be productive to vilify the slaughterhouse, excoriate the butcher and resent the clerk at the deli counter but have no feelings of remorse or responsibility while eating that sandwich? The simple fact is the supply chain from rancher to grocer exists to deliver parts of dead animals for our consumption. In much the same way, the oil industry and the risks they take are one-in-the-same as the risks we take to have the oil available to us. Our standard of living is delivered to us by oil. When you see an oil covered albatross, that’s your oil covered albatross.

The reality is if it flies, someone will crash it. If it rolls, someone will wrap it around a tree, and if it floats someone will sink it. Technology, from transportation to chemical manufacturing to oil exploration is all done for the benefit of humanity and in the end, all of the activities that provide the conveniences of a 21st century life have risks. From a thirty-thousand foot view, the BP oil well disaster is still ongoing is just another industrial disaster. It may be worse than crashing a 747 loaded with people or better than hitting a school bus load of children with a freight train but in the end it is just another disaster that is the result of getting the products and services that humanity wants to the places they need to be. Underneath all the bluster and anger focused at BP is a denial that we are all to blame. It is counter productive to a boot on the throat of BP when the truth is, we all couldn’t or wouldn’t want to live without oil. To do anything less than take full responsibility for our own culpability in this accident is nothing less than hypocritical.

It makes much more sense to me to realize the best that man can do is find a harmony with nature where we are neither preservationists to the exclusion of modernity nor consumers to the exclusion of a healthy environment. To me, we should endeavor to be good stewards of the environment where minerals are mined, the earth is altered and animals are eaten with an eye to being responsible and yet with a clear understanding and personal ownership of the risks and responsibilities involved. After all, the most important animal on this planet is the human animal.

PelosiCare: An Expensive Mistake

The most recent report from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services brings a new level of disappointment following the hype and false promises of healthcare reform.

This report, an assessment from the non-partisan CMS, confirms the Democrat health plan will raise healthcare costs and threaten access to care for millions of Americans.

When the Ways and Means Committee called for this review in March, we knew the American people wanted all of the facts before moving ahead with the Democrat health bill.  Speaker Pelosi rushed the bill through the House without giving time to thoroughly evaluate it, actually claiming “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” This new CMS report reveals exactly why the Speaker wanted to keep the American people in the dark about the details of her damaging healthcare legislation.

I am extremely disappointed that the American people now face a healthcare law that increases spending at a time when Congress’ priority should have been on reducing out-of-control costs.  While millions more Americans will receive insurance cards under this legislation, few will have meaningful access to healthcare.  Under the bill, almost half of all new individuals gaining ‘coverage’ will be dumped onto Medicaid, a failing welfare program that will not meet their healthcare needs.

The report finds that while the legislation will nominally achieve President Obama’s goal of expanding coverage to 34 million individuals, it will ultimately do so by forcing 18 million Americans onto a broken Medicaid system, “exacerbating existing access problems for Medicaid enrollees.”  The study estimates that national healthcare expenditures “would increase by $311 billion” as a result of the new law.  Additionally, fourteen million employees who currently enjoy employer-sponsored insurance will be dropped from their coverage.  Finally, the bill increases pressure on an already serious health professional shortage, meaning patients will have to wait in long lines for their health treatment and care.

This is neither the responsible spending nor policy people want. Rushed and forced healthcare that doesn’t meet the needs of the people is a pointless, expensive mistake

Your Emails Now Belong to O

Calling liberals out on their double standards now that their guy is in office has become quite the hobby of mine. One of the most exaggerated claims about Bush is that he significantly eroded our civil liberties through things like the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping.

Fair enough, Bush did some shady things. But even if he wire-tapped international calls without a warrant, he did not go snooping through our email accounts for local law enforcement purposes. That is precisely what the Obama Administration wants to do.

Talk about kicking it up a notch.

I wish I could say I’m surprised that no major news outlet except Drudge reported this story. I wish I could say I am surprised at the underwhelming response from the same people who protested President Bush so vehemently. I wish. This is proof that there really are two standards – one for liberals and one for conservatives.

In case you actually care (instead of just pretend-care like Bush-haters) here’s the deal with warrantless email hacking: Relying on a 1986 pre-internet law dealing with electronic data storage, the Obama Administration has been arguing that emails opened and kept in your account for over 180 days are not subject to Fourth Amendment warrant requirements. Even the liberal 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has the highest Supreme Court turn-over rate of any of the circuits, agrees that the Constitution is more important than some law Congress enacted before Al Gore created the internet.

Still, somehow a piss-ant magistrate judge in Colorado found solid ground to grant Obama’s request to snoop through our emails. In his decision, the judge held that there is “no reasonable expectation of privacy” in emails that are over 180 days old. Can you freaking believe that? No reasonable expectation! Only lawyers could convince themselves of such a ridiculous argument.

Thus, because the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 apparently overrules the U.S. Constitution, we no longer enjoy the same privacy in our emails that we do with snail mail. Until the Supreme Court steps in, it’s quite possible that your emails are fair game depending on the jurisdiction in which you live.

At least Bush was only intercepting international phone calls and not citizen-to-citizen communication within the United States. The Supreme Court has long held that the Constitution does not extend to anyone or anything crossing international borders, but that’s irrelevant because liberals manifestly do not care about facts when they decide to protest civil liberties.

So beware: If your private information is stored anywhere other than your bedroom hardrive, it’s no longer private. That’s what this judge’s ruling boils down to. It’s shocking, but what Obama wants, Obama gets.

This is the same administration that just nationalized healthcare and plans to put our medical records into a national electronic database. A few weeks after assuring us that our medical records would be kept confidential, Obama now wants to snoop through private emails without probable cause. Can you imagine the reaction if Bush had pulled something like this?

The scary thing is that this has even broader implications than one instance of a disregard for the Fourth Amendment. The same administration that wants to peek into our emails now gets another selection for the U.S. Supreme Court and will also hand-pick countless other lower courts appointees, including constitutionally-illiterate Goodwin Liu.

We continue to see what he meant by “Change,” my friends. Just when reciting 2008 campaign slogans becomes more than a little cliché, O’ swoops in and breathes new life into our little game. This time he’s doing it through an ideological takeover of the judiciary.

Liberal judges disregard the Constitution so our emails can be read without a warrant. They misread the Constitution when holding we can’t step aside for two minutes on National Prayer Day but somehow decide that we still have to buy tax-payer funded copies of the Koran for Guantanamo detainees. Oh and by the way, their next step is to allow warrantless cell phone tracking so Big Brother will know our whereabouts 24/7.

How’s that for intrusions on our civil liberties? Where have all the Bush-haters gone? If the lack of outcry from lefties purportedly valuing civil liberties is not the epitome of hypocrisy, I don’t know what is.

Roskam Slams Obama Nuclear Weapon Plan

President Barack Obama’s self-imposed nuclear restrictions concerns U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam.

On Tuesday Obama announced a new Nuclear Posture Review that limits the United State’s potential use of nuclear weapons, even in self defense. This is part of Obama’s plan to render nuclear weapons as obsolete across all nations. Obama is hoping his unilateral action will bring Russia to the bargaining table to reduce nuclear stockpiles.

“To stop the spread of nuclear weapons, prevent nuclear terrorism, and pursue the day when these weapons do not exist, we will work aggressively to advance every element of our comprehensive agenda — to reduce arsenals, to secure vulnerable nuclear materials, and to strengthen” international agreement, Obama said in a statement.

Under the new plan, the U.S. promises not to use nuclear weapons against countries that don’t have them. However, the policy would not apply to states like North Korea and Iran, because of their refusal to cooperate with the international community on nonproliferation.

Roskam, a DuPage Republican, said he is concerned the plan will hamstring all available national defense options for the U.S. military. He said no one wants to see nuclear weapons used but the announcement of this plan telegraphs our defense strategies to hostile nations and makes the U.S. less secure.

“This one-sided policy hamstrings the U.S., but does absolutely nothing to rein in hostile countries even as they fail to live up to their international obligations. The President’s recent wavering on the need for strong and enforceable sanctions to curb Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons only further encourages defiant foreign powers like Iran and North Korea to continue down a road of aggressively developing and producing nuclear weapons,” Roskam said in a press release today. “I urge the President to rethink this issue, work with our international partners to convince Iran to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons, and pursue multi-national solutions to global nuclear responsibility.”