Certainly a country which can invent the Iron Dome can come up with a better stone …

Many Jews have already been killed or seriously wounded by Arabs throwing stones and boulders at their cars, persons, or property. Among the dead and seriously wounded have been very young children.

Arabs have laughed at Israel’s feeble response–soldiers not being allowed to deal with Arabs who seek to maim or murder the way any other would-be assassin would (or should) be handled.

Sensitive about world opinion, Israel continues to court disaster by allowing its people to be targeted at will at little or no cost to their assailants.

This being the case, Israel should pack up and leave the disputed territories–or anywhere else it allows itself to be treated with such murderous disdain. What incentive do Arabs have to stop such behavior?

If Israel (hopefully) chooses not to simply exit the arena, then the Jews must get serious about how to handle this continuing problem.

Firstly, when hard rocks are thrown at your head and other vital parts of your body, it must be a given that you’re allowed to defend yourself as best as possible. Goliath used a spear and mighty sword against David’s sling.

If someone goes after an American policeman with a club, you best believe if the cop shoots him, it will be considered legitimate self defense. While there’s frequently a double standard when Israel is involved, it’s up to Israel to point the duplicity out to those who question its actions…and then tell those folks to drop dead if that attempt fails.

Having said this, for the sake of trying to avoid additional headaches, there is a better way. And, again, those who gave the world the cell phone, the Pillcam Endoscopic Capsule, and Iron Dome can surely meet this challenge as well.

The Arabs like throwing stones. So, let’s play their game…only better. Much better.

Surely a military which can produce a Merkava tank can devise a weapon which can launch or fire stones more accurately and with much greater force than those tossed by Arabs…

Mass produce it, then get it into the hands of those whom are likely to be targeted along with Israeli police and soldiers defending them. And try, as best as possible, to keep it out of Arab hands.

Rubber bullets and tear gas are no longer viable options. Arabs have no fear of them.

Rocks being accurately and forcefully fired back in self defense against rock throwing assailants will increase the cost to those perpetrating the crime. That’s known as deterrence–something Israel does not have (or deliberately won’t exercise) on the local level at this point in time.

Any Arabs hurt, killed, maimed, and so forth will be victims of their own aggression–unlike the young Israel father and infant son murdered by the actions of Arab stone throwers and so forth http://www.timesofisrael.com/two-life-terms-for-palestinian-stone-thrower/ ; http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/15/terror-israeli-baby-in-critical-condition-after-palestinians-reportedly-throw-rocks-at-jewish-vehicles/.

Lastly, any would-be Arab murderer wounded as result of such Jewish defensive action should be treated by Arab hospitals–not the usual pattern where Jews attempt to out Christian Christians by turning not only their left and right facial cheeks but also both of their butt cheeks to appease their enemies.

Too many stories abound about Jewish doctors saving folks who would butcher them in a heartbeat if given half a chance. Sorry, it’s time for this one-sided fairy tale to end. Let Mahmoud Abbas’s doctors treat their own heroes.

It’s time for Jews to forget about trying to score celestial Brownie points and so forth for such allegedly “good” behavior.

How about the Jewish teaching which states that when one is kind to the cruel, one winds up being cruel to the kind? There is no doubt that this has indeed been happening over and over again. Over one thousand Arab murderers and wannabes were released for Shalit–some who have already committed new crimes (just one of too many examples).

People–all people (even Jews)–are allowed to defend themselves. And, on that same note, Israel needs to quickly get itself a death penalty for those who commit murder or attempt to do so.

Until the Jewish State takes itself more seriously, it should not expect others to do so.

A good place to start will be devising an effective answer to the deadly stone problem…one which will make Arab assailants sorry that they ever lifted a rock in the first pace.

http://q4j-middle-east.com

The post Of Domes And Stones… appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

President Obama talked about “racism” at Morehouse College this weekend. The timing is interesting because the trial of George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin in February 2012, will begin in June. Zimmerman is Hispanic and Martin was black.

President Obama stated at Morehouse, “We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. Growing up, I made quite a few myself. Sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. I had a tendency sometimes to make excuses for me not doing the right thing. But one of the things that all of you have learned over the last four years, is there’s no longer any room for excuses.”

President Obama interjected himself into the Zimmerman case when he said that if he had a son he would “look like Trayvon”.

Clash Daily reports, “State prosecutors in the case against George Zimmerman are pushing to keep Zimmerman’s attorneys from bringing testimony about Trayvon Martin’s past during the trial.”

“The state said in motions filed on Friday they want to prevent Zimmerman’s attorneys from bringing up Martin’s personal life, including his school records, previous suspension from school, fights, text messages sent prior to his death unless related to case and his social media use. The motion also says the state wants to prevent the defense from using Martin’s toxicology report, which showed the level of marijuana in Martin’s blood the night he was shot and killed,” notes Clash Daily.

Yahoo News reports:

George Zimmerman has waived his right to a pretrial hearing over whether he should be acquitted of murder charges under Florida’s “stand your ground” law. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who’s charged with second-degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, said Tuesday in court that he did not want the preliminary hearing, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The surprising move by Zimmerman’s legal team means the controversial case will go straight to trial in early June.

Zimmerman had the right under Florida’s 7-year-old “stand your ground” law to argue to the judge in a special hearing without a jury that he’s immune from both civil and criminal prosecution. The law, versions of which are on the books in 20 states, says people who have a reasonable belief their lives are in danger in a public place can harm an attacker without first attempting to retreat.

The 29-year-old says he acted in self defense when Martin attacked him on Feb. 26, 2012. Prosecutors say Zimmerman profiled Martin, pursuing him around the neighborhood, and then confronting and killing him with his gun.

This Florida case grabbed national political and media attention when first reported. Some Sanford residents say the Zimmerman case reflects a larger issue of black racial profiling by police.

Governor Rick Scott commissioned a task force to review Florida’s stand your ground law. According to the Miami-Herald, “A 19-member task force commissioned by Gov. Rick Scott to review Florida’s Stand Your Ground law has put out its final report, largely voicing support for the law. The task force made a handful of recommendations for the Legislature, but began the report by stating that, at its core, the self-defense law is fine as it is.”

The post Will George Zimmerman get a fair trial? appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

The Untouchables, Paramount Pictures, 1987

By Mr. Curmudgeon:

In the 1987 film “The Untouchables,” the street-smart cop Jim Malone (played by Sean Connery) gives Justice Department agent Eliot Ness a strategy for dealing with Al Capone and his criminal organization. “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone.” After all the violent gun-play, the revenue boys at the IRS, not Ness, undid Capone. Since then, the jackboots at the IRS have been America’s real Untouchables, treating those it considers dangerous as “Public Enemy Number One.” Obama co-opted these untouchables to introduce the Tea Party to his and Capone’s “Chicago way.”

“There is no question that Republicans are trying to make political hay here,” senior White House aide Dan Pfeiffer told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Pfeiffer was referring to revelations that the White House received an Inspector General’s report last June that said the Internal Revenue Service targeted Tea Party and conservative groups for harassment ahead of the 2012 presidential race. The Obama White House looked the other way.

When NBC host David Gregory asked Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his reaction to the IRS attack on President Obama’s political opposition, his answer sounded eerily Obamaesque, “I don’t think we know what the facts are. The investigation has just begun, so I’m not going to reach a conclusion about what we may find.”

NBC said McConnell’s wishy-washy, non-conclusion-jumping response proved Republican leaders were struggling “to marshal evidence to support” the Inspector General’s report.

If you wonder why my contempt for establishment Republicans knows no bounds, McConnell’s pathetic response provides one among many reasons. While Republican leaders are more than willing to use the IRS scandal as a club with which to beat the Obama Administration, it’s clear from McConnell’s answer that it isn’t prepared to do much about it. That’s because the Tea Party has been a constant thorn in McConnell’s side since Kentucky Republicans rejected his handpicked Senate candidate Trey Grayson in favor of Tea Party champion Rand Paul. McConnell’s apathetic response proves the establishment GOP applauds Obama’s “Chicago way” politics when aimed at their mutual enemy, the Tea Party.

The bad news for McConnell is that a Louisville Courier-Journal/Bluegrass poll found 34 percent of Kentucky respondents plan to vote against him in 2014, while 44 percent plan to “wait to see who is running against him before deciding.” In response, McConnell is already plying his state with political ads touting his “leadership” in Washington.

“The fact that the campaign is already fast and furious indicates that Sen. McConnell’s polling suggests there’s something for him to worry about,” David Adams, chairman of the Kentucky Republican Liberty Caucus, told Real Clear Politics. “It’s kind of a weird sense I get that the opportunity for an opponent for Sen. McConnell in a primary just got better. Maybe our options have increased,” said Adams.

According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, “The United Kentucky Tea Party, a group of 17 Tea Parties from across the state, says it is recruiting someone to challenge McConnell in the primary. The group charges that McConnell has supported debt-ridden budgets and profligate spending throughout his career.”

John Kemper, the tea party group’s spokesmen, told the Journal, “When we started, we know we had a base of about 25 percent who would vote for anybody but Mitch McConnell, so it moved nine points. That’s encouraging.”

Democrats are hoping to discourage Tea Party plans for 2014. “Never underestimate the Tea Party’s ability to overplay its hand,” Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee told the Huffington Post. “Just because there is universal agreement that the IRS went too far, that should not be misread as acceptance of the tea party’s ideology of anger.”

There is certainly anger; anger that a permanent, unelected bureaucracy targeted groups opposed to the federal government’s authoritarian expansion under an administration that views liberty-shielding constitutional restrictions as mere suggestions, and that IRS targeting most likely swayed the outcome of a close presidential election.

Anger, however, is not the Tea Party’s ideology. It’s beliefs are non-partisan and universal. Thomas Jefferson, in fact, called them “self-evident.” That Americans should “assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.”

Citizens in our Republic lost their way when forgetting that America was founded on the idea that “all men are created equal” and do not answer to royal authority. That America is unique among the nations of the Earth for prizing the freedom of the individual above the demands and needs of the group. The Bill of Rights assumes that government and democratic majorities are threats to individual freedom. The Founders distrusted authoritarian power, whether from a king or the mob.

The man whose re-election was a top priority for the IRS, Barack Obama, told Ohio State’s 2013 graduating class that Americans “are blessed with God-given and inalienable rights, but with those rights come responsibilities — to ourselves, to one another, and to future generations.”

“Inalienable” means “not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated, inviolable, unassailable, inherent.” So, how is it our God-given, inalienable rights are transferable and subject to the whims of others … and future generations?

They aren’t.

That’s why Obama and establishment Republicans need a strong, authoritarian IRS to enforce an ideology foreign to a fundamental American principle that declares individual liberty as inherent, inviolable nor capable of being repudiated.

Why do Republican and Democratic Progressives fear the Tea Party? Thomas Jefferson said it best, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

Liberty and justice, then, are the Tea Party’s ideology, and it threatens the “Chicago way.”

The post The IRS, Establishment Republicans and Obama’s ‘Chicago Way’ appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

Chairman emeritus, Julian Bond, of the NAACP said the tea party is “admittedly racist”. Mr Bond, I challenge you to show us the video, article, facebook post or the tweet in which the tea party admitted it is motivated by racism.

As a black tea party activist who has participated in over 400 tea party rallies, I am confident that your claim is bogus. Therefore Mr Bond, you sir are a despicable liar, severely compromising your image as a statesman. You and your ilk purposely inspire hate in low-info black voters against tea party patriots who simply said no to Obama’s socialist agenda and trashing of the Constitution. Shame on you Mr Bond. http://www.examiner.com/article/naacp-chair-legitimate-for-irs-to-target-admittedly-racist-tea-party

The NAACP leadership has abandoned it’s commitment to traditional marriage, family, education, self-reliance and hard work. The once great well-intentioned organization has morphed into a far-left radial liberal racist hate group which exploits race, using it as a bludgeon to silence any and all opposition to Obama and the Democrats’ government overreaching, ever expending entitlement programs and Obama’s vowed redistribution of wealth. MLK would not approve.

Sadly, the NAACP feels embolden to lie about the tea party, confident that the mainstream media will not challenge them or demand proof of their outrageous allegations. The MSM gleefully distributes the NAACP’s lies.

Remember when NAACP president, Ben Jealous said he saw tea party protesters carrying signs which read, “Lynch Barack Hussein Obama” and “Lynch Eric Holder”? http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2010/07/13/naalcp_accuses_tea_party_of_wanting_to_lynch_obama_holder

Folks, the MSM hates the tea party. If the signs that Jealous claims to have seen existed, the MSM would have made sure they were posted everywhere. And yet, no one other than Mr Jealous has seen the lynch Obama and Holder signs. So, in plain English, Ben Jealous is a liar. The MSM never challenged Jealous to show them the signs. The MSM simply reported Jealous’ divisive hate-inspiring lie as fact.

Has anyone in the mainstream media asked Julian Bond to show them when and where the tea party admitted it is racist? No. Mr Bond is a black hate-filled liberal. The MSM loves blacks who say they are victims of a racist America. Thus, Bond’s accusation is reported as gospel.

What happened to the once great NAACP? What happened to Julian Bond, the dignified civil rights statesman? What seduced these trusted advocates for racial equality to the dark side, stumping for the socialists/progressives’ radical anti-America agenda? Money? MSM approval? A seat at the liberal Democrat massa’s table?

Mr. Bond, the NAACP and associates have lost their way, abandoning their mission of black empowerment. Their betrayal of black America includes re-enslaving them; making as many blacks as possible slaves of Obama’s welfare-state government subsidized and controlled America.

If true to their mission of real black empowerment, the modern civil rights movement would embrace and celebrate extraordinarily successful blacks such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and entrepreneur and presidential candidate Herman Cain.

But rather than holding the blacks I have mentioned up to black youths as shining examples of what can be achieved in the greatest land of opportunity on the planet via education and hard work, these successful blacks are despised by the black liberal plantation overlords.

The NAACP and company thrives on black Americans believing themselves victimized, disenfranchised and hated. Their mantra to black voters is Conservatives, Republicans and whites want you to fail. Keep voting for us and we will keep them at bay. Folks, I am talking big-time evil.

Rush Limbaugh appropriately calls the NAACP the NAALCP. The “L” is for liberal. Blacks who are Conservative – who bypass government programs to achieve success and who love their country are on the NAACP and company’s excrement list; targeted for destruction.

I say again, Mr Bond, you are a despicable liar. The tea party would never say it is racist because it is not. As a matter of fact, my personal experience bears witness that the tea party seeks the best for all Americans. The Left are the ones relentless in their attempts to make the tea party’s opposition to Obama’s agenda about race in an effort to slander and intimidate the tea party into silence. In reality, the tea party considers Obama’s race irrelevant.

The tea party is motivated by love; love for the greatest nation on the planet and their refusal to see it transformed into an Obama-nation of the vision of our Founding Fathers.

By the way Mr Bond, I am the black singer/ songwriter who penned the “American Tea Party Anthem”. Check it out on Youtube. It has a great hook! God bless. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bim8ZNdYbq4

Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated American
Chairman, Conservative Campaign Committee
LloydMarcus.com

The post NAACP Chair Julian Bond is a Liar! appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

By Mr. Curmudgeon:

Pundits have spilled lots of ink dissecting President Obama’s commencement speech to the Ohio State University graduating class of 2013. In light of recent news events, I’ll add my two-cents worth. Obama’s speech perfectly describes what the Progressive left believes America is and how all good Americans should act. America, in the president’s view, is a perpetual sea of crisis. Emergencies call for drastic actions where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. We, all of us, are the conscripted “first responders” to America’s sea of crisis. And these first-responders need someone to coordinate, organize, their efforts.

The president told Ohio State graduates that all good, well-adjusted Americans should begin each day as though a maniac has killed many of their fellow citizens. “When bombs went off in Boston, and when a malevolent spree of gunfire visited a movie theater, a temple, an Ohio high school, a 1st grade classroom in Connecticut, we saw citizenship,” said Obama, “In the aftermath of darkest tragedy, we have seen the American spirit at its brightest.”

In other words, Obama’s two fundamental principles of citizenship are fear and paranoia. They bind Americans into a comforting fellowship as we quietly sit in the government-sponsored psychologist’s reception room, awaiting our session with the doctor and a mega-dose of anti-anxiety meds.

The president, however, said there are those for whom America is not a sea of crisis but a “shining city on a hill.” For them, America is the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” They greet each day as a time for family, a day of work to provide for that family, a day they pursue in the knowledge that their taxes pay for the first-responders that deal with the rare incidences of maniacal violence that occur in a nation with a decreasing crime rate. They are individuals that, for the most part, are free and unafraid. Their one fear is that a fearful and paranoid government views their freedom and individuality as a threat. They believe citizenship requires them to be informed and to exercise their franchise in the voting booth each election. They are naturally predisposed to distrust a so-called “government of the people” that distrusts, well, “We the People.”

“You’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems,” Obama told Ohio State graduates, “some of these same voices [are] also doing their best to gum up the works.  They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.  You should reject these voices.  Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.”

Since his election as president, Obama has had one political force “doing their best to gum up the works,” the Tea Party. For establishment Republicans, the Obama presidency is viewed – to quote Obama’s description of the Benghazi attack – a minor “bump in the road.”

The Tea Party, therefore, was the only organized body to recognize the existential threat posed by an administration bent on the fundamental transformation of a nation founded on the principle of individual sovereignty – “All Men are Created Equal”; that Americans, to quote natural law philosopher John Locke, are “not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man,” that all should “be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection.” Equals have no need for, nor tolerance of, community organizers.

The president told a gathering of trusting, gullible college graduates to ignore Tea Party warnings “that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner” and that they “should reject these voices.” That message was taken to heart by the most powerful domestic arm of the very government Obama called a “creative and unique experiment” – the IRS. These Gestapo-like jackboots asked Tea Party tax-exempt applicants for: donor lists; copies of current web pages, blog posts and social networking sites; copies of newsletters, bulletins and flyers; dates of community events and rallies; subjects of speeches made at events; names of event organizers; copies of documents rating political candidates; and amounts spent on publishing.

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who swept into office during the great Tea Party tsunami of 2010, asked some pointed questions of outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller. The initial Obama Administration explanation for IRS targeting is that it was a conspiracy perpetrated by low-echelon jackboots centered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rep. Kelly asked Miller to explain, “Who do they [Cincinnati’s IRS field office] confer with? Who’s their [legal] council? … Yes or no, does it come back to D.C.?” “Yeah,” confirmed Commissioner Miller of Washington’s hand in the matter.

“You know what it does for the American people?” asked Kelly of Miller, “It really establishes what they feared … it kind of reconfirms that, ‘You know what, they can do almost anything they want to anybody they want, anytime they want. This is very chilling for the American people. Now, I know that … you’re resigning, you’re walking away from it. But this is not going to go away. This is a Pandora’s Box that has been opened and I don’t think you can get the lid back on it. And I don’t believe that the White House just found out about this in a news report …

“This has to do with highly targeted [Tea Party and conservative] groups – this reconfirms everything the American public believes. This is a huge blow to the faith and trust that the American people have in their government. Is there any limit to the scope to where you folks can go? Is there any question that you shouldn’t have asked? My goodness, ‘How much money do you have in your wallet, who do you get emails from, who’s sign do you put up in your front yard’ … this is a tax question? You don’t think that’s intimidating? It’s sure as hell intimidating.”

Miller excused his agency’s “creative and unique experiment” in fundamental change as an example of big-government’s fumbling incompetence. “When you’re on the other side of the fence,” Kelly said of citizens targeted by the federal Gestapo, “you’re not given that excuse … you’re not allowed to be shoddy … you’re not allowed to make mistakes, you’re not allowed to do one damn thing that doesn’t come into compliance. If you do, you’re held responsible right then. I just think the American people have seen what’s going on right now in their government. This is absolutely an overreach and this is an outrage for all America.”

Unlike Obama and his expression of government’s “creative and unique experiment,” the IRS, the Tea Party is not paranoid but cautious, like the person who shuts his windows and bolts his front door before heading to bed. It’s a precaution against the thief in the night.

The Constitution and its Bill of Rights assumes – as Obama clearly knows – that government “tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.” In 2012, The Tea Party heard a disturbance, turned on the light, exposing the government thief attempting to flee with our liberties. America did not listen.

Americans will be afforded an opportunity to thank the Tea Party for its early warnings, and its victimization at the hands of dangerous big-government goons, in the midterm elections of 2014. A Tea Party electoral tsunami will help Rep. Mike Kelly end that government’s “overreach.”

It’s time Americans reject Obama’s subservient brand of citizenship and stop the tyranny that clearly lurks “just around the corner.”

The post Citizen Obama appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

Allen West officially joins Fox News as a contributor. This may not come to a surprise to many, as West is featured on the news channel on a daily basis. The outspoken former Congressman from South Florida, will be giving his ‘special’ point of view on the different daytime and prime time programs like ‘Hannity,’ ‘The Factor.’ and others.

“Representative West’s congressional and military experience along with his fearless approach to voicing key issues will provide a valuable point of view to the FOX News lineup,” said Fox news vice president in the announcement released on Business Wire. “Representative West’s congressional and military experience along with his fearless approach to voicing key issues will provide a valuable point of view to the FOX News lineup.”

EDITORS NOTE: This content was originally posted at Shark Tank.

The post Allen West Officially Joins Fox News appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

Syria today is a nation state that is in the midst of a terrible civil war in which some 82,000[i] of her citizens have died in the last twenty-eight months.  Although the Sunni rebels have made impressive gains and bloodied the regime of Bashar al-Assad in significant ways, the regime, with the aid of its allies has showed itself to be pugnacious and resilient in its response to the rebellion. After almost two and a half years of fighting, the situation looks to be stalemated.[ii]

The question confronting the West, and the United States in particular, is what to do next. President Obama has mentioned “red lines” around the question of the use of chemical weapons, but that line is proving to be somewhat fuzzier than originally anticipated—especially since it appears that the rebels recently may have used sarin gas in the north[iii]. The Assad regime has played it very coyly, escalating slowly and testing each incremental increase in its use of WMD. But the general direction is clear, and the words “truce”, “negotiated settlement”, and “surrender” are not part of Assad’s vocabulary. This latter fact being the case, we return to the question of what the West should do next.

Before we attempt to answer this last question, it is important to realize that the West is not a monolith—each nation-state of those that make up the “West” has its own set of interests. This fact is especially salient as regards the European Union and the United States as well as the U.S. and Israel. Whereas the U.S. wants to see the Assad regime go and is willing to see it replaced with a Sunni Islamic state, hopefully no more radical than Moslem Brotherhood, the Israelis are most leery of such and prefer to see a defanged Assad regime continue because the Assad family has kept the common Golan border quiet for four decades. Israel’s recent attacks on Syria had very little to do with trying to topple the regime; they were strictly an attempt to deny Hezbollah any upgrade of weaponry that the receipt of Iranian Fateh-110 missiles would cause.

The United States and the E.U. tend to be conservative in their thinking concerning the Middle East—that is they are not inclined to see utility in dividing up broken states and forming new ones other than to create an Arab Palestinian state. Israel on the other hand sees the utility of promoting Kurdish nationalism and the establishment of a Kurdish national state that would include sections of Syria, Iraq, Iran, and probably Turkey. Israel can also see that a Sunni Islamist state in all of current Syria is very likely to be much more belligerent towards the Jewish state than has been the Assad regime, which has been content in allowing the Lebanese Hezbollah to engage the Israelis in occasional provocations while the Syrians watch with glee from the sidelines. These points mitigate for Israel to promote a situation in which the Assad regime neither wins the upper hand nor succumbs to Islamist-dominated Sunni rebels. Indeed, the formation of a Kurdish nation-state would do much to break the “Shiite Crescent” as well as to curtail the power of a Sunni Islamist Syria bent on regaining control over Coele-Syria. Israel thus can look at Syria and recognize that if she is about to become Humpty Dumpty, Israeli interests may be well served.

The question that now needs to be raised is whether the United States and the E.U. can be brought to realize that a degree of “Balkanization” of Syria is advantageous given the current power politics in the region. For Syria’s minorities, the prospect of a Sunni takeover is nothing short of catastrophic. The Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities all have been protected by the Assad regime and they only need to look across their borders to Iraq or Egypt to see how well minorities fare when a new fundamentalist majority comes to power. The Kurds of northeast Syria have managed to remain relatively neutral in the hopes of establishing their own autonomy as their brothers have done in Iraq, or to lay the ground-works for the establishment of a future Kurdish state.

Memory in the West unfortunately is very short. Western diplomats forget that the borders of the various Arab states in southwest Asia are less than a century old. The modern Arab states of the region and their borders are all the result of the Sykes-Picot Agreement[iv] of May 1916 anticipating the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. Borders at that time were drawn with little regard for ethnic identities and/or religious sensibilities. Maybe it’s time for that egregious error to be corrected. The civil war in Syria should prompt consideration of such a possibility before a decision to tilt the current playing field in Syria is made and implemented. A lot more is at stake than the borders of the Assad family empire; stopping Islamist attempts to resurrect the caliphate—whether Sunni or Shiite—may be accomplished here, if the correct moves are made. Careful thought and coordination are of the essence, as well as common sense and courage.

To my friends in the Iranian resistance: be careful about supporting the Syrian rebellion. Not that Assad deserves to stay in power—that is clearly not the case since he is guilty of crimes against humanity. But be careful whom it is that you support—a lesson that you learned the hard way when overthrowing the Shah thirty-five years ago. Remember that a secularist like Mubarak is preferable to an Islamist like Morsi. Not all change is necessarily for the better.

To my friends on the Hill: do your homework; know to whom it is that you give support. Learn some lessons for the mistakes made in Libya; a defanged dictator may be despicable because of his past misdeeds, but being defanged, he is harmless. Overthrowing such types sometimes brings much worse in its place. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Al-Qaeda is a far greater threat than the late Muammar al-Gaddafi ever was.

To our intelligence community: invest in the right people to  restore a creditable intelligence network in the region so as to know what’s going on at ground level. Our “humint” capabilities currently are sub-standard, especially in the Arab world; that’s a situation that must change if we are to succeed in the region. In the meantime, take a lesson or two from the Israelis whose skills far outstrip ours. And remember, believe only half of what you see and a quarter of what you hear.

Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker, author of over ninety articles on the Middle-East, is founder and Chairman of the Board of Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East, a grassroots organization dedicated to teaching the public and its elected officials of the need to promote genuine democratic institutions throughout the Middle-East region as an antidote to the dangers posed by Islamic fundamentalism. He may be contacted at contact@ADME.ws.

The post Syria: A Case of Humpty Dumpty appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

Americans need to understand the trials and tribulations of being a military family.  Through numerous interviews American Thinker has reached the realization that military families all have distinct differences and unique perspectives.  AT wants to thank all those who participated or were willing to participate.

Those interviewed wanted to make sure that Americans understand that military children are spectacular.  They are described by their parents as adaptable, independent, resilient, and maintaining a strong sense of patriotism.  Through their experiences they are able to view different cultures and values.  Yet as Sam, a “Mr. Mom,” told American Thinker, “all the people serving in the military volunteer, but their children are drafted.  They have no choice in this matter as to where they are relocated or how the serving parent is not there for different events in their life.”

It became obvious that children cope and react to their parent’s deployment in many different ways.  They are affected by their age, the type and length of the deployments, the support level, and how families are able to communicate.

Many of the younger children become clingy and react to the military parent as a stranger when he or she comes home for a visit.  A former SEAL’s wife stated, “My little girl cried every time her father held her.  She wanted Mommy.  I know my husband was hurt by this and felt rejected.  However, since he has been home, now it is all about Daddy.”

Other young children’s reactions range from adjusting well to doing poorly in school, and having emotional outbursts of crying, anger, and aggressiveness.  Angela, whose husband is an Army certified registered nurse, had to home-school her second-grade children because they refused to go to school when their daddy was away.  An Army lt. colonel noted that the longer the deployments are, the worse on the family.  He used to come home on a midterm leave for two weeks, but “when I left, the children’s emotions plummeted, grades got worse, and my wife had to deal with poor attitudes.  So my wife and I decided it was best if I did not come home until the deployment was over.”

An assistant Air Force chaplain described her ten-year-old child’s reaction: “She is afraid I will not come home and that she will never see me again.  I responded that I will try my very best but could not give her a 100% guarantee.  She bites her nails to a point that there are no nails left.  What seems to help is that we recently bought her an iPhone where she and I do face time together, so she can now see I am okay.”

A major in the Air Force Reserves also commented that he is having relationship problems with his sixteen-year-old daughter, who is currently shutting him out of her life.  She has been doing that since he was deployed in Afghanistan in 2010, even though he has been home for two years.  He attributes part of it to the fact that “my family knows that I have been in very dangerous places and worry that I am okay.  I only was able to have two fifteen-minute phone calls per week and I hardly had any time to e-mail.  I partially blame myself.  When I was over there, doing and seeing such horrific things, I had to shut myself off emotionally because I could not afford to lose it.  Sometimes it is tough to turn the emotions back on.”  He told American Thinker that his homecoming was a surprise to his daughter, and when she saw him, she screamed “Daddy!” and jumped into his arms.  He is having a hard time understanding what happened between “Daddy, I am so glad to see you” and “Daddy, I don’t want anything to do with you.” His wife explained that she thinks their daughter reacted to his withdrawal and numbness by making sure she was not going to be close to Dad anymore.  ”She sees him as changed and is protecting herself emotionally.” He has not given up, and he is working with his daughter to repair the relationship.  He wants her to know that he loves her and is very proud of her.

The different ways parents chose to help their children cope ranged from having a deployed parent doll, buying a “flat daddy” (a life-sized printed poster), making “Daddy on a stick,” having a memory box/journal, or, for the older ones, talking about their situation.

There are also schooling issues, which makes a big impact on teenage children.  Dr. Vivian Greentree, a Navy veteran, a military spouse, and the current director of research and policy for Blue Star Families (www.BlueStarFam.org), said, “I do not understand why orders have to be cut in October, which affects the school year.  To make stronger military families, something the military does have control over is relaying new orders in the summer.  This would make it easier for families to relocate to a new community and allow the children to start school at the beginning of the school year.”

After being transferred and relocating, the assistant chaplain spoke of her son’s problems adjusting to the rigorous grading scale of his new high school, even though he previously was an honors student.  She asked for some consideration: “My son should not be penalized for my choices.  I was told by the school that no exceptions would be made for military children.”  When told about this incident, Dr. Greentree responded that forty-two states signed a contract allowing for adjustments for military children.  These contracts will ensure that rules are in place requiring schools to respond, make accommodations, and understand military children.

Dr. Greentree reported that more and more families are now “geobatching,” where children and spouses do not relocate with the service person.  She noted, “My family has already moved four times, and I am not sure as a family we would move again, since my children are getting older and school is becoming an important part of their life.”  Another family interviewed has basically been apart for three years because they “geobatch.”  Their fifteen-year-old daughter, Stephanie, told American Thinker that she did not want to leave her friends and school in Georgia, and she is greatly appreciative that her parents decided to live apart when her mom was transferred to Kentucky.  The parents emphasized that they did it to make sure Stephanie has a stable lifestyle.

Dr. Greentree also cautions that children mirror the stay-at-home parent’s reaction, which is why endurance and flexibility were listed as the best attributes to have for the caregiver.  This can be seen through the eyes of three different spouses interviewed.  Tawana, a Navy veteran, understands the trials and tribulations of being a Navy spouse.  She has made it work by being very positive.  She makes a bucket list with her two boys, ages ten and seven, of all the exciting things they would do in their new home community, and she actively involves her children in sports programs to make new friends.  She and her husband make sure that he fits into the family schedule when returning home so as not to disrupt the children’s routines.  She agrees with Samantha, another military spouse, that open communication is very important, including using resources available, such as other military spouses or family support.

The former SEAL’s wife said re-integration was hard, since her husband tried to inject his rules on the family.  While she and the children saw it as intrusion, he saw it as trying to become a member of the family again.

Another spouse, Jessica, who has five children, including a special-needs child, appeared to be overwhelmed during the interview.  She felt that “it’s been a roller coaster ride.  I get really angry at times.  I have learned to do it alone.  It is a rough road and not very easy.  I miss him and want him to come home.  I am so frustrated and need him at home.  Of course, I don’t tell him any of this because I don’t want to worry him.  I do not rely on anyone but myself, because too many friends have come and gone, and I don’t trust others with my children.”

Alison, the author of Standing By, summarized it best: “Countless military children sacrifice a sense of personal security for America’s national security.  It is not perfect, but families endure because they know the deployment will end.  We are all in it together, and we become a team to get through this non ideal situation.”

The author writes for American Thinker.  She has done book reviews, author interviews, and has written a number of national security, political, and foreign policy articles.

The post The Whole Package: Military Families as Heroes appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

Rep. Hamilton Fish III

By Mr. Curmudgeon:

The news is electric with stories of Obama’s IRS targeting Tea Party and conservative groups, and his harassment of news organizations. This is nothing new and did not begin with Richard Nixon.

The 1930s saw the country in the grips of an economic collapse the likes of which it had never seen. With millions of Americans out of work and starving, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Democratically-controlled Congress began an unprecedented expansion of federal power, determined not to let – as was said years later – “a crisis go to waste.” And FDR used federal power to secure his own.

The great legacy of Roosevelt’s Progressive policies is that they condemned America to repeat its evils under Republican and Democratic administrations, magnifying in malevolence at every appearance.

As Obama proved with his manhandling of the Associated Press, Roosevelt was no fan of the fawning news media. “I am all in favor of chloroforming for certain newspaper men,” said FDR of Washington correspondent, Arthur Kroc. “Now take the New York Times, for example,” Roosevelt told Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, “Not that I have got anything against [Times publisher] Arthur Sulzberger, but he’s just plain stupid.” FDR’s distain for Sulzberger may have had more to do with his deep-seated anti-Semitism than critical coverage by the Times of his administration. The president ordered Morgenthau to audit the newspaper.

“My father,” admitted son Elliott Roosevelt, “may have been the originator of the concept of employing the IRS as a weapon of political retribution.”

Republican Rep. Hamilton Fish III was on the receiving end of FDR’s “political retribution.” Having won a seat in Congress in 1920, Fish was a grizzled legislative veteran when FDR was elected president in 1933. Fish was an ardent isolationist, anti-communist and, to Roosevelt’s chagrin, staunch New Deal opponent. It didn’t help matters that Fish represented New York’s 26th Congressional District – the location of FDR’s Hudson Valley home.

Fish and his wife were subjected to IRS audits – twice. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Fish abandoned his isolationism and joined the 387 House members that voted for a declaration of war.

FDR may have had his hands full fighting a two-front conflict with the Axis Powers, but his war on domestic political enemies never ceased. Republican Sen. Clyde Reed of Kansas learned that Roosevelt had phone wiretaps on Fish and many other GOP representatives. Years later, Fish was asked why he didn’t complain to Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. “There is a simple answer,” said Fish, “He would have told me there was nothing I could do about it.”

In their book “FDR Goes to War,” authors Burton Folsom Jr. and Anita Folsom recount that a retired FBI agent named William Sullivan told them, “Electronic devices were used freely all through World War II, with a minimum of controls. President Roosevelt made requests of various kinds.”

Roosevelt would use his considerable wartime pull to get the New York state legislature to gerrymander Fish’s congressional district. Fish lost his bid for re-election in 1944 … the year FDR died.

JUST IN PASSING …

Capt. Fish

Sec. FDR

During World War I, Fish served as a Captain in the 369^th U.S. Infantry Regiment. The unit was comprised of African-American enlisted men. They boarded ship and sailed to the killing fields of France on December 13, 1917 – with no U.S. Navy destroyer escort to protect their vessel as it plied U-boat infested waters. The 369^th was the first U.S. military unit to fight its way to the German Rhine. For gallantry in battle, Fish was inducted into the French Legion of Honor.

Reflecting on the accomplishments of his brave men, Fish remembered how the Navy abandoned them to the mercy of German submarines and their torpedoes; a decision that was most likely racially motivated. Fish dashed off an angry letter to express his outrage to then Under Secretary of the Navy … Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 1920, the memories of the First World War still vivid in his mind, freshmen Congressman Fish sponsored House Resolution 67. The measure called for the burial in holy ground of an unidentified American soldier killed in France. Others, “known but to God” from later conflicts, would join that soldier at Arlington Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknowns.

The post IRS as Weapon: History Repeats appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

After World War I the world’s monetary system was in disarray.  The victorious Allies sought to revive the gold standard.  However the structure which had been put in place after 1918 collapsed during the Great Depression. Some economists believe that the world’s attempt to remain on the gold standard prevented central banks from expanding the money supply enough to revive the world’s economies.

After World War II, representatives of the once again victorious allies met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to create a new international monetary system. At the time the United States accounted for more than 50% of the world’s manufacturing capacity and also held most of the world’s gold.  Since America was the uncontested economic Superpower these leaders decided to tie world currencies to the dollar.  The value of the dollar would in turn be controlled and supported by the fact that the dollar would be tied to gold at $35 per ounce.

While the Bretton Woods System was in force the central banks were given the task of maintaining fixed exchange rates. This was accomplished by massive and continuous intervention in foreign exchange markets. When a country’s currency became too expensive in relation to the dollar, that country’s central bank would sell its currency for dollars thus driving down the value of its currency.  And if the value of a country’s money became too low, that country would then aggressively buy its own currency to drive the price up.

This Bretton Woods System worked well until 1971.  By then, due to the “Guns and Butter” economic policies of the Johnson and Nixon administrations inflation in the United States and America’s rapidly expanding trade deficit undermined the value of the dollar. As a result America urged the now recovered and economically powerful Germany and Japan to increase the value of their currencies. Both nations did not want to do this. Raising the value of their currencies hurt their exports by increasing the prices for their goods in the United States which was their largest market.

When the pressure became unbearable, when too many nations were redeeming too many dollars against America’s dwindling gold supply the United States unilaterally abandoned the fixed gold value of the dollar allowing it to “float.”  Floating with relationship to money means it is allowed to fluctuate when compared to the currencies of other countries. Immediately the value of the dollar fell substantially when compared to other currencies, especially those of Germany and Japan.

This caused turbulence in the economies of nations and sent shockwaves through the political systems of the world.   In consequence the leaders of the major countries made an effort to revive the Bretton Woods system.  They came together in 1971, and reached the Smithsonian Agreement which for the first time allowed for the negotiation of fixed exchange rates.  However, this attempt soon failed.

In 1973, The United States and the other major economic powers agreed to a new system known as Managed Float.  This meant that central banks would still intervene with the buying and selling of their own currencies to eliminate any changes that might be perceived as too dramatic.

How long will this system of floating money, fiat currency, and systemic debt last?

Since I started with a quote from my favorite American philosopher, Yogi Berra I will frame my comments about the end result of America’s love affair with monopoly money and ever growing debt with another nugget from this source of double think profundity, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”

You know, I know and anyone who has enough economic awareness to realize you can’t spend more than you make forever knows that our present governmental financial framework is unsustainable.  Why?  Apparently our leaders believe you can spend more than you make forever.

If you have ever tried to manage your Visa payments by charging them to MasterCard you know the end of that game.  Our leaders have pawned our grandchildren’s future for the votes they buy with social programs, tax give-aways, and bail-outs.  However it is hard to lay all the blame on the shoulders of the perpetually re-elected.  The government is the people writ large.  Almost every household in America is in debt.  Almost every business in America is in debt.

Debt is not a bad thing in and of itself.  Actually it is one of the most liberating inventions in the world.  It allows economic activity to grow based upon future activity instead of just on current holdings.  This provides a multiplier effect that has given rise to the modern world.

However, when we spend more of the future than the present can service we have inverted the pyramid and are inviting a correction.  Even if the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media are blathering on about how good the stock market is doing, that the pretend unemployment rate is falling, that there is no inflation, and that the President says everything is getting better, the alternative media knows the present course is unsustainable.  Unsustainable. That word is spoken day after day on Fox and printed multiple times every day online from thousands of blogs, magazines, and newspapers.  All it means is it can’t last forever, or as an alarmist might say, “A crash is coming!”

Sure the stock market is flying high.  With the Fed pumping 85 billion a month into the banking system why wouldn’t it?  With that kind of money coming in why not play the Lotto?  Sure the unemployment rate is falling as long as you don’t count the people who have quit looking for a job.  Sure there’s no inflation as long as you don’t count energy or food.  And of course the President says everything is getting better all the time that is what his teleprompter tells him to say.

So, how long will this system of floating money, fiat currency, and systemic debt last?  None of us gets to live in the world we grew up in because the world moves too fast.  Things change. What was science fiction yesterday is your cell phone today.  One thing we can know for sure is that it isn’t over till it’s over.  Yet from a realistic evaluation of the deep hole we have spent ourselves into the future isn’t what it used to be and if the world were perfect it wouldn’t be.

Is there any way to stop this train wreck before we hit the wall?  Can we reign in Washington and stop the 6.85 million per minute that the best and the brightest are spending?  What do you think?  The great Tea Party victory of 2010 affirmed Boehner as the leader of the co-opted opposition, voted for multiple debt ceiling increases, and renewed the Patriot Act.  Do you think another Progressive Republican à la Romney has a chance to beat Hillary or would make any difference if they did?  I wish I had an answer to that because I’m tired of answering the question.  What do you think?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

The post “A nickel isn’t worth a dime today” appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

People in the Washington, DC area like to worry. Part of it’s because leftists are required to show “concern” about the darnedest things and part of it is because a large government workforce has to discover something to do or at least find a way to look busy.

For example, the National Weather Service suffered a crippling budget cut of about 3 percent when the sequester went into effect. I had assumed that after the cut hit, a spokesperson would inform us there would be no more rain or rainbows due to evil Republican budget cuts.

Instead the service is now under a hiring freeze and unable to begin what the WaPost called “a major pilot project aimed at helping the local community prepare for extreme weather.”

For those of you who tuned in late, “extreme weather” is what used to be “global warming” before it stopped getting warm.

According to the Post, “Previously, the emergency response meteorologists were tasked to assist “on the scene” during major weather events, offering on-demand briefings to emergency managers and stakeholders. They also were charged with developing more event-specific forecasts, explaining possible impacts in detail, and getting key messages out using new communication technologies and social media.”

In laymen’s terms this means highly–paid government meteorologists would appear during a hurricane or tornado to tell damp citizens with frizzy hair that they had just been hit by a hurricane or tornado. The weather people would then pass out small, waterproof maps with colorful depictions of pressure zones and isobars. Then advise survivors to take shelter, cut down on salt and keep hydrated. Once the citizens were dispersed, the weather service employees would be free to teach elected officials how to post heroic photos of themselves in galoshes on Twitter.

How they intend to accomplish this without power remains to be seen. A more practical plan would involve teaching Pepco customers how to buy and install a generator, since long term loss of electricity is much more common here than severe weather.

Somehow, Oklahomans have managed to endure weather without federal intervention. Twice during my youth I lived in Duncan, OK. Smack dab in the middle of tornado alley. In spite of the fact we did not have weather service types parachuting in to state the obvious, we managed to survive. The municipal tornado siren sounded, you picked up the babies, grabbed the old ladies and headed for the nearest tornado/bomb shelter or leaped in a nearby bar ditch.

I distinctly remember one evening when we gathered in our neighbor’s backyard shelter to wait out the alert. Since I was just a kid, I had no idea how long a tornado lasted. My idea of a long duration was waiting for Christmas and that took forever.

What’s more, I was a chubby kid who suffered “food anxiety” before it came to Michelle Obama’s attention. Not wanting to add hunger pangs to potential tornado problems, I filled my pockets with cheddar cheese. (It could have been that I also wanted to prevent diarrhea, but my memory is fuzzy.) This caused something of a commotion later in the week when Mom opened the washer and saw the laundry looked like nachos.

So without the weather service to gin up worry, the media here has turned to the insect world and found this summer will mark the return of the cicada. Cicadas sleep underground for 17 years and then emerge blinking into the sunlight, looking for sex and a square meal. This alone would make the cicada a perfect mascot for the less motivated federal bureaucrat.

Insects on the make would not normally be an issue for the front page of the Metro section. What makes the cicadas newsworthy is they return in the billions. They cover the landscape and make a loud buzzing sound to attract a mate, similar to disco but without mirror balls.

The insects are about an inch long with red eyes. The outer shell is crunchy but they’re soft on the inside, much like a Democrat. The reporter even found publicity–hungry omnivore who claimed he eats cicadas. His recipe calls for sautéing them with lemon and butter. I can’t remember if he serves the finished product with MD–20/20 or WD–40.

After sex cicadas don’t smoke, which would at least shut them up, instead they eat the shrubbery. I actually saw a handful while walking the dogs, but the density did not begin to approach the 1,000,000/acre of which the WaPost warned. Maybe these were scouts, wary of people with frying pans.

The important part of the infestation for our purposes is that I’ve been inspired to write another song. This time to the tune of the Angel’s “My Boyfriend’s Back.”

The bugs are back and there’s gonna be trouble

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

When you see them fly you better cut out on the double

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

Cicadas been gone for such a long time,

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

Better watch your step don’t slip on insect slime

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

And the trees are full of buzzin’

And the males are wantin lovin’

A mating dance right on your front lawn

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

They’re here right now, about a trillion strong

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

Buried underground for 17 years

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

It’s time to mate, so cover up your ears

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

And the trees are full of buzzin’

And the males are wantin lovin’

Beady red eyes on a body one inch long (Wa–ooh, Wa–ooh)

Eating your shrubs while they play a mating song  (Wa–ooh)

It’s time to flee

The bugs are back and there’s gonna be trouble

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

When you see them fly you better cut out on the double

(Hey la, Hey la, the bugs are back)

The post The Bugs are Back appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

By Mr. Curmudgeon:

“Keep your friends close,” said gangster Vito Corleone in the movie The Godfather, “but your enemies closer.” To the criminal, friends and enemies are one and the same, pawns that serve the nefarious objectives of the villain. Speaking of villains, the Obama Administration secretly obtained two months of phone records for twenty reporters and editors working for the Associated Press. The administration claims it subpoenaed the records in an effort to discover the name or names of those who leaked information concerning a CIA-foiled terrorist plot in Yemen.

In a Tuesday news conference, Attorney General Eric Holder (found in Contempt of Congress) attempted to distance himself from the AP phone-records controversy, saying he recused himself from the investigation and placed the “very, very serious” matter into the hands of Assistant Attorney General James Cole. According to Holder, the information obtained by the AP “put the American people at risk.”

So, let us dispense with yet another phony Obama Administration cover story:

According to the AP, On May 2 the federal government asked the news agency to delay publishing their story on a Yemen terrorist plot that was a CIA sting operation designed to flush out an Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist cell. AP held the story several days until the “national security concerns” were “allayed”; CIA director designate, John Brennan, stated in his Senate confirmation hearings that “there was never a threat to the American public … because we had inside control of the plot and the device was never a threat to the American public.”

So, you ask, “If there was ‘never a threat to the American public,’ why is the Obama Administration hunting for the identities of Associated Press news sources?” The answer was provided by the Associated Press itself.

The Justice Department subpoena allowed the seizure of phone records that included the main number for AP reporters covering Congress. The Obama Administration is on a fishing expedition to discover which members of Congress are feeding information to the press injurious to its image.

Revelations concerning the administration’s lies regarding the attack on America’s diplomatic mission in Benghazi, which ended in the deaths of four U.S. councilor officials, has led to talk of impeachment among some members of Congress.

The Justice Department subpoena has the appearance of being a White House effort to muzzle its Congressional opposition under the guise of protecting national security. The subpoena, viewed in conjunction with IRS efforts to impede the progress of Tea Party and conservative organizations, shows a White House intent on settling political scores while simultaneously quashing threats to its power.

In the closing days of the 2012 campaign, White House advisor Valerie Jarrett told Obama campaign workers, “After we win this election, it’s our turn.  Payback time.  Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded; the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay.  Congress won’t be a problem for us this time.”

In a letter to Attorney General Holder, AP president and CEO Gary Pruitt wrote, “The scope of the subpoena was overbroad under the law, given that it involved seizing records from a broad range of telephones across AP’s newsgathering operation. More than 100 journalists work in the locations served by those telephones. How can we consider this inquiry to be narrowly drawn?”

The mainstream media, of which the Associated Press is a vital part, thought it was among the chosen number Valerie Jarrett said “helped” Obama. After all, they showered the president with favorable coverage during his first term and throughout the 2012 campaign. They have been vociferous in their support of the administration’s effort to erode our Second Amendment right to bear arms.

AP CEO Gary Pruitt condemns Obama’s Justice Department for rifling through its phone records “as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news.”

What did you expect, Gary? If the present administration does not respect the individual’s constitutional right to bear arms, soils the nation’s electoral process through the use of IRS goons, what makes you think it will respect your constitutional right to “gather and report the news”?

If you lie down with dogs, Gary, you get up with fleas.

The post Associated Press Gets Bit by Justice Department Dog appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

By Mr. Curmudgeon:

President Obama said a mouthful in his Monday press conference concerning the targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service. “If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that had been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous and there’s no place for it,” Obama told the White House press corps, “And they have to be held fully accountable, because the IRS as an independent agency requires absolute integrity, and people have to have confidence that they’re … applying the laws in a non-partisan way.”

As the president said, the IRS is “an independent agency.” It is independent because the government has grown so large, it’s impossible for Congress to adequately fulfill its constitutional mandate to oversee federal agencies.

Need proof?

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said, “News that the [IRS] agency admits it targeted American taxpayers based on politics is both astounding and appalling,” he told the Los Angeles Times. That’s odd in light of the fact “members of Congress started asking questions about the agency’s handling of Tea Party organizations as early as 2011,” said the L.A. Times.

House Republican leaders had their hands full appropriating trillions of dollars for Obama, not to mention raising the nation’s debt limit, to notice that the real power in America – the permanent administrative state – was flexing its muscle.

Rep. Camp was so busy feeding the federal beast he didn’t notice its jackbooted IRS Gestapo was hobbling Mitt Romney’s only hope to win the presidential contest of 2012: Tea Party organizations working for the GOP in swing states.

Remember Obamacare? That piece of legislation comprised 2,700 pages. The Department of Health and Human Services manual containing all the health care law’s draconian regulations has more than 50,000 pages.

Contrary to what Obama said at his press conference, the federal bureaucracy’s corruption is not partisan in nature. It’s an absolute corruption that comes with absolute power.

Congress, even a Republican controlled Congress, will never keep pace with the freedom-killing antics of a massive federal bureaucracy that is allowed to write and enforce, through intimidation, its own laws. Elected politicians come and go. The federal bureaucracy, as Ronald Reagan observed, “… is the closest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this Earth.”

According to Forbes magazine, unelected federal employees numbered 21,925 in 2012. Today’s elected members of Congress total 535.

The most powerful domestic arm of the federal bureaucracy obstructed and intimidated Tea Party and conservative organizations to sway the outcome of a crucial presidential election.

They succeeded.

Republicans in Congress will hold hearings into the matter (always a day late and a dollar short) and it is certain some IRS heads will roll, but that won’t undo history. These same Republicans will continue to pass bloated federal budgets and raise the debt ceiling – all of which increases the power of Washington’s bureaucratic, multi-headed Hydra.

Just in passing, the Washington Post reported that former IRS Commissioner Douglass Shulman, a George W. Bush appointee, was quite aware of his agency’s skullduggery back in May of 2012. However, Shulman “did not share details with Republican lawmakers who had been demanding to know whether the IRS was targeting conservative groups,” the Post reported.

When his loyalties were tested, Republican Douglass Shulman did not serve the interests of his political party or the American people … he made a conscious decision to defend the interests of the permanent administrative state.

Cynical Republicans in Washington pay lip service to constitutional small government. That’s because they are aware, as are their friends across the aisle, constitutional restraints no longer exist.

It is good and noble that the Tea Party continues its struggle to change the GOP into a functioning opposition party by replacing establishment Republicans with Tea Party conservatives. The real struggle, however, will come in the distant future when we attempt to restrain out-of-control government by shackling it with the “chains of the Constitution.” That will only happen when two-thirds of the states call for a second Constitutional Convention that clearly defines limits on the power of Washington’s three branches of government. If that happens, it will be the only time in human history that a lost republic was restored.

That reality chills my blood.

The post Obama Oxymoron: America Requires ‘Absolute Integrity’ of its Tax Gestapo appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

Political cartoon by A.F.Branco © 5/14/13 NetRightDaily.com

The post Lurking Tyranny appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

Obama originally said when he ran for office that he would close the Guantanamo Bay prison, and after being elected in 2009, publicly instructed the military to shut it down within one year. It is now over four years later, into his second term, and the prison is still open. Most of the prisoners have been there for over 11 years without a trial. Nine have died since it opened in 2002. The scrutiny has intensified in recent months as a majority of the 166 inmates, down from a high of 684 in 2003, have gone on hunger strikes, and at least 21 of the men are being force-fed twice daily. The administration has approved 86 detainees for release, but curiously none have been released so far this year.

Obama recently closed the office of the Special Envoy to the Closure of Guantánamo, evidence that it is becoming even less likely that it will be shut down. Polls reveal that a whopping 70 percent of Americans approve of Obama keeping the Guantanamo Bay prison open, giving Obama less incentive to shut it down. Many of the detainees are from Yemen, and cannot be released there, because the administration imposed a ban on transfers to Yemen in 2009 after the Underwear Bomber attack.

This has left the administration stuck in limbo, or, as one left-wing critic describesit, “Obama’s Guantanamo is never going to close, so everyone might as well get comfortable.” Will the detainees ever receive trials? Obama has had little success transferring the detainees to federal court to be tried, which would pacify his critics on the left. Even his own party, led by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democrats, voted to block funding to close Guantanamo. On the other hand, Obamas has been reluctant to try the detainees using military tribunals, since the outcry on the left – and internationally – would become deafening.

The backlash from the left started building in 2009, when Obama announced he was going to employ a policy of “prolonged detention,” that would allow indefinite imprisonment. The imprisonment would be based on the government finding the detainee generally dangerous, not for proven crimes or past violations of law. Liberal commentator Rachel Maddow, usually a cheerleader for Obama, described it as, “a radical new claim of presidential power that is not afforded by the Constitution and that has never been attempted in U.S. history, not even by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.” She noted that Obama criticized George W. Bush for using an “ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism,” yet Obama’s approach is the same thing. She compared it to the movie Minority Report, where people are arrested for crimes they may commit in the future. “So you…construct a whole new system outside the courts, even outside the military commissions, so you can indefinitely imprison people without charges, and you’ll build it all from scratch,” Maddow said on her TV show, full of incredulity that Obama was taking this even beyond the military commissions of President Bush.

Obama continues to claim that he intends to close Guantanamo. At the same time, he contradicts himself by saying it is a “lingering problem that is not going to get better,” adding that it would “get worse” and would “fester.” He is covering for himself, talking out of both sides of his mouth. On the one side, he says he intends to close it; on the other side, he makes excuses as for why it hasn’t been closed in over four years since he took office. Obama is trying to please both the 70 percent of Americans who agree with keeping Guantanamo open and the far left, but the far left is finally seeing through him.

The list of complaints the left has with Obama has grown pretty long. The Obama the Conservative website lists 29 areas they accuse Obama of capitulating on. A significant number of them relating to Guantanamo.

The liberal mainstream media is still covering for Obama. Peter Jan Honisberg, Director of the Witness to Guantanamo project, laments that “rarely does the U.S. media call” him. Instead, international media contacts call him frequently. No other country, even countries like England that have no Bill of Rights, permit indefinite detention.

George H.W. Bush ran for president on a platform that included “Read my lips, no new taxes.” He lost reelection when he failed to keep his promise. Obama failed on his election promise of closing Guantanamo, yet was reelected due to the deliberate silence of the liberal mainstream media to call him out on it. Whether Obama weathers the growing opposition coming from the left or not may depend on whether the liberal mainstream media finally turns on him. Journalist Noah Rothman of Mediaite thinks it’s finally starting. He wrote earlier this month, “What is clear from the last 24 hours of reporting on left-leaning news outlets, Obama’s supporters in the media no longer trust him.”

There may be a way out for Obama. The far left organization Human Rights Watch has indicated they are pleased with attempts being made to make the military tribunals more like federal courts. If Obama can fool the right into thinking the detainees are still getting tough trials in the military tribunals, and pacify the left that the tribunals have changed enough, he may resolve the contentiousness over Guantanamo for awhile. But eventually it will catch up with him; if the detainees are given the panoply of rights that American citizens are provided in federal court, their massive front of international lawyers may be able to plead their way out of punishment – especially considering the detainees were never Mirandized. Then how likely is it that one or more of the freed detainees will launch a terrorist attack on the United States?

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By Mr. Curmudgeon

“Jack McMahon maintains his client served his community and never killed a live, born baby,” reported ABC News. Abortion Doctor Kermit Gosnell’s defense attorney obviously failed to convince the Philadelphia jury that convicted his client for the grisly premeditated murders of three infants at the house of horrors known as the West Philadelphia Women’s Society. The monster faces a possible death sentence.

Gosnell’s attorney told the Associated Press he now knows “what a salmon must feel swimming upstream … There’s a lot of emotion. You have the baby factor, which is a big problem.”

Ah yes, “the baby factor.” The big problem began with the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling; a moment of sheer madness in which the high court insisted abortion must have come up during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia that hot summer of 1787.

Court Progressives knew full well that a Constitutional amendment adding abortion to the catalog of cherished American liberties – like free speech, freedom of religion and the right to bear arms – would never gain the approval of two-thirds of our state legislatures. That is why the robed high priests in Washington issued a second Declaration of Independence; they would bypass the Constitution’s mandated amendment process in favor of their own independent, no-questions-asked, take-it-or-leave-it, dictatorial judicial fiat.

Having ignored the restraints and processes of the Constitution, the high court’s new-found independence inspired an ancient tendency within all tyrants – the desire to play God.

They declared as “unviable tissue mass” all unborn infants existing prior to the 24th week of gestation. Philadelphia’s Dr. Gosnell, in a moment of exuberance surpassing that of the Supreme Court, moved the unviability definition to a timeframe more to his liking.

It stretches credulity to believe Gosnell’s standards – or lack thereof – are not followed by many of the nation’s abortion mills that practice Gosnell’s dark art.

Planned Parenthood issued a statement in reaction to the Gosnell verdict, “The jury has punished Kermit Gosnell for his appalling crime,” said Eric Ferrero, a Planned Parenthood spokesman, “This verdict will ensure that no woman is victimized by Kermit Gosnell ever again.”

Planned Parenthood was referring to 41-year-old Karnamaya Monger, who died of a drug overdose while under Gosnell’s “care.” Gosnell was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Monger’s death. Involuntary manslaughter is the “unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought, either express or implied.” They had no words of comfort for the maliciously murdered infants whose spinal cords were severed by Gosnell’s scissors.

The abortion lobby’s cold statement was a second-opinion endorsement of Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s medical assessment that his infant victims deserved to die.

The post Philadelphia Jury Declares Abortion Murder appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

By Mr. Curmudgeon:

“I began by telling the president that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if the cancer was not removed that the president himself would be killed by it,” said former White House counsel John Dean during testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities – also known as the Watergate Committee. The president in question, of course, was Richard Nixon. The “cancer” was the White House cover-up of the burglary and illegal wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee by burglars working for Nixon’s re-election committee.

In Article II of the House Judiciary Committee’s bill of impeachment was this: “He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.”

As was reported last Friday, the Internal Revenue Service admitted targeting political organizations with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their titles, denying or delaying their tax-exempt status ahead of the 2012 presidential election. In some cases, the IRS illegally asked for their donor lists. According to the Reuters News Service, the IRS’s criteria for added “scrutiny” changed in 2012 to cover “political action type organizations involved in limiting government” and those geared toward “education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

According to news reports, the IRS’s political dirty-tricks division operated out of its office in Cincinnati, Ohio. As I recall, Ohio was a crucial swing state in the last presidential election. Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, Jim Messina, told the Huffington Post last August that the president’s Ohio campaign field offices numbered 100 to GOP candidate Mitt Romney’s 50. Messina forgot to mention his IRS friends in the Buckeye State.

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, admitted her department’s wrongdoing and said she was “sorry.”

“While I appreciate the honesty,” said Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, “‘sorry’ is just not enough. Where is the compensation for hundreds of hours of attorney time? Where is the compensation for thousands of hours spent by Tea Party groups compiling tens of thousands of pages of documents?

“Mark this day well: The Obama Administration’s IRS just admitted targeting conservative organizations in the months before a presidential election.

“And to think, through Obamacare we dramatically expanded IRS power. A chilling thought.”

It’s clear the IRS acted specifically against the most potent opponent facing the Obama Administration. That is not the GOP but the Tea Party. After the Tea Party “shellacking” of 2010, the grassroots organization topped the president’s enemies list for 2012.

The cancer that is the Obama presidency is spreading rapidly. That being said, a question should arise in the minds of Congressional investigators regarding the IRS war on the Tea Party: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

The post Impeachment appeared first on Tea Party Tribune.

By Larissa Scott Atbashian and Oleg Atbashian

Adult basic education and GED programs, with about 800,000 students taking GED tests each year, serve a segment of society that escaped government schools, including many homeschoolers. But the national propaganda effort called the Common Core Curriculum is spreading its tentacles to them.While many may not take the GED seriously, calling it the “Good Enough Diploma,” consider that quite a few homeschoolers take GED tests as a way to cancel out high school attendance requirements and lessen the record-keeping burden on home educators caused by compulsory attendance laws in every state.

Thus, aligning GED with Common Core has the potential of erasing all the efforts and sacrifices the homeschooling parents have put in to protect their children from the centralized indoctrination.You can run but you can’t hide from the omnipresent Big Brother: the new GED workbooks and requirements will still drag many of their children through the biased Common Core curriculum.What exactly is in store for today’s two million homeschoolers and the hundreds of thousands of American adults taking the GED test annually?

In March 2013, New Readers Press, a publishing division of ProLiteracy — the world’s largest organization of adult basic education and literacy programs — released a revised edition of its bestselling Scoreboost series for the 2014 GED test. With eight supplemental workbooks on the mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies tests, the new series is aligned with the Common Core State Standards and has been expanded, according to the publisher, “to cover the complexities of the new math test as well as the analytic writing required by the extended-response items.”New extended-response items on the GED test will provide students with one or more source texts followed by a prompt or question, and the answers will be scored with a three-trait rubric.

According to the Social Studies Extended Response Scoring Guide, a maximum of three points will be awarded in Trait 1 (Creation of Arguments and Use of Evidence) if the student can “generate a fact-based argument that demonstrates a clear understanding of the historical relationships among ideas, events, and figures as presented in the source text(s) and the contexts from which they are drawn”; can cite “relevant, specific evidence from primary and/or secondary source text(s) that adequately supports an argument”; and is “well connected to both the prompt and the source text(s)”.

But what if the source text is wrong on facts and presents a narrow set of partisan political beliefs — in addition to being poorly written and downright confusing?Below is an excerpt from a larger Social Studies Extended Response, found on page 52 from Writing Across the Tests: Responding to Text on the Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science Test, entitled, “Does Foreign Aid Really Help?”

Those who support sending aid to poor countries do so because poor countries often have high levels of poverty, poor educational systems, an ineffective police and judicial force, and limited public services such as healthcare, transportation networks, and banking systems. They believe that when living conditions are this poor, crime levels tend to be higher. Poorer countries, because they have weak governments, often have areas that attract terrorist groups because no one is there to stop them from pursuing those types of activities. Thus, poor countries are often home to terrorist groups that are free to plan and carry out attacks on the rich, industrialized nations, without fear of being stopped. This is in fact what happened on 9/11 when terrorists from Afghanistan hijacked planes and carried out attacks on the United States. In this case, the terrorists originated in a country that had received large amounts of foreign aid from rich countries. Apparently, it didn’t work. [Emphasis mine]

And here is the following test prompt:

Should rich countries continue to give aid to poor countries, or should they stop giving aid? Develop an argument that supports your position, and make sure to use specific details to help develop your ideas.

The dictionary definition of “indoctrinate” is “to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle.” This is exactly what will happen when GED students are required to generate ideas, attitudes, and cognitive strategies based on the above misleading and purely sectarian “progressive” worldview, which disregards the proven beneficiary power of the free markets, misconstrues the motivation of Islamic terrorists, and misrepresents the identities of the 9/11 hijackers, who were, for the most part, educated Muslim Arabs from well-to-do families in oil-rich countries that, in fact, send plenty of foreign aid to support Islamic extremism around the world.

The source text on Global Warming (Page 54) provides a statement that global temperatures are increasing, followed by two theories that explain it — the use of fossil fuels and deforestation — both of which attribute Global Warming to human industrial activity and population growth.Omitted in this “scientific text” is the existence of other scientific data and theories, for example, the cyclical nature of the planet’s climate and the impact of solar activity on Earth’s temperatures. Nor does it mention the fact that the concept of man-made global warming is most actively promoted by those politicians who have a vested interest in imposing government regulations, which would allow them a greater control over the economy and people’s lives.The students are then asked to write a short essay, within approximately ten minutes, with a “correct” explanation of “how human activity has directly contributed to the rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere,” using “multiple pieces of evidence from the text to support their answer.”

A dictionary defines “leading question” as “a question phrased in a manner that tends to suggest the desired answer, such as What do you think of the horrible effects of pollution?” They may as well have used this new GED workbook as an example.

Apparently New Readers Press is well aware of bias in writing and the difference between fact and opinion, stating:

When a statement is made to appear true because it is related to known facts, but is not itself a fact, speculation has occurred. Be on the lookout for statements that may be mere speculation rather than solid facts. (Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking for Reading, Science, and Social Studies – Strategy 10 page 30).

Unfortunately, the publisher doesn’t apply this principle to its own materials, which not only mislead the students with biased allegations, but also require them to use these inaccurate statements to develop an argument in an essay, thus adding even more legitimacy to prejudicial assertions.

Read more at Watchdog Wire.com

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By Mr. Curmudgeon:

It was a Sunday evening and Brendan Mess, Erik Qeissman and Raphael Tekan were at home watching a televised game between the New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys when they called a local pizza joint and placed an order for home delivery. When the food arrived twenty minutes later, the delivery woman’s repeated knocks went unanswered. The door’s thin barrier shielded the woman from the horror that met police four days later. Inside the Waltham, Massachusetts, apartment sat the bodies of three young men, their throats cut. A Waltham Police investigator told a local ABC affiliate that it was “the worst bloodbath I have ever seen in a long law enforcement career,” adding, “There was no forced entry, it was clear that the victims had let the killer in. And their throats were slashed right out of an Al-Qaeda training video.”

The gruesome murders occurred on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that killed more than two thousand Americans.

Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings, many bloggers noted that the suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar were friends of the slain Waltham men and criticized the mainstream media’s refusal to connect the dots.

Slavishly devoted to the Obama Administration, the president’s order “not to jump to conclusions” and to wait for all the “facts” was taken to heart by the filters of “truth,” defenders of “the people’s right to know” and guardians of America’s popular culture: the mainstream media.

ABC News reported Sunday that an unnamed law enforcement source confirmed that Boston authorities, taking a second look at forensic evidence, found DNA traces of the Tsarnaev brothers at the Waltham crime scene.

More than two years after the brutal murders, a month after the deadly Boston bombings, the media is no longer able to maintain Obama’s gag order on the truth. DNA, it’s said, doesn’t lie.

Since the days of the Nixon Administration, the media has claimed it maintains a healthy skepticism of official government information, refusing to take at face value the claims of a government that may be covering-up incompetence or criminal activity. The media’s coverage of the Obama Administration’s gunrunning Operation Fast and Furious, the attacks in Benghazi and Boston, added to skepticism  that their skepticism still exists.

After bombshell testimony in Wednesday’s House hearings into the Benghazi attack proved the White House formulated a cover story to mask then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s refusal to provide adequate security for U.S. councilor officials, and portray the Al-Qaeda terrorist attack as a murderous riot sparked by an American-made anti-Islamic video, the administration decided it desperately needed the media’s help.

“The White House held a ‘deep background’ briefing with reporters on Friday afternoon to discuss recent revelations about the Benghazi investigation,” reported POLITICO. “Deep background” for those unfamiliar with the inner workings of journalism, means information gathered during a briefing can be used in a story but nothing said by government officials may be quoted directly. In other words, the White House was hoping its select few mainstream-media favorites would help spin the investigation into their Benghazi cover-up as a partisan attack by House Republicans and to discredit the damning testimony of the three State Department whistleblowers.

ABC News must not have gotten an invitation.

That same Friday, ABC reported it had obtained emails between the White House, State Department and intelligence agencies on the preparation of  “talking points” for administration minions slated to appear before the media shortly after the Benghazi attack. In one email, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland advised the White House to scrub all mention of CIA warnings regarding a potential Al-Qaeda threat in Benghazi ahead of the attack. She feared it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?”

The leaked emails prove the White House conspired to mislead the media along with Congress and the American people. The revelation put Time magazine’s Michael Crowley in something of an embarrassing position for insisting that “despite repeated discussion about what [Hillary] Clinton knew and when she knew it, no smoking gun emerged from Wednesday’s hearing, leading one Congressional Democrat to dismiss questions about her role as a ‘witch hunt.’”

The leaked White House emails had the unintended effect of giving the term “witch hunt” a positive connotation in light of the witch whose hot trail of lies Congressional investigative bloodhounds now hunt.

A thaw is beginning. And ABC News seems to be extricating itself from the pro-Obama deepfreeze the rest of the media willingly placed itself. ABC is beginning to realize that by not covering-up for the White House, they suddenly have a mainstream-media monopoly, for now, on real news.

The Obama Administration’s lies are piled as high as Mount Everest, while its denials that America is at war with a radical Islamic threat – at home and abroad – are crumbling with every terrorist attack and American death. The “facts,” for which the Obama Administrations says we must wait, are in.

And ABC, grudgingly, is beginning to report them.

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The coming 2014 mid-term elections may well be the most important in our lifetime.  America faces a crisis as profound as the Revolution and as divisive as the Civil War.  This has been brought on by the Progressives who seek to fundamentally transform America through evolutionary means.  Incrementally, one entitlement program, one regulation, and one tax rate increase at a time, these Evolutionaries have used class warfare, activist judges, a politically-correct education system, and a complicit media to create a dependent constituency.   They’ve constructed a matrix of sports addiction, celebrity worship, and recreational prescription medicine that makes the bread and circuses of Rome appear as crude as they were effective.  Welcome to the Brave New World.

In 2008 the Progressives achieved what the media called a “Veto Proof” majority in both houses.  This was typical of the Progressive-controlled media’s spin.  With a fellow Progressive holding court in the White House there was no chance the long cherished dreams of national health care, massive interference in the economy, and expansion of the bureaucracy would be vetoed.  The description of the majorities should have been “Filibuster-proof” meaning there was no way for the minority party to thwart the will of the majority.  Even when the Democrats lost their 60^th seat in the Senate with the addition of a Progressive Republican taking Teddy Kennedy’s seat, they still had a filibuster-proof majority.  The only reason they did not achieve more of their agenda such as amnesty for illegal immigrants is that members of their own party balked at a complete surrender of our heritage.

Fast forward to 2013 and after 3 years of the 2010 Tea Party led re-capture of the House Nancy Pelosi and her troops are chomping at the bit to finish their Evolution and drive the final nails in the coffin of limited government.

Those who wish to stop the mad rush into the arms of an all-embracing Federal Government must register!  They must vote!  They must do all they can to influence anyone and everyone to elect a true veto proof majority with the power and the will to reverse the slide into insolvency, which will trigger either a default upon our overwhelming debt or a collapse of our economy.  Either of which opens the door for the current administration to impose their statist solutions irrevocably altering the nature of the United   States.  The name will remain the same but let no illusions of normalcy cloud your sight; this will be a new nation, the Obamanation.

In the coming mid-term elections it is imperative that those who wish to reverse course send a veto- proof majority in both the House and the Senate to Washington or President Obama will block every attempt to return to the traditional American model of limited-government.  And even if this happens the newly awakened Patriots must realize their victory will energize the portion of the country desiring a European-style welfare state.  They must realize just as Truman in 1948 ran against the “Do-nothing Congress” more than against Tom Dewey and Clinton in 1996 ran against the “Mean-spirited” Congress more than against Bob Dole, in 2014  Mr. Obama and his surrogates will run against the “Obstructionist” Congress more than against any individual opponents the Republicans might nominate.

The Town Hall meltdowns of 2009 and the Tea Party phenomenon of 2010 have surged across America as no spontaneous movement has in many years.  The energy and enthusiasm of this grassroots explosion has rocked primaries from Coast-to-Coast.  The political establishment in both parties were bracing for a tsunami of popular indignation at the ballot-box in 2012.  Instead the republicans nominated another Progressive which left the conservative base sitting on the sidelines.

The Republicans managed to hold the House leaving the Democratic Majority Leader to lead well-disciplined troops in blocking every move the Conservatives make, and the media will hang the ensuing deadlock squarely around the neck of the Tea Party.

In 2014 to make sure that the rising Tea Party Samson successfully pulls down both the House and the Senate pillars of the Temple of Progressivism, the novice Conservative political activists need to understand voting is not enough.  We need to exert every ounce of influence among friends, neighbors, and family to bring out an historic vote.  We should stand ready to drive people to the polls, work the polls, do anything we can to plant the flag of Liberty once again in the capital of the Land of the Free and the home of the Brave.

Turning to the Word of God we’re counseled, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  Our Founders declared, when tyranny raises it head, when a government founded to ensure the rights of citizens begins to trample upon those rights their descendants should remember, “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.”

As peaceful citizens let those who love Liberty use their guaranteed rights to write, speak, assemble, and vote to preserve what we’ve been given for our children and our grandchildren.  Let every politician know, whether they wish us well or ill, that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”  If we will do this, if now that it’s our time upon the stage we’ll take a stand beside the Founders, the Framers, and the Greatest Generation when our children or grandchildren ask us, “Did you do anything to keep liberty alive? we will be able to say more than, “I didn’t notice what was going on,” or “I couldn’t find the remote.”

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2013 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

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