The Worst President Since Before the Civil War

By Steve
McCann

Three years ago, the people of the United States
elected someone who has turned out to be the worst president since the pre-Civil
War era.  Barack Obama, whether in economic matters, domestic affairs or
international relations, has been an abject failure and has severely jeopardized
the future of the American people.

This must be the focus and message of those seeking
the Republican presidential nomination, who must not allow themselves to be
focused on demeaning each other and sidetracked by falling for the usual tactics
of the Democrat and media smear machines (epitomized by the latest specious
attack on Herman Cain).

A cursory examination of Obama’s overall record
compared with other presidents reveals someone driven purely by statist
ideology, whose narcissism renders him incapable of change regardless of the
long-term consequences.  He does not seem to care what happens to the American
people.

Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt faced far worse
economic conditions when they came into office than were in play when Barack
Obama was elected president.  Yet with one a fiscal conservative (Ronald Reagan)
and the other (Franklin Roosevelt) a liberal Democrat, even though they pursued
differing solutions to the dilemmas at hand, neither put the nation squarely and
inexorably on the road to bankruptcy and second-class status.

Barack Obama and his apologists continuously claim
that he inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression and that if it
were not for his policies presently in place, matters would be far worse.  The
reality is that he did not inherit the worst economy since the 1930s, and his
policies have diminished the standard of living for the majority of
Americans.

The actual factors in play for Barack Obama, Ronald
Reagan, and Franklin Roosevelt when they assumed office were as
follows:

	Annual GDP Growth	Unemployment Rate	Inflation
Barack Obama	1.1%	6.7%	1.0%
Ronald Reagan	.1	7.6	12.6
Franklin Roosevelt	-13.0	24.0	-10.0

For the average American, the employment numbers are
the most critical.  The following chart is a side by side comparison of the
employment situation for Barack Obama as of Election Day 2008 versus the present
day after three years of his failed policies:

	November 2008	October 2011	Difference
Unemployment Rate	6.7%	9.1%	+35.8%
Total Employment	144.25 million	140.07 million	-4.18 million
Employment-Goods Producing sector	20.9 million	18.1 million	-2.8 million
Part-time Workers (Only Jobs Available)	1.57 million	2.9 million	+84.7%
Unemployed 27 Weeks or more	2.2 million	6.3 million	+4.1 million
Avg. Weekly Wage (inflation adjusted)	$654.03	$655.87	+.2%

(http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm#current)

How does Barack Obama compare to some of his
predecessors, who inherited far more severe financial crises?  As a further
comparison, while he did not inherit a financial crisis, Jimmy Carter is
included, as he is considered by many the worst president in the post-World War
II era, and many of his policies triggered the massive recession and inflation
inherited by Ronald Reagan.

(Note: The Bureau of Labor Statistics changed its
method of calculating the unemployment rate in 1994.  Therefore, in order to
make this a more valid comparison, those workers the BLS considers discouraged
and marginally attached to the labor force and therefore not part of the
unemployment rate calculation have been added below.)

	Unemployment Rate as of Election Day	Unemployment Rate Three years later	Difference
Barack Obama	7.9%	10.75%	-36%
Ronald Reagan	7.6	8.3	–  9
Jimmy Carter	7.8	5.9	+24
Franklin Roosevelt	24.1	20.1	+17

Barack Obama has chosen uncontrolled and unbridled
government spending, much of it directed to his cronies and fellow ideologues,
as his solution to restarting the economy.  This has created an enormous amount
of new debt for the nation with nothing to show for it.  One of his
predecessors, Franklin Roosevelt, also chose that route as part of his plan to
rescue the American economy.  However, he never took it to the extreme that
Obama has done, with the aid of his allies in the Democratic Party.  During
Obama’s tenure, he has added over $4,000 billion ($4 trillion) to the national
debt.

Using the historical actual deficits as a percentage
of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) applied to today’s GDP, the comparison would
be as follows (Herbert Hoover has been added, as he faced the actual massive
collapse of the economy in 1929, the first year of his term.)

	Average Deficit as % of GDP First Three Years of Term	(2011 Dollars) Additional National Debt
Barack Obama	9.23%	$4,005 Billion
Ronald Reagan	4.08	1,800
Franklin Roosevelt	3.50	1,531
Jimmy Carter	2.27	986
Herbert Hoover	.01	15

(http://www.usgovernmentspending.com)

The ultimate measure of the success or failure of a
president’s economic policies is the growth of the nation’s Gross Domestic
Product while facing economic headwinds.  Here, too, Barack Obama cannot measure
up to those who faced enormous challenges, as his policies and regulatory
obsession have shown him to be an anti-capitalist ideologue with more in common
with the Occupy Wall Street Movement than with the American
people.

	Barack Obama	Ronald Reagan	Franklin Roosevelt
Actual inflation adjusted GDP Growth First Three Years	.3%	13.7%	23.4%

It should be noted that Franklin Roosevelt, after
re-election in 1936, began to pursue more statist policies including demonizing
the rich, higher taxes, passing union-friendly legislation, and additional
government spending, so that by the third year of his second term, the GDP had
contracted by 6.5% and unemployment rose to 19.0% from a low of 14.0% in 1937.
Yet the annual budget deficit as a percent of GDP averaged 3.85% for Roosevelt’s
first two terms as compared to Obama’s 9.23% to date.  (http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html)

By any measure, Barack Obama is not only a failure in
his economic policies, but he is, in the aggregate, the worst steward of the
American economy since economic measurements began to be
recorded.

It is little wonder that his re-election strategy is
centered on demonizing his potential opponents and deliberately appealing to the
base nature of the human race — greed and envy — as manifested in his class
warfare rhetoric.  This is a record that cannot be defended under any
circumstances, and one the Republicans must focus upon and unceasingly bring it
before the American people.

Obama’s ‘tide of war’ idiocy

Jerry
Philipson

When President Obama announced the withdrawal of all
American troops from Iraq by the end of 2011 Friday, he said, “The tide of war
is receding,” and used this statement as justification for the decision to
leave.

The statement is one of the most idiotic, misleading
and just plain false statements Obama has made about the Middle East since he
took office. There have been many others but this one stands out for its
ignorance and duplicity.

The tide of war in the Middle East is most certainly
not receding. It is exactly the opposite and this is in large part because of
Obama’s feckless foreign policy and refusal to stand up for American interests
in the region and support American allies there.  Because of American weakness
and intransigence, a large-scale conflagration involving many players is
inevitable and this has to be placed on Obama’s shoulders.

American respect and influence in the Middle East has
been almost totally diminished since Obama took office.  All over the Middle
East America’s enemies are taking advantage of the vacuum that has been created
and are busily preparing for war on a grand scale, against the United States,
against Israel and against each other.  When Obama says “The tide of war is
receding” and using that as justification to pull American troops out of Iraq
he’s really saying that he doesn’t know what to do about the Middle East, that
he’s washing his hands of the place and that he’s abandoning America’s remaining
friends and allies there, like Israel and Saudi Arabia.  He’s also telling the
world that he’s willing to accept the rise of Islamism and Islamists throughout
the region even though this threatens the national security of the United States
itself because he doesn’t know what to do about that either.

So the tide of war is receding is
it?

Not in Iraq it isn’t. The country is embroiled in
sectarian and religious warfare which is only going to get worse once America
leaves, and the government there could easily collapse as a
result.

Not in Libya it isn’t.  The country is about to be
plunged into a bloody civil war now that there is no central authority holding
it together.

Not in Egypt it isn’t.  Ever since President Mubarak
was driven from office Egypt has become more antagonistic to the United States
and Israel, and that antagonism could easily lead to bloodshed and war in the
foreseeable future.

Not in Syria it isn’t.  Syrians are already fighting a
brutal civil war, with the regime showing no signs of backing down and ending
its vicious, pitiless repression.

Not in Iran it isn’t.  Iran is close to becoming a
nuclear power and is becoming more and more militaristic every day, especially
towards Israel and the US but really towards everyone else in the region too,
with results that are entirely predictable.

Not in Turkey it isn’t. The Turks are turning away
from the West and becoming more hostile and threatening as we
speak.

Noin Gaza and the West Bank it isn’t.  Palestinians
are becoming bolder by the minute and another intifada is virtually a foregone
conclusion.

Not in Israel it isn’t.  Israelis are feeling very
isolated and alone and may launch preemptive attacks as a matter of national
survival, especially against Iran.

Not in Saudi Arabia it isn’t.  The Saudis have been
begging the Americans for years to rid the Middle East of the Iranian threat to
them and everyone else.  They have come to the conclusion that America will do
no such thing and have decided to defend themselves if necessary, even if that
means nuclear war.

Not in Afghanistan it isn’t.  The war there is ongoing
and there can be no doubt that the country will implode once the United States
leaves.

Not anywhere that Islamists and Islamism are rising to
the fore it isn’t, which is to say everywhere in the Middle East except Israel.
Islamists and Islamism are mortal enemies of the United States and their rise
guarantees internecine warfare in the region and eventual war against the
US.

For a President of the United States to say that “The
tide of war is receding.” is beyond idiotic, misleading, false, ignorant and
blind. It is also very, very dangerous and severely compromises America’s
national security and way of life.  Obama is clearly unfit for office and the
sooner he’s drummed out of office the better.  Our survival depends on
it.

My great great grandfather watched as his friends died in the Civil War, my grandfather watched as his friends died in WW II, and my father watched as my friends died in Vietnam

My great great grandfather watched as his friends died in the Civil War, my grandfather watched as his friends died in WW II, and my father watched as my friends died in Vietnam.

None of them died for the Mexican Flag.

Everyone died for the U.S. flag.

In Texas , a student raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole; another student took it down.  Guess who was expelled…the kid who took it down.

Kids in high school in California were sent home this year on Cinco de Mayo because they wore T-shirts with the American flag printed on them.

Enough is enough.

The below e-mail message needs to be viewed by every American; and every American needs to stand up for America .

We’ve bent over to appease the America-haters long enough.

I’m taking a stand.

I’m standing up because the hundreds of thousands who died fighting in wars for this country, and for the U.S. flag can’t stand up.

And shame on anyone who tries to make this a racist message.

Let me make this perfectly clear!

THIS IS MY COUNTRY!

And, because I make This statement

DOES NOT

Mean I’m against immigration!!!

YOU ARE WELCOME HERE, IN MY COUNTRY!

Welcome! To come through legally:

1. Get a sponsor!

2. Get a place to lay your head!

3. Get a job!

4. Live By OUR Rules!

5. Pay YOUR Taxes!

And

6. Learn the LANGUAGE like immigrants

have in the past!!!

AND

7. Please don’t demand that we hand over our lifetime

savings of Social Security Funds to you.

If you don’t want to forward this for fear of offending someone,

Then YOU’RE  PART OF THE PROBLEM!

When will AMERICANS STOPgiving away THEIR RIGHTS???

We’ve gone so far the other way…

bent over backwards not to offend anyone.

But it seems no one cares about the

AMERICAN CITIZEN

that’s being offended!

WAKE UP America !!!

If  You agree…. Pass this on.

If  You don’t agree.. Delete It!!!

Obama’s Numbers No president in recent decades, and perhaps no president ever, has been in such a miserable position a year before the election

Obama’s Numbers

By J. R.
Dunn

I’ve run into a rather strange and obnoxious trope in
various comment threads over the past few weeks.  A usually anonymous poster
wails that there’s no point in campaigning against Obama due to the fact that he
has a certain percentage of the vote “locked up.”  This is generally stated as
around 40%, sometimes the lone figure, sometimes “35 to 40%.”  Whatever the
case, the poster announces that all Obama needs is to pick up 11% and he’s got
in it the bag.  And, you know, Rahm and George will take care of that for him,
so why bother?

Never is the number explicitly broken down into
discrete groups.  No details are offered, no references given.  At the most, a
vague reference is made to ACORN or Chicago graveyards as the source of such
votes.  (I suppose they could be thinking of O’s favorability rating, which is
around 40%, [Whoops! It’s been heading down], but they don’t say so, and no
direct correlation exists between “favorability” and actual
votes.)

There being no point in arguing over assumptions, we
will instead examine actual numbers derived from the real world.  Out here,
liberals constitute about 20% of the voting population.  This is a solid number,
confirmed by several polling organizations including Gallup, Pew, and
Rasmussen.  While the exact figure has varied from 18% to 21%, it always within
one or two points of the one-fifth total.  The liberal vote is slowly sliding
toward extinction.  (In case you were wondering, the conservative vote is around
40%.)

But not even this represents a guaranteed vote for
Obama, since the more radical liberal-leftists are annoyed with him for
not being liberal enough — Bush and Cheney were not hanged, and that awful
Palin woman is still gadding about on television.  But we’ll put this aside,
since, as liberal pundits have taken to saying over the past few weeks, they’ll
vote for Obama because they have no place else to go.

Other blocs awarded to Obama include blacks, Jews,
Hispanics, and the youth vote.  (We’ll ignore all claims of a “welfare vote,”
there being no such thing.)  Many of these voters would be included under the
“liberal” fifth and should not be counted separately.  But we’ll overlook that
factor since, as results will show, it’s scarcely relevant.

Dick
Morris has kindly done the spadework for us here, analyzing
several recent Fox polls dealing with Obama’s favorability ratings.  According
to Fox, Obama’s popularity among young voters and Hispanics has dropped to 44%.
That is, just above the general level of 39%-40%.  It is clear that O has lost a
large proportion of whatever manna he possessed with these groups.  That will
inevitably be reflected in the vote.

As for the Jewish vote, Bob Turner’s epochal victory
in NY-9 reveals it to be in play, in large part due to Obama’s disdain for
Israeli security.

But of course he can depend on the black vote…can’t
he?  Incredibly, even that most monolithic of American voting blocs has begun to
crack in recent weeks.  A September 20 Washington Post story
reports
that Obama’s “strongly favorable” rating among blacks has fallen from 83% to
58%.  This is astonishing — most blacks have shown a devoted loyalty to
Democratic candidates of whatever background since the New Deal era.  That this
bond should begin to fray under the tenure of the first black president is a
topic that should get more attention than it is likely to
receive.

But what of Obama’s most critical bloc — the
independents?  It was independent voters who put him over the top in 2008,
breaking for him in a big way during the last weeks of the election.  Could the
same happen in 2012?  Not according to a recent McClatchy/Marist poll,
which found that independents intend to vote against Obama by a margin of 53% to
28%.  These numbers can only get worse for Obama.  In 2008, he pulled them in
due to the excitement of the moment, all the media-bred “messiah” nonsense.
There is no excitement surrounding Obama in this race.

So we can put aside all notions of O commanding a
winning or even near-winning percentage of the vote.  In fact, we can put aside
more than that.  The same McClatchy/Marist poll quoted above also found that 49
percent to 36 percent definitely plan to vote against him, and 52 to 38 percent
expect him to lose, no matter whom he’s running against.

The point is this: Obama at the beginning of the
election cycle explicitly controls no single voting bloc.  Not one of the blocs
that went his way so avidly in 2008 remains unquestionably in his corner.  Far
from it — a near-majority fully intends to vote against him.  This is
unprecedented in American presidential politics.  No president in recent
decades, and perhaps no president ever, has been in such a miserable position a
year before the election.

Can he pull out of it?  Anything’s possible, but it
seems unlikely.  It’s hard to see exactly what accomplishment would turn things
around for him.  Though lucky enough to have Osama bin Laden killed on his
watch, he derived no more than a flea-sized bounce from that victory.  Short of
his defeating the King of the Morlocks in single combat, it’s not at clear what
actions would benefit him.

Another widely-discussed scenario involves Obama
taking the LBJ route — that is, stepping aside for the good of the country and
allowing someone else to take up the party standard.  There are two problems
with this: Obama’s narcissism and the simple fact that the white establishment
cannot ask the first black president to do any such thing.  Even if he agreed,
public perception would be that the black man had once again been given the
short end, with both black and true-believer leftist voters sitting out the
election in protest.  No, this particular albatross could not be more firmly
attached.  There is no simple way for the Democrats to avoid taking the
hit.

Lastly, as I have mentioned before, and it deserves
repeating, paid left-wing trolls do not appear on our comments pages simply to
insult and argue, though they do plenty of both.  They also log on to insert
disinformation intended to create confusion and sow despair.  This appears to be
such a case.  Do not hesitate to call such people out, even if only to demand
the source of their numbers.  Since there is no source, what you will get in
return is the customary bile, which will hurt no one and, if nasty enough, will
be intercepted by our sterling moderator staff.  We face the prospect of a very
dirty campaign, one that will be fought out as much on our sites as anywhere
else.  We must not let them utilize AT — or any other conservative site — as a
transmission belt for left-liberal disinformation.

J.R. Dunn is consulting
editor of American
Thinker.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the Enemy

Posted by Frank Gaffney Jan 30th 2011 at 3:31 am in Featured Story,  Islamic extremism,  Middle East,  sharia | Comments (33)

Suddenly, Washington is consumed with a question too long ignored:  Can we safely do business with the Muslim Brotherhood?

The reason this question has taken on such urgency is, of course, because the Muslim Brotherhood (or MB, also known by its Arabic name, the Ikhwan) is poised to emerge as the big winner from the chaos now sweeping North Africa and increasingly likely to bring down the government of the aging Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

In the wake of growing turmoil in Egypt, a retinue of pundits, professors and former government officials has publicly insisted that we have nothing to fear from the Ikhwan since it has eschewed violence and embraced democracy.

For example, Bruce Reidel, a controversial former CIA analyst and advisor to President Obama, posted an article entitled “Don’t Fear Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood” at the Daily Beast.  In it, he declared:  “The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.”

Then, there was President George W. Bush’s former press spokeswoman, Dana Perino, who went so far on January 28th as to tell Fox News “…And don’t be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. This has nothing to do with religion.”

One reason we might be misperceiving the MB as no threat is because a prime source of information about such matters is the Muslim Brotherhood itself.  As the Center for Security Policy’s new, best-selling Team B II report entitled, Shariah: The Threat to America found:  “It is now public knowledge that nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States is actually controlled by the MB or a derivative organization. Consequently, most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution.”

In fact, for much of the past two decades, a number of these groups and their backers (including, notably, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal) have cultivated extensive ties with U.S. government officials and agencies under successive administrations of both parties, academic centers, financial institutions, religious communities, partisan organizations and the media.  As a result, such American entities have been subjected to intense, disciplined and sustained influence operations for decades.

Unfortunately, the relationships thus developed and the misperceptions thus fostered are today bearing poisonous fruit with respect to shaping U.S. policy towards the unfolding Egyptian drama.

A notable example is the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).  A federal judge in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial – which successfully prosecuted the nation’s largest terrorism financing conspiracy – found that CAIR was indeed a front for the Ikhwan’s Palestinian affiliate, Hamas.  Nonetheless,  Fox News earlier today interviewed the Executive Director of CAIR’s Chicago office, Ahmed Rehab, whom it characterized as a “Democracy Activist.”

True to form, Rehab called for the removal of Mubarak’s regime and the institution of democratic elections in Egypt.  This is hardly surprising since, under present circumstances, such balloting would likely have the same result it did in Gaza a few years back: the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood and the institution of brutally repressive theocratic rule, in accordance with the totalitarian Islamic politico-military-legal program known as shariah.

An important antidote to the seductive notions being advanced with respect to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – and, for that matter, in Western nations like ours – by the Ikhwan’s own operatives, their useful idiots and apologists is the Team B II report.  It should be considered required reading by anyone who hopes to understand, let alone to comment usefully upon, the MB’s real character and agenda.

For example, Shariah: The Threat to America provides several key insights that must be borne in mind in the current circumstances especially:

• “The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928. Its express purpose was two-fold: (1) to implement shariah worldwide, and (2) to re-establish the global Islamic State (caliphate).

• “Therefore, Al Qaeda and the MB have the same objectives. They differ only in the timing and tactics involved in realizing them.

• “The Brotherhood’s creed is: ‘God is our objective; the Koran is our law; the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.’”

• It is evident from the Creed, and from the Brotherhood’s history (and current activities)…that violence is an inherent part of the MB’s tactics. The MB is the root of the majority of Islamic terrorist groups in the world today.

• The Muslim Brotherhood is the ‘vanguard’ or tip-of-the-spear of the current Islamic Movement in the world. While there are other transnational organizations that share the MB’s goals (if not its tactics) – including al Qaeda, which was born out of the Brotherhood – the Ikhwan is by far the strongest and most organized. The Muslim Brotherhood is now active in over 80 countries around the world.

Of particular concern must be the purpose of the Brotherhood in the United States and other nations of the Free World:

• “…The Ikhwan’s mission in the West is sedition in the furtherance of shariah’s supremacist agenda, not peaceful assimilation and co-existence with non-Muslim populations.”

• “The Ikhwan believes that its purposes in the West are, for the moment, better advanced by the use of non-violent, stealthy techniques. In that connection, the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to establish relations with, influence and, wherever possible, penetrate: government circles in executive and legislative branches at the federal, state and local levels; the law enforcement community; intelligence agencies; the military; penal institutions; the media; think tanks and policy groups; academic institutions; non-Muslim religious communities; and other elites.

• “The Brothers engage in all of these activities and more for one reason: to subvert the targeted communities in furtherance of the MB’s primary objective – the triumph of shariah.”

In short, the Muslim Brotherhood – whether it is operating in Egypt, elsewhere in the world or here – is our enemy.  Vital U.S. interests will be at risk if it succeeds in supplanting the present regime in Cairo, taking control in the process not only of the Arab world’s most populous nation but its vast, American-supplied arsenal.  It is no less reckless to allow the Brotherhood’s operatives to enjoy continued access to and influence over our perceptions of their true purposes, and the policies adopted pursuant thereto.

Obama’s failure – by the numbers

Rick
Moran

Jeffrey Anderson at IDB has an
excellent piece breaking down President Obama’s failures by the
numbers.

It has now been a little over two
years – and eight full economic quarters – since the end of the recession Obama
inherited. It’s time to ask: How does his record of economic growth in the wake
of a recession stack up against the records of other
presidents?

[…]

According to the NBER, in the 60
years prior to Obama’s tenure, we had 10 recessions. In the two years following
those respective recessions, average real (inflation-adjusted) quarterly GDP
growth was 5%, according to federal government figures. In the two years of
Obama’s “recovery,” average real quarterly GDP growth has been just 2.4%, less
than half of the historical norm coming out of a recession.

What’s the difference (in more
practical terms) between 2.4% and 5% growth over two years? According to Obama’s
own budget, this year’s GDP will be about $15 trillion. (It’s running neck and
neck with the national debt.) A 2.6% shortfall, therefore, equals about $780
billion over two years.

If you divide that evenly among the
U.S. population of 312 million people, that works out to a shortfall of $2,500
per person – or $10,000 for the average family of four. Call it the Obama
penalty.

Some might argue that the anemic
post-recession growth rate under Obama has resulted from his having inherited a
worse recession than most. There’s little doubt that he inherited a particularly
long (18-month) and significant recession. But the historical record suggests
that, pre-Obama, the general rule was: the worse the recession (or depression),
the better the recovery.

In other words, one would have
expected such a severe downturn to be followed by a particularly strong stretch
of economic growth. That, of course, hasn’t
happened.

To really grasp the titanic failure
of Obama’s policies, the growth numbers are most significant:

Average real quarterly GDP growth in
the two years coming out of those recessions was 6.2%. The 2.4% figure under
Obama has been a mere 39% of that – which, come to think of it, roughly matches
Obama’s current approval rating.

And strikingly, among those six prior
long recessions in the postwar era, even the lowest rate of GDP growth in the
two years to follow was 4.7%. That’s almost double the tally under
Obama.

Awesomely bad. And the most
frightening thing about Obama is that he doesn’t know what to do to fix
it.

Wake-up World. The Enemy Has A Name. That Name Is Islam.

• Posted by Jimmy
  Gourdie on February 8, 2011 at 7:59am

The dominate news for the last few weeks is what has been happening in
Tunisia, Yemen, to some extent in Jordan; but most importantly, for the moment,
in Egypt. Apparent spontaneous uprisings of the people; demanding that their
government leaders step down;. A cry for freedom and democracy is how the news
media is presenting these events to the world. But there is much confusion and
anxiety in the minds of many people. Will the dictators of these countries be
replaced by some form of democratic secular governments? Or will they fall into
the hands of radical Muslims ala Iran. I suspect the bookies have placed high
odds against secular democracies.

For the purposes of this essay, I will focus on Egypt and the United States.
Much of what I say about Egypt probably applies to any country where Muslims are
a majority. Much of what I say about the United States probably applies to most
of the non-Islamic world.

The government of the United States was founded on the principles of
individual freedom. We created a republic with limited democracy. The concept of
“limited democracy” is important because pure democracy leads to the tyranny of
the majority over the minority; even if that majority exist by the slimmest of
margins. There have been many tyrants who have been elected democratically. Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela is a prime example.

One of the principles of US foreign policy has be the moral responsibility
to support people in their struggle to free themselves from repressive
governments. We haven’t always lived-up to that moral responsibility because
there is a second principle to our foreign policy. The second principle is the
protection of our nation’s strategic interest; be they military/security or
economic. It is this second principle that has led the US to support various
totalitarian regimes in different parts of the world. Examples of this would be
our support for the Mubarak regime in Egypt and the Saudi Royal family in Saudi
Arabia. The US even found it in our best interest to support, at one time, the
Saddam Husein regime in Iraq.

Over our history, the United States has fought many wars. It was always easy
to define and recognize our enemies.  Our enemies have only euphemistically been
defined as a people. It was always understood the real enemy was those that
govern the country in question. In World War II our enemies were Hitler and his
regime not the German people; the imperialist regime of Japan not the Japanese
people. The same can be said about the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, the Gulf
War, and etc. Our enemies have been governments not the people of those
nations.

I believe that the world is experiencing a paradigm shift and that there is
an urgent need for the US and the rest of the developed world redefine who their
common enemy is. For the first time in modern history, I believe the common
enemy isn’t any government regime but a people and not the people of just one or
two nations. I believe that the greatest threat to the United States and the
rest of the developed world is the Muslim world.

The Muslim world is much more than the Middle-East. It includes Indonesia and
other parts of Asia and Asia-Minor. And, there are al l the
Somethig-stan countries south of Russia and north of India. Also, one should
keep in mind that there are large Muslim populations throughout South America,
North America, and Europe. But let’s get back to Egypt.

My view is that Mubarak is really no longer in the picture. The military is
in control of the government and they have met with various opposition groups;
the biggest of which is the Muslim Brotherhood. I think the chances of Egypt
ending-up as a secular democracy are slim and none. Various bloggers have
written on Pew surveys that show that an overwhelming majority of Egyptians want
a theocratic government and they want sharia law to prevail over all other.

If you believe the talking heads of MSM and some of or own politicians that
the Muslim Brotherhood are moderates, you are sadly mistaken. Visit Atlas
Shrugs and search the archives of Pamela Geller and learn what the Muslim
Brotherhood is all about.

Try to imagine what will happen,  if Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen become clones
of Iran. You can bet that Jordan and Syria won’t be far behind. The dominoes
will start to fall. How will Saudi Arabia hold out? They won’t be able to hold
out. Even Iraq could blow-up in our face. Radical Muslims will control the
lion’s share of the world’s oil reserves. They could easily bring down the
world’s economy. Terrorist attacks will escalate around the world. It will be
World War III; but it won’t be a conventional war. There won’t be any defined
battle fields.  It will be a guerilla war with the planet as the battle field.
We and the rest of the once known, developed world, will be chasing our tails
trying  to figure out where the next terrorist attack is going to happen. With
the world economy collapsed, civilization will slip into a new version of the
Dark Ages.

When it comes to religion, I have always taken the position of live and let
live. But that is not a tenant of Islam. Islam is not just a religion. It is
much more. Islam is a social order with their own laws. Sharia law. Islam
teaches that the infidel must either be subjugated or eliminated. Period. End of
story.

You may think that I am an alarmist, an Islamophoic, or a fear monger. Maybe.
All I can say is that I am honestly afraid. Afraid  for my family, afraid for my
country and, afraid  for the future of the world. as we have known it  I am
convinced that our leaders and the leaders of many other countries must wake-up
to the new reality. Our enemy is not some country like Iran.  Our enemy is not
some nebulous thing like terrorism. Our enemy is a people. A people who follow
the dictates of Islam. They are called Muslims and they want to enslave you or
kill you and the choice is not yours. The liberal elite of the world will
finally have their wish for a new world order. However, It won’t be they and the
banksters and George Soros that are in charge, at least not for very long.

If my views on Islam are extreme, then I am in good company. There are a
large number of conservative bloggers who hold similar views to mine. They are
not fear mongers. They are trying to warn the world of a very real danger. A
danger that many world leaders and most liberals do not want to see.

There are two exceptionally good articles on the subject of Islam that have
been recently published. One is at Questioning with Boldness and the other is at at My Tea Party Chronicles. I highly recommend them. Unlike the
rantings of this old man, these two essays are beautifully written, full of
useful details, and there are some great links. Please take the time to read
both of these essays and then come back and tell me if my views are extremist in
nature.

Obama’s Employment Plan for Illegal Immigrants

Jan Ting,FloydReports.com

On August 18,President Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
sent a letter to members of Congress announcing the administration’s new immigration policy. The U.S. government
will exercise “prosecutorial discretion”to end deportation proceedings against
illegal immigrants who do not pose a threat to public safety or national
security,which describes the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants.

According to the Wall Street Journal,“Administration officials said
low-priority cases likely to be shelved include individuals brought to the U.S.
as children by their parents,undocumented spouses of U.S. military personnel,and
immigrants who have no criminal record.”Thus,the administration conflates the
two most sympathetic subsets of illegals with the vast majority of illegal
immigrants who have not been convicted of any serious crime.

The administration has made clear that minor criminal convictions,such as for
motor
vehicle violations,won’t trigger deportation. The government will not
initiate proceedings against illegal aliens without criminal records who pose no
threat to national security. And the New York Times quotes
administration officials as saying that,“Those who qualify for relief can apply
for permission to work in the United States and will probably receive it.”

The administration is implementing
by executive order a policy it could
not get Congress to adopt or even consider:amnesty for the millions of
foreigners who entered the U.S. illegally or who overstayed their temporary
visitor visas in order to work illegally in the U.S.

It is also sending a clear message to people all over the world who would
like to try their luck in the U.S.,though ineligible to do so because of U.S.
immigration law:U.S. immigration law won’t be enforced if all you want to do is
work. Just get yourself into the U.S. by any means,don’t commit serious crimes
or threaten national security,and you will be able to compete with U.S. citizens for jobs. And since you’re willing
to work for lower wages and under worse conditions than U.S. citizens,you can
probably beat them out for a job. So come on in!

Why is President Obama doing this in the midst of an historic recession with
record numbers of American workers unemployed and….

Read
more.

Mexicans Who Happen to be Living in America Demand Racial-Grievance Studies

May 13th, 2011

Don Feder, GrassTopsUSA.com

Multiculturalism, which used to be merely noxious, has become a raging
infection which poses as much of a threat to America as the national debt or
terrorism — before Osama assumed room temperature.

Recently, a gang of ethnocentric thugs took over a meeting of the governing
board of the Tucson, Arizona, Unified School District, chaining themselves to
desks, screaming slogans, and chasing board members from the room.

They were enraged by an attempt to make a course that teaches history “from a
Mexican-American perspective” optional instead of a substitute for a required
course in U.S. history.

The Mexican American Studies Program incites approximately 1,700 middle-and
high-school students in the district annually.

After an investigation, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom
Horne determined that the basic theme of the curriculum (AKA: Raza — “the race”
— Studies) is that Hispanic students “were and continue to be victims of a
racist American society driven by the interests of middle- and upper-class
whites.”

Classrooms in which this pedagogy is perpetrated are decorated with pictures
of such Latino “heroes” as Castro and Che Guevara.

Textbooks refer to citizens of this country as “Anglos” or “Euroamericans”
(rather than Americans) and include such gems as an essay by one Robert Jensen,
which claims Thanksgiving is a “white supremacist holiday” that should be
replaced by a “National Day of Atonement” for gringo sins against people of
color.

The introductory chapter promises: “We will see how half of Mexico
(California, Texas and the Southwest) was ripped off by trickery and
violence. We will see how Chicanos became a colonized people. In the process of
being colonized, we were robbed of land and other resources.” The nerve of those
Texans, tricking Santa Anna into attacking the Alamo and killing its
defenders to the last man.

In violation of a recently enacted Arizona law, the curriculum promotes the overthrow of the United States government and “resentment toward a race or class of people,” is “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group” and advocates “ethnic solidarity instead of treatment of pupils as individuals.”

The multiculturalist assault on America is multifaceted.

In 2010, on Cinco de Mayo (which celebrates the Mexican army’s 1862 victory
over the French – big whoopee), a group of patriotic students at the Live Oak
High School in Morgan Hill, California, were sent home for wearing American-flag
t-shirts. Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez is said to have….

Read
more.

Securing the Border With Smart-Aleck Semantics

May
11th, 2011

The Washington Times

President Obama made a run for the border yesterday to shore up his
credentials on the immigration issue. Speaking from Chamizal National Memorial
in El Paso, Mr. Obama defended his strategy as if it were working. “They’ll
never be satisfied,” he said, lashing out at critics. “The truth is, the
measures we’ve put in place are getting results.”

The Obama administration has cooked up a novel way to calculate what a great
job his Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been doing in stemming
the flow of aliens flooding over the border from Mexico. In March, Ms.
Napolitano stood on a bridge connecting El Paso to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and
proclaimed border security to be “better than ever.” In testimony before the
Senate Homeland Security Committee last week, Ms. Napolitano claimed that the
meaning of “operational control” of the border is “archaic” and that she intends
to devise a “more quantitative and qualitative way to reflect what actually is
occurring at the border.” She said she wants an index that would include a
measure of how many persons have been deterred from even attempting to jump the
border.

By counting these theoretical illegals – as opposed to real ones – Ms.
Napolitano’s border-security mission becomes much easier. While hundreds of
thousands actually cross over annually, compared to, say, Mexico’s entire
population of 112 million, they represent a tiny fraction. Preventing border
crossing in a computer model or a spreadsheet allows Ms. Napolitano to proclaim
“mission accomplished” without having to actually crack down in a way that would
offend left-wing open-border advocacy groups.

Ms. Napolitano’s attempt to redefine what it means to secure the U.S. border
is a brilliant example of double-speak worthy of “Big Sis.” Real numbers are far
less forgiving. In February, the Government Accountability Office reported that
the Border Patrol has only 873 miles of the 2,000-mile southern border subject
to “operational control.” The term means simply that the Border Patrol has the
capacity to deter illegal crossers and pursue them when they’re spotted. The
remaining length is mostly open for free passage. In remote regions of Arizona,
cartels have established observation posts providing intelligence to ensure safe
border transit for drug couriers.

Mr. Obama and his economic advisers do deserve some credit for discouraging
illegals from crossing the southern border.

Read
more.