Wednesday, April 29, 2009

First Hundred Days.

Come on, who's surprised? The White House-engineered photo-op of low-flying Air Force aircraft that caused terror in New York City this week epitomizes the Age of Obama. What better way to mark 100 days in office than with an appalling exercise in pointless taxpayer-funded stagecraft?

The superficiality, the unseriousness, the hubris, the obliviousness to post-9/11 realities: They were trademarks of the Obama campaign, and they are the tattoos on his governance.

He never leaves home without his teleprompter. All the Obama world's a stage. Or a world ready to be staged.

So is it any wonder he would staff his White House military office with a clueless paper pusher who saw nothing wrong with spending inordinate government resources -- and re-creating 9/11 havoc -- to update Air Force One publicity shots? And who planned, believe it or not, to do the same in Washington, D.C., next month, where the 9/11 jihadists murdered 53 passengers and 6 crewmembers on board American Airlines Flight 77, and 125 military and civilian personnel inside the Pentagon?

All for some publicity shots.

No one should be shocked. Remember: Barack Obama is the frivolous man who concocted his own presidential-looking Great Seal before he was elected. An ego big enough to publicly display a ridiculous "Vero Possumus" ("Yes, we can" in Latin) motto and a regal eagle with the Obama campaign logo emblazoned on its chest is an ego capable of far more reckless things. Obama orchestrated a grand photo-op in Berlin, Germany, to declare his world citizenship at the Siegessäule -- the Victory Column -- a soaring monument of arrogance championed by Adolf Hitler and Third Reich architect Albert Speer. He manufactured his own Open Temple of The One in Denver for the Democratic National Convention last summer, replete with fake Greek columns.

Since taking office, Obama has remained in perpetual campaign mode, idling in 9/10 gear. The photo album has filled up quickly with megalomaniacal moments. When his massive pork-filled stimulus package was in trouble, he ran to Ft. Myers, Fla., for a carefully choreographed revival meeting with his most ardent supporters. "It is such a blessing to see you. Oh! Gracious God, thank you so much!" one young booster exclaimed.

The president's famous embrace with another questioner -- homeless woman Henrietta Hughes, a perpetually unemployed drifter looking for a handout -- turned up on the White House online retrospective of the stimulus bill victory. (Missing: The photos of hundreds of thousands of Americans who took to the streets in Tea Party protests to oppose this massive act of generational theft and expansion of the entitlement state.) Another Kodak moment from the stimulus campaign exposed Obama's hype of the spending boondoggle's effects. Using a Caterpillar plant and workers as a backdrop, Obama grandly promised that if the stimulus passed, Caterpillar would rehire laid-off workers. It made front-page headlines. After the photo-op: Caterpillar's own CEO refuted the bogus promise and last week posted its first quarterly net loss in 16 years. After the signing, it finally dawned on pliant media outlets that the stimulus money was stupendously wasteful, and the job creation estimates, bogus. No pictures of those epiphanies. Obama's photo-ops abroad have been more unsettling: Bowing and scraping before Saudi King Abdullah, trashing America as "arrogant" (talk about a pot and kettle moment) in front of adoring French and German students, chumming it up with Venezuelan thug-in-chief Hugo Chavez. These are the defining images of a stunt(ed) presidency blind to our enemies and in a perpetual state of (re)pose. Obama appointed Leon Panetta, a chief of intelligence with no intelligence experience. He gave us Hillary Clinton, a secretary of state who cackled about the Somali pirate hijacking and laughed off serious questions about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques. He installed Rosa Brooks, a radical George Soros-trained ideologue, as a top Pentagon adviser. He came close to embracing Charles Freeman as top U.S. intelligence analyst -- a jihadi-sympathizing conspiracist who blamed America for 9/11. And he appointed Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary who can't get her facts straight about the 9/11 terrorists, pooh-poohed our immigration laws, disseminated a hit job on conservatives and veterans as right-wing extremist threats, and redefined acts of terrorism as "man-caused disasters." "Man-caused disaster." That's a perfect description of the Scare Force One torture photo-op that took place this week and an apt summary of the last 100 days. Say cheese. Michelle Malkin is author of "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com. COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

I Am an Extremist.

I Am an Extremist
http://townhall.com/columnists/OliverNorthby Oliver North
WASHINGTON -- According to the U.S. government, I am an extremist. I am a Christian and meet regularly with other Christians to study God's word. My faith convinces me the prophecies in the Holy Bible are true. I believe in the sanctity of human life, oppose abortion, and want to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I am a veteran with skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. I own several firearms, and I frequently shoot them, buy ammunition, and consider efforts to infringe on my Second Amendment rights to be wrong and unconstitutional. I fervently support the sovereignty of the United States, and I am deeply concerned about our economy, increasingly higher taxes, illegal immigration, soaring unemployment, and actions by our government that will bury my children beneath a mountain of debt.
Apparently, all this makes me a "rightwing extremist." At least, that's what it says in the April 7 "Assessment" issued by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. The nine-page report, titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," is full of warnings about American citizens who share any part of my background or subscribe to the beliefs above. It is one of the most alarming documents produced by our government that I ever have read.
Evidently, neither you nor I ever was supposed to read this "Assessment." At the bottom of the cover page is a warning that it is "not to be released to the public, the media, or other personnel who do not have a valid need-to-know." We're Americans. We have a need to know what's going on in our government, especially in an administration that promised to be "transparent." A full copy of the report is posted at http://www.FreedomAlliance.org.
The "Assessment" purports to alert law enforcement officials that "rightwing extremists" -- the term is used more than 35 times -- are intent on exploiting Americans who have strongly held beliefs on everything from Christian faith to rising unemployment, U.S. sovereignty and the Second Amendment. It vilifies those of us in these categories by references to neo-Nazis, racists, militias, white supremacists and other "hate groups." Notably, the report includes a warning that right-wing extremism "may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."
Though the report proffers a passing reference to the First Amendment, it is replete with bias against conservative thought, writing and communications. On Page 3, law enforcement authorities are warned, "Rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived (emphasis added) loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures."
That is a frightening acknowledgment that political speech is being monitored in America. It is also wrong. It's not "perception." It is fact. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the manufacturing and construction sectors have lost 161,000 jobs and 126,000 jobs, respectively, last month alone.
In its "Key Findings," the DHS manuscript boldly charges that "rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues" and offers this warning: "The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."
Under the heading "Disgruntled Military Veterans," the report alleges: "Rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists -- including lone wolves or small terrorist cells -- to carry out violence." These unsubstantiated claims are followed by reminders that Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, was a military veteran. Omitted is any reference to the fact that McVeigh was simply one of more than 40 million veterans of the U.S. armed forces.
Thirteen lines after this egregious, unconscionable slander against those of us who are military combat veterans, DHS makes the stunning charge that "lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States."
According to this DHS "Assessment," the most dangerous threat we face here at home isn't from radical imams preaching violence in U.S. mosques and madrassas, Islamists recruiting in our prisons, Somali terrorists enticing young immigrants to become suicide bombers, or Hamas, Hezbollah or al-Qaida operatives plotting mass murder. No, according to DHS, the real threat comes from what our government labels "rightwing extremist ideology."
Mr. Obama should disavow this report publicly and fire the officials responsible for issuing it. Those who prepare his remarks for the occasion should insert in the teleprompter former Sen. Barry Goldwater's words on the subject: "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Survivalists 2.0

We're seeing more and more articles like these! FORT WORTH — Jack Spirko owns a media company, is married to a nurse and has a son in college. He has two dogs and lives in a nice house with a pool in a diversified neighborhood in suburban Arlington, Texas.
Spirko, 36, considers himself an average guy with a normal life.
But for the past few years, Spirko has been stockpiling food, water, gas, guns and ammunition. He also has a load of red wine, Starbucks coffee and deodorant stashed away.
“I refer to myself as a modern survivalist, which means I don’t do without,” Spirko explained. “I have a nice TV; I have nice furniture. We are not living in the sticks, but I take all of these things very seriously.”
Spirko, an Army veteran and self-described “stark-raving-mad Libertarian,” is part of a growing movement of people who are preparing for a disaster natural, economic or man-made. Referred to as “modern survivalists” or “preppers,” they are taking steps to protect and provide for their families should something bad happen.
Theirs is a different breed of survivalist, far from the right-wing militants or religious extremists who hole up in bunkers, live off the land and wait for the apocalypse.
Preppers are regular people with regular jobs who decided after Sept. 11, after Hurricane Katrina or when their 401(k)s tanked that they can’t rely on someone else to help them if something goes awry.
“We are normal people just like you,” Spirko said. “We just understand that, sometimes, stuff goes wrong.”
Donnie, 38, a McKinney, Texas, resident who is an account executive with an international trade show organization, said Hurricane Katrina opened his eyes. He spent six weeks working as a paramedic in New Orleans.
“It was a logistical nightmare getting to the area,” Donnie said. “And the longer you were there, the more you realized that, in a blink of an eye, your life can be turned upside down. I don’t want to be the person in the bread line or standing in line for ice.”
Donnie, like many of those interviewed for this article, agreed to talk to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on the condition that his last name not be used.
“I usually don’t advertise it,” Donnie said. “There are people who cast a wary eye.”
He said that after Katrina, he amassed about two weeks’ worth of food. But last September, after the economy began to sour, he “kicked into a higher gear” and acquired more supplies and water-filtration systems.
“I probably have about six months’ worth of food for two people,” Donnie said. “I keep about 30 gallons of water on hand, and I have the means to store another 200 gallons if I have advance notice of something going bad.”
Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, said that when people start stockpiling food and water or buying weapons, they are in a motivational state called “avoidance mode.”
“You turn on the news and only hear about job losses and the prospect that things are going to get worse than better,” he said. “You see signals that the world is full of nasty things you need to avoid. You’ve engaged in this general sense of avoidance. You are trying to focus on safety concerns.”
Markman said the trend is not surprising, given the economy.
What exactly preppers are preparing for isn’t specific. It could be a layoff, tornado, global pandemic or nuclear war.
Internet sites devoted to survivalism often refer to scenarios like TEOTWAWKI, an acronym for “the end of the world as we know it.”
“I am prepared for just about any disaster that disrupts everyday living,” said Bob, 43, a sales manager from eastern Pennsylvania who runs www.thinkprepared.net.
“ ... The economy is at the forefront of my concerns. The unemployment rate is soaring, and most people are not prepared to be without a paycheck for a week, much less a month or longer,” Bob said.
Businesses that sell storable foods, disaster shelters and guns are thriving.
Bruce Hopkins, owner of Best Prices Storable Foods, which sells dehydrated and canned foods, said sales “exploded” last spring and remain steady. On a single day recently, Hopkins sold $31,000 worth of storable food. Hopkins said a popular item is a one-year food supply for a family of four or family of two, priced at $4,000 and $2,700, respectively.
“I think to have anything less than a month’s food supply is foolish,” said Hopkins, whose business is in Quinlan, Texas. “I think it is time to stop watching ‘American Idol’ and start paying attention to what is going on in the world.”
Walton McCarthy, owner and principal engineer of Radius Engineering International, builds underground disaster shelters that protect against nuclear, chemical and biological warfare, among other things.
He said his business has tripled since July, when reports of Iranian missile tests surfaced. McCarthy’s disaster shelters hold 10 to 300 people and cost $105,000 to $6 million. His customers include politicians, doctors and key executives.
“What we are going through now is the Pearl Harbor blues,” said McCarthy, whose company is based in Forney, Texas. “All of the ingredients are here. It is around the corner, and no one should be surprised.”
At Cheaper Than Dirt Outdoor Adventures, a gun store in north Fort Worth, business has never been better. Owner Dewayne Irwin said he sees three types of customers: “You have the everyday good ol’ boy Texas gun owner. You have the folks that are coming in and saying, ‘I’ve lost my job and my neighbor lost their job’ and they really believe they might have to fight over a bucket of carrots or something. And you have the guys who are first-time gun buyers and they don’t really know why. It is Main Street. It is crazy.”
Spirko grew up in rural Pennsylvania, where hunting, fishing, gardening, and canning and storing food were a way of life.
“No one looked at that back then and said, ‘These people were survivalists,’ ” Spirko said. “That is just what you did.”
After Spirko got out of the Army, he moved to Texas and started working in communications and sales.
“I found myself in my mid-20s pursuing corporate America, working the six-figure job and traveling all over the United States,” Spirko said.
And then, Y2K happened — or, rather, didn’t happen.
“I thought they were absolutely crazy,” Spirko said. “They thought the toaster was going to explode when it goes to 2000 or whatever.”
And while Spirko didn’t buy into the Y2K scare, he did think legitimate concerns had been raised.
“Right after that, we had the dot-com bubble explode. We had the stock market crash. My portfolio went down by 50 percent overnight. And then 9-11,” he said. “I started going back to my roots and started to look at ways to preserve our cash and make sure we had some food on hand.”
In July, Spirko launched a podcast for modern survivalists at TheSurvivalPodcast.com. He encourages people to pay down their debt and have extra cash, water and food and an evacuation plan. About the same time, he expanded his backyard garden, where he grows tomatoes, peas, corn, strawberries, onions and jalapenos, among other things.
“We had two big scares with produce last year — jalapenos and tomatoes,” Spirko said. “First jalapenos had salmonella, and then tomatoes had salmonella. If that can happen, what other things can happen?”
Gwenn, 52, a self-described “girlvivalist,” runs a lodging house in Beaumont, Texas. She has plenty of water, a year’s worth of food and a shotgun for protection.
“When we had Hurricane Ike here, a lot of my tenants didn’t evacuate,” she said. “While my neighbors were standing in line for MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) at the shopping center, we were grilling steak.”
Many survivalists — Spirko is not one of them — are “closet preppers.”
Afraid that they will be viewed as crazy or weird, they don’t tell people they are storing freeze-dried food, canning their own vegetables or setting up an alternate location where they can go if TEOTWAWKI arrives. They also don’t want “raiders” beating down their door if a disaster happens.
Bob said survivalists are often viewed — incorrectly — as doomsayers.
“Some people think we want the end of the world as we know it,” he said. “I can tell you from my heart, I hope nothing like that ever happens. I want my sons to grow up and have a great life.”
Still, Bob believes that everybody should at least have a 72-hour bag of gear, also known as a “bug-out bag,” ready to go.
“Survival today is more about being prepared for short-term situations, like hurricanes, floods and blizzards,” Bob said. “... Learn some basic skills like gardening, first aid and personal defense. Become self-reliant like our grandparents were.”
Jordan Mills, 30, an information technology contractor in downtown Houston, put his bug-out bag to good use during Hurricanes Rita and Ike. In it, he keeps his birth certificate, medical records, cash, food, water, flashlights, tape, garbage bags, clothes and other supplies.
Mills said he didn’t choose the “survivalist” label, but others have called him that.
“The word brings to my mind an image of a gruff mountain man with a log cabin, 10 years of food stored up and enough guns to outfit a small army,” he said. “I don’t meet that image at all. I consider the chance of a total collapse of society and the end of the world as we know it to be pretty much zero. To me, survivalism is really just preparing for day-to-day inconveniences or emergencies.”
Every morning, Spirko gets in his diesel Jetta and makes the 50-mile commute from Arlington to Frisco, where his media company is based.
During the drive, he records his daily podcast. He discusses things like storing food safely, finding alternative energy options, dealing with anti-survivalist stigma and finding time to prep.
“The more I dug in, the more I learned,” he said. “And then something really cool happened: This community started to build around it.”
Spirko said that about 4,000 people download his podcast each day and that his audience is growing.
“People are always waiting for someone else to come and help them,” he said. “To me, survivalism is just waking back up to traditional American values. I’m talking about basic self-responsibility, basic self-worth — understanding that you control your life more than anybody else.
“If you do nothing, you may not regret it. But if you do regret it, you are really going to regret it.”chron.com

Friday, April 17, 2009

Are you a RIGHTWING EXTREMIST?

IT'S TRUE! According to news reports, the Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in "rightwing extremist activity," labeling citizens opposed to new firearms restrictions, returning veterans and conservatives as "rightwing extremists" and associating them with white supremacists and violent antigovernment groups. You read that right -- it appears that the Obama Administration, and especially the DHS under Janet Napolitano, is trying to demonize political dissent. And it's no big surprise who's directly in their crosshairs: supporters of the Second Amendment, including veterans and gun owners. Who is funding this kind of nonsense? Well, YOU are. Why would your government spend your money attacking YOU, instead of spending your money PROTECTING you? This calls for grassroots action, on a HUGE scale!
TELL CONGRESS TO CONDEMN THIS GOVERNMENTATTACK ON GUN OWNERS AND VETERANS:SEND YOUR FAXES NOW! The report also says that Congressional debates about immigration and gun control make extremist groups suspicious and give them a rallying cry: "It is unclear if either bill will be passed into law; nonetheless, a correlation may exist between the potential passage of gun control legislation and increased hoarding of ammunition, weapons stockpiling, and paramilitary training activities among rightwing extremists," the report said. Why are they worried? Because since November, more than 7 million people have applied for criminal background checks in order to buy weapons. And as far as the Obama administration is concerned, buying guns equals "weapons stockpiling," buying ammo equals "hoarding of ammunition," and expressing concern about Congress passing gun control legislation qualifies YOU as part of an "extremist group." Therefore, you and I are now being viewed as dangerous rightwing extremists that law enforcement officials need to be watching out for! This is OUTRAGEOUS!
TELL CONGRESS TO CONDEMN THIS GOVERNMENTATTACK ON GUN OWNERS AND VETERANS:SEND YOUR FAXES NOW! This report was released "hot on the heels" of another (state) government agency report in February: the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report titled, "MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement." In this horrific "law enforcement sensitive" secret police report, Governor Jeremiah (Jay) Nixon; John Britt, Director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety; James Keathley, Colonel, Missouri State Highway Patrol; and Van Godsey, Director of MIAC categorize certain citizens as being potential violence-prone "militia members." According to the MIAC report, if you oppose any of the following, you could qualify for being profiled as a potential dangerous "militia member":
The United Nations
The New World Order
Gun Control
The violation of Posse Comitatus
The Federal Reserve
The Income Tax
The Ammunition and Accountability Act
A possible Constitutional Convention
The North American Union
Universal Service Program
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Abortion
Illegal ImmigrationWell, there you have it! You see? You ARE a dangerous rightwing extremist! As ridiculous as that report seems, it was distributed to law enforcement officials across the state of Missouri. And it wasn't until the state government was FLOODED with protests from patriotic Americans across the country, that they finally came out and denounced and retracted the MIAC document. Now, it's happened again -- but this time, at the Federal level! Our own government is turning against us, and unless there is a HUGE outpouring of outrage from every part of this nation, it will just keep getting WORSE!
TELL CONGRESS TO CONDEMN THIS GOVERNMENTATTACK ON GUN OWNERS AND VETERANS:SEND YOUR FAXES NOW! Interestingly enough, no left-leaning political ideologies were identified. No Islamic extremists. No environmental extremists. Only people holding "conservative" or "right-wing" philosophies were identified in BOTH the MIAC report AND the Homeland Security "assessment." This shouldn't be too surprising: both of these reports are similar to several other reports currently circulating around various State police agencies, courtesy of DHS-sponsored "Fusion Centers." MIAC is one of those Centers, sponsored by the DHS! So now, even veterans are targets of our own government: The Homeland Security assessment specifically says that "rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat." PLEASE, don't think we're making a "big deal" out of nothing! Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban specifically told the press, "This is nothing unusual," and added that the Homeland Security Department did this "to prevent another Tim McVeigh from ever happening again." The authors of this assessment are pushing an "Us against Them" philosophy. You and I are being marginalized -- labeled as fringe kooks, "rightwing extremists," so that it will be easier to violate our liberties and take away our right to keep and bear arms in the future. The only thing that will put a STOP to this nonsense is a huge public outcry opposing it. If we do nothing, however, it will soon be too late to do anything. We either stop it NOW, or it will grow into an out-of-control monster that will monitor and control the personal opinions and speech of every man, woman, and child in this country. As patriotic Americans, we need to DEMAND that this outrageous report be CONDEMNED by our Representatives in Congress, and RETRACTED by the Obama administration -- NOW. They, along with Secretary Napolitano, owe every conservative American, every veteran and every gun owner who supports limited government an apology. Please, SELECT HERE NOW to send Blast Faxes to EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF CONGRESS, telling them to take action against this report TODAY! Sincerely,Alan Gottlieb, ChairmanCitizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Thursday, April 9, 2009

First one 100 days.

The (little-watched) MSNBC channel is running a poll on how YOU think Obama is doing in his first 100 days. Regardless of your political beliefs, here's an opportunity to tell this liberal outfit what you think. Pass it on to like-minded friends and associates.
The link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093/