One for the Citizens

May 2, 2013
By J.R. Dunn

 
 Before we get too far away from the Marathon bombing, it needs to be acknowledged that this was yet another incident in which the average American proved crucial.

It wasn't overweight and aging police Tac squads, lumbering around in their armor through a shut-down city, clumped together as perfect targets for an IED, crowded four to a doorway as they spoke to residents, with no sign of lookouts or adequate cover. The Boston PD was lucky they were not up against trained terrorists. A couple of Quds or Hezb'allah operatives and the casualty list would have been much higher. The department's methods need to be thoroughly overhauled.

It wasn't the FBI, who succeeded in overlooking, for years on end, the fact that not only were the boys terror suspects, but also Mom, their uncles, aunts, and cousins, Genghis the dog and Kublai the cat, and half the people in their home village, including the guy that cleans the mosque. This marks something of a royal flush or bases-loaded home run in incompetent intelligence, something that required actual skill and will be difficult to surpass. We can top this off with the sudden Mirandizing of Dzhokhar just as FBI questioning was starting to get answers. Reports suggest that an FBI agent raced out to get a sympathetic judge to handle it. Anybody want to bet that the agent in question had "Mohammed" in his name? One thing for sure: there will be no worthwhile investigation or punishment involving any of this.

As for Homeland Defense, there is no sign that they were involved at any level whatsoever. All that we know is that Aunt Janet is too busy to answer any questions. So we'll just tiptoe away and not bother her.

No -- it was a handful of ordinary Joes who held the fort in this one. They include marathon spectator Bob Leonard and runner David Green, both of whom provided clear photos of the Tsarkaevs going about their filthy business (along with Green's friend Jason Lubin, who closely examined Green's photos to discover Dzhokhar Tsarnaev). The "official" photos were blurred and fuzzy to the extent that they enabled the legacy media to claim the younger Tsarnaev was a "white man," playing out their delusion that the Tea Party, acting on the encouragement of Messrs. Limbaugh and Beck, was behind the massacre. Left up to them, we might still be looking over our shoulders for people wearing tricorns.

It was Watertown homeowner David Henneberry, and not the roving phalanxes of armored Boston PD praetorians, who noticed that the cover on his boat had been disturbed, with a closer glance revealing bloodstains. The cops then took over, shooting up the boat with dozens (some reports say "hundreds") of rounds only to discover at last that Dzhokar was in fact unarmed.

Nor should we forget "Danny," the carjacking victim who smartly left his cellphone switched on in his SUV so that police could track it.

This course of events has become commonplace since this conflict broke out in 2001. Flight 93, the Richard Reid "shoe-bomber" incident, the 2009 Detroit pantybomber incident, and the attempted Times Square bombing were all forestalled by average citizens intervening at the crucial moment. While the FBI, along with various local police forces such as the NYPD, have broken up a number of conspiracies before they went into action, they have done less well with attacks in progress. At the narrow passage, when it's one-on-one against the terrorists, it is American citizens who take point.

This is not the way that government would have it. Since the Bush administration, the federal government's response to any terrorist action has been to throw in another few billion and hire another layer of personnel, apparently in hopes that a tidal wave of yoyos will eventually drown the Jihadis.  We're supposed to relax and shop while Aunt Janet and her merry men protect us.

That great Christian leader, Barack Obama, has taken things a step farther by attempting to fight the conflict while pretending it's not going on. Obama apparently really believed that his name, his Islamic... "experience," is the harmless word, I suppose, his African relations, and a few paragraphs of multiculturalist drivel would make terrorism go away.  When this failed to occur, he attempted to hold the Jihadis at arm's length through a tactically and morally questionable use of drones (anybody who didn't feel a twinge of conscience on learning that Anwar  al-Awlaki's sixteen-year-old son was killed alongside him has no soul), while underplaying Jihadi actions in the U.S. and elsewhere with the eager assistance of the media. Massacres in the U.S. became "workplace violence," massacres overseas were blamed on loser would-be filmmakers.

Eager for a return to normality in the midst of a seemingly endless war, Americans allowed themselves to be fooled. Many -- probably most -- yearned for the pre-9/11 world with a longing that was constant and heartfelt. They truly wanted a return to the Clintonian 90s, the "holiday from history," when we could ignore things like WTC '93, the Khobar Towers, the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi embassies, and the USS Cole, pushing aside the fact these atrocities were the milestones leading to our current predicament.

The master of pretence catered to that impulse, and many have bought it.  To these people, the Marathon bombing came as another shock, just as if 9/11 (and Fort Hood, and the Seattle Jewish center, and Little Rock, and...) never happened. Further attacks this summer will give them more opportunities to look puzzled and frightened at the same time.  If they're lucky, their more alert brethren will be there to step in.

Who knows -- if Obama and his handpicked enablers hadn't gone to such efforts to dissemble, somebody in Boston might have noticed the Tsarnaevs acting oddly, walking away from their dumped shoulder bags, or even wondered about the abandoned bags themselves, lying at the exact spots where they'd do the most damage. (Israelis are conditioned to do this with abandoned bags and packages, and succeed quite well at it. Such means do not make up a large element of Palestinian terror.)  

This incident has taught us quite a lot. That Chechnya is a front in the war on terror. That we have allowed entire tribes of potential killers free entry into the United States. That Jihadis feel nothing in the way of gratitude for being welcomed, assisted, and catered to in this country.

But what we have learned over and above all else is that the war goes on, and that no one, god-man though he may be, can make it go away for long. We need to rebuckle our armor, reawaken our alertness, and relearn the habits from the war's early days. The average American, the man and woman in the street, have proven to be the most effective force in the struggle against Jihadi terror. Eventually, somebody will wake up to this. It's unlikely the name will be Janet, or Eric, or Barack.

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

American Thinker

Obama Seizing Sole Authority for US Defense

by William Bigelow 31 Dec 2012

 In an attempt to seize total control over national security and bypass congress, a frightening new step by the Obama Administration is coming into play. As noted in Friday’s Wall Street Journal in an op-ed by John Bolton and John Woo, a State Department advisory group that is run by former Secretary of Defense William Perry is advising that the U.S. and Russia both reduce nuclear weapons without a treaty, as a treaty would require ratification by Congress. This would allow Obama and his executive branch to unilaterally cut our nuclear weaponry and ignore the treaty clause of the Constitution. As Bolton and Woo point out, the US has a greater global responsibility than Russia; Iran and North Korea, neither of which is far from Russian interests, can only be countered by U.S. military strength. In addition, they note that Russia is not a trustworthy partner in weapons reduction; it has violated many arms-control agreements, such as the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives.

Some of the inherent problems in the seizure by this executive branch of decision-making power is Barack Obama’s desire to deeply cut our nuclear forces. A joint decision with Russia would place long-term limits on our cache of arms, thus placing constraints on us catching up if Russia decides to go ahead and build and the blurring of the lines deliberately drawn by the Constitution’s Framers separating the executive and legislative branches power.

Obama has made no secret of his desire to dismantle our nuclear capacity; the New Start Treaty he championed in 2011 forced the U.S. to observe a ceiling of 700 strategic delivery vehicles and 1,550 strategic warheads, and this past March he stated his desire to cut our arsenal further:

“ … a step we have never taken before – reducing not only our strategic nuclear warheads but also tactical weapons and warheads in reserve.”

It is naïve to assume that Obama is simply blind to the results of his actions and trusts the world around him to act with generosity. There has been too much evidence of Russia’s support of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and Russia has cunningly avoided supporting sanctions on North Korea for its rocket launches; in December, Georgy Toloraya, Director of Korean Research at the Institute of Economics, simply said:

"In Russia we believe that resolutions must be observed and UN decisions must be implemented. We think that North Korea has the right for space explorations but only after all the issues linked with the UN sanctions banning rocket launches with the use of ballistic technologies are settled. It is necessary to divide two aspects - we support the discussion of the rocket launch issue by the UN Security Council but we don’t think that this must automatically mean tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.”

Obama knows all this. His step-by-step evisceration of the United States is not confined to its economic system but its national defense as well.

Big Government

All the President's Women and Men

October 16, 2012
By Ed Lasky

Among the key responsibilities of a president is choosing highly capable officials to steer the nation's course wisely.  President Obama has failed in this duty.  Romney declared during the debate that Obama only picks losers regarding green energy boondoggles; the same pattern holds true when it comes to picking people to run the nation.  His picks span the spectrum from the incompetent to the dismal.

Recently, I was struck by the tone and gist of a column by New York Times liberal columnist (but I repeat myself) Roger Cohen.  His piece, "Obama's Team of Idolizers," made mincemeat of Barack Obama's campaign claim that he would assemble a Cabinet that would resemble the stellar cast of characters that became Abraham Lincoln's "Team of Rivals."  Four years later, Cohen was so critical of their performance that he dismissed them as having been chosen for their willingness to serve as a "coterie of idolizers."

Given the debacle or Libya, this excerpt is particularly relevant and timely:

The Obama inner circle remains a group of tough political tacticians: David Axelrod, David Plouffe and Valerie Jarrett. The White House national security team does not boast a single name of strategic stature. Anyone outside Washington would be hard pressed to name one.

On Egypt, he toyed with preserving Mubarak ad interim before the tide became irreversible.

On Syria, he has in essence dithered. On Afghanistan, domestic politics dictated the agenda, at a cost in American lives.

Subsequently, we have had the massacre in Benghazi and the exposure of multiple failings by the White House, the State Department, or the intelligence community, one or all of whom ignored warnings and rejected pleas for more security.  People were asleep at the switch (or, in the case of President Obama, busy fundraising, ignoring the duty to hear daily intelligence briefings, discussing the merits of various hot peppers or dishing with the Pimp with the Limp); people also died.

While a mother wants to know how and why her only son was killed (see "I want to know what happened to my son"), Barack Obama avoids any questions involving Libya and instead of talking with a grieving mother, talks sports on a radio show in Ohio (see "Obama: I'm a Professional Ohio State Cheerleader").  And the media fashions an image of him as being the empathetic, likeable candidate.

But this was just the latest in a series of failings by various members of the Obama entourage.

Their foibles can serve as epitaphs for a failed presidency.

Vice President Joe Biden
Here we have the Gaffe-Master, America's favorite punch line; a supposed foreign policy guru who has a long history of making the wrong calls; a sheriff of the stimulus boondoggle, who went AWOL as hundreds of billions of dollars was spent and, in many cases, wasted; and a man who has no problem spouting falsehoods and remaking Obama's policies on the fly.  He is the Joker.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Smart diplomacy that has led to distancing from allies (Israel), betrayal of allies (the Czech Republic and Poland, regarding the stationing of anti-missile missiles in their nations to serve as a defense against Iranian nuclear missiles); dissing of allies (primarily the British -- see the symbolic return of the Churchill bust, siding with Argentina over the Falklands); trying to sabotage the democratization of allies (Honduras); turning down pleas by potential allies to help overthrow theocratic, dictatorial, and dangerous regimes (Iranian Green Protesters to Obama: Are You With Us or With Them; they got their answer soon enough, and it was not want they were hoping to hear).

The so-called smart diplomacy led to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians being less likely than before the Obama presidency, an Iranian nuclear bomb being more likely, the Muslim Brotherhood on the march throughout the Arab world, the Saudi royal family feeling shafted by Barack Obama, and America's reputation in many nations of the Muslim world being lower than it was when George Bush left office.

Ah...the fruits of smart diplomacy.

Then there is the Russian reset, which got off to a wrong start when "smart" diplomats in Clinton's own department failed to even find the right Russian translation for "reset" when handing over that ridiculous "reset" box with the red button.  That box became a symbol of incompetency and, later, naiveté.  Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Putin regime has measured the man in the Oval Office and is not impressed.  The failure of the Russian reset has been made manifest in the closing of the USAID office in Russia; the cancelation of the Nunn-Lugar Threat Reduction program; stiff-arming at the U.N. Security Council as Putin protects his clients in Syria and Iran, while funneling arms to them; and many other Russian bear hugs of neighboring republics that used to be part of the Soviet Union and that Putin intends to bend to his will.

Susan Rice
America's ambassador to the United Nations.  She is the maestro behind America's rejoining the execrable U.N. Human Rights Council -- a taxpayer-funded body dedicated to regularly condemning Israel while periodically (for balance's sake) taking a swipe at America (for, among other criticism, its racism).  Susan Rice also gave a tongue-lashing to Israel in a way no U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has ever done before; she refused to be in the room when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of the genocide facing Israel should Iran become a nuclear power.  She must be angling to become Obama's choice for secretary of state in a second term. Richard Grenell, spokesman for the last four U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, cited a study regarding Rice's work performance when he characterized her as being "wildly inattentive."

Now she has apparently served willingly as the sacrificial lamb to promote false stories regarding the Benghazi disaster; the buck with Barack Obama always stops on someone else's desk.
Laxity seems to be a job requirement for people hoping to win jobs in the Obama administration.  To wit:

Eric Holder
What words are conjured up when one thinks of Eric Holder?  Throwing out an easy win in the voter intimidation case commonly known as the New Black Panther Party scandal?  The Fast and the Furious Fiasco -- at best, he, too, was "wildly inattentive" regarding a lethal program being run by his underlings.  At worst, he was implicated in the massive failure of the program that led to Americans and a large number of Mexicans being murdered.  We may never know.  Barack Obama invoked executive privilege in a way it has never been invoked before in order to cloak and protect Holder from his own failures (ironically, as shown below, Holder has the temerity to call Americans "cowards").

Holder has also promoted lawyers who have defended terrorists to key roles at the Department of Justice and turned the Civil Rights Division into a witch-hunting group that sees racism everywhere -- a reflection of Holder's own views, perhaps, since he has derogatorily depicted America as a "nation of cowards" on race and has declared that minorities have not even begun to reap what they are entitled to when it comes to affirmative action and other benefits.  Holder also investigated and threatened prosecution of Americans involved in questioning terrorists and wanted to try terror suspects under the American criminal system (and in New York City, in the case of 9/11 terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed).  His policies led to the early Mirandizing of the so-called Underwear Bomber that potentially led to the loss of valuable intelligence that would have been gathered before the Underwear Bomber was informed of the rights that Holder has given him.

Charles Bolden
Barack Obama has found one way to save money: he has gutted NASA.  Instead of seeing his role as designed to protect the program and its employees, NASA administrator Charles Bolden sees his role as improving relations between America's space exploration program and the Muslim world.  Outreach to the stars has become outreach to the crescent moon.  This was not what Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had in mind.

James Clapper
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also seems to want to curry favor with the Muslim world.  

He dismissed concerns regarding the Muslim Brotherhood by characterizing them as being mostly secular.  

One would prefer that America's key official, responsible for marshaling the findings of all the intelligence agencies of the federal government and summarizing them for our decision-makers, had a better grasp of reality.  At least Clapper is far better than Charles Freeman, the man whom Obama originally wanted to appoint to the post until a firestorm of criticism (regarding anti-Semitism, his chumminess with the Saudis, his laboring on behalf of China) forced Freeman to withdraw from his nomination.

Janet Napolitano
The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has been in charge of the federalized and heavily criticized Transportation Security Administration, those wonderful and courteous people behind the pat-down program.  Similar to others on the Obama team, she has made great use of the thesaurus (far more popular than the Constitution among Obama officials).  Hence, terror attacks became "man-caused disasters."  (Isn't it important to be able to name an enemy?  Will we call terrorists "freedom-fighters" in a second term?)  Napolitano downgrades threats from Islamic terrorism but heightened concerns regarding home-grown right-wing extremism.  Her department riled returning veterans by depicting them as peculiarly susceptible to becoming terrorists.

Timothy Geithner
Obama's treasury secretary could not figure out how to honestly or competently file his tax returns and was forced to file amended returns and pay back taxes and interest after Obama nominated him for his post.  

Shouldn't the treasury secretary be held to at least some minimal standards?  One can still recall his bumbling performance before Congress in 2009 as the financial system shuddered (not a vote of confidence when the equity markets plummeted as he stammered out responses); he has barely been visible in the last couple of years, as American economic policy seems increasingly formulated by the Federal Reserve.  As the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes recently wrote, Obama and his team did not save us.  Ben Bernanke deserves the credit (and the blame should his grand experiment go awry).

Valerie Jarrett
Valerie Jarrett is widely considered the person Barack Obama relies upon the most when making decisions and formulating policy.  She and the Obamas go back decades.  She introduced the couple and has been tied to them ever since.

Her official title is "senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement," but, as Edward Klein notes in The Amateur (his bestselling book on Barack Obama), that title "doesn't begin to do justice to her unrivaled status in the White House."  Chicagoans who were familiar with her career (wrapped up in Cook County crony capitalism) were aghast at the prominent role she was given at the White House, given her sparse real-world accomplishments and limited experience.

Nevertheless, she is Obama's key aide.  She has also been portrayed by Matthew Continetti as "the Worst White House Aide" for her manifold failures and consistently poor advice while in the White House.
Continetti writes:

What Valerie Jarrett does best is represent the Obama administration in microcosm. She embodies its insularity, its cronyism, its cluelessness.

Jarrett pushed for the contraception and abortifacient mandates read into ObamaCare after its passage, an interpretation that offended many people.  She counseled against the killing of Osama bin Laden.  And those are just two examples from a litany of failure -- but in Obama's Washington, failure is not penalized, perhaps because it would reflect poorly on Obama.

Steven Chu
Energy Secretary Steven Chu boasted that his goal was to figure out "how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe" -- this when the economy was struggling even more than it is now and people were anxiety-ridden while paying their bills.  His department has overseen the green energy schemes whose now empty factories and labs litter the landscape while their bankruptcies clog the courts.  Under his "leadership," 80 percent of Department of Energy loans went to Obama donors.  Perhaps his department should relocate to Cook County, where such corruption is prevalent and widely ignored as the fiscal equivalent of "white noise."

Kathleen Sebelius
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius also pushed for the contraception and abortifacient mandates that violate the religious freedom of the Catholic church (she has been admonished by the Catholic church not to seek communion because of her actions).  Sebelius, in a legally dubious move that is being challenged by Congress, opened the door to waiving the work requirements that were fundamental to the welfare reform passed during the Clinton years; she also used her "waiver" authority under ObamaCare to exempt many unions (and businesses that all too often happened to be located in Nancy Pelosi's district) from the law's onerous requirements.  Recently,  she violated the Hatch Act that prohibits campaigning in an official capacity.  The White House announced she won't be punished  (surprise -- Obama hands out Get Out of Jail Free Cards to allies).

Hilda Solis
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis suspended rules requiring union leaders to report conflicts of interest to their members and has issued a slew of rules and regulatory "interpretations" to benefit unions.  She appeared before the AFL-CIO's convention and declared that she was "proud and humbled to be your humble servant as labor secretary."  That was not part of the oath she swore when she became labor secretary.

The list goes on and on.  Take Van Jones, whose radicalism was so extreme that he was compelled to resign, and Al Armendariz, the EPA official who was forced to resign when video surfaced of him boasting of plans to crucify oil and gas companies.  See also any number of officials at the Environmental Protection Agency -- including EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, who look at rules and regulations as "just words" (as Obama might say) that can be stretched in any way possible to win the administration's war on carbon.  And these say nothing of the numberless other bureaucrats appointed in the last four years determined to fundamentally "transform" America.

The country's recovery, despite record low interest rates and record, if not reckless, dollar-printing, is the weakest in American history.  In a marked "departure from history, his cabinet has almost no private sector experience[,]" wrote Forbes columnist Michael Cembalist at a time when our nation needed such people in leadership.

But Obama does not choose key officials based on merit.

Perhaps he chooses them because of personal loyalty (he was warned by experienced Washington hands to leave his Chicago friends behind, but he failed to heed their advice -- one of his chief foibles), political calculation (to appeal to various demographics), to serve the needs of various special interest groups that have captured the Democratic Party (see Jay Cost's superb new book Spoiled Rotten: How The Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble Democratic Party and Now Threatens the American Republic), or to reciprocate support given to his campaign.

However, Obama's choices to help America navigate through our time of trouble have not served us well. 

The people in these offices are our servants, not his.

And it is time for a change.

America deserves better.

American Thinker

Will Obama Keep Power 'by Any Means Necessary'?

August 21, 2012
By Stella Paul

 Let's go there: if Obama thinks he's losing, will he allow safe and fair elections on November 6?  And if he does lose, will he peacefully turn over power to Mitt Romney on January 20, 2013?  Or will he cling to power "by any means necessary," as a highly placed insider alleges?

Now, I'm truly sorry to raise such disgusting, un-American, crazy-sounding questions, but, alas, they're not crazy, and I've got a disquieting amount of evidence.  The Democrats have already accused Romney of murdering a woman with cancer, financial felonies, and not filing taxes for ten years -- the last charge delivered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the Senate floor, on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

By Democrat standards, I've got enough proof to put away Obama, et al. for life without parole.

Whatever chicanery Obama and his investors may be contemplating, it will probably unfold against some gargantuan crisis, manufactured or otherwise.  So cast your mind back to September 11, 2001, the day of the New York mayoral primary. 

In the chaos after the attacks, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was term-limited from running, pleaded that his leadership was essential and that he should be granted an extra three months in office after his term ran out on January 1.  Giuliani's unprecedented power-grab was rightfully scorned by his eventual successor, Michael Bloomberg.  So what did Bloomberg do when he ran into term limits?  He deployed his multi-billion-dollar fortune to manipulate the law and buy himself a quasi-legal third term, claiming that only he had the expertise to handle the 2008 financial crisis.

My point?  Politicians a great deal more conventional than Obama have loathed giving up power, and they have used crises and unethical machinations to try to keep it.

Now, let's look at just some of the disturbing evidence that indicates that Obama and his investors are plotting something big:

Super-High-Level Trial Balloons

USA Today reported that on September 27, 2011, Governor Beverly Perdue, Democrat of North Carolina, told a Rotary Club audience, "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover[.] ... You want people who don't worry about the next election."  When outrage greeted her suggestion, she retreated to the standard defense: she was just joking.  What a kidder!

Meanwhile, that same month, Peter Orszag, Obama's former director of the Office of Management and Budget, published an article in The New Republic titled "Too Much of A Good Thing: Why We Need Less Democracy."  In it, he posited that the country was too polarized; hence, "radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic."

Please note that these suggestions to suspend elections and radically reduce democratic control did not come from basement-dwelling bloggers.  They came from the governor of the very state in which the Democrats are holding their national convention and from one of Obama's most prominent Cabinet members.  Their close timing suggests that these ideas were circulating at the highest levels of the Democrat power elite.

"Whom Does the Government Intend to Shoot?"

That's the question recently posed by retired Major General Jerry Curry in the Daily Caller, in light of horrifying reports that the Social Security Administration is buying 174,000 rounds of hollow-point bullets for distribution to 41 locations in the U.S.

According to Major General Curry, Social Security's ammo spree follows the purchase by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of 46,000 rounds of hollow-point ammunition.  Will they be shooting fish in a barrel?

Most terrifying of all, Major General Curry reports that the Department of Homeland Security ordered 750 million rounds of hollow-point ammunition in March, then subsequently ordered an additional 750 million rounds, including bullets capable of penetrating walls.

"This is enough ammunition to empty five rounds into the body of every living American citizen," writes Major General Curry, who wonders what plan might require "so many dead Americans."

I strongly suggest that you read Major General Curry's article for yourself, so you can appreciate the full horror of what he describes.  After pointing out that Congress has done nothing to investigate these weapon purchases, Major General Curry, a 40-year veteran, concludes with these chilling words:

This is a deadly serious business. I hope I'm wrong, but something smells rotten. And If the Congress isn't going to do its duty and investigate this matter fully, the military will have to protect the Constitution, the nation, and our citizens.

900-plus Executive Orders

Obama may not be fond of governing, but he certainly does enjoy issuing executive orders -- more than 900 so far.  As American Thinker's Warren Beatty points out, these little-reported edicts reveal an all-too-predictable pattern: concentrating all national power and resources in Obama's hands, in case of "emergency."

So far, Obama has granted himself the right to control all transportation, including highways, airports, seaports, and railroads, and all modes of communication, storage facilities, electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels, and minerals.

Should you resist any of these emergency measures, rest assured that the U.S. government is now well supplied with bullets.

Openly War-Gaming against American Citizens

A recent issue of the well-respected Small Wars Journal featured an article titled "Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A 'Vision' of the Future."  Written by retired Army Col. Kevin Benson of the Army's University of Foreign Military and Jennifer Weber, a Civil War expert, the article helpfully game-played, in full operational detail, how the Army would destroy a local Tea Party insurrection.

The authors claim that should Tea Party rebels take over a City Hall, "Americans will expect the military to execute without pause and as professionally as if it were acting overseas"; therefore, "the Army cannot disappoint the American people, especially in such a moment."

The brazenness of this scheme for the U.S. military to kill Americans created a small, temporary stir.  The Washington Times editorialized, "This is a dark, pessimistic and wrongheaded view of what military leaders should spend their time studying."  The Washington Times also noted:

A professor at the Joint Forces Staff College was relieved of duty in June for uttering the heresy that the United States is at war with Islam. The Obama administration contended the professor had to be relieved because what he was teaching was not U.S. policy. Because there is no disclaimer attached to the Small Wars piece, it is fair to ask, at least in Col. Benson's case, whether his views reflect official policy regarding the use of U.S. military force against American citizens.

Active Partnership with America's Foreign Enemies

Many spectacles have enlivened presidential elections over the years, but 2012 marks the first time that high-level military personnel have felt compelled to publicly tell the president to stop leaking national security secrets.

A group of former U.S. intelligence and Special Forces operatives created a 22-minute video, "Dishonorable Disclosures," to shame Obama into shutting up about priceless intelligence related to bin Laden's death, British-Saudi penetration of al-Qaeda, and the Israeli-American Stuxnet virus attack on Iran's nuclear program.

Normally, presidents don't want to endanger American citizens and military personnel by leaking top-secret information -- but aiding and abetting the enemy is apparently all in a day's work for Obama.

And so, if he wants to stir up trouble before the election, either at home or abroad, he'll have plenty of enemy partners to help.  First, he's got the Russians, to whose president he was caught whispering on a hot mic about missile defense, "This is my last election[.] ... After my election, I have more flexibility."

Second, Obama is this close to the Muslim Brotherhood, who are world-class experts on unleashing political violence.  Obama helped the Muslim Brotherhood ascend to power in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya, and he's placed its operatives in the highest levels of the American government.  Surely, such clever characters as Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff, and Mohamed Elibiary, a Homeland Security Advisory committee member, can be trusted to think up some exciting turmoil to apply where needed.

And finally, close to home, Obama can rely on the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico, whom he supplied with thousands of guns.  Gratefully, they used their American taxpayer-funded AK-47s to wipe out rival drug gangs and to murder Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.  Attorney General Eric Holder is presently in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents on Operation Fast and Furious, and Obama ("President Transparency") has claimed executive privilege to withhold them.

Sending hordes of expensively armed drug gang members across our border should be a snap, now that Obama has crippled our Border Patrol.  Just think of all the headline-grabbing distractions these energetic young men can unleash!

Active Partnership with Domestic Criminal Groups

When Louis Farrakhan met Ahmadinejad: now there's a romance made in the bowels of hell.  Toss in the head of the New Black Panthers and fifty radical imams, and you've got the "Beast Axis" that was forged in a Manhattan hotel on September 27, 2010, according to The Blaze.

New Black Panther Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz boasted on Black Panther Radio that he "stands on solid ideological ground" with "His Excellency, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," who understands "the dynamics and the politics of world revolution."

Apparently, Obama approves of these antics, because his attorney general, Eric Holder, dropped charges against the New Black Panthers, even though they were caught on tape allegedly intimidating Philadelphia voters in the 2008 elections.  Naturally, Holder's Department of Justice then lied about its actions, covering up its political motivations.

Holder specifically protected King Samir Shabazz, who now serves as national field marshal for the New Black Panthers.  Shabazz spearheads the Panthers' ambitious new plan to "create inner city militaries that would go into nurseries and kill white babies and murder white people in the street."

Let's hope this "inner city military" is not what candidate Obama mysteriously referred to in 2008 when he pledged, "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set.  We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Imagine, for one monstrous moment, the destructive potential of this burgeoning alliance between the Obama-protected New Black Panthers, Obama's old Chicago associate Louis Farrakhan, and the genocidally obsessed Ahmadinejad.  If your blood didn't run cold, you weren't imagining hard enough.

A Tsunami of Voter Fraud

On June 15, 2012, Obama bypassed Congress and issued de facto amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.  Suddenly, whole new vistas of voter fraud opened up to the Democrats.  Admittedly, they've got to ramp up quickly for November, but this gang should prove up to the challenge.

Helping matters along, Holder is busy suing states that require photo ID to vote and attempting to disenfranchise the military.  Together, these well-coordinated efforts should provide Obama with the means to pull off staggering amounts of voter fraud.

"By Any Means Necessary"

If all else fails, Obama and his investors may be prepared to keep power "By Any Means Necessary."  This information comes from an uncannily predictive website called The Ulsterman Report.  Those who have followed its fascinating interviews over the last couple of years with two anonymous sources, Wall Street Insider and White House Insider, have seen its scoops confirmed again and again. 

Well over a year ahead of any other media, The Ulsterman Report was informing readers that Valerie Jarrett ran the White House and that Obama was strangely disengaged from the actual tasks of governing.  It predicted the emergence of obscure figures -- Kamala D. Harris, who's now attorney general of California, and her brother-in-law, Tony West, the newly named acting associate attorney general at the Department of Justice, who's being groomed as Holder's successor.

Most crucially, shortly after the bin Laden operation, the Ulsterman Report revealed that Valerie Jarrett had canceled three previous bin Laden raids.  That information now has been confirmed by Richard Miniter in his book, Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him.

Recently, a source known as Military Insider (MI) met with Ulsterman (UM) at the urging of Wall Street Insider (WSI) to issue a warning.  A section of their conversation follows below:

MI: Approximately two years ago...not quite two years ago...I received information pertaining to an election contingency plan.  For 2012.  After the 2010 elections there were particular operatives...specific to the Obama administration and Democratic Party leadership...indicating an overwhelming need to secure a second term for President Obama.  That document's title was...(pauses)

WSI: He can be trusted - I give you my word.  Please proceed.

MI: That document's title was "By Any Means Necessary".  It was unofficial - but we know it came directly from channels specific to the administration.  We confirmed that.

UM: What channels?  Who are you talking about?

MI: We believe it to have been authored by Mr. Sunstein.  Reviewed and approved by Valerie Jarrett.  Preparations for implementation are being done in part by Mr. Leo Gerard coordinating with...with high ranking officials within the Department of Justice, Homeland Security...and...the U.S. military.

We could dismiss the anonymous Military Insider's warning as overheated, unsourced hysteria.  Or we could examine it as one more piece of evidence to place alongside all the evidence I've described above.

The greatest asset of Obama and his investors has been their warp-speed audacity.  We're too stunned to believe what's happening in front of our eyes, and too embarrassed to mention it.  Who wants to speak up and be ridiculed as an unhinged paranoid, marching with the tinfoil hat brigade?

But our best bet -- perhaps our only bet -- is to frankly confront this ugly reality.  As Iran prepares to go nuclear and the global economy teeters, any number of "national emergencies" can suddenly erupt, demanding unprecedented measures by Obama to "save" us.  We must be prepared with skepticism, outrage, and defiance of any actions to deprive us of our Constitutional rights.

America remains the last best hope on earth.  And We the People must keep our power, by any means necessary.

correction: erroneous link to executive orders removed

correction: reference to work brigades and relocation centers removed

Write Stella Paul at stellapundit@aol.com.

American Thinker

Obama Admin Blesses GSA Decision Not to Arrest Occupy Protesters

by Tom Fitton 14 Aug 2012
 

  Barack Obama found himself in hot water when he told a group of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors, “Families like yours, young people like the ones here today — including the ones who were just chanting at me — you’re the reason that I ran for office in the first place.”

The President was harshly criticized for essentially giving a “shout out” to a movement plagued by accusations of criminal and violent behavior. But Judicial Watch recently uncovered evidence suggesting that Obama White House support for the OWS crowd was not limited to rhetoric.

Last week, we released records from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) indicating that the General Services Administration (GSA), with the approval of the Obama White House, instructed law enforcement officers to “stand down” and not arrest “Occupy Portland” protestors who were in violation of the law.

You read that correctly.

The records, which we obtained pursuant to a November 11, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, include internal DHS correspondence. And one November 6, 2011, e-mail exchange between DHS/National Protection and Programs Directorate Chief of Staff Caitlin Durkovich and GSA Public Buildings Service Commissioner Robert Peck (who has since been fired) specifically related to Occupy Portland protests taking place on federal property in Portland.

I am sorry to be emailing you on a Sunday night, but wanted to let you know our Press Shop has received a couple of calls from Portland media outlets about a group of 11 protesters who again set up camp at Terry Shrunk Plaza in Portland last night. They have chained themselves to a large drum filled with concrete. GSA controls the permits and has asked FPS [Federal Protective Services] not to enforce the curfew at park and the prohibition on overnight encampments. Reporters have asked if we will be arresting the protestors as FPS did last week.

Our FPS Commander in Portland says they are standing down and following GSA’s request to only intervene if there is a threat to public safety.

Peck responds:

Caitlin: yes, that is our position; it’s been vetted with our Administrator and Michael Robertson, our chief of staff, and we have communicated with the WH [White House], which has afforded us the discretion to fashion our approach to Occupy issues…The arrests last week were carried out despite our request that the protesters be allowed to remain and to camp overnight…

Given the history of the OWS movement and its “members,” the decision to ignore their crimes is incredibly irresponsible.

From its inception, the OWS movement has been beset with accusations of “crimes and dangerous behavior” during its protests. Here’s a partial list of accusations levied against OWS protestors: sexual assault, destruction of property, drug use, assaulting a police officer, and petty theft.

And it doesn’t seem to matter where these protests take place, whether it’s New York City or Portland, Oregon.

According to the Oregonian, the week before the above email exchange, on October 30, 2011:

Twenty-five Occupy Portland demonstrators were arrested…after refusing to leave Jamison Square. The arrests capped an intense hours-long standoff between police and dozens of protesters who refused to leave the Pearl District park after it was declared closed at midnight. Officers, some in riot gear and others on horses, faced off with protesters who remained in the square, despite being ordered to leave.

The protesters were reportedly arrested on accusations of “trespassing, interfering with a police officer and disorderly conduct for the noise complaints from neighbors.”

And what happened after the Obama administration told law enforcement to stand down?

According to Fox News:

The most serious incident [of Occupy violence] was reported in downtown Portland last night [November 8, 2011] -- cops responded to calls of a Molotov cocktail being set off near the city's World Trade Center. Authorities had received unconfirmed information a week earlier that people within the Occupy Portland encampment were constructing the crudely made bomb, which is normally fashioned from a glass bottle filled with gas and a soaked rag or cloth sticking out of the opening as a wick.

The Obama administration cannot hide behind the disclaimer that they only allowed protesters to violate curfew so long as there was no threat to public safety. First, the law is the law and it must be enforced in a consistent fashion. And, second, when you condone characters who have reportedly demonstrated a penchant for violence, you are inviting chaos. There is simply no excuse for giving OWS special treatment.

The name Robert Peck, the GSA official involved in the email exchange, may be familiar to you. Peck was at the center of a scandal involving the GSA in 2010, where the agency spent $823,000 on a lavish Las Vegas “training conference” that featured a clown, a mind reader and a $31,208 reception. And he got fired for it.

Peck, who has donated thousands of dollars to Democrat candidates, including Barack Obama, was also previously implicated in an unrelated GSA scandal for reportedly brokering a controversial lease deal for a Democratic donor and friend of former Vice President Al Gore. Per The Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott: “In Peck’s first go-round at GSA, controversy was sparked when it was learned that excessively high rent was being paid by the FCC to the owner of a building who also happened to be a Democratic donor. Peck was the official who made the deal possible.”

Peck was deposed by Judicial Watch on Tuesday in a separate lawsuit on behalf of Linda Shenwick, a GSA whistleblower. Ms. Shenwick was allegedly subjected to retaliation from Peck and others because of her opposition to wasteful spending, including the infamous GSA parties that have now caused so much controversy.

And now we have a new GSA scandal – one that involves the Obama White House. These documents clearly show that federal agencies colluded with the Obama White House to allow the Occupy Wall Street protesters to violate the law with impunity. These documents tell us that the GSA and DHS can’t be relied upon to protect federal workers or property.

Incredibly, responding to the media crush of interest in this Judicial Watch find, the Obama administration is now saying that the public shouldn’t believe the Obama administration documents and that Peck’s email is “incorrect.” Despite the sad attempt to throw Peck under the bus, the documents speak for themselves and detail, in black and white, high-level communications within the Obama administration. If there are additional documents that show these Obama administration documents are false, they should be produced by the Obama administration.

While we wait for that to happen, to view the entire production of records obtained by Judicial Watch, click here.

Big Government

Napolitano Doesn't Know If Touted Weapon Seizures Include Guns from Fast and Furious

by Mary Chastain 26 Jul 2012

 Republicans will not allow Operation Fast & Furious to fade away, despite Democrat and media efforts to sweep the DOJ's gun-running scandal under the rug. During a July 19 hearing Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz asked Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano if weapons seized at the border were part of Fast & Furious. In her opening statement, Secretary Napolitano boasted about how many weapons have been seized by federal agents.

“This decrease in apprehensions of those seeking to enter the country illegally, one of the best indicators of illegal immigration attempts, is combined with increased seizures in drugs, weapons, cash and contraband,” said Secretary Napolitano.

Congressman Chaffetz contested that boast with a pointed question.

“The president, yourself, the attorney general have all said that the Southwest border is more secure than it has ever been before,” Mr. Chaffetz said. “In Operation Fast and Furious, the government purposely allowed nearly 2,000 weapons to get into the hands of the drug cartels. How many of those weapons were detained at the border? Any?”

Secretary Napolitano simply replied, “I couldn’t answer that.”

“My understanding is that there hasn't been one single gun from Operation Fast and Furious apprehended by the Homeland Security or any other law enforcement," stated Chaffetz, "other than the two weapons that were found at the scene at the death of Brian Terry. Is there – am I wrong in that?”

Napolitano responded, “I just can’t answer that. I don’t know.”

If they’ve seized record amounts of guns at the borders and cannot confirm that any are Fast & Furious guns, where are the weapons from the program? Who has them? And do the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have any method in place to confirm and disclose to Congress when said weapons have been seized at the border?

This hearing, and Napolitano's testimony, highlight the problems endemic to the Fast & Furious operation--a lack of transparency and accountability when lives are literally on the line thanks to the actions of the federal government.

Big Government