Better wake up America….this isn’t theater! This is your life, your reality…….

Click here to view the embedded video.

Worth repeating…” If Congress stopped all spending today and did not spend a single nickel on anything else, and they made payments of $100 million dollars a day, it would take us….389 years just to pay off our national debt.” Ah, yeah that’s your wake up call people.

After weeks of this dog and pony show, did they really think haggling over, roughly, $38.5 billion dollars was remotely as important as the $14,282 Billion we are responsible for on the national debt, the $113 Trillion in unfunded liabilities, or did they just think we’d roll over on this further display of ineptness and applaud their feeble efforts? You think the Republicans think Americans are dumb enough not to know how things work? The House controls all the spending of the entire government…. and, Mr. Bernanke furthering the cause? What a circus act….

Reality check…our debt jumped $54.1 Billion in the eight days preceding the Obama/Boehner deal to cut the $38.5 Billion for the rest of the year. Mr. Boehner where is the tissue box now?

While your tears start to roll…think about the $4 Billion we pay in interest on the national debt each day! No one is talking to America anymore….because we have allowed it. George Soros is gathering up his minions to rewrite the global economic news (that is your wallet and mine) since in his opinion the dollar should no longer be the world’s reserve currency, Russia is off fueling Iran’s nuclear plant, we no longer seem to feel the need to protect Israel’s interest while rockets are being blasted and while Obama’s buddy Bill inspires the flotilla launch next month. What the hell is going on in this world….. Japan pumps radioactive water into the sea and is only halted a day after China expressed concern at the discharge of contaminated water. Oh America….where are you? Tell us Mr. Boehner, could you have ever allow our ‘almighty government’ to really tighten the belt?

Shut It Down?

The founding fathers have to be spinning in their graves as our country is being run by a ‘questionable’ president and the most corrupt house and senate in the history of our country.

It doesn’t add up…. but, we’ve got money to parade around the cherry blossoms…. close the dam Federal Government until you can get it right! Get a calculator that works…this is a historic scam….ponzi in a word.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And now, what are the Republicans putting forth for top Presidential candidates……Romney or Trump? Watch…the media will be giving the jeweled crown to Romney…and Trump will hold his feet to the fire stirring the pot and at least asking some of the questions McCain failed to do…. puppets, puppets and more puppets.

And yet look who speaks with some common sense and is told how unelectable he is… that dam Constitution….just muddies the water every time. Civil liberties, borrow money from China, such contentious issues………..

Click here to view the embedded video.

America, get on the right side of history…this isn’t what the Tea Party went to Washington to accept.

February 18, 2011 by Barry Willoughby

As a former resident of Wisconsin before retiring in Florida, and still a proud “Cheesehead,” I can write this piece with a sense of pride and high degree of understanding. I have family living in the Milwaukee area and am able to keep current on all the political news, although for the past several years, the topic of conversation has revolved mostly around “man-made” global cooling. For the benefit of the global warming alarmists, there is no global warming in Wisconsin.

The recent success of the Green Bay Packers brought everyone in the state together. There was a feeling of pride and good will. However, that euphoria soon turned into the shocking scenes we are now observing in Madison and other parts of Wisconsin, where thousands of people are angrily protesting a legislative bill addressing the budget cuts necessary in order to keep the state government afloat.

Republican Governor Scott Walker has taken a much needed stand against the unions in identifying the state’s budgetary insanity, created by past Democrats, in bankrupting the state. Newly elected Republican leaders said they expected Wisconsin residents would be pleased with the savings the bill would achieve — $30 million by July 1 and $300 million over the next two years to address a $3.6 BILLION budget shortfall.

A sense of urgency by voters and much needed reforms for responsible fiscal direction are the reasons Republicans changed the political landscape in Wisconsin. For the first time in decades, Republicans control the executive and both legislatives branches of government.

So what’s the rub, Wisconsin Democrats?

You got trounced in the last election and are now whining that you’re being picked on unfairly. You blame all of the economic problems on others without accepting any responsibility … never mind you were in charge all those years and despite having been warned that Wisconsin’s economic house of cards was unsustainable.

Now, you are sending thousands of protesters to clog the hallway outside the Senate chamber and line the streets around the capitol building beating on drums, holding hateful signs deriding Governor Walker and pleading for lawmakers to “kill the bill.” Several protesters also demonstrated outside the homes of some lawmakers, disturbing their right to privacy.

A large portion of the protestors are teachers, who think nothing of going AWOL from their teaching jobs. Some are using their “sick days.” Excuse me, but when I went to school, teachers taught their students not to lie. Several Wisconsin schools have closed during the course of this week’s demonstrations, with some teachers dragging their students along with them to Madison. My son David, who decided to attend the protest on Thursday, asked several of the students why they were there. They had no clue, but nevertheless seemed to enjoy the day off from school.

When confronted by thousands of unruly and hateful demonstrators around him, David, one of the original Naples Tea Partiers before moving back to Wisconsin last month, had a great answer when a television reporter asked him if he felt outnumbered. He said, “I have nothing to fear … I’m a Marine … 25,000 to one … I like my odds.”

David witnessed first hand some of the hateful rhetoric by many of the protestors. I find it truly ironic that just a few short weeks ago, and since the tragedy in Tucson, President Obama and other liberal pundits self-righteously lectured conservatives that hate speech had no place in America if civility is to become the new standard for political discourse.

“Violent political rhetoric comes almost exclusively from the Right,” proclaimed Eugene Robinson, as he made the rounds on the national talk show circuit. Bill Maher spoke of love and said, “the Right-wing loves … wouldn’t it be fun to kill the people we disagree with. Left-wingers don’t talk that way.”

Oh really? What happened on the way to Madison?

David reported that it was common to see signs with Governor Walker’s face in cross hairs, along with pictures of Walker dressed and disguised as Hitler. He was hung in effigy by one person. Slogans like “Walker Needs To Die” and “Don’t Retreat … Reload” were proudly displayed.

Here, take a look if you don’t believe David. Go to:

The unions are saying that the bill they are protesting would prohibit public employees from the collective bargaining process. Wrong! Unions still could represent workers, but could not seek pay increases above those pegged to the Consumer Price Index, unless approved by a public referendum. Also in the bill, unions could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized. In exchange for bearing more costs and losing bargaining leverage, public employees were promised no furloughs or layoffs.

Now we see the problem. Along with the unions, teachers and other public workers are not willing to accept responsibility in order to fix what they have created … an unsustainable nightmare of entitlements and retirement benefits. With a liberal, it is always a problem of someone else’s selfishness. It is all about the union and maintaining power over their workers, and through them, the populace. The new union motto should be …”Join the union … lose your individuality … don’t be responsible.”

Here is the really disgusting part of this whole scene in Wisconsin: In attempting to put a halt to the legislation being proposed, Democrat state Senators have fled Wisconsin in order to avoid voting on the measure. How brave of them! Shirking the Constitutional duty that they swore to uphold means nothing to a Democrat any longer. To a progressive, any means to a justified end is apparently acceptable.

As I write this, the demonstrations in Wisconsin are still going strong, while the Wisconsin State Police are trying to hunt down the Democrat politicians in hiding. Even President Obama is encouraging them not to surrender to the “assault on unions.” Such a mockery of our form of government has never before reared such an ugly head.

But, you know what Mr. President? Wisconsin is a microcosm for the grim financial straits that exist in almost every state in America. Which state will be next? Your home state of Illinois might be next. How are you going to deal with it? Your days of rewarding the unions’ gluttony, failure and irresponsibility might come to a screeching halt if the Tea Party has anything to say about it. But, rest assured. Our demonstrations will not be a bit like the tumultuous farce now taking place in Wisconsin.

Could 2011 be the year political interference in the ordering of society reveal it’s tragic flaws? Are the American people beginning to understand that economic means are necessary for recovery? The public has watched this administration tweak, stimulate, restrict, re-engineer and coerce until we’re at the brink of a serious financial collapse, most likely starting with the bankruptcy of several large states. As the year progresses, will the unintended consequences of these recent political actions to fix our failing economy be revealed in the year ahead?

2011 promises to be an interesting year which will determine if the Tea Party movement is real or just a temporary reaction to government over-reach. If the Tea Party is a real sustainable movement to limit government, stop out of control spending and remove government obstacles to insure a free market, we should see increased pressure to hold our newly elected representatives accountable. A reasonable explication of a free market is vital as opposed to this administration’s engineering which has brought us to the brink of financial collapse. There will definitely be a reaction from the status quo if Rand Paul and Marco Rubio deliver on their campaign promises. We can expect to see the status quo Washington elitists attempt to marginalize the Tea Party candidates, again.

To have a positive effect, The Tea Party needs to deliver a focused message and put the pressure on to make big cuts in government. The political realm and the nation will realize this movement is serious and has staying power. Yet, if the Rubio’s and Paul’s capitulate to the Republican establishment, then it’s all over. These representatives need to stay on point and deliver the message of limited government and a free market. They need an intelligent message which explains the limited government philosophy and makes clear why government power should be halted. It needs to be a positive message which reveals success, expanded opportunity, economic growth and the beginning of America taking on a different role from what we’ve recently seen. It needs to be inspirational that transcends politics and addresses the private sector. Highlighting the innovated genius and creativity of the American people left free to pursue their own ingenuity and dreams.

The message of 2011 need to oppose the narrative that government is the managing force of which we all must become dependent, a message of liberation, courage, personal responsibility and a vision of a better future. The Democrats will be pushing economic nationalism and a modern version of State Capitalism. This type of national effort proposed by this administration can be seductive to many. The Tea Party must be able to refute this rhetoric to co-opt the unemployment and disenfranchise. It will be difficult with the media spreading the message of infrastructure spending as an investment and the path to employment. The economic situation is critical and the decisions we make this coming year can bring us back from the edge or push us over.

Right after the midterm elections, we all observed Bill Clinton with Barack Obama. At that point, anyone who is anyone in politics started talking about compromise, bipartisanship, no labels. This is called public manipulation. Obama will be re-elected if the public can be manipulated for another two years.  The current direction will be secure and the new blood in Washington, determined to reduce the power of government, will be marginalized. Obama has stated to his followers, this is a long run game. It was no mistake Clinton made an appearance, it’s exactly how he dealt with the public backlash of his progressive plans.  The status quo in Washington is depending upon the public being as gullible as they have been in the past. Obama will appear to be moving to the center and artfully maneuver past the new Tea Party members in the House. What you’ll see is the appearance of bipartisanship, obscured distinctions between free market, limited government principles and a mixed economy.  They will subtlety frame the newly elected consciousness as extreme while framing what they are pushing as “investment” in America, a patriotic duty to pull together and catch up with China.

What we will see is Washington manipulating us to believe that they have seen the light and are changing direction.  So, in 2012  let’s focus on the candidates who haven’t changed prior rhetoric and honestly believe government needs to be reduced. Why should the public fall for such obvious manipulation?

They shouldn’t and hopefully they won’t. A lot depends on how much the public has learned and how much they continue to learn in the next few years.

I  have been asked what I personally think of this tax compromise. I personally  think it stinks. Not Harry Reid’s  omnibus bill, I will get to that. I am speaking of the  bill suggested by the President and Mitch McConnell in which no taxes would  be raised on any American. In exchange for unemployment extensions along with subsidies for ethanol.  There  are also other spending in the bill. There is no good reason to accept this bill without a fight. If successful in defeating the bill Taxes would rise for everyone in January.  Then with control of the house and nearer  control of the Senate.  They could pass a bill lowering the taxes back to the Bush tax cuts for everyone. The president the Senate, with 23 Democrat seats up for grabs in 2012 they would  go along. Obama will not dare veto the bill for he is concerned with his election in 2012. If he did veto the bill he would most certainly be blamed for raising taxes on the middle class.

As to the Senate Omnibus Bill that is to be presented. The following is also my personal opinion. It also stinks to high heaven.
Let us look at the cost and some of the things in  the bill.
It is another 1,294 page bill that no one will be able to read. Harry Reid wants it passed in three days. It is reported that it would take 40 hours just to read the bill, that would not include understanding and study. The cost of the bill 1.3 trillion dollars. $349,000 for animal waste management. $500,000 for a obesity research project. $94,000 for black bear management. A $1.4 million for a scholarship fund to be given in the name of a congressman’s deceased  son.
$500,000 to build roundabouts in a legislator’s district. $ 2, 000,000 for a Freedom Fund of a Coal/Fuel Alliance. 2 million for citizen education.
$1,400,000 for Stupack’s Olympic Scholarship Program.  $588,000 for Virtual Plant data base. $ 208,000 for Beaver management.

1 million dollars for Arthropod damage control, this one for Senator  Harry Reid.. If you do not know what an  Arthropod is it is  an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton (external skeleton), a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Examples are: Horseshoe Crabs, Oysters, lobsters, shrimp, bony fish.  A million dollar training package for the AFL-CIO. Train union members to do what?  These are only  parts of this pork package.

There are 6,739ear marks in the bill at a cost of 574.13 million per page. You should note that Republicans are also involved in those ear marks.  I will do my best to name them for you.

Tom Macchia
Council for Constitutional Principles

November 24, 2010 By Barry Willougby

Some cry that our elections have shown less than democracy at its best. Technically, they’re right because we are a republic, not a democracy.

But, I am as shocked at the tactics in American elections as Capt. Renault was in the film “Casablanca” to discover there was gambling in the casino.

Face it; politics is a rough road.

If you want a polite pastime, politics is not for you. It is an arena, not a drawing room. Just as American football mimics warfare — 22 men in armor fighting over territory with generals (coaches) calling the shots to field commanders (quarterbacks) — so do elections substitute for revolutions. The founders realized this, and that was before football became a substitute for warfare.

In political-science class, teachers once taught that we Americans have “revolution” built into our system. We have witnessed historical events that further validate the genius of constitutional authority, rule of law and rights of the individual that come with personal responsibility in the pursuit of happiness. Was there a reason people in the Soviet bloc countries were forced to appear happy? As the progressives suggest, are people really happier in China, the apparent new collective role model for progress in America?

The reality is that many people living under an oligarchy are in effect kept in the dark. They do not know many of the lies being told to them and have no sense of power short of a revolution.

America is supposed to be different. In electing officials, we can change our leaders without having to resort to lowering ourselves by using a guillotine or a Molotov cocktail, like many of the other nations which now criticize us. This was, and is, an innovation of historic importance.

The Constitution provides for a civilized transition of government every two or four years. Elections take longer than revolutions to effect change, but even the nastiest campaigns are much more conducive to stability than the alternative. Be proud of it.

Whether realized or not, we Americans carry tea party principles deep in our national DNA. That is the reason the tea party movement has soared so quickly. That is why our rallies are powerful, joyful, peaceful and exciting. In that core lies the source of all our unity, energy and strength. And if America is to survive as a republic, that is the reason the tea party movement will remain relevant.

Our commitment will not vanish, the way some may wish, nor turn bloody, as some may fear. Our strength comes from a calm, sure place, too deep in our national soul to disappear merely because one election is over. Tea party values will endure for the next election and the next, because the ideals we hold dear existed long before the tea party had a name.

The tea party does not have to form a third organization and perhaps divide and dilute its effectiveness. It only has to awaken our fellow Americans to the values we already have in the Constitution, defended by generations before us. Let the Constitution be our compass. And let’s not tamper lightly, by the bench, by legislation or by fiat, with a document so carefully constructed for the benefit of all mankind.

And what are some tea party ideals? The primary one is that the proper role of government is to protect individual rights; that government should not devour the people, or burden them by sucking up the profits of their hard work. Just as every citizen should be accountable for his actions, every government official must be held to the same high standards. If a law is not good enough for our representatives, it is not good enough for the people.

To those who would deny voters a referendum and a voice on spending the people’s money, tremble. To those who “game” the bureaucratic system, game over. To those who only follow the letter but not the spirit of the law, your duplicity will mean your downfall.

The tea party is not going away. It is movement which above all else calls for personal and public integrity. You can never have your integrity stolen. You have to sell it to the highest bidder or throw it away. Integrity and time are all that anyone really possesses. Our time here is measured. Let our courage and integrity stay strong so that we may do the work that we must do.

The time and energy our volunteers put into the tea party today will reap rewards far beyond our location and our years. We the people have a chance to right this ship of state and send it into the future, following its proper course. And in doing so let us hope we will have earned the right to call ourselves Americans.

Couldn’t sleep again.  Thought you might enjoy this and may want to pass it on.

Yet another sleepless night with 25 days to go before we know exactly how big the tsunami that is about to wash over the democrats is, or whether or not it is going to make any difference at all to the current state of affairs.

How many of you can relate?  Sleepless night after sleepless night worried about still not being able to find a job because you are too old and not one, but two, former industries have been completely collapsed by the progressives in Congress, the White House, and the Federal Reserve?  Worried about being homeless with a child that already has PTSD and wondering how that is going to affect their ability to cope.  Constantly worried about a family member becoming ill and not having any medical insurance.  Constantly worried about how to pay the bills and put enough food on the table to keep the family mentally and physically coherent.  Waiting and praying that there will actually be a collective sigh of relief when the Congress is flipped, and hoping that the Republicans don’t turn their ‘chance’ for redemption into one big cluster**** that drives us further into depression.

Is that resonating?

The GOP has put forward their ‘Pledge To America‘ that lacks creativity, bold reasoning, decisive measures, and for lack of a better word, vision. In their rush to sell themselves to moderates and indies, they have created a lukewarm beginning to the problems that face this country and have NOT embraced their ‘inner no’.

I have a better idea.  Want to hear vision?  My readers will let me know if I’m over the line on what I believe needs to be done.  Time to think outside the box when it comes to hitting the escape key on this system and re-inventing America once again.

Vision For America

• CUT SPENDING!  Make earmarks illegal.  If a program does not fit inside the guidelines of the Constitution, it becomes mincemeat.  Considering the items that follow, there will be more than enough money for Americans to make sure those turtles have crossings, and whatever replaces the NEA (privately) will be able to make art happen.
• Cut Spending – Abolish the private banking cartel known as the Federal Reserve System, cut up the credit card they provide to Congress, and stop paying interest on our money.  That is the most heinously idiotic damn thing I have ever heard.
• Break the unholy alliance between the six biggest banks in the country and the federal government. Shut down the revolving door between Goldman Sachs and their brethren and the Treasury Department.
• Cut Spending – Abolish the IRS whose entire existence revolves around siphoning off Americans’ wealth in order for the progressives to redistribute our wealth to the rest of the world, and to make sure the Federal Reserve Mafia gets their interest.  We would save $12.1 BILLION immediately, and give over 100,000 Americans a chance to make a living doing something they can take pride in.
• Institute a fair or flat tax that is consumption based.  This would bring trillions of dollars in investment money back from the Caymans and other offshore banking areas, and it would tax the underground economy.
• Repeal Obamacare and replace it with a free market solution that TAKES EMPLOYERS out of medical insurance completely.  How many of you feel like indentured servants having to take certain positions or stay at companies because they have you over a barrel with your benefits?  How many healthy Americans are being penalized with higher premiums because other members of the group policy haven’t taken care of themselves and are using benefits like water?  How many of us don’t even have benefits because we aren’t employed?
• Repeal the Dodd/Frank financial reform FIASCO that gives even more control over Americans through banking institutions and their money, yet doesn’t address the biggest factor in the housing collapse – GSEs Fannie and Freddie.  Fannie Mae has returned to its subprime lending terms on foreclosures, while we are still shelling out billions to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat.
• Remove the federal government as the guarantor of last resort for credit cards (bank bailouts), student loans, mortgages, etc.  This IS NOT their job and never was.  Is it in the Constitution?  Nope!  Shitcan it.
• Pass a Constitutional Amendment making presidential czars and federal government agency mandates illegal.  If the EPA wants to tell Americans that the carbon dioxide is pollution, it has to be debated by elected officials.  If Cass Sunstein wants to ‘nudge‘ America, he is going to have to receive permission from us.
• Take Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid away from Congress and the Treasury.  The lockbox for these government entitlement programs was a flat out lie and has never existed.  I am sure with minds like Steve Jobs, Steve Wynn, Donald Trump, and Hermain Cain, we can find a profitable, yet safe, retirement savings avenue for Americans to watch over their nest eggs.
• Remove the United Nations from our country, literally and figuratively.  Rescind treaties under the guise of the United Nations; STOP sending Americans’ wealth to them; kick the IMF and World Bank out.  Deal with the fallout and then not only play by the rules, but write laws that protect America’s sovereignty.  It may be a global village (according to the Fabian Socialists) but without a leader, it will become even more chaotic.
• Pass a Constitutional Amendment that forbids a central bank system from being established in America ever again, and remove the Treasury Department’s involvement with the Bank of International Settlements.
• Stop using the power of the Executive Branch to strong-arm the world into compliance with what the global elites feel is in their best interest.  We don’t give a flying squirrel’s fluffy freakin’ tail what you want; you are wealthy enough already.  You aren’t going to be allowed to become yet wealthier by using shady underhanded schemes; i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan.  Thanks George and Dick.
• Introduce and pass legislation that forbids think-tanks and NGOs from writing legislation; i.e. Apollo Alliance – Stimulus Bill or the Council on Foreign Relations.
• Assign a Congressional task force to examine and recommend repeal of laws that have been passed in the last 150 years that are blatantly un-Constitutional, threaten liberty, privacy, and free enterprise.
• Repeal the Patriot Act in it’s entirety.
• STOP SPYING ON AMERICANS with cameras, illegal wiretapping, data mining protocols, etc.  Tighten the supervision of America’s intelligence community, and require them to share the data they do acquire.
• Remove American military bases from islamic countries.  Stop providing the radical jihadists with another reason to attack America.
• Introduce and pass legislation that forbids genetically modified organisms from being produced and require the multinational companies creating this organisms to clean up the pollution that they have introduced to the environment.  Are you listening Monsanto?
• Introduce and pass legislation that forbids Big Pharma from creating viruses, patenting them, and patenting the genetic code of Earth’s lifeforms.
• Introduce and pass legislation that forbids ‘Too Big To Fail’.
• Introduce and pass legislation that requires term limits.
• Introduce and pass legislation that makes lobbying illegal.
• Pass a Constitutional Amendment protecting Americans’ right to bear arms – in perpetuity.
• Pass a Constitutional Amendment that requires nominees to the United States Supreme Court to actually have judicial bench time.  Also require that the nominee in question not have been in the employ of the Executive or Legislative Branches, and show a history of interpreting law according to the Constitution and American Sovereignty.
• Pass a Constitutional Amendment that emphatically states what a Natural Born Citizen is (born on American soil to two American citizens), and then require all candidates to comply with requirements proving they are natural born for the office they are seeking (if required).
• Close the freakin’ border!  Understand that Mexican citizens are  ‘invading’ sovereign American soil and we will not tolerate it.  Locate and deport all illegal aliens as their prize for disrespecting our country and breaking our laws.

How’s that for a rant session?  Please feel free to add what you believe should be done to get our country back on the right track.

I’m going to try to sleep now…

It’s time for humble seriousness in American politics. This is no time for the usual political games, it’s a time to stand on educated principles and to explicate the positions taken on why we need to limit government and stop spending. It’s time for political conversation in America, ideas need to be put forth so everyone understands the philosophical foundation of this needed direction.

Conservatives need to reach out to liberals, independents, etc. to come up with a way to free our economy from government intervention and with alternative plans to address our most serious problems. It might not do any good to reach out to liberals, but the efforts need to be made. It requires all representatives to get involved to turn back this current administration’s ideologies and once again allow the private sector to create economic prosperity and good paying jobs.

The Tea Party started as an unorganized grass roots movement, but traditional intuition is to organize and gain political power. Many in the media wrote off the Tea Party because it wasn’t organized and it had no leaders. This was a clear sign to those involved in the movement, they were on the right track.

The Tea Party as it is related to limited government and a free market needs to move on and drop the label now. The worst thing possible for Tea Party organizations is to form and become formal political machines. They will become easy targets. What America needs is a movement based upon the spirit of freedom, entrepreneurism, independence and  charity. All which need to be rooted in the original principles that rose to stand against centuries of domination and oppression.

Although many Americans are now on a sharp learning curve regarding politics and government, and are eager to learn, there are still many who don’t care to learn and probably never will. Our nation is learning about politics while at the same time becoming apolitical. People are looking at the system and realizing it’s broken. It will not fix itself. As America moves closer to a collapse under the weight of a bloated, over reaching government, the need for unity and private sector solutions become even greater.

We are at a turning point in our history and “liberals” and “conservatives” have to transcend differences to tackle a much greater problem. There is plenty of room for cultural debates, the higher forms of advancement of a society…..but, we have problems with basics right now. Basics that affect all of us. Once we’ve overcome the problem of government and we’re living in freedom and responsibility then we can work out the cultural differences. Hopefully, through the process we’ll learn from one another in our diversity which made this country unique and great. But, if the State is controlling us from birth to death, “culture” will be determined for us.

Freedom is a liberty, it is not being under someone else’s control. It is having the right, indeed, the responsibility to take a stand on all issues that affect our nation. There is no greater way to exercise our freedom, to ensure that freedom, than to vote.

However, many Americans do not take that freedom seriously, as evidenced by the lack of strong participation in elections. A vote can be a dangerous weapon.  Take the time to understand and learn how to use it this election.

September 29, 2010 by Tony Blankley

Not long after the tea party sprang into being in the spring of 2009, America’s elites started vilifying the movement. In an article worthy of a class-action libel suit, The New York Review of Books depicted the tea party’s first march on Washington as a parade of bigots.

Ex-president Jimmy Carter spit venom at tea partiers by saying they resented an African-American president — a baseless charge of racism willingly echoed by the media.

When they weren’t being defamed as racists, tea party supporters were described as irrational, enraged, seething, and livid. Constituents at town hall meetings who rejected the superficial Democratic Party talking points and demanded answers instead of political spin were portrayed as mobs on the verge of riot. At the very time that real Muslim terrorists were planning a record number of attacks inside the U.S. right under their noses, political apparatchiks in the Department of Homeland Security warned ominously of imaginary right-wing violence as the nation’s newest terrorist threat.

When the elites weren’t depicting their fellow Americans as out-of-control racists and anti-government zealots, they tried to downplay their social and political importance. They did so with a demographic attempt at marginalization; the tea partiers, they said, were too old, too white, too middle class to matter in contemporary America, and thus could be safely ignored.

This liberal critique of the tea partiers — a dangerous mob, but of marginal importance in post-racial America — is a curious paradox. Why fear and loathe a movement said to be narrow in its views and scope?

The answer was given to us in a remarkably prescient book, Christopher Lasch’s “The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy,” posthumously published in 1995. The noted historian, whose intellectual journey carried him from the left in the ’60s to the populist right by the ’90s, would have been giddy over the tea party.

Lasch believed the only hope for American democracy lay in a revival of the middle class, particularly what were once known as middle-class virtues. The book title is an explicit ironic commentary on Jose Ortega y Gasset’s 1932 (first English translation) classic: “The Revolt of the Masses.”

Ortega famously argued that a materialistic mass population had no self-restraint, only takes from its civilization — in contrast to the elites who still sacrificed for the greater good. Lasch’s point — and mine — is that roles are now reversed. It is the elites who are the materialists and the tea party/middle-class American who is prepared to sacrifice for our grandchildren’s freedom and prosperity.

The very idea of virtue, and other absolutes, has fallen into disfavor with the elites.

Lasch described the emergence of elites who “…control the international flow of money and information, preside over philanthropic foundations and institutions of higher learning, manage the instruments of cultural production and thus set the terms of public debate.” These elites would undermine American democracy in order to fulfill their insatiable desire for wealth and power and to perpetuate their social and political advantages. Middle-class values, Lasch warned, would be hollowed out by a value-neutral educational system preaching multiculturalism. Their replacement would be narcissistic values based on self-gratification and worshipful of fame and celebrity as the ultimate values in a world devoid of deeper meaning. Sound familiar, Paris Hilton?

Against this relativistic tide, Lasch found the middle class’s antiquated values — hard work, family, faith, community — a possible bulwark. He did fear the middle-class squeeze, both in a cultural and economic sense. Had he lived, he would no doubt have been a severe critic of globalism, the 21st century’s logical extension of multiculturalism and the economic damage it has done the middle class.

The German philosopher Hegel saw history as a progression of culturally dominant ideas. An original thesis, Hegel says, is followed by its antithesis, and that in turn evolves into a synthesis of both.

Applying Hegel to Lasch, I would argue that the tea party movement constitutes such an historic moment. Make no mistake. What we are witnessing is the antithesis of elite-driven greedy self-serving government debt creation, multiculturalism and soulless globalism.

The tea party movement will assert middle-class values, economic nationalism, patriotism and other concepts derided by post-modern elitists. The movement’s central tenets — small government, decentralization of power and end to profligate spending — are precisely what Lasch prescribed to restore American democracy.

The elite’s fear and loathing of the tea party movement is rooted in the recognition that the real change is only now coming. They are right to be fearful, for the ultimate outcome of the tea party’s triumph will be to constrain the elite’s economic and cultural hegemony. This reversal of fortune, with power flowing from the elites back to the middle class, will take time to fully manifest itself. But an inexorable movement has begun.

If Lasch were alive, he could write a new book, “The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Rebirth of Democracy.” Among its observations might be this: The Obama presidency is both the high watermark, and the beginning of the end, for elite multicultural materialism in America.

The populist movement is more a critique of the GOP than a wing of it.

September 17, 201o by Peggy Noonan

This fact marks our political age: The pendulum is swinging faster and in shorter arcs than it ever has in our lifetimes. Few foresaw the earthquake of 2008 in 2006. No board-certified political professional predicted, on Election Day 2008, what happened in 2009-10 (New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts) and has been happening, and will happen, since then. It all moves so quickly now, it all turns on a dime.

But at this moment we are witnessing a shift that will likely have some enduring political impact. Another way of saying that: The past few years, a lot of people in politics have wondered about the possibility of a third party. Would it be possible to organize one? While they were wondering, a virtual third party was being born. And nobody organized it.

Here is Jonathan Rauch in National Journal on the tea party’s innovative, broad-based network: “In the expansive dominion of the Tea Party Patriots, which extends to thousands of local groups and literally countless activists,” there is no chain of command, no hierarchy. Individuals “move the movement.” Popular issues gain traction and are emphasized, unpopular ones die. “In American politics, radical decentralization has never been tried on such a large scale.” Here are pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen in the Washington Examiner: “The Tea Party has become one of the most powerful and extraordinary movements in American political history.” “It is as popular as both the Democratic and Republican parties.” “Over half of the electorate now say they favor the Tea Party movement, around 35 percent say they support the movement, 20 to 25 percent self-identify as members of the movement.”

So far, the tea party is not a wing of the GOP but a critique of it. This was demonstrated in spectacular fashion when GOP operatives dismissed tea party-backed Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. The Republican establishment is “the reason we even have the Tea Party movement,” shot back columnist and tea party enthusiast Andrea Tantaros in the New York Daily News. It was the Bush administration that “ran up deficits” and gave us “open borders” and “Medicare Part D and busted budgets.”

Everyone has an explanation for the tea party that is actually not an explanation but a description. They’re “angry.” They’re “antiestablishment,” “populist,” “anti-elite.” All to varying degrees true. But as a network television executive said this week, “They should be fed up. Our institutions have failed.”

I see two central reasons for the tea party’s rise. The first is the yardstick, and the second is the clock. First, the yardstick. Imagine that over at the 36-inch end you’ve got pure liberal thinking—more and larger government programs, a bigger government that costs more in the many ways that cost can be calculated. Over at the other end you’ve got conservative thinking—a government that is growing smaller and less demanding and is less expensive. You assume that when the two major parties are negotiating bills in Washington, they sort of lay down the yardstick and begin negotiations at the 18-inch line. Each party pulls in the direction it wants, and the dominant party moves the government a few inches in their direction.

But if you look at the past half century or so you have to think: How come even when Republicans are in charge, even when they’re dominant, government has always gotten larger and more expensive? It’s always grown! It’s as if something inexorable in our political reality—with those who think in liberal terms dominating the establishment, the media, the academy—has always tilted the starting point in negotiations away from 18 inches, and always toward liberalism, toward the 36-inch point.

Democrats on the Hill or in the White House try to pull it up to 30, Republicans try to pull it back to 25. A deal is struck at 28. Washington Republicans call it victory: “Hey, it coulda been 29!” But regular conservative-minded or Republican voters see yet another loss. They could live with 18. They’d like eight. Instead it’s 28.

For conservatives on the ground, it has often felt as if Democrats (and moderate Republicans) were always saying, “We should spend a trillion dollars,” and the Republican Party would respond, “No, too costly. How about $700 billion?” Conservatives on the ground are thinking, “How about nothing? How about we don’t spend more money but finally start cutting.”

What they want is representatives who’ll begin the negotiations at 18 inches and tug the final bill toward five inches. And they believe tea party candidates will do that.

The second thing is the clock. Here is a great virtue of the tea party: They know what time it is. It’s getting late. If we don’t get the size and cost of government in line now, we won’t be able to. We’re teetering on the brink of some vast, dark new world—states and cities on the brink of bankruptcy, the federal government too. The issue isn’t “big spending” anymore. It’s ruinous spending that they fear will end America as we know it, as they promised it to their children.

So there’s a sense that dramatic action is needed, and a sense of profound urgency. Add drama to urgency and you get the victory of a tea party-backed candidate.

That is the context. Local tea parties seem—so far—not to be falling in love with the particular talents or background of their candidates. It’s more detached than that. They don’t say their candidates will be reflective, skilled in negotiations, a great senator, a Paul Douglas or Pat Moynihan or a sturdy Scoop Jackson. These qualities are not what they think are urgently needed. What they want is someone who will walk in, put her foot on the conservative end of the yardstick, and make everything slip down in that direction.

Nobody knows how all this will play out, but we are seeing something big—something homegrown, broad-based and independent. In part it is a rising up of those who truly believe America is imperiled and truly mean to save her. The dangers, both present and potential, are obvious. A movement like this can help a nation by acting as a corrective, or it can descend into a corrosive populism that celebrates unknowingness as authenticity, that confuses showiness with seriousness and vulgarity with true conviction. Parts could become swept by a desire just to tear down, to destroy. But establishments exist for a reason. It is true that the party establishment is compromised, and by many things, but one of them is experience. They’ve lived through a lot, seen a lot, know the national terrain. They know how things work. They know the history. I wonder if tea party members know how fragile are the institutions that help keep the country together.

One difference so far between the tea party and the great wave of conservatives that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980 is that latter was a true coalition—not only North and South, East and West but right-wingers, intellectuals who were former leftists, and former Democrats. When they won presidential landslides in 1980, ’84 and ’88, they brought the center with them. That in the end is how you win. Will the center join arms and work with the tea party? That’s a great question of 2012.

Despite the Copenhagen Climate Summit failure, the U.N. is still pushing for the global carbon tax which will bankroll the expansion of a world government, while American’s pay for the evisceration of its own sovereignty. While Soros has rigged this with a carbon tax to “save the environment” from a well marketed threat of global warming, the sad reality is it’s all about industrialists who own the carbon trading system with an emphasis on an escalation of their own wealth at the expense of Americans future prosperity.

“Carbon taxes, add-ons to international air fares and a levy on cross-border money movements are among ways being considered by a panel of the world’s leading economists to raise a staggering $100 billion a year to fight climate change,” reports the Associated Press.  What was not revealed during the Copenhagen summit negotiations was the global tax the elite are pushing for will not even support the U.N.’s initiative to fight carbon dioxide.  The London Guardian exposed in a leaked document, this tax will go directly to the World Bank.

While electricity and gas prices are slated to soar following the introduction of a carbon tax, those who are positioned with investments in the carbon tax trading market are set to make an obscene profit. The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) has direct ties to Al Gore, George Soros and Maurice Strong. All individuals with long standing history using the theory of man-made global warming as a catalyst for profit. Gore’s company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offsets is the largest shareholder of the CCX. Goldman Sachs equally owns another 10%.

CCX is operated by the public company Climate Exchange PLC, which also coincidentally owns the European Climate Exchange.  CCX is North America’s only voluntary greenhouse gas reduction and trading system for emission sources. The companies who join the exchange commit to reducing their aggregate emissions by 6% by 2010. To date the exchange has more than 350 members of which corporations like Ford, DuPont, Motorola and many State and Municipalities  have climbed on board.

What is interesting is Barrack Obama was involved in the funding of the formation of the CCX.  Obama was a Board Member of the Joyce Foundation prior to becoming an Illinois Senator. While on the BOD, the Joyce Foundation richly supported this endeavor with  $1.1 million in grants that were instrumental in the launch of the privately owned CCX.  Valerie Jarrett also was a part of the BOD for the Joyce Foundation. So is this a rat’s nest of cronyism…seems Mayor Daley joined in the fun as the Honorary Chairman. And the Goldman Sachs partnership….a few more players to ponder:

• William C. Dudley, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; was a partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs.

• Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs.

• Mark Patterson, Chief of Staff to Tim Geithner; former Goldman Sachs lobbyist.

• Philip Murphy; nominated for ambassador to Germany; former Goldman Sachs executive.

• Diana Farrell; Deputy Director of the National Economic Council; formerly with Goldman Sachs.

• Emil Michael; White House fellow; former investment banker with Goldman Sachs.

The elite are so desperate to impose a consumption tax on Americans, yet Spain’s “green economy” has left them with a 20% unemployment rate. Statistics reveal over 2.2 jobs are lost for each “green” job created. This is nothing more than a euphemism for an organized effort to completely annihilate the middle class with an introduction of levies and regulation which will seep into every aspect of our lives.

So you Floridians,  if you’re interested in being a good, law abiding eco-conservative global citizen… before you head off to the polls this November you should be aware, Florida has already passed a “Cap and Trade” law.  Gov. Charlie Crist signed three Executive Orders July 13, 2007 in Miami which showed his support. The legislation passed both House and Senate in 2008 and is now law.
Charlie Crist’s Climate Change Information
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/ClimateChange/
http://www.flclimatechange.us/index.cfm

Florida Senate Climate Change Bill S1544
http://www.flsenate.gov/session/index.cfm?Mode=Bills&SubMenu=1&BI_Mode=ViewBillInfo&BillNum=1544
<http://www.flsenate.gov/session/index.cfm?Mode=Bills&amp;SubMenu=1&amp;BI_Mode=ViewBillInfo&amp;BillNum=1544>

Florida House Climate Change Bill HB7135
http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=39607&SessionId=57
<http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=39607&amp;SessionId=57>

Hmmm….a tangled web, Obama supporting Gore, Soros, Strong…..Federal Reserve employees tied to Goldman Sachs…………, just another puzzle for many for us to try and figure out. Bet it won’t take you too long.