Momentum is growing Nationwide to reign in the Federal Government’s unprecedented growth and consolidation of power. To begin with tomorrow there will be Nationwide tax day tea parties to protest the Federal Government’s stated intent to increase taxes while increasing the deficit exponentially. The people will be taking to the streets and protesting the tax and spend philosophy of the Obama administration in a tribute to our forefather’s protest to the taxation imposed by King George.

Additionally, there is a growing movement among state leaders to assert their sovereignty as provided by the 10^th amendment to the Constitution. The latest of these is Texas Governor Rick Perry who publicly spoke about the growing oppressive nature of the Federal Government and its policies:

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state. That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”  See the video at Breitbart TV

In addition to invoking the 10^th amendment, conservatives are working along other avenues to reign in the runaway power grab by the Obama administration. Recently Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., sponsored House Resolution 450, the Enumerated Powers Act, in an attempt to force Congress to be accountable to the Constitution when writing and passing laws. After all, the Constitution is the basis for our form of government and all our laws are assumed to be held to the standards it sets forth. HR 450 in essence would force Congress to define the constitutional basis for the laws it writes:

"Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. …" Story

As the Obama administration continues to impose its will and expand the power of the Federal Government it will be interesting to see how many states stand up for their rights as guaranteed under the Constitution and how many bend to his will. 

It is about time that American Catholics saw something other than rhetoric from the Vatican regarding American politicians who claim to be Roman Catholic while openly defying Church doctrine. Nancy Pelosi, the Kennedy family and many other Democrat politicians have not been shy about openly displaying their support for abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Their embrace of the culture of death has been going on for years and the Church has basically turned the other cheek. Finally, Pope Benedict XVI has taken a small step and rejected President Obama’s appointments as ambassadors to the Vatican:

Vatican sources told Il Giornale that their support for abortion disqualified Ms Kennedy and other Roman Catholics President Barack Obama had been seeking to appoint.

Mr Obama was reportedly seeking to reward John F Kennedy's daughter, who publicly gave her support to his election bid. She had been poised to replace Hillary Clinton as New York senator, but dropped out amid criticism that she lacked enough experience for the job. Story

As an American member of the Roman Catholic Church I applaud the Pope for standing firm on the sanctity of life and holding American politicians accountable in some measure for the positions they take. The next battle to be fought over this issue will be the right of Roman Catholic doctors who refuse to perform abortions and pharmacists who refuse to sell the morning after abortion pill. It is their right to refuse, but if the government attempts to force them to perform these heinous duties, there is sure to be tremendous backlash. Perhaps this situation will persuade the Pope to take a long look at the possibility of excommunication of American Politicians who try to force Roman Catholics to go against their core beliefs.  

There were many valid criticisms of the Bush administration, particularly when it came to the way they grew government and spent money. One think nobody could ever accuse the Bush administration of was showing weakness. In fact, while President Bush was commander in chief, the United States was known as a force to be reckoned with. Sadly, President Obama has not conveyed any semblance of strength. In fact, some would say that the Obama administration is conveying weakness and there are countries in the world who have noticed.

First, we have had Hillary Clinton’s world tour, in the wake of which, we see Norht Korea and China rattling their sabers. President Obama has committed cast amounts of money to the Palestinians for rebuilding; the Palestinian government is the terrorist organization Hamas.  Next we have our fearless leader openly saying he wants to reach out to the Taliban to sit and talk things out. This is a terrorist organization that our troops a re currently fighting in Afghanistan. The fact that radical Islam believes they are duty bound to lie to “infidels” does not seem to play into the President’s thinking. 

What is the net result of all of these displays of weakness following the Bush administration’s 8 year track record of military strength? There is a pending agreement between Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela to allow the Russians to base their bombers on the door step of the United States. Why not, they see that President Obama does not have the stomach to stand up to anyone:

Russia could use bases for its strategic bombers on the doorstep of the United States in Cuba and Venezuela to underpin long-distance patrols in the region, a senior air force officer said Saturday.

"This is possible in Cuba," General Anatoly Zhikharev, chief of the Russian air force's strategic aviation staff, told the Interfax-AVN military news agency.

The comments were the latest signal that Moscow intends to project its military capability in far-flung corners of the globe despite a tight defence budget and hardware that experts consider in many respects outdated. Brietbart.com

Is anyone paying attention to what the President is doing? While the market drops hundreds of points with every speech, there is something just as troubling as the economy coming out of the White House these days; President Barack Hussein Obama reaching out to terrorists.

His first gesture was an unprecedented slap in the face to our Israeli allies in the form of over $900 million to the Palestinians. Now to all of those drinking the Obama Kool-Aide the Palestinians are led by Hamas; a known terrorist group. 

The Obama administration intends to provide some $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after the Israeli incursion that ended last month, administration officials said Monday.

In an early sign of how the administration plans to deal with Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza, an official said that the aid would not go to Hamas but that it would be funneled through nongovernmental organizations. NY TIMES

Now we are getting wind of our fearless leader’s desire to reach out to the TALIBAN! Excuse me, did President Obama not just send more troops to fight the TALIBAN in Afghanistan?

President Barack Obama says the U.S. is not winning the war in Afghanistan and he's willing to open the door to negotiating with some moderate Taliban leaders.

Obama made the comments to the New York Times Friday in a half-hour interview on Air Force One. CTV

What will be his next move, having the leader od Al Qaeda over for dinner at the White House? Our President is bankrupting the country at a never before seen pace and nobody seems able to stop him. Now he is openly reaching out to terrorists and nobody is trying to stop him. Does our country no longer have a system of checks and balances? Oh yeah, the power hungry Democrats are basking in the glow-bama and not paying attention as their Nation is being sold down the river piece by piece. We can only hope that some sanity still exists on the Left and intervenes before it is too late.

It is not just conservatives who are upset with the runaway spending by the Obama administration. Democrats Evan Bayh of Indiana and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin have come forth and stated tat they will not support the omnibus spending bill and urged President Obama to veto it.

The White House promises Obama will sign the bill despite unhappiness over the 8,000 or so homestate pet projects.

Democrats Evan Bayh of Indiana and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said they will vote against the bill; both urged Obama to veto it.

"There's just a disconnect between what people are having to go through in their daily lives — tightening their belts, economizing where they can — and what they see the government is doing," Bayh said in an interview. "I just think it's tone deaf and, substantively, we do need to get the deficit under control." Star Tribune

This is a drop in the bucket vote wise as there are several moderate Republicans who are likely to support the bill to protect their pork prjects, but it is an indication that the Democrat Party may be showing some cracks in its united façade. If there are a few that don’t follow the President like lemmings off a cliff, surely more will surface as time goes on.

On the House side we also get hints at displesure with the Obama agenda from Democrat representatives Jim Matheson of Utah and Gabriel Giffords of Arizona. CQ Politics is reporting that these two representatives have joined what they are calling a quiet revolt that could slow the President’s agenda.

The two are among 49 Democrats from congressional districts that backed Republican Sen. John McCain 's 2008 presidential race and whose support for the Democratic majority's progressive agenda is increasingly not assured.

A dozen of them were among 20 House Democrats who voted against the $410 billion discretionary fiscal 2009 spending package (HR 1105) on Feb. 25. Another group later forced House leaders to sideline a contentious bill (HR 1106) to allow bankruptcy judges to modify home loans.  CQ Politics

The rapid way that President Obama has force fed his agenda to the American people and both houses of Congress have left many heads reeling. Policy changes in the government are usually accompanied by debate and compromise, but all the spending we have seen put through in the weeks since his inauguration have been fast tracked by President Obama; giving Senators and representatives little time to read them before they are asked to vote on them. The President seems to be counting on party line voting from Democrats on anything he puts forth. What he fails to realize is that the mood of the people is very negative toward monumental spending. Democrat politicians see the writing on the wall that if they support the President’s effort of breaking the financial backbone of this Nation, they will likely not have the support they need come re-election time. The political backlash in response to the spending bill and the pork attached to it could be something which will take the Democrats years to recover from. Every one who has issuees with the pork and spending in the omnibus bill should keep the pressure on by letting their Senators and Representatives know that they will not tolerate the bankrupting of their country to fulfill the President’s vision of what America should be.

I listen to the lamentations of Republicans about the speed with which President Obama is transforming the country into the socialist model he has staked his Presidential legacy to. If you watch the method to the implementation of each policy proposal, and every action he is taking, it is clear he is checking off the items he promised the left as quickly as possible to satisfy his liberal base. People are on the talk shows exclaiming that they never knew the change would be this quick and this wide spread; that the very fabric of American capitalism would be rent in two. What did they expect when the most liberal senator from one of the most liberal states gains the Presidency?

I think back to a year ago as I listened to the talk shows while the primary races were going full tilt. Many conservatives had had enough of moderates Republicans In Name Only (RINOs), and with good reason. We had just seen 8 years of moderate Republican control, the result of which was the expansion of government at an unprecedented rate for a GOP President, increases in entitlement programs like the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the no child left behind program. The way the Bush administration spent money and grew government overshadowed his strength as a deterrent to terrorism. Nobody launched a second attack on the United States after 911. He clearly had put the fear of God in the radical Islamic forces that target our Nation.

The sub-theme of the disillusioned conservatives was that they would no longer vote fore “Moderates and Mavericks” who sell out their conservative constituents for personal political gain. Too many times we have seen the RNC roll out the old horse whose turn it is to be President only to see him fall flat on his face. The latest examples being Bob Dole who had no chance against Clinton, and McCain who stood no chance against Obama. The only way to take this country back from the liberal fast track we are on is for conservatives to force their politicians to stop trying to play in the middle and come back to their conservative roots. It is gut check time for Republicans in office and they should take not of the mood sweeping this nation. No more MODERATES!

We are less than two years from the mid-term election and we need to be building the conservative platform and educating the American people on what fiscal responsibility by the government, reduced regulation, and encouraging people to work rather than collect welfare will do for the economy. Socialization of a society has failed everywhere it has been tried. Even the shining beacon of socialism, the EU, is on the verge of tearing itself apart over economic considerations. The politically correct mentality and loose immigration standards has let to years of ethnic riots in France and Greece. It is only a matter of time until the nations held up as the shining examples of socialism succumb to the overwhelming influx of radical Islamic immigrants. How long will it be before we see courts that judge the Islamic society according to sharia law and the rest of the population by their national laws.

We are seeing a coup on a global level by the forces of Islamic jihad. It is a coup that is taking place without a single shot being fired. The easiest way to destroy a powerful nation is to cause economic turmoil. President Regan and British Prime Minister Thatcher pushed the arms race during the cold war to the point that the Soviet Union could not sustain itself and came crashing down. Take a look now at what Obama is forcing onto the American economy and is pushing it to the breaking point.. Economist after economist states that the sheer volume of the debt that he has gotten passed in the first 4 weeks of his presidency is unsustainable. The stock markets see that it is unsustainable and continues to drop like a rock. The debt load President Obama is putting on the taxpayers will be there to burden our children and grandchildren. If he has done this all in a matter of weeks, what will he get done in 4 years?!

It is amazing that the Left in this country is yet again trotting out Keynesian economics. This is the antithesis to capitalism and has failed every time it has been tried. FDR’s New Deal has now been show to have actually extended the depression of the 30s. LBJ’s Great Society cause an entire of generation to grow up believing that they were entitled to get paid by the government not to work. Under carter, the ground work for the housing crisis that were are currently experiencing was laid, and picked up by Clinton. The damage would have been worse had Newt Gingrich not lead the Republican comeback with his contract for America. Other countries have not fared much better. The French, English, and Canadian health care systems are atrocious with people waiting for operations that could be scheduled and performed in weeks here. When someone is suffering should they not have the right to seek immediate relief as per their insurance policy; or is it better to wait for a government bureaucracy to decide whether or not you NEED the surgery.

In the end, we lost the 2006 mid-term election because the conservative base reacted to irresponsible fiscal policy by the Bush administration by “sending a message” and handing both houses of congress. I believe the same happened in 2008 when Conservative rising star Mitt Romney suddenly withdrew from the primary so that the moderate McCain could have his turn in the sun. This move all but make an Obama administration a lock as conservative voters did not have a conservative on the ticket and either did not vote or voted for a minor party to spite the Republicans for abandoning fiscal conservatism. The problem is losing elections has a price, and we are paying that price now and for decades to come. The time for self pity and crying over mistakes made has come and gone. Now is the time for the people to speak by calling their congressmen and senators that this runaway spending is not what you want. Huge public pressure has influenced votes before and it will work again. Besides that, work with your state Republican party and push them to develop true conservative candidates. We can still turn this around and many of the back loaded spending programs start in 2011 and later. If we can take congress back in 2010 many of the egregious spending in the porkulous bill can be rescinded. Be active and make a difference.

The cartels rival the Mexican army in size and have both Mexico and the U.S. in crisis mode to deal with what they fear is a coming insurgency along the border.

 

 

In the Democrat nirvana that is Illinois, the current political corruption is following the tried and true pattern that has worked for decades. The 3 part formula is simple:

• Immeasurable indignation at the corruption in question
• Tremendous political bluster to give the appearance of action
• Slowly let the story die down and go away.

Now, those of us who have been following Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment, national tour of television talk shows, and his appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama, it is inevitable that the 3 part formula will come into play. Illinois new Governor, Quinn, has played the role of Illinois politician to a tee. 

1. Even as he watched Gov. Blagojevich (D) go down in flames, he spoke out against the corruption in Springfield. 
2. Then, as he prepared the way for the Quinn (D) governorship’s rise to power, he spoke out against political corruption and all he would like to see done to eliminate it from our state’s politics.
3. Now, having completed the first two parts of the 3 part formula, it is like a self fulfilling prophecy that we see our current governor soften his stance on the Senate appointment of Roland Burris (D).  Here is a story from the Sun Times:

Gov. Quinn appeared to soften his stance on a special election Monday after Sen. Roland Burris refused to relinquish his Senate seat.

"Sen. Burris made it very clear he has no intention of stepping aside. If Sen. Burris doesn't step aside, then we cannot have a special election," Quinn said after speaking at a Casimir Pulaski event Monday in Chicago. He earlier delivered the message to West Side African-American leaders. Sun Times

This is a microcosm politics in Illinois, completely dominated by the Democrat Party. We have an impeached Democrat Governor; his Democrat Replacement blusters about Illinois political corruption and joins in on the chorus to investigate the Democrat appointed to the Senate by impeached Governor Blagojevich, Roland Burris; and finally, our new governor starts to back off and try to let the dust settle in the hopes that the story will fade away. Republicans in Illinois have been handed a golden opportunity and they need to seize the moment. 

Now is the time to begin putting forth viable candidates so that the people can get to know them. It is time to push harder than ever for a special election to put someone chosen by the people of Illinois, not by a governor investigated for corruption and impeached on his way out the door. If they can get the conservative message out there and present candidates that truly want to reform the Illinois political climate, they can build momentum that could change this state from solid blue to solidly in play at the mid-term elections. It will be an uphill climb all the way; the Democrats have controlled this state’s politics for so long that it will take a compelling message and candidate to change minds and votes. Put forth an alternative plan that will make Illinois a better state for the long haul. Here is my 3 step formula for getting the state of Illinois moving in the right direction and not letting business as usual politics continue to be the norm:

1. Don’t let Governor Quinn let the Burris Senate appointment scandal fade away. 
2. Keep the pressure on for a special election so that the people Illinois can select a candidate through the due process afforded them.
3. No longer accept that a Democrat winning in Illinois is a foregone conclusion.

With all the scandal surrounding Illinois politicians the past few months, it is great to see one displaying character and standing up for what is right. Below is a link to a YouTube video of Illinois Representative Dan Manzulo (R) taking Interim Assistant Treasury Secretary Neel Kashkari to task on the bailout plan. In the video he questions why a failed company that was bailed out with taxpayer dollars -- AIG -- was allowed to give a $3 million bonus to an executive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP73cK3GXdo

Rush Limbaugh has written an open letter to the President regarding possible attempts to censor talk radio. Democrats have been pushing for the reinstatement of the fairness doctrine to silence opposition on the airwaves. President Obama has recently indicated that he will not reinstate the fairness doctrine. Rush, however, details in his letter the numerous ways the Obama administration can achieve the same goal without calling it the fairness doctrine. Here is an excerpt of the open letter that appeared in the Opinion Journal:

                Dear President Obama:

I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as "local content," "diversity of ownership," and "public interest" rules -- all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band? Read the entire letter at the Opinion Journal.

With the pending threat of the thought police assaulting talk radio and internet bloggers, some of the leading conservative voice are being proactive in their defense of the first amendment. Conservative talk show host Michael Savage has joined forces with the Thomas More Law Center to meet the coming challenge head on:

"A regulation of speech motivated by nothing more than a desire to silence political opposition on controversial issues of public interest is the purest example of a law abridging the freedom of speech," said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.

"Such action is the hallmark of totalitarian governments, not a free society," he said. World Net Daily

Michael Savage is one of the leading conservative voices on the radio and a best selling author. He has taken on the Left in court at different times over the years and has pledged to fight the censorship attempt by the Obama administration. Once they silence conservative talk radio, the internet is next. One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian regime is to silence the opposition. The battles that are being fought by Savage, Limbaugh, and other conservative talkers will determine the course of free speech in the United States.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the Rome this week and met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Wednesday. Speaker Pelosi has publicly stated that she is a Catholic and, just as publicly, supported abortion rights. The sanctity of life is one of the pillars of the Catholic faith and is not open to interpretation. If you are a Catholic you must be pro-life. While she had the opportunity to meet with the Pope, they both issued very different statements regarding the 15 minute conversation. Speaker Pelosi issued the following statement:

"It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI today," Pelosi said in a statement released hours after the meeting. "In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church's leadership in fighting poverty, hunger and global warming, as well as the Holy Father's dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show his Holiness a photograph of my family's papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren." Fox News

The stance of Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church on the sanctity of life leaves no grey area. The definition of the sanctity of life is from conception to natural death (Catholic.org). There is no discussion of stages of life in the various trimesters, or whether or not the abortion pill taken the day after sexual activity impacts a life. It starts at conception, plain and simple, so whether it is terminated seconds or months after conception it is still the taking of a life. Just in case Speaker Pelosi did not understand this when the Pontiff met with her in person, the Vatican released the following statement:

"VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday told U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic who supports abortion rights, that Catholic politicians have a duty to protect life "at all stages of its development," the Vatican said. Catholic.org

It has long been a point of contention between democrats who claim to be Catholic yet support abortion and the Catholic Church. It is amazing that even after meeting with his Holiness; Speaker Pelosi mentions nothing about the discussion on the sanctity of life. Perhaps a little soul searching will take place as she reflects on the visit, but given her track record, I doubt it.

Despite the fact that this Nation just elected its first black President; despite the fact that the two Secretaries of State before Hillary Clinton were black, despite the fact that we have a sitting Supreme Court Justice who is black, and despite the fact that our new Attorney General is black, the Left insists on stoking the fires of racial tension on a daily basis. In essence, we are not to question the Obama  administration’s questionable policies because, no matter how misguided they may be, we must accept them because the black community is entitled to their turn to run the country and get their pound of flesh for al the years the white community has kept them down. These are inflammatory words, to be sure, but are they any more inflammatory than the race baiting that is going by people in the Obama administration?

Take the uproar about the cartoon drawn by Sean Delonas that appeared in the New York Post earlier this week:

 

I would say anyone who looks at the cartoon can see that it is not a reference to President Obama, but, as evidenced by the protests, there are those that have perceived it that way. The use of the chimpis clearly a reference to the chimp killed earlier this week in Stamford, Connecticut, but it is not so clearly a reference to President Obama. After all, he did not write the stimulus bill. Just ask yourself who did write the stimulus bill? Was it President Obama, or was it Speaker Pelosi and Congress who wrote the bill? This political cartoon is more likely to be intended to make a monkey out of the Speaker of the House, is it not? Let’s not let the facts get in the way of twisting political satire to fit the agenda of the race baiters. 

Just weeks into President Obama’s administration and days after his stimulus package was signed into law, palpable backlash to the economic ramifications of the tremendous welfare state he is creating are being seen, heard, and felt. The question is how this backlash will manifest itself; thus far it has been with the continued fall of the stock market, and now we are seeing public displays against the damage he is doing to the United States. 

The entitlement mentality is driving the economic changes the President is pushing through, and this mentality may well fuel a response far from what he expects. It could, in fact, be the spark that ignites a renewed conservative movement and drive momentum in a push to win back congressional control in 2010; not unlike what took place during the Clinton Administration when Newt Gingrich led a conservative resurgence with the Contract for America.

Wednesday morning, students from an advanced placement government class at MesaDobsonHigh School watched President Barack Obama’s speech on closed circuit television. Even at their young age the students questioned the President’s plan:  

"If businesses can't afford to hire people, then people won't be able to work and pay off their mortgages," he said. "It's kind of like putting money into20a funnel." Albach, who is also a Republican, said Obama's plan sounds good but questioned how Obama can want to rely on "people's responsibility" when that is "what got us in this economic crisis in the first place." Story

Yesterday, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli was on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade where he reported on the mortgage bail out:

SANTELLI:  The government is promoting bad behavior!  How this, president and new administration, why didn't you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give 'em to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water.  This is America!  How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?  Raise their hand.  (boos) President Obama, are you listening? CNBC: Video

Mr. Santelli is a reporter for CNBC, part of the media, I truly wonder if his bosses will let him keep his job and how long the video will be available online.

Additionally, it seems that even the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg has realized that raising taxes on top earners could drive them from his city, creating a net loss of revenue. This from the Walstreet Journal’s : Opinion Journal.

But late last week Mayor Bloomberg was channelling these columns when he said that raising taxes on high earners could drive them from the city. "One percent of the households that file in this city pay something like 50% of the taxes," explained the Mayor. "In the city, that's something like 40,000 people. If a handful left, any raise would make it revenue neutral. The question is what's fair. If 1% are paying 50% of the taxes, you want to make it even more?"Opinion Journal.  

Finally, the unlikeliest of people stepped out and weighed in on the Rapid move toward Socialism by the Obama administration. Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin, of all people, cautioned us to learn from the Russian experience and not take the path of excessive government involvement in economic activity:

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.” Story

The Russian leader’s cautions against repeating the mistakes they made shows that even they do not want to feel the negative impact to the world economy that the Obama plan is likely to cause. All of this is taking place just days after the implementation of the wealth redistribution plan and people begin to grasp the potential economic impact of it. There is a growing school of thought that the days of American prosperity are over.

  

The Heritage foundation has been involved in and played a part in national policy debates for the past 35 years. On February 13, 2009 Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.,  President of the foundation authored an open letter to Congress and the President of the United States in response to the then pending economic stimulus bill. (Text of the letter) As we know, the bill was passed in Congress and signed into law by President Obama.

On February 11, 2009, Robert E. Rector and Katherine Bradley published an analysis of the effect of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on welfare reform.  In it they detail how, in 1996, the welfare reform act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton. This act led to a dramatic reduction in welfare dependency and child poverty. In effect the states received a flat amount of funding for welfare programs and, in effect, created an environment that encouraged people to find work and learn to support themselves and their families. All of the gains made over the course of the last 13 years has been effectively erased by a stroke of the pen of President Obama. Read their analysis at Heritage.org.

As the days go by we see that the political ignorance, sense of self entitlement, willingness to put himself ahead of the Country, and overall lack of diplomatic etiquette of our new President seems to know no bounds. His “forced down the people’s throat” handling of the Stimulus (also referred to by many as Porkulus) bill has been widely discussed, and yesterday I touched on the looming cuts to our nuclear deterrent arsenal. This post will discuss the insult of one of our greatest allies in the world, Great Britain.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks." Telegraph.co.uk

Now the Left will undoubtedly justify the action because it was during Prime Minister Churchill’s tenure that the British suppressed a rebellion in Kenya by the Mau Mau tribe. Allegedly the President’s grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama was tortured by the British at that time. Granted, this personal connection is a basis for the President to not be a Churchill devotee, but Sir Winston Churhill’s contribution to saving Western Europe from the evil that was Hitler and the Nazi party should far outweigh the alleged torture of one man, the actions of whom during the rebellion have not been put forth by the President. 

Diplomatically this is a faux pax that only an unseasoned politician could make. The British have stood by our side as strong allies for decades and we need to maintain that relationship, especially in a world that is becoming increasingly dangerous (See Is Nuclear Weakness on the Horizon) If he did not want to look at it in the oval office he could have displayed it elsewhere in the White House and not slapped the British in the face in such a blatant disregard of political etiquette.

Presumably President Obama is an educated man, but perhaps the effects of liberalism on our educational system is responsible for not presenting him with a clear picture on one of the greatest figures of World War II and the closest ally Democrat icon President FDR had at that time. While I do not expect that President Obama reads this blog, perhaps one of his staffers will and can direct him to the following link so that he can read about the man he disrespected in such an overt fashion: Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill Biography (1874 - 1965) here is an excerpt of the biography:

Faced with the swift collapse of France, Churchill made repeated personal visits to the French government in an attempt to keep France in the war, culminating in the celebrated offer of Anglo-French union on June 16, 1940. When all this failed, the Battle of Britain began. Here Churchill was in his element, in the firing line—at fighter headquarters, inspecting coast defenses or antiaircraft batteries, visiting scenes of bomb damage or victims of the “blitz,” smoking his cigar, giving his V sign, or broadcasting frank reports to the nation, laced with touches of grim Churchillian humour and splashed with Churchillian rhetoric. The nation took him to its heart; he and they were one in “their finest hour.” Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill Biography (1874 - 1965)

 

The words and actions of the President of the United States carry with them a great deal of responsibility. Off the cuff remarks and knee jerk reactions can damage political relationships with other countries; relationships that are essential to the safety and security of this Nation. I doubt the British people will ask for it because they have a well developed sense diplomatic etiquette, but they are definitely owed an apology for this insult to one of the greatest men of the 20^th century.