“We are not at war with a tactic ("terrorism"), we are at war with something that is tangible: Al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered” - White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer.

The fun part about Leftists is that they tend to be pretty straightforward (not always though) about their incompetence and cowardice. This was a response to Dick Cheney’s comments about Obama pretending that we are not at war with terrorism and it goes to show how the Left twists statements in order to score political points. The statement, to begin with, is intellectually dishonest because it redefines “war on terror” and makes it into an absurdism. To say that the war on terror is strictly a war against the tactic of terrorism is akin to saying that the war on poverty is a war against poor people, or the war on drugs is a war against all drugs (recreational or health-related)… apparently, if the White House is releasing such incompetence on their blog, then Cheney seems to be right about the administration being soft on terror because they do not even seem to understand the context of “the war on terror.”

My second observation is that, in explicitly writing that “we are not at war with a tactic ("terrorism"),” the administration is making a quiet concession to our enemies: terrorism is an “acceptable” tactic. Just think about it, would Harry Truman have been criticized for saying that, after WWII, America was at war with genocide? What would have happened if the opposing party said “we are not at war with other countries’ domestic policies ("genocide")?” America absolutely should be at war with the use of terrorism abroad. When rockets are launched into civilian areas simply for the sake of killing civilians, we must respond. When suicide bombers board airplanes for the sole purpose of sending the world a message, we must respond. When planes are crashed into buildings killing thousands of innocent civilians while they worked, we did respond. There is a huge difference between guerrilla war and terrorism. So when the administration says that they are not at war against the tactic of terrorism, it sends the message to our enemies that maybe some terrorism, especially not directed at America, is acceptable. America is at war with terror… today it may be Al Qaeda, but we cannot ignore other organizations that use terror as a tool to destabilize regions and accomplish political goals. The world can never have peace as long as these organizations exist. To throw up our hands in defeat saying that we do not go to war against “tactics” is to enable this very tactic… and if this is what Obama has in mind with respect to our struggle against terror then, to quote Rush, I hope he fails.

-AG

Back during the dot-com bubble’s bursting, to my colleagues and family members I said that the economy would not explode but that money would flee from these high-risk securities which were “new” and exciting and seek greater stability. This occurred with the eventual rise in speculation on home prices and other asset-backed securities. At the time I openly worried about what would happen if the housing market crashed given that the economic power of the middle class, especially here in South Florida, was 100% founded on home values. Refinancing mortgages, taking out credit lines on one’s home, and easier access to credit due to home ownership increased consumption without a concurrent increase in average incomes. It was clear to me that a crash in the housing market would leave the America economy and money in general with little place to “go,” i.e. that I did not see where the market could make up its losses. Apparently, my concerns played out… but the government answered my question, the “new money” would come out of thin air, by printing money with reckless abandon. This, my friends, is something that seemed unfathomable to me because of how bad this idea was and is. What our economy has become is one that relies on government moves almost exclusively. Just take a look at the survival of US financial firms and automakers. Just take a look at the commodities markets that are being buoyed by a weakening dollar and lower interest rates. To all those investors out there, be warned, this is a bubble! The US dollar will not crash anytime soon and interests rates are destined to rise in the short- to medium-term. So the question is: what will the effects be of an economic system where the government picks and chooses (in a process that MUST be corrupt) what to inflate with bailout dollars and what not to? This is a question that is most interesting to me and I wondered if there was anything in history that resembled the sort of band-aid-bailout-economy where the temporary inflation of one industry or another would skew markets, hurt the dollar long-term, and keep dying companies alive. Actually there is a historical example: Japan.

While a lot has already been written about Japan’s Lost Decade and comparisons to the current recession, I am more interested in the medium to long-term effects of a bailout-driven economy since it is clear that the current administration has no intention of using this money to pay down our debt. An interesting article on Time focused on the idea of “too big to fail” and also spotlighted Japan’s bailout policies. On the former, the article highlights that South Korea let Daewoo fail, a company that was larger relative their economy than any company in the US, and their economy not only survived but grew, but that’s another topic. On the latter, the article talks about how Japan pumped money into companies that were failing and just continued to lose money, to quote:

“In a pathetic attempt to avoid losses, Japanese banks kept pumping fresh funds into debt-ridden, unprofitable firms to keep them afloat. These companies came to be known as zombie firms — they appeared to be living but were actually dead, too burdened by debt to do much more than live off further handouts.”

This exact scenario will not play out in our government’s own effort because US firms are doing things to turn themselves around and will continue to. Unfortunately, human nature plays against us here: people and groups of people win by the smallest margin they need. This means that it is possible that a lot of these huge companies, if they cannot make good profits for whatever reason, will exploit the lack of moral hazard that exists in American pseudo-capitalism and that an infinite loop of bailouts will continue. Ultimately, it is both moral hazard and competition that ensure innovation and economic independence… a bailout economy only dampens innovation and increases dependence.

The similarity with Japan is in the fact that with government pumping money into failing entities, the entities themselves actually did not improve in a real sense, they simply survived. In America’s case, we are pumping money into sectors that are not doing so well. The question that comes to mind is: once we pump money into some sector in the short-term, what happens then? Do we expect that private investors take over? Do we expect that demand for said sector’s products go up, just because the government pumped money into it? There are a few ways to create wealth, but borrowing from the taxpayer of the future to pay the government handout recipient of the present is not one of them. The market, on the other hand, eager to make profits will invest in “stimulated” industries and then take their money out as soon as the stimulus money moves elsewhere. This skews the market and does not create real wealth.

While this topic deserves much investigation and discussion I wanted to simply present the problem of a bailout-driven economy and what it means to capitalism in general. I do not believe that the dollar will be destroyed by a bailout economy, but I do believe that it will hurt the dollar long term. I truly wonder how such an economy can compete in the world and whether or not it is compatible with a global economy. One thing is certain, the ever-increasing debt that will exist as a result of such an economy will do nothing to help us. I will admit one thing, no candidate for any office will have my vote if they wish to perpetuate a bailout-economy because the only feasible result of such a system is full-fledged Socialism, be it of a corporatist flavor or a straight up nanny-state flavor. We need to retire this bailout by paying down the debt as soon as possible.

-AG

When the previous administration was in power, the United States could be expected to behave a certain way with respect to the War on Terror: stubbornly. This was both a good thing and a bad thing, leading to the uprooting of Al Qaeda, destruction of Hussein’s dictatorial regime, and keeping America safe while at the same time giving more moderate Muslims another excuse to hate us and having us follow a bad strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. When dealing with fanatics, it is necessary to have the resolve to fight. Al Qaeda could do nothing but hope that we would withdraw prematurely or hope that some sociopaths would carry out an attack in the West while calling themselves Al Qaeda. In general, the United States kept Al Qaeda on the defense, albeit not in an ideal fashion.

Enter the new administration. While we are still engaged in wars abroad, the intensity in Iraq has gone down and the tone in Afghanistan has changed. Al Qaeda leadership, in all probability, has decided that dealing with the Obama administration will be easier than dealing with the intransigent Bush administration. By looking at Obama’s proposed policies and reasons behind them, such as his plans to withdraw from Iraq because “it is a distraction,” or change our language with respect to the war on terror, it is abundantly clear to our enemies that this administration is more mindful of “how something looks” and of casualties. This means that, while they survive, our enemies will adopt a strategy that exploits this new reality, a new reality that some would call a weakness. Lucky for them (unlucky for us), terrorists have long used terror as a political tool rather than a military tool. Since Bush forced them to use it as a military tool, they have been unsuccessful; with Obama insistence on dialogue instead of conflict, they hope to go back to doing the thing they do best: sucker punches to make a point.

Terrorists view their terror attacks as a conditioning of the behavior of the target population. Many terror attacks come followed by some sort of terror group list of reasons for the attacks and with some demands. The demands of terrorists do not always come about, but the intention is not necessarily to score a win immediately, instead they aim to condition the enemy. Rewind back to 2004, when Spain was the victim of an Al Qaeda attack on March 11 and 191 people were killed. Did this condition the Spanish government? Yes sir, because shortly thereafter the Spanish withdraw their troops from Iraq. Fast-forward to 2009, when Pakistan invaded the Swat valley where Al Qaeda and the Taliban were holed up, a terror campaign swept the country in retaliation. Did this condition the Pakistani government? You betcha, because when the United States asked for help against the Haqqani Network in northern Pakistan, the Pakistani government refused. So when the United States and Yemen started cooperating more closely over Al Qaeda, they sent a lone Nigerian kid to take down a passenger plane, which he failed to do. Their aim is simply to condition the administration, saying without words “if you stop helping Yemen, we’ll stop sending terrorists.” The reality is that the spectacular attacks favored by old-school Al Qaeda are no longer possible because they have been weakened by war and now they are willing to engage in low level terror, because they have no choice. While spectacular attacks are out of the question, low level attacks will do two things: not pose a significant threat politically to the administration (keeping a condition-able leader in power) while simultaneously conditioning their behavior. Will Obama be conditioned by terror any more than he already has been? That is the question that both Americans and Al Qaeda are asking… the former are hoping that he won’t be… the latter truly believe that he will be.

-AG

With the withdrawal of United States support for freedom in Latin America (see Obama administration), citizens of nations that are threatened with socialist takeovers are rising up against their dictators and would-be dictators. From Honduras to Venezuela to Cuba, the political landscape in these countries and others is starting to change. After years of socialist advances in the region, opposition in these countries is starting to organize from the bottom-up, as opposed to top-down which was for a long time the norm.

New Conservative President of Honduras

In Honduras, elections were held in order to bring an end to the crisis that started when the courts deposed and exiled the then president of Honduras, Mel Zelaya, who was trying to hold an illegal referendum vote. Remember that it was Mel Zelaya who was following in Hugo Chavez’s footsteps, trying to turn the country into another socialist stronghold until the Congress, the courts, and the military put an end to his designs. In the November election, Hondurans were asked to choose between Zelaya’s former vice president, Elvin Santos, from the Liberal Party and Porfirio Lobo from the conservative National Party. Despite near-constant bombings carried out by pro-Zelaya supporters, voter turnout was estimated as being from 49% to 61% and Hondurans elected the conservative Lobo by 56% of the vote versus 38% for the liberal candidate, clearly an indication of the Honduran people’s will to move on from the Zelaya debacle and put their country back on a prosperous path. While the leftist governments of Latin America have all refused to recognize the new government, the United States and other nations have started to re-establish ties with Honduras. In the face of international pressure demanding the return of the socialist Zelaya (including pressure from the Obama administration), Honduras remained firm and stopped the socialist advance on their country. Hopefully, things will improve for them from here on.

Moving on to the nearly socialist state of Venezuela, where strongman/clown Hugo Chavez has made political opposition a highly stressful career choice and we see that the Venezuelan people have had enough. Despite the Obama-Chavez embrace heard round the world and with the Obama administration generally unresponsive to Chavez’s actions, Chavez has not toned down his anti-American rhetoric, in fact, he has increased it on many occasions. Basing his “presidency” on anti-Americanism and socialist redistribution of wealth has brought his country an increase in poverty, violence, and authoritarianism. I am talking about Chavez in this instance, not Obama. While in the past the traditional political structure was Chavez’s only challenger, a new movement is springing up in Venezuela that may prove more successful in kicking him out. A political party by the name Popular Will Movement led by Leopoldo Lopez, an ex-mayor of a Caracas district, has started gaining support across the nation, even with former Chavez supporters. Chavez seems to be getting worried saying that his opponents “are getting into the barrios. They are trying to organize coordinated movements, and they are going to try to win a majority in the National Assembly.” Apparently, he finds this to be a sinister plot. Funny thing is that this strategy is straight out of Chavez’s playbook, reaching out to areas that previously did not participate in politics as much (read “poor areas").

Popular Will Rally

The movement in Venezuela can only succeed if the old-school politicians decide to stay on the sidelines and let fresh new leaders with new ideas come out as the face of the opposition. (I think there is something that American conservatives can learn from the Venezuelan experience here… the Democrats did it in 2008, they put a fresh new face to their old political agenda and voila! Democrats now control Washington.) Let us hope that the opposition will not be rounded up by Chavez’s repressive machinery which has already arrested and exiled many opposition figures.

This brings me to Cuba, the Godfather of Latin American socialism. Unlike what many people predicted, the end of Fidel Castro’s (direct) rule did not bring about any significant changes in Cuba’s communist system. It has been kept almost totally intact by Raul Castro, whose only “shakeups” have been internal, a reshuffling of the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, if you will. Obama’s policy of reaching out to Cuba which culminated in an easing US policy towards them (more travel, more remittances) have produced no improvement in the Cuban situation. In fact, the anti-Americanism continues unabated. The Cuban situation can be explained simply: America’s enemies have a guaranteed foothold in the western hemisphere as long as this Cuban regime exists and Cuba is actively exports its brand of authoritarianism by aiding socialists/communists everywhere it can in anyway it can. Cut off the Castro regime and the benefits are obvious: you save many countries from the ravages of communist dictatorship and you ease a national security threat that exists just ninety miles from the coast of Florida. Since the current administration is unwilling to stand up the communist regime, the only people who have been posing a threat to Castro are the internal pro-democracy dissidents. These are individuals have lived most of their lives in the “revolution” and yearn for a change, either an abrupt change or a modest incremental change, towards democracy. Recently, an American citizen was arrested for giving away cellphones and laptops, only in a communist dictatorship can this be a crime, but it shows two things. The first is that the Castro regime does not want the normalization of relations and will go out of its way to set back any progress with provocative acts like this one. The second is that the regime understands that the new empowerment of democratic activists on the island with access to video cameras and the internet is the greatest threat to the communist system. Dictatorships thrive in the shadows and while the US government cuts funds for radio broadcasts into Cuba, it is the Cuban people that are taking initiative, using technology, and risking their lives to shine a light on the realities on that island.

Yoani Sánchez, Cuban blogger

The change is bottom-up with people like blogger Yoani Sánchez, recently beaten and detained for typing the harsh reality she lives, and Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, serving a 25 year sentence for speaking out against Cuba’s policy of free abortions and talking about human rights in public (gasp!), leading the charge and taking hits along the way. What this goes to show is that, even without a clear beacon for freedom, the human spirit will continue to fight against tyranny no matter what.

These developments to the south, ranging from a victory against socialism to a campaign that is certain to result in thousands more tragedies before any real change comes about, can provide a blueprint for how we, as Americans currently facing a government that ignores the people, can start changing the system. Change (to borrow that slogan from the demagogues) cannot come from the top-down anymore, it must come from an energized, grassroots movement that takes on the establishment from the bottom-up. Sometimes these popular movements are hijacked by personalities who pervert the original intentions and use this momentum for personal gain. The great advantage of the Tea Party movement in America is that there is no one leader but relies on one great commonality: our desire to make and keep America great. When the 2010 elections roll around, I expect some of the more savvy politicians to try and hijack the movement… let us guard against this. Americans, historically, do not blindly follow leaders, we are individuals. Let’s never forget this as we keep fighting on.

-AG

On September 11th, 2001, the United States was attacked by a terrorist network that operated out of Afghanistan. What ensued is what should have happened: the United States issued an ultimatum to surrender the terrorists deemed responsible and invaded once that ultimatum was ignored. Thus was born the War in Afghanistan. The conflict focused on two particular groups: Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts. The idea was simple enough, to dismantle Al Qaeda, uproot the Taliban regime, and essentially give the country back to the Northern Alliance rebels.

Somewhere along the way, the clarity of our mission dissipated and we got stuck in nation-building. It did not happen overnight especially because of the Bush administration’s initial resistance to the idea, but as of now, we are knee deep in sending not only troops but specialists and advisers. The Obama administration has made it a point that success in our campaign cannot come only through military means, but through other factors:

“We are confident that if we are assisting the Afghan people and improving their security situation, stabilizing their government, providing help on economic development … those things will continue to contract the ability of Al Qaeda to operate. And that is absolutely critical,” Obama told ABC News.

This is the very definition of nation-building, though it seems that the administration will be content with leaving some shell of a “sustainable society” as opposed to making sure that the institutions we help establish will last. Which brings me to my point, how does “terrorist attack on American soil” eventually lead to “providing security, political stability, and economic development to Afghanistan?” In a bar fight, how many times does the winner drive the loser to the hospital, pay their bar tab, and make sure their car gets driven home safely? Yet this is exactly what we are doing and plan to continue doing in Afghanistan, a place that has never had a strong national identity nor strong civil institutions to match. Afghanistan is a made-up place whose national character has not developed yet and, in truth, may never develop. The problem with nation-building in Afghanistan is that we must build the nation out of whole cloth, not simply prop up or re-inflate certain parts of it like we did in Iraq. In Iraq there existed more of a “nation” than in Afghanistan and so we only needed to reinforce those parts of it that were necessary for stability. So when people wonder why the conflict in Afghanistan has taken so long, the answer is right before our eyes: insurgencies are a way of life for the Afghans and when regular Afghans see the Afghan flag, not enough of their eyes fill up with proud tears.

To reach victory in Afghanistan, we must not insist that whatever government take its place be democratic or ideal, it might be corrupt (like it is now), it might be a little authoritarian, heck, it might be a little bit of a militant Islamic state, but the absolute truth is that we cannot impose the centuries of political and philosophic development of the Western world on this “country.” What we need is to be pragmatists in foreign policy, unlike Bush and unlike Obama. This means that maybe we tolerate their opium economy but make sure that it is not in the wrong hands. This means we make the tough choices, the choices that a morally repugnant, the choices that lead to other problems in the short-term, because at the end of the day we must choose our battles. Do we fight the evil that killed almost 3,000 that September day and their allies, or do we worry about drug trade, the corruption, the human rights abuses, etc. prevalent in Afghan society? My vote is to stomp out Al Qaeda and the Taliban first and worry about the stability of their society second… ultimately, their national shortfalls will be regional threats but to leave Al Qaeda a safe haven would be an international threat.

The best way for America to spread freedom around the world is two-fold, defend freedom when under attack and serve as a role model for the world. We currently have an administration that is not so keen on doing either. My positions above are a bit cold, but in the end, they are the best ways to defend against Al Qaeda and get us out of long-term counterinsurgency campaigns that only cost blood and treasure. For a bit of perspective, the Colombian armed guerrilla conflict started in 1964 and only now is showing signs of abating… guerrilla wars are a long-term proposition, McCain knew that and seemed to have the stomach for it, but I do not want more Americans to die needlessly. We can accomplish our goals and come home, we just have to cast aside those silly ideas about nation-building that may take centuries to work.

-AG

For the first time ever, I was recently reading the Daily Kos website (link not included), a leftist blog that is set up quite like a leftist society would be: a council of supreme leaders (top contributors who post directly to the front page) and the teeming masses (individuals who posts “diaries” or simply comment). While they call themselves a “Democratic Party” blog, the majority of their content is from the leftist perspective, so a leftist blog it is. To my conservative friends, I would recommend taking a glance once in a while at what delusional rants and campaigns of distortion blogs and sites like this have to offer because as Sun Tzu said: “Know thy enemy.”

Their Great Leader

In general terms, it looks like the writers seem to cherry-pick the news and twist the truth beyond recognition in order to satisfy their liberal audience in a behavior I have heard people refer to as a “circle jerk.” For example, on December 24th, Jed Lewison (fine, I’ll provide the link) took time out of his busy day to criticize “right-wing activist Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake.com” for demanding that the Attorney General “investigate Rahm Emanuel for… corrupt practices involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” First, Jed says that it was not, in fact, Freddie/Fannie, other government sponsored enterprises, and the government itself that created the conditions for the financial collapse by pushing for the financial industry to originate riskier and riskier loans (and by keeping capital reserves low) but rather it was all the banks’ fault. He tops this accusation by saying “[right-]wingers love it [the idea that gov’t intervention created the recession] because it not only absolves the financial and real estate industries of responsibility for the financial crisis, but it puts the blame squarely on the backs of blacks and Latinos.” This man is not only dead wrong about the causes of the recession but he is also a class/ethnic warfare antagonizer for characterizing all “right-wingers,” which I assume applies to me (a “Latino” according to this leftist class/ethnic warfare-monger), as “in love” with blaming blacks and Latinos for the recession. Both of his assertions are just plain wrong. The proof that government intervention was the principal cause of the recession is clear as day, not to say that Wall Street didn’t play its part… but the simplistic answers generated from the simplistic minds of these leftist liberals who assert that a kumbaya-singing, moral-relativistic, wealth-redistributionist socialist utopia would be the pinnacle of human development continue to ignore facts in order to satisfy their own limited and grossly distorted worldview. [Catches breath]. There is zero profit motive in giving away money to people who are expected to default on their payments, e.g. people with bad credit… that is, unless the riskiness of issuing those mortgages were lessened somehow: enter the federal government. That said, here’s an interesting video about government’s efforts to get financial institutions to loosen lending standards by using Freddie and Fannie:

The speaker here, Peter J. Wallison, had written a piece in 2005 about the need to regulate Freddie and Fannie and of course it is clear that he was right. You may say that he is a conservative and therefore his opinion is skewed, but facts are facts regardless of one’s political leanings; prior to government intervention under the Clinton and Bush administrations, no financial institution with sound business practices would make such risky bets on subprime mortgages.

Of course, the author continues by insisting that Republicans are racists because of a comment by Norquist that “Obama is John Kerry with a tan"… Obama is a liberal and he is darker than Kerry, it’s obvious! Is it racism to point out a fact like this, referring to visible physical characteristics of a person objectively? So if someone in public life his big ears or big eyes, should those observations be off the table? When it comes to certain “protected groups” it seems that PC standards have gone from don’t speak ill to don’t even mention. I believe that a nation where its citizens can no longer speak plain objective truth because of the hyper-sensitivity of other citizens is a nation with the wrong value set. What ever happened to freedom of speech? Since when was having a tan a bad thing? Who does this comment hurt? No matter, the liberals have ruled that one cannot say such things and we, the poor plebeians under their care, must comply.

Ultimately, Jed concludes that liberals should not be attacking the administration or Freddie/Fannie because… it distracts from “progressive goals.” He may be correct but this concern is not restricted only to conservatives or wingers, as he playfully refers to us, it is a national issue that affects everyone. With a rising national debt, how with liberals be able to accomplish all of these “progressive goals?” The truth is that regular Joes who happen to be liberal still see these programs as a sort of safety net for the less fortunate and when they see mountains of debt and the US government and Federal Reserve pumping money into Freddie and Fannie, they start to worry that these programs will disappear. The far left liberals are more focused on the forest rather than the trees and understand that the ultimate goal is not a “safety net” but rather a “spider web” that will trap a majority of individuals and put us on the path to a society where wealth is “evenly” distributed and individual achievement is punished or outlawed. So to liberals, conservatives, and independents who care about the behind-the-scenes corruption, unsustainable spending, and irresponsible behavior of any administration, it is your God-given right and duty to call for an investigation of such practices… just don’t expect the big government leftists to be on your side.

All in all, blogs like DK showcase leftist America, unfiltered… something that may help conservatives understand how far removed from reality their perspective is… and maybe even give us a clue about how to reach out to them because at the end of the day, we need all Americans to preserve freedom and bring prosperity back to our country.

-AG

I was not going to write any more today, but… a Nigerian man who claims to be tied to Al Qaeda tried to blow up a plane landing in Detroit but the explosive failed to go off as planned and he was immediately subdued by passengers. The explosive device was fairly sophisticated and the individual in question was already on counterterrorism lists, meaning that he should not have been on a plane to begin with and that security should have done a better job screening for this explosive device. Remember that the 9-11 planes were hijacked with box cutters and now, in 2009, this man was able to get on a plane with an explosive device, from a country that Al Qaeda is known to operate in. In time for Christmas, regular people stopped this would-be suicide bomber from killing the 278 passengers on board… it is a slight mixture of a Christmas miracle and the courage of individuals that made this possible. If only the current administration was as serious about stopping terrorists as it is about treating them more nicely.

-AG

First off, Merry Christmas to all! Now onto other pressing matters:

Few people in the mainstream media or on the Left would have thought that 1 year after Obama’s victory, Republicans would be poised for a comeback. In fact, few Republicans would have thought this either. The underlying reason for this is that this administration was elected to bring change and hope and in place of those things we have seen an Washington hand over trillions of dollars to Wall Street, continued expansion of federal government, massive deficit spending and debt, and unfulfilled promises. The final nail in the coffin for Left-wing politics in this country, at least in the short term, will be the passage of the Health Care Reform bill as it currently stands by the House, a piece of legislation that is currently opposed by a majority of Americans. What we are witnessing is an implosion of the Democratic Party which has chosen to swing the sword of federal power in order to satisfy mere political goals instead of leading all Americans. This will be of immense benefit to Republicans next year.

What has been the most interesting thing this year is that the main engine of the movement against the Democrats is not the Republican Party but rather a conservative movement that has swept the country. This means one thing, that Republicans, in the absence of some game-changing event (or fraud), will gain seats riding a semi-populist conservative wave of support… without actually creating or agreeing with the movement to begin with. We need to be clear on this: the conservative revival that is currently underway is not a Republican revival, it is fully grassroots and has taken aim at RINO’s and liberals alike. The question is: from the standpoint of a conservative activist, should Republicans benefit from this movement if they do not abide by conservative principles? Already, we have seen conservative defections in two different races: New York and New Jersey. Whenever they have taken power, Republicans have looked a lot more liberal than their constituents would have liked.

My view is straightforward, I would rather have liberal Democrats win elections against liberal Republicans for three reasons: first, liberal Democrats are more honest about their propensity for big government, taxation for taxation’s sake, being anti-life, etc. than liberal Republicans who try to toe the line and end up doing the same as Democrats (honesty matters). Second, if Republicans continue to vote down the party line instead of actually looking at the candidates, we will never truly have historic leaders. Republicans need to lead, they do not merely need to win elections. Third and most importantly, for the Republican Party to inch back from left-of-center to right-of-center, voters need to make it absolutely clear that Republicans will not win any vote that they do not deserve. To justify the left-of-center charge, look at the mismanagement of the Bush administration, not necessarily with respect to the wars, but rather with respect to growth of government, deficit spending, immigration reform, billions on foreign aid with no strategic value, the first bailouts of Wall Street, etc. we come to realize that Bush did not adhere to limited government principles. I am being a bit strict in my view that Republicans should fail until they come to realize the importance of sticking by conservative issues, but there simply is no better way to nudge them in the right direction. Pun intended.

What does this mean for 2010 and 2012? Simple: Republicans need to strengthen their support of free markets, individual empowerment, and roll back the big government takeover that is currently underway. It would also be nice if they stopped apologizing and bowing to foreign kings and emperors. If they do not, there may be and should be political consequences from the conservative “bloc.” We cannot allow Republicans to get complacent.

-AG

Yesterday, the day before to passing the Senate Health Care Reform bill with a vote along party lines: “I don’t see this as 60 Democrats versus 40 Republicans,” Harry Reid said. “I see it as 60 leaders who stood up to insurance companies and stood up for working families all across America.”

Yesterday: “mid-cap biotech stocks and large pharmaceutical stocks… two groups that could rise at least 10 percent over the next month. The legislation currently leaves both industries relatively unscathed…

Shares of large health insurers – the industry probably most affected by the legislation – have soared about 26 percent since the start of October, leading the charge for health stocks. The S&P Health Care Sector index has risen about 10 percent in that time, while the broader S&P 500 index has climbed 6 percent.”

Utter detachment from reality… or just flagrant lying to the American public. Like pointed out yesterday in my post about the government’s plans to destroy free and open competition, today’s passage of the Senate health care reform bill takes us one step closer to socialism. Despite taking flak from the left and the right, the bureaucratic powers that control our nation decided that they know what is best for us… they have resorted to ruling by decree while Americans are distracted by the holidays. We are witnessing the creation of a government program so intrusive that the very concepts of liberty and personal responsibility will completely take on new meaning in one generation; they will come to mean “the freedom government lets you have” and “the government takes care of us all so do whatever you like,” respectively. In less than one year, the United States has come a long way from the Constitutional Republic we once were.

While Imperial Democrats continue to repeat the empty party slogans of change and hope, saying that they have stood up to big business,just glance over at the stock market, where investors are doing backflips over the idea that the government will mandate people to purchase insurance… the lifelong dream of any company CEO: forcing people to buy your product.

While the Obama campaign promised an end to old-style politics, what we saw during this endeavor was the most audacious display of corruption at the highest levels of government. This “new-style” politics is more exclusive to liberal interests and more corrupt than ever before. They cut deals with big pharmaceutical companies. They cut deals with Senators who were on the sidelines by handing them blank checks. They handed out money for votes in a scheme that most people would consider illegal… in fact, a scheme that if carried out by any private individual, it would be called bribery, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years imprisonment and fines.

The losers in this are clear: the American people, but there is a silver lining. This entire display of corruption and disregard for public will has shown to everyone how exactly these Imperial Democrats operate. This means that come 2010, the American public can express their dissatisfaction by throwing out the bums who helped increase the burden on American families through taxation and mandates. Now that they have removed their masks it will be much harder for nice-sounding speeches and Bush-bashing to win the Democrats any votes. All we need to do is point towards their pro-government expansion, pro-taxation, pro-entitlement spending, pro-Wall Street bailout agenda and unleash popular sentiment against these clowns. It’s funny that it only took one year of Democrat control of Washington for them to cram big government down America’s throat… it only shows us that the Left has had these plans in the works for years, they were just biding their time until they got decisive majorities. That said, we need to put them back in the minority ASAP. While political setback may pale compared to what the Democrats have planned for us, it’s something and it should give us hope that there still exists some semblance of freedom in this country.

-AG

I am simply stunned by the amount of opposition this one piece of legislation, the Health Care Reform bill, is getting from all sides… I am particularly impressed by the Leftist groups that are against this plan. A number of them want the Public Option included in the final bill, but they fail to realize that it is their fellow liberals who have negotiated the Public Option away. This ad by a progressive group catches Obama lying to the American public saying that he will not sign a bill without a public option and he also goes on record slamming individual mandates, something he now supports:

Then we have a union that is opposed to the health care reform bill. A union!!! They are opposed to taxing health care benefits:

The Republican Party has a number of ads; I like this one for its sheer simplicity:

These are just some of the ads that caught my eye. What they illustrate is an across the board rejection of the health care bill but unfortunately, time is running out. The Senate has scheduled a vote for tomorrow, Christmas Eve, as a little present for president Obama and a huge lump of coal for the rest of America. Taxes. Fines. Mandates. Government control of health care. A blue state bonanza of special favors and kickbacks to secure all the votes necessary to pass this bill. $1 trillion price tag, on the conservative side. Cuts to Medicaid and Medicare that simply foreshadow their approach: to make cuts in quality for more quantity. Most importantly, playing politics on a law that will affect every American for generations to come in order to pass a bill by the arbitrary timeline of December 24th. But these things we already know…

What we have not thoroughly discussed is what happens afterward. No matter which bill passes, the Senate version or the House version, the outcome will be the same. The first step is that smaller companies will eventually have to accept people with pre-existing conditions, fundamentally making it much more difficult to have a profitable enterprise, leaving mainly the large insurance companies in the market. The second step is that insurance companies, the ones big enough to survive, will use their every resource to blast holes in the bill so that they can deny coverage or reduce the amount of coverage legally. It’s what businesses do in the face of unsustainable regulation, look for loopholes. What more, given that the United States federal government will mandate that every individual must purchase insurance, the remaining insurance giants will stand to make a killing. The only thing standing between these remaining big insurance companies and high profits is the federal government. The third step is that, as occurred with Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and other government-sponsored enterprises, government intervention essentially guarantees health insurance no matter what. This means that if government regulations prove too strict and the companies go under, the government is left controlling everyone’s health insurance and the taxpayer foots the bill (like with the bailouts). If government regulations are not strict enough, then we can expect the remaining insurance giants to form an oligopoly with limited competition, record profits, and higher premiums for consumers (like after the bailouts). Even if there is some middle ground and government for the first time in history is able to regulate the industry effectively, it is the average American who ends up paying on both ends, through taxes and directly through premiums. Of course, since insurance is, effectively, the pooling of risk amongst policyholders and the government has decided to increase that amount of risk by including people with pre-existing conditions while at the same time trying to decrease or hold down prices, because of the adage “there is no free lunch” ultimately something has to give, be it quality of care, direct nationalization, even higher debt/taxes, or something not yet imagined. This is Corporate Socialism 102 (with the Obama Bailouts being C.S. 101) and it results in either direct government control or indirect government control of all of us.

At first I was hopeful that this would not come to be because I knew that there was enough garbage in the mix to garner enough opposition at least on the conservative side, but I now see that Congress and the administration could care less about opposition from every side. Let us hope that some lone, courageous Senator decides to derail this thing tomorrow so we can go back to the drawing board and, at the very least, come up with a plan that is not born out of backroom deals, kickbacks, and just plain-old corruption.

-AG

Excerpts from an alternate dimension, recovered from the 2,000 page health care bill:

Journal entry 12/23/13

“All hail Chairman Obamao.

Waking up today in my standard issue gray uniform was wondrous: another day working for the glory of the State and the Party. Every morning I take the opportunity to thank my Party for their work on behalf of the people. Especially since I remember those days when the state was run by greedy “individualists” who cared nothing about the general welfare of the people, the days when the government was so aloof to the needs of the people that they would not substantially increase taxes on individuals and businesses in order to pay for the medical care of everyone else! Believe it or not, there was once a time when people had the choice to purchase their own medical insurance or not. Fortunately, our Dear Leader had the vision and the strength to mandate individuals to surrender a portion of their wealth for the greater good, all praises onto him. The system would have worked perfectly, like all of Dear Leader’s plans, but the traitorous “rich people” decided that it was in their best interest to leave the country, drying up the much needed revenues from those bourgeoisie scum. Now the Dear Leader is forced to ration medical care, but despite the hardships I am so proud that everyone in America has medical coverage… especially those alien migrants (formerly known as “illegal immigrants") who have it so hard. After passing the Great Socialist Medical Experiment Act, the population of alien migrants nearly tripled overnight, most probably because of the socialist utopia we were creating at the time. Now look at them, they are now receiving federal aid, medical coverage, they can drive, they can vote, and they can preserve their cultures by speaking their native tongues, if only they would take that final step towards citizenship but, regardless, I am thrilled to be working so that they can have all of these benefits. I hope more come.

The heater wasn’t working last night due too the limited amount of sunlight during the winter months and the low intensity of wind we’ve been experiencing. It was a bit uncomfortable, but in truth I am just happy that we were able to cap-and-trade away all those coal power plants that were turning this Earth into one big furnace. Last night, the reassurances of the Party kept me warm. Despite my ideological comfort, at one point I could not feel my toes, so I tried today to get some medical assistance and waited for a few hours in line at my local clinic. Foolishly, I had chosen to stand in the line on the wrong day, my rationing card clearly said that I could only get medical attention on Thursdays. I guess I will have to endure until then.

Tonight the Dear Leader gave a speech and I was reminded of the real reason that I voted for him all those years ago when people still needed to vote: his oratory made me melt inside. Since the Presidential Permanence Act of 2010, when people were asked if they wanted to keep Dear Leader until the recession ended, and “The People’s Tuesday,” when economists testified before Congress that the recession would never end, the people have not had to worry about those non-socialists coming back to power. Imagine what would happen to the single greatest accomplishment of our age, Health Care Reform, if we allowed those barbarians back into government. First, they would probably insist on reducing dependence on the federal government. But then who would take care of us?!? Second, they would probably insist on cutting deficit spending and paying down the debt. Fools! Don’t they know that we need to spend our way out of the recession caused by reckless spending?!? Third, they would probably insist on not taxing the rich at such high levels. It is here that these so-called “conservatives” make no sense: there are no rich people in America anymore! It is a great thing that the administration and the Congress, back in 2009, decided to ram the Health Care Reform bill through and increase the debt limit every time the debt got close to that limit. They say that the vast majority of Americans opposed the plan, but hearing Dear Leader, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi speak, it was clear that the three people who mattered the most were in full agreement. Just yesterday someone on the radio asked why there existed an individual mandate to buy health insurance if we get actually cannot get quality, timely care. He said that there used to exist hospitals where expense came secondary to actually saving people and that it was the administration that targeted these types of hospitals opting for quantity over quality. I know he was lying because he was almost immediately sterilized and lobotomized, for good measure. Where else, if not in a socialist utopia do you get that kind of immediate care for insanity?

If I could go back in time, I would let the Americans of 2009 know how great we have it now and that they should stop questioning the bold leadership of Dear Leader… if only I had a time machine and if only I could feel my shins.”

Hmmmm… somehow I don’t think the author got his or her message across.

-AG

As of now, the information that scientists have in determining whether or not global warming is caused by human activity is limited. By limited, I mean limited in determining whether human action is the principal cause of the warming that we are currently seeing (at least until the last few years), warming that might be temporary, or if it is principally a natural fluctuation in Earth’s temperature. Global warming events have taken place in Earth’s history long before the proliferation of the Hummer, but unfortunately the doomsayers continue to preach that humans are the principal cause and must be stopped at all costs. Interestingly enough, currently we have been experienced a drop in average world temperature over the last few years, but this neither refutes nor asserts the global warming hypothesis (here’s an interesting website). To put it plainly, the nearly “instantaneous” (in terms of Earth’s age and history) temperature changes that we are experiencing right now do not point to human caused global warming nor do they refute this claim and, equally important, Earth has been hotter or about as hot during past periods of human existence and nothing catastrophic has happened (see the Medieval Warm Period). Personally, I do believe that humans contribute to the warming of the planet that we have experienced simply because it is true that greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and we produce significant amounts of greenhouse gases, but at the same time I recognize that our models do not and cannot accurately predict what will happen in the future. This means that it is possible that the planet might warm up a couple more degrees Celsius and then immediately start cooling because of greater cloud coverage caused by higher amount of water vapor in the atmosphere… it is also possible that warming will continue indefinitely and we will become a water world. My point is that we must continue to study the issue but not allow these environmental concerns, which may be wrong, to destroy the progress that human civilization has made. Most importantly, no matter what we do, a government-based “solution” to controlling greenhouse gas emissions will almost certainly fail. Government can help, but the only thing that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions is the free market and until the free market finds a profitable reason to do so, the current trends will not change.

Compiled from Hadley/CRU (Climatic Research Unit) temperature data

As of now, leftists around the world are trying to use the global warming argument as an instrument in the weakening and ultimate destruction of America. What is most unfortunate is that conservatives and libertarians have not presented the public with another option beyond calls to continue studying climate change. The truth of the matter is that there exist opportunities for the free market and for America as a whole to change our behaviors in such a way that will reduce carbon emissions drastically. While climate change is not a principal concern on my mind, as compared to the immediate dangers of militant Islam, nuclear armed rogue nations, and the threats against freedom, it just so happens that there is a solution to all of these problems: energy independence. What would happen if the United States of America reduced dependence on oil and/or developed a non-carbon based energy source? Would Iran be able to continue financing its nuclear program? Would militant Islam continue to finance international terrorism? Would human carbon emissions continue to envelope the planet? The answer to these questions is probably no. This is why I consider climate change a secondary issue, because the primary issues of security and energy independence can be solved by the same thing that would solve the climate issue. Here is where the free market comes in: if entrepreneurs out there came to realize the potential profits they can make by being the developers or producers of an alternative energy source (hopefully non-carbon emitting), then the United States will be safer, cleaner, and these entrepreneurs will be very successful. I have read articles here that showcase some of these types of entrepreneurs, but the effort has not been intense enough to produce the type of results that are necessary. If government wants to be involved, the most that it should do is aid in the research and development of these alternative energy sources.

Sadly, instead of tackling the problem in a common-sense way, government has instead decided that it will pump billions into a “green” economy that is inefficient and only expands government size. For example, the obvious solution to reducing emissions from coal plants would be to start building nuclear power plants, but the government has been reluctant to do so. The only environmental issue there is in the storage of nuclear waste, but at least global warming can be averted. Of course, the environmentalists are opposed to the obvious benefits of nuclear power, showing how detached from reality and attached to ideology that many environmentalists are. It is clear that the government is not serious about cutting our emissions nor about energy independence, but instead they use the threat of climate-linked catastrophe to justify government economic intervention. This needs to change. To continue to rely on the burning of carbon-based fuels at this point in history is absurd. It is about time that we move beyond this and develop an energy source that will not leave us at the mercy of third world dictatorships with ties to terrorism and, at the same time, will not contribute to the increasing global temperatures (we may not be the principal cause, but we do contribute somewhat). Since the problem of relying on fossil fuels for energy is a national security issue and an economic issue, we cannot allow the climate-change-doomsday-alarmists to use this in order to promote a government expansion agenda. At the end of the day, the only thing that we can do is wait for a free market solution to this problem, let’s just hope that government does not stand in the way of progress. That’s some irony though, given that many environmentalists tend to be die-hard opponents of the free market and the only thing that can save the environment is just that.

-AG

As is expected from politicians who know only how to pretend to know about things, a liberal Maine House member, Andrea Boland, is pushing for legislation that would place warnings on cell phones stating that they cause brain cancer. Is Boland an engineer? No. Is she a medical specialist of any sort? No. Is she a physicist with extensive knowledge of radioactive materials? Absolutely not. According to http://www.maine.gov, she is actually a real estate title examiner and an independent distributor of nutritional products. As for her education, “she graduated from Elmira College in New York with a B.A. in international relations and French… studied for a year at the University of Paris at the Political Science Institute and earned her M.A. in business administration from Northeastern University.” Apparently, a fluent knowledge of French qualifies her to know about the health effects of cell phone use…

In reality, there is no scientific consensus that cell phones cause brain cancer (here’s a great article), but that inconvenient truth is not going to get in the way of liberal encroachments on the free market. The question is, why would a politician try to present legislation that is not backed by real evidence if not for political gain? Time and time again, Democrats try to panic everyone over some false crisis and use this as an excuse to expand their power, tax more, spend more, intervene in the free market, and violate individual rights. The real crisis is the lack of logic on the part of leftists and liberals who simply take politicians’ word on technical issues and support legislation that ends up concentrating more power in the hands of the state. Though Boland’s incompetence will not affect us nationally (at least I don’t think so), it is another example of how these leftists chip away at freedom with the big government chisel on the small and large scale. The place to stop these types of people is when they are simply local politicians, when they are community organizers, and when their socialistic careers start taking form. Stopping them early is the only way to prevent their ascent to the national stage where they can cause, and currently are causing, all sorts of problems. The way to stop politicians like this is simple: blast away political agendas with cold hard facts.

As an aside, there are two reasons why Boland should not be concerned with cell phone brain cancer: first, the scientific community has not determined that cell phone use causes brain cancer (that’s the big one) and second, brain cancer can only develop in brain tissue. You can sleep safe, Andrea.

-AG

For those who do not understand the moral implications of appeasing one’s enemies I suggest they simply take a good look at what has been happening in the Senate these last few weeks. Senator after senator, seeing that the health care reform bill could not be passed without unanimous Democrat and Independent support, started holding the bill hostage for concessions for their states. With each capitulation on the part of Harry Reid and the administration, senators became more emboldened and demanded more for their votes. Nebraska got the federal government to pick up the tab for Medicaid expansion. Louisiana received $300 million in Medicaid funds from the federal government. Massachusetts and Vermont also got more federal funds for Medicaid. Vermont received an additional $10 billion for new health centers. The list goes on. What this shows is that when the enemy (or in this case, one’s “friends) smells weakness, they pounce, especially if one is known for appeasing at all costs. This applies to politics at home and diplomacy abroad… but the Democrats do not seem to understand this, despite the fact that they engage in the same type of extortion in Congress.

This pic makes my stomach turn

Interestingly enough, the president and Majority Leader Reid seem all too happy to hand out these payoffs in order to secure their legislative victory this year, knowing full well that they would have a hard time passing it next year because of the midterm elections. What this shows is that we can expect for any future legislative push from the White House or from the Democratic Party to be held hostage at every turn, especially considering the high dissatisfaction with Congress and the slipping poll numbers for the president which point to the probability of Republicans gaining some seats in 2010. This, in general, is a good thing legislatively (because it may end up stopping the big-government agenda), although a bad thing in terms of foreign policy. Washington is becoming a federal-funds gold rush for politicians hoping to cash in their votes, for corporations that are deemed too big to fail, for government agencies and programs that Democrats support, and for every special interest group that leans left. If we measure the success of a government by its willingness to create money out of thin air and hand it out with reckless abandon, then this one bests all the previous ones by a wide margin. As of yet, the new administration has not proven itself able to force anyone’s hand at anything… we were opposed at Copenhagen, Iran continues to defy us, North Korea also, the closing of Guantanamo is lagging, Pakistan will only cooperate with us so much, the banks won’t do what the president says, etc. etc. The only victories that the administration has claimed are victories that were handed to them either through luck, Democrats exercising their Congressional majorities, or luck. One of the major reasons for this is because of the weakness that a policy of total appeasement projects… which I guess reinforces my previous observation of evil: it ends up destroying itself.

-AG

Lately, my view of politics in this country has changed slightly. While in the past I was more willing to empathize with liberals in this country, I am less patient with them now. Remember also that I make a clear distinction between the “liberals” I can deal with (classical liberals) and the “liberals” that I cannot stomach (in a word: Marxists).

To all the liberals out there of all stripes, I get it, and in general I think that most conservatives get it, liberals do not like discriminating against the little guy and feel bad when some prosper and others do not. I understand that sentiment. What I do not understand is the self-delusion that many liberals suffer from where they believe that the great bureaucratic, inefficient, and colossally expensive monster that we call government can and will solve all of these problems. The leftist liberals are a lost cause, they have come to believe that everything American is evil and that the individual must be reined in by the collective at all costs, not cognizant of the fact that they can only legally have these counter-establishment ideas because of the establishment itself; we already know that counter-establishment ideas in leftist dictatorships result in imprisonment, torture, and death. Irony of ironies. This is not new, but what has lately pushed me away from the trying to bridge the divide is that modern politicians are mediocre leaders in extraordinary times. I am now even less patient with these mediocre personalities that dominate the public discourse.

Let me be clear: most of the people that I hear or read do not understand what they are talking about. Here I want to point out a great difference between people who truly understand things and people who pretend to understand things. The first group is what this country desperately needs to fix the mess that we are currently in and, unfortunately, the second group is what we are electing to office. Let us be frank, in the 2008 presidential election, with the economy as the biggest issue, the American public was asked to choose between a War Hero (and Air Force pilot) and a lawyer specializing in Constitutional Law (and a community organizer)… where were the economists? Where were the people with business experience (Romney supporters can chime in here)? What was most indicative of the irrationality that had gripped America after years of Bush mismanagement, we did not choose the War Hero despite the fact that we were in the middle of two wars!

The majority is now waking up from this mass hypnosis and to those former liberals I say “welcome back to sanity,” but the damage is done. Just think about how the current administration and Congress has decided to focus on tax increases, cap-and-tax, closing Guantanamo, and especially health care reform while unemployment spiked into the double digits. Wouldn’t the common sense approach be to focus all of our energies on the economy, period? Where are the brilliant leaders in government? Giving the banking industry billions and billions of dollars has saved many financial firms, but the rest of the economy is still ailing and all that the government has done is kick the problem down the road by drastically increasing the national debt. This is not a solution, it is a delaying tactic and will continue to drag out the recession. America needs to stop settling for the mediocrity espoused by our political parties and strive, instead, for American excellence. I do not care about folksy, small town politicians who I can culturally connect with or an everyman I can have a beer with, I care if they are clear-thinkers with America’s best interest in mind and at heart. I do not care for Harvard graduates who look down on regular Americans as simple masses who cling only to religion and guns. I want some real, down-to-Earth, intelligent people to stand up and get elected for their merits, for their ideas, and for their devotion to the welfare of this country.

This criticism is directed at both the Republicans and Democrats. For the Republicans, they should not continue to appeal to the cultural base nor continue promoting a populist message while simultaneously going to Washington and becoming immersed in bureaucracy and bowing to special interests. For the Democrats, they should not continue to appeal to the resentment between races and classes while simultaneously going to Washington and becoming immersed in bureaucracy and bowing to special interests. Americans need to support the thinking man’s party and not the populist party. The reason is obvious: populism leads to mass irrationality, like lynch mobs with pitchforks.

Right now, the Republican Party is closer to the thinking man’s party, but they have a lot of work to do and they should do a much better job of promoting their solutions rather than promoting their criticisms. This may run contrary to the beliefs of many “educated” people (group two) who have long caricatured conservatives as country bumpkins, but they are truly mistaken. Democrats promote policies that “feel right.” Democrats are constantly warning that without government the environment will implode, without government Americans will not be able to afford health care, and without government Wall Street will destroy the economy. Leftists simply throw “government” at every problem while conservatives actually have to think of a real-world solution. Conservatives want to use the most powerful organizing force in the world, the free market, to make our society better. The Republican Party needs more true-blue (or real-red) conservatives and less of these populists if it wants to be THE party of the America’s future.

In sum, Americans need to stop rewarding the “feel-good” candidate and start rewarding the candidate with the best ideas. Around the world, many people still equate the word America with excellence… let’s not lose the power of the American brand by falling into mass irrationality and mediocrity.

-AG

Democrat control of Washington has ushered in a new era of American politics, an era where the far left and the far right would put aside their constant bickering and finally come to agree on something. This is truly a historic moment where most Americans can clearly agree on what policy to adopt and what not to. This is happening right now: In Congress, we have unanimous Republican opposition to the health care reform bill. We have the Tea Party movement in staunch opposition to this bill. Now we have far left liberals, headed by Howard Dean and MoveOn.org who strongly oppose the same health care reform bill. This is amazing! The political stars have aligned and everyone seems to agree that this HC reform bill belongs in a porcelain bowl swirling towards oblivion.

In response to this, what have the Congressional Democrats decided to do? Ignore the will of the people, conservatives and liberals, and pass it anyways so that they can chalk up a “victory.” Is this a democratic republic, as envisioned by our founding fathers, or a Corporate Socialist state where government and big business conspire to eliminate American freedom? At what point do we, as a society, decide that enough is enough and that the Republic we founded more than two hundred years ago needs to be defended? The promises of better government made by the Democrats before wresting power from the Republicans in 2006 should have been warning enough… what we needed was not “better” government, we needed and desperately need now less government, limited government. Under the previous administration and Congress we had an expansion of federal power like never before and now, under this regime, we have an even more accelerated expansion of federal power. Add to this the fact that Congress does not take its marching orders from the people and what we have brewing is a more controlled society. Fortunately, the voting booth has not been outlawed yet… though we need to be vigilant so they do not start rigging this too. If Democrats retain control of Washington come 2010, then we, as Americans, need to take a very close look at our electoral process and see if in fact we continue to live in a republic or if the power-that-be have taken it away from us right under our noses.

-AG

Imagine you are an Al Qaeda terrorist and want to make it to the United States. Under Bush, such a plan would not have been so easy, especially after 9-11. But under Obama, the prospects just got a little bit easier. First, all that a terrorist needs to do is get caught. A terrorist can be caught for allegedly giving money to a terrorist organization, for attempting to recruit terrorists via the internet, or for threatening to carry out an attack. Normally, these terrorists would be placed in a detention center far away from the United States mainland, in a “magical” place called Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Nowadays, thanks to the Obama administration, these terrorist detainees may now be brought to the US mainland, where they can enjoy a stay at one of our federal prisons. This is what may come about in Illinois if the administration has its way, where a federal prison is may end up housing terror suspects now being held in Guantanamo Bay.

Potential Concert for Suspected Terrorist Inmates

What might be the problems of bringing terrorists to the US mainland? Though many persons may believe that this is obviously something to be avoided, actually the problems are not truly obvious. Just because it sounds bad does not mean that it IS bad. The true problems that may come from housing terrorists within the United States has to do with law. While it may be possible to station a small army in and around this federal prison (though this is unlikely) preventing escape or any other security concerns, the real threat comes from the fact that detaining individuals within the United States may be legally tricky. Without a doubt, we will have organizations lining up to represent the terrorists, to try and accommodate the terrorists, and to give terrorists more and more legal rights. The risks we run are the possible mingling of the run-of-the-mill prison population and the terrorists, infiltration of militant Islam among Muslims in prison, contact between organized crime with international terrorism, potential legal rights for terror suspects, and other unthinkable possibilities. The last thing America needs is for murderers and other criminals to learn the art of bomb-making from terrorist inmates. Giving terror suspects certain legal rights may also prove counterproductive in our war on terror. Imagine how difficult it would be to capture terrorists abroad if they somehow win the legal right in the United States entitling them to some form of Miranda rights. The great disconnect here between what the Obama administration wants and what is happening in the real world is that we are currently engaged in a WAR on terror, not in a law enforcement campaign. These terrorists have declared war on the United States and will strap bombs to themselves and murder children just to hurt us… worrying about their legal status should not be our primary concern.

-AG

The Obama administration, known for leaving its enemies cowering in fear (note sarcasm), has recently asked Pakistan to crack down on the Haqqani network, a Taliban group that resides in the lawless regions near the Pakistani-Afghan border. The Pakistani government has flatly refused. Here is where the Obama foreign policy of appease-apologize-retreat comes into plain view and where the “with us or against us” foreign policy of the previous administration starts to makes more sense. The Haqqani network uses Pakistan as a safe haven to launch attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan and has contact with senior Al Qaeda leaders, in other words, this group has attacked and killed US servicemen and women and is allied with the perpetrators of the worst terrorist attack in our history. Unfortunately, with the current administration hell-bent on a quick surge and a quick withdrawal, it is unlikely that they will take any serious action against this group. In the meantime, while Pakistan “deals” with its own Taliban elements, a terror campaign has swept across the country (as I predicted before the whole Pakistani offensive started) with bombs hitting metropolitan areas and killing in excess of 500 Pakistanis. Just recently, a bomb ripped through a Punjabi town killing 33 as a display of the terrorists’ reach. Pakistan’s refusal to deal the Haqqani network foreshadows a possible cease-fire or peace treaty with the militants, at least some of them, and indicates that the terror attacks are dampening support for the recent Taliban crackdown. Democracies often cannot sustain wars very long, especially when bombs are going off in local markets around the country.

The real problem is the Obama administration’s strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Clearly, if we do not have access to the command center of the Taliban because it is being offered safe haven by a neighboring country that we will not invade, then we cannot easily win the war. In such a scenario, we can only play defense for an indefinite amount of time until we either get lucky or the enemy gets tired. The other option is withdrawal and the president has made it clear that this is his intention. A winning strategy would not have us be held hostage by a neighboring country, but would, through sticks and carrots, have the Pakistanis either let us eliminate these targets within their territory or have the Pakistanis actively eliminate the insurgents themselves (all of them). A winning strategy will not set an arbitrary withdrawal date and publicize it for our enemies to see. A winning strategy requires bold action and listening to our commanders in the field. Already, our quick-paced withdrawal from Iraq has left the country open to terrorist attacks, which, contrary to what the media silence would have you believe, have been unleashed around the country, including within the Green Zone, the ultra-highly defended government area of Baghdad. Arbitrary timelines for withdrawal only embolden the enemy and, as I have heard people say, our surge begins this year while the Taliban-Al Qaeda surge beings in 18 months, when we are scheduled to withdraw. It is sad to see the world’s last superpower retreating before the rise of militant, nihilistic Islamic extremists. We are truly being defeated from the inside out… the irrational idealism of our so-called leaders has given way to the cold hatred of our enemies. We CAN defeat our enemies, if only Obama would let us.

-AG

I have often thought to myself that truly evil people could never thrive for long. The reason is that evil, by its very nature, it not only destructive but also auto-destructive and so any group of people tied together by a common belief in such destruction only end up destroying themselves. In general, the evil that we see in the world is not pure, at least not in groups of people. Evil as we know it in the world comes from purely evil individuals who last long enough to convince others that some truly horrible act or system is actually good. Hence we have the homicidal dictators of the world: Castro, Kim Jong Il, Stalin, etc. In American politics, I characterize the modern Left’s ideas as well-intentioned offspring of evils (or stupidities) that started many, many years ago. The modern Left has taken the justifications offered up by evil people and turned them into a political platform. Specifically, I refer to the ideas of Marxism-Leninism (Marx was more “mistaken,” Lenin was more “evil"), the ideas of police states, and the ideas of command economies, these were all ideas set up to benefit a single tyrant or a single party, but in America they are passed off as being ideas that help “the people.” Contrary to what the “dreamers,” “hopers,” and “changers” would have you believe, these ideas are inherently evil not merely because they were thought of by evil individuals (or mistaken individuals), but because they were created for the express purpose of subjecting entire populations to the whims of a supreme leader. So when a person says “let’s provide free health care for all” these people are proposing an evil policy (no matter how “nice” it sounds) because there is no such thing as “free” and because they, in the name of some ideal, wish to cause an injustice to someone else (in this case, by making some people pay for other people against their will). Only when people realize that certain nice-sounding policies actually have terrible costs and try to reach some sort of equilibrium between one’s goals and costs can a policy not be evil (liberals, there is hope!)… in other words, people should read Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and come away understanding that extremism, whether for good reasons or not, destroys virtue.

The idealist Plato discussing with Aristotle

A clear example of this is that a free man should voluntary surrender his freedom (somewhat) in the service of one’s fellow man, this is called having a job or giving to charity, for a “completely” free man would only end up destroying himself through having no attachments to the world. My treatment of this topic is light and oversimplified (not all collectivist ideas originated from evil people for example), but I hope I have gotten my point across.

This leads me to the master of disaster, the Democrats’ Doctor, the Bishop of Byaaaah!: Howard Dean. Just yesterday I read that Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, wrote an op-ed piece in The Washington Times explaining why he would not vote for the health care reform bill as it stands and urging senators to also not vote for it. Yes, that’s right, Howard Dean, the architect of the Democrat Comeback has decided to offer his two cents and help torpedo the Obama administration’s hopes to pass a health care reform bill soon.

This highlights my point about evil: they eat their own. The evil ideas that emerged from Dean and the evil ideas that emerged from Obama have clashed with one another for two reasons, the first is that Dean is more extreme (hence having more vice) than Obama and the second is that Obama, in his quest to get something massively expensive passed, does not care how many big corporations benefit from his plan as long as the government has more control. Their ends are the same, state control of the health industry for the “common good,” but their means diverge. In all truth, I morally prefer Dean’s approach because it is more straightforward and honest, his disdain of private industry is clear and so is his unwillingness to compromise with them. To be clear, I obviously disagree with him. Obama, on the other hand, is more willing to deal with a small number of big insurance companies and ultimately keep them under the control of the state. Dean is straight up command economy, while Obama is more Corporate Socialism (as I have described in previous posts). The end result is the same for Americans, economic power in the hands of state-sponsored enterprises and an end to free competition and choice.

Let us hope that the Democrats do not come to realize that both courses of action lead to the same thing. If clear-thinking voters gain a temporary victory over state encroachment on the free market, we should not squander it nor should we continue to count on the Democrats’ self-destruction. Defeating the collectivists requires exposing these idealistic sounding policies as being ploys to expand the power of the federal government… let’s just hope that the American public actually cares.

-AG

Text of letter that President Obama sent to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il

Dear Dear Leader Kim Jong Il,

First of all, I want to express my deep disappointment with your behavior over the last year or so. Since my election I have been reaching out to leaders, friend and foe alike, in order to bring change not only to America but to the world. You do not seem to understand how important this is… not only to world peace but for me, personally. I have long dreamed of the day that I could stand before you and deeply genuflect until my forehead touches the ground. It is a great shame that I have been able to bow before the Saudi king, the Japanese Emperor, and put my arms around Hugo Chavez but not be able to express my feelings to you, arguable more powerful than all of these other leaders put together.

I have many reasons to bow before you, not merely because it is my custom when first meeting tyrants, real and symbolic. You have truly impressed me with your big missiles and your nuclear explosions, but your most impressive feat is keeping those North Koreans in line for years. How do you do it? I, like you, have complete control of the press in my country, yet my poll numbers keep going down. Should I decree that polls should be illegal? I, like you, have works of art of me on display around the country (and the world) but I still have an opposition party that will just not stop opposing my plans to take over private industry. I suppose I could send the army to eliminate my political opponents, what do you suggest? I, like you, use fear to pacify my subjects, particularly fear of economic collapse, fear of swine flu, fear of environmental catastrophe around the corner, and fear of enemy weapons development. That last one is where you come in. I personally have no problem with you having nuclear weapons, just look at what I did after your tests… nothing. Actually, I said that I would tighten sanctions but seriously, we have no commerce, so I was merely trying to please the crowd. Anyways, “dealing” with your nuclear program will make it easier for me to exert influence (maybe even absolute power) in my own country. I need results. That said, I propose that you do what you have done in the past with my predecessors: come join the six-party talks, agree to very little in exchange for halting nuclear/missile development, and then just continue working on your nuclear/missiles programs “behind my back.” This way, I can continue with my program at home, you can continue with yours, and we both look like heroes. It’s a win-win!

I am sorry if it has looked like I was ignoring North Korea, that was not my intention. I simply believed that you, like most other world leaders, would come to summits and meetings so that I could apologize for America’s behavior over the years and promise that I would do better by not bothering so much with human rights and terrorism issues. Also, I have been so busy devaluing my country’s currency and gaining favor by throwing money at special interests and organizations that helped me get elected that it would have been impossible to devote my time to you, time that you truly deserve. I heard you had some health problems, I would advise that you travel to the US in disguise before my health reform plan kicks in… I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. I’m tearing up just reading the teleprompter that is telling me what to write in this letter. Well, I hope you get better and most importantly, I hope to one day wrap my arms around your frail body and tell you how deeply sorry I am for America so that one day you could forgive me…

I Love You,
Barack Hussein Obama

PS I have enclose a photo of me bowing to a person of the same physical build as you so that you could imagine what it would be like at our first meeting:

Rick Sanchez is an incompetent liberal (redundant?) and I’m sick of him parading around his ignorance for the world to see. Specifically, this poor excuse for an anchor, who lived in Miami and was on the air for a long time here, was recently discussing the issue of regulation and the banking industry with Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Minority Whip. Below is the actual video of the exchange:

His analysis of the situation is simplistic, although for his own intellect, this may be as complex as it gets: the cause of the recession was not enough regulation of greedy bankers on Wall Street and the only solution is to regulate them until they cry uncle. Now for a general overview of the real reasons we are in a recession and not this populist, leftist, haves-versus-have-nots drivel:

The reasons that we are in this recession are not simple because they involve many players, many problems that we could have averted and many problems that we could not have averted. It is easy to point the finger at a particular scapegoat and say “it was all their fault,” and we have examples of this: from the right you hear that it was the government’s fault and from the left you hear that it was Wall Street’s fault. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. It starts with government intrusion into the economy which used Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other outlets to increase the ease with which people with less than ideal credit could get homes. This very same government then lowers interest rates and under both the Clinton and Bush administration pushed for expanded home ownership no matter what the cost. The Federal Reserve lent money at preferential rates to government-sponsored enterprises that competed directly with private financial institutions and these government enterprises set out to give mortgages to people who normally would not have qualified for them. Then the Federal Reserve set interest prices low and made lending money easier across the board. Add in the Clinton recession and the 9-11 attacks and the federal government tried to make absolutely sure that the economy would be revived through easy access to money. Most importantly, the federal government, like most other government around the world, have an implicit contract with the big financial institutions: the government would never allow them to fail and these firms knew it, especially the government-sponsored ones.

Then the private sector got more involved. With low interest rates, pressure to give loans to more risky borrowers, and competition from the public sector, private financial institutions started offering adjustable rate mortgages more and more, with artificially low starting interest rates that would shoot up after the initial grace period. The banks and other firms started taking on more risk and leveraging themselves more and more. So what is the logical thing to do if one’s portfolio is more risky? Try to minimize the risk by diversifying, spreading it around, and selling more risky for less risky assets. This became the general practice of these financial institutions and all in all, it was a smart move. What went wrong was the fact that the financial instruments that they created to hedge their risks were so complicated that no one knew how risky they actually were. They bundled high, medium, and low risk assets together and the independent agencies that were supposed to give them an accurate rating failed miserably at understanding them. There were probably those within the firms that originated these financial products that knew that these securities were being overrated, but why would they say anything? Investors around the world, seeing too-good-to-be-true returns on securities that had very high ratings should have been wary of them, but because everyone was doing it, irrational exuberance took over.

Then we swing back to government, which set the conditions for easy money and then, with so many adjustable rate mortgages on the market and with financial firms so leveraged already, the Federal Reserve started to increase interest rates. It was at this point that they noticed that a housing bubble had formed, but any analyst with a degree could clearly have seen that house prices had skyrocketed, not because homes were now made out of pure gold or came equipped with rocket boosters, but rather because of pure speculation. No one acted fast enough, particularly in government, to slow the obvious growth of the housing bubble. The incompetence was across the board. We have the CEO of Freddie Mac testifying that they did not need to increase their capital reserves because investing in houses was “a sure thing.” We have the Democrats in Congress stopping the Bush administration from regulating these government-sponsored enterprises that held the majority of US mortgages because they said that the companies were sound. At the same time, many of these Democrats got sweetheart deals on home purchases made during this time period… but then again, corruption is expected from these clowns. By the time the foreclosures started rolling in, it was too late, it was a bubble created by the state and burst by the state. The second half of this is where Wall Street gets some blame: poor risk management, lack of transparency in describing these new financial instruments, and the buying and selling of these credit derivatives put investors around the country and the world at risk of massive losses if the defaults continued… and continue they did. Voila: Recession.

Now, the ultimate cause of the recession, in my book, was the government and the Federal Reserve. Not one of these events would have occurred without government intervention in the first place; the idealism of having an “ownership society” espoused by Bush and predecessors alike, plus the situation we found ourselves in at the time, and of course government’s insatiable thirst for resources and size all conspired together to set the conditions for the recession. The problem was not that these financial firms were under regulated but rather that the regulations in place were not the right ones and the right regulations that were in place were not successfully implemented (on regulations, I may devote another post to discuss more thoroughly). The problem was not that banks created derivatives upon derivatives, but rather that the way they rated and measured their risk was terrible. If I may be so bold, I believe that we need more of these credit derivatives to help manage risk and the only regulation that we should place on them is to make sure that investors have all the pertinent information about them, i.e. to make them transparent. Yet what I hear out in the world, day after day, is that we need “more regulation,” that Wall Street must be held accountable, and that capitalism has failed us all. This is what politicians and those in power would have you believe, but it is false. While many of the “fat cats,” to use an Obamaism, deserve no love for some of their actions, to cut off our financial industry at the legs in order to satisfy some collective need to hold someone accountable is wrong when the true culprit is the one who has placed the bankers in the gallows. It is the State that has done this and for them to come to us with a scapegoat and a set of penalties for them only does two things: it fools us into thinking that the government itself was just an unwitting victim and it consolidates economic power in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians who should not and cannot run an economy without destroying it for their own political ends. Look at what is being done right now, how the government, instead of focusing on getting people back in their homes, instead of trying to get people back to work, instead of reducing the burden on the everyday man, is engage in more government intervention, more government takeovers, and passing more government spending bills that do nothing but inflate their powers and increase our dependence on them.

Which brings me back the DUI driving, pedestrian-slaying Rick Sanchez who, with absolutely no qualification in economics, mathematics, quantitative risk analysis, or any other related field of study, has the gall to stand before the CNN audience and say that the only solution is to increase regulation and end certain Wall Street practices that he finds offensive. When are we going to realize that these people that are on air know nothing about technical matters and are witting tools in an overt agenda to get people to conform to a line of thinking that would rather have us out in the streets with pitchforks, lynching the haves a-la-French Revolution rather than have us take a good, hard look at the real hand behind all of these events. To the astute thinker these things are worrisome: the State created the conditions for an economic bubble, watched the bubble form, burst the bubble, and in its aftermath engaged in asserting its control over the financial sector, the car industry, the energy industry, and the health care industry, to name a few. At the forefront of this all is a government led by an individual with few credentials, little experience, little courage but a whole lot of charisma who is treated like royalty by the majority of the mainstream media. We cannot let these characters lead us like cattle to the slaughter… we need to be objective, we need to educate ourselves, and we need to realize that we cannot listen to everyone out there with a microphone…

-AG

Health Care Socialism is almost upon us. All that the Imperial Democrats, who currently run Washington like the mob, have to do is close ranks in the Senate and bludgeon the opposition with their supermajority in order to pass one of the most ambitious government takeover plans in our history. What the Democrats want to do is take one industry, an industry already heavily influenced by the hand of the state, and control almost every aspect of it… including consumers. The health care reform plans that they are currently debating in the Senate include employer and individual mandates to buy health insurance. We need to be clear in understanding this fact: the federal government will have the power to force American citizens to buy the product of their choosing and to impose penalties if we do not comply. This is a targeted intrusion in the lives of all American citizens in order to satisfy political goals… this is this first domino in what we can expect to be a long line of government programs intended to erode the entrepreneurial and free character of our nation.

The truly insidious part of the health care reform plan is in the Democrats’ blatant lying about the costs of the new health care experiment that they are trying to set up. Many American’s are every day being fooled and confused about the costs of this new system, but the truth is plainly clear: health care reform will, in the short AND long run, cost this country more than a trillion dollars. The reasons are abundantly obvious: Democrats want to expand government subsidized care, penalize private insurance causing more people to be on government programs, and increase the taxes on every American by demanding that a certain percentage of their income be used to purchase health care. This means that regardless of the incessant hot air coming out of Obama’s and the rest of his cronies’ mouths, health care reform means that you will be poorer and America will be closer to bankruptcy. What else can you expect from the political party that just passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill without breaking a sweat, a spending bill that increases the funding across the board for government programs. That’s right, government programs are getting a revenue boost while everyday Americans are tightening their belts and making sure that they live within their budgets.

The last line of defense is the Republican Party, an irony given that they have also been fiscally undisciplined during their time in office… but the Democrats have been spending at a breakneck pace that would put the national debt at 85% the total gross domestic product of the United States by 2018. Let’s just hope that by 2012 we can start changing course.

-AG

Sometimes, he hits it on the head:

Sometimes, he comes up with the most convoluted diagrams and theories that I am left in awe of his ability to find connections, however tenuous, between people and organizations. I am talking about Glenn Beck, of course, who is today one of the most influential commentators on the airwaves. Beck is not my cup of tea: I don’t like the crying, his voice kind of nauseates me, and his chalkboard diagrams suggest vast Left-wing conspiracies (something I do not entirely agree with). On the flip side, I think that Glenn Beck is tremendously logical in his analysis. The central belief that I share with Beck is that the Obama administration is comprised of socialists (from simply socialist-leaning folks to full-blown communists, the whole spectrum). The problem is that I do not believe that Obama and the socialists of the world have a weekly meeting at the oval office to decide on how to destroy America. Glenn Beck would have us all believe that the conspiracy is active, but I beg to differ.

I do not have fancy diagrams to show you, but I do have personal experience and some analysis of what is currently happening in this country of ours. My main argument is this: I have no evidence that Obama is a Manchurian candidate, i.e. that he is a secret communist or secret terrorist or secret anything, therefore, as a regular Joe, I can only take the president at his word and conclude that Obama truly believes that his policies are good for the country. Now, this is more dangerous than if he actually were a Manchurian candidate, because as a true believer in socialistic policies, he will push them through with all his will, use his intellect to disguise radical policy as moderate policy, convince the uninformed, and coerce the underrepresented (non-leftists) to get his policies passed. The effect of his rhetoric and the mainstream media’s near-constant repetition of his message has been profound for two reasons: it has given legitimacy to impractical leftist ideas, empowering them even more and his message appeals to the idealist sentiments of people, sentiments divorced from rationality. The problem is that human beings prefer the “nice-sounding” idea to the “true” idea, hence the reason for phrases such as “the truth hurts” or, as Jack Nicholson said:

Which brings me to the anecdotal evidence. Just two days ago I briefly overheard a conversation at a coffee shop where one man was defending the current president’s foreign policy and a woman was criticizing it. The man reflexively equated defending Obama with attacking Bush and started denouncing a basic premise of Bush’s foreign policy, that there exists evil in the world, specifically the Axis of Evil. He said, almost verbatim “there is no such thing as an evil country. What makes them evil, that they disagree with us? Does their ethnicity make them evil?” This naivete is the type of thing that left us open to attack on 9-11. In my own opinion, populations are not evil but leadership can be, as is the case with the leadership of terrorist organizations or dictatorships that murder their own people. Castro is not evil because he disagrees with us, he is evil because he has coldly murdered thousands and destroyed his country. Same goes for Saddam Hussein, former member of the Axis of Evil. Same goes for Kim Jong Il, who would rather spend billions on nuclear weapons while millions of his subjects starve to death. Despite the clarity of this argument, that there exists evil in the world, here you have an educated person making the argument that we must see the world through a morally relativistic lens, the very type of person that Obama is. Systematically raping virgins so that the state can execute them in Iran is not a cultural curiosity, it is a gross violation of human rights and it is evil. With the Obama presidency, the clarity of these basic observations has been muddled and those who already believed that certain cultures should have the right to act however they want and violate human rights if they so wish have been given a voice in the oval office. For those without a thorough understanding of history and current events, rhetoric emphasizing “empathy” for others and peaceful coexistence at any cost may sound very appealing but make no mistake, there are people in countries all around the world that are actively planning to destroy the United States and actively using violence to gain and retain power. These are not cultural curiosities, these are calculated moves aimed at benefiting from the suffering of others… and it is called evil.

This man that was confused about the nature of evil in the world did not seem to be a radical and probably was not. Since I have no proof that he was not, I point to people I know personally. After the president’s speech on health care the other day, a colleague of mine, a relatively rational person, said that she was very inspired by the president and could not understand those who were protesting his policies. Apparently, she was drawn in by his language and not by the substance or a clear understanding of the consequences of a government-run health system. She obviously has already heard the counter arguments, at the very least from me personally, but she has decided to block all of the reasons out and continues to blindly follow the Leftists. She is not the only one, I am certain that each of you out there knows a few or more than a few people that almost faint at the mere mention of the name Barack. Which brings me back to Glenn Beck and his insinuations that there is an active conspiracy. With so many people out there, regular people at coffee shops, schools, and supermarkets that are enamored of the president and believe everything he says without question, is there any need for an active conspiracy? There are so many people out there that have turned away from rationality and embraced a worldview that emphasizes what “feels right” that I can attribute Obama’s success to this percentage of the population plus the widespread rejection of a truly disappointing Republican Party during the Bush years.

Then consider that Obama appoints socialists as czars and as advisers, does this mean that we are looking at a conspiracy? Of course not. Obama is a person who aligns himself with the Left, therefore he aligns himself with other people who align themselves with the Left, people that include America haters, full-blown communists, terrorist sympathizers, and the like. This means that the pool of people he trusts and that he chooses from to fill positions in his government will be those very same people form the Left. I mean, seriously, how many former-members of a terrorist organization, like William Ayers, host fundraisers for you? I do not even know one terrorist or former-terrorist. That is not proof of a conspiracy, it is a consequence of the “crowd” he runs with. I may be wrong, but until I see some real evidence of closed-door meetings where Obama and his cohorts plan out the downfall of America I will not be convinced. It is sufficient to believe that all of these shady characters that Glenn Beck parades out in front of us during his show are acting independently towards the same goal: redistribution of the wealth and power of America.

To a certain extent, I worry that tying all of these characters together will instill a paranoid fear among those of us liberty-loving people that the Leftists are in an active conspiracy against us. This is not necessarily true. For years, the labor movement and the environmentalist movement were not on the same page. Labor still has certain problems with the Left’s immigration policies. The African-American community, though staunchly liberal, has not embraced the “gay rights” movement. This is good news because it shows that liberals do not form a monolithic group and that some are open to alternate, rational arguments. Beck seems more worried about the commies hiding under the bed than in facilitating some sort of national discourse whereby liberals have a viable alternative to the extreme Leftism that has taken over the Democratic Party. I prefer coming up with ways to brings all Americans together by addressing common concerns and rejecting ideas that would make our country and by extension every one of us, weaker, poorer, and not free. This is why Beck is not my style… sounding the alarm only makes people alarmed. That said, there are times where I support Glenn Beck 100% and this is one of them:

American needs people like Glenn Beck because at least he cares enough to be outraged and maybe even a little misty-eyed. Let’s just make sure that while we strive to defend our freedoms, we not alienate those who are still on the fence.

-AG

Why I am not surprised about ACORN condoning, encouraging, and helping set up an international child prostitution ring? Shockingly, the do-Obama’s-bidding Congress passed an amendment to cut off federal funding for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Good job, guys, it’s about time. Now, we all already know that ACORN has been under investigation for voter fraud and we also already know about the deep ties that they have with the Community-Organizer-in-Chief, but what we did not have was evidence that ACORN offices in multiple cities were more than willing to help up-and-coming international child prostitution enterprises. The videos themselves are pretty undeniable. Here is the latest one:

Similar exchanges occurred throughout the country and different ACORN offices and while it may be possible that the organization does not condone such behavior, what it does show is that our tax dollars are being spent on a shady group of people. Despite the video footage, at least one of the employees claims that she was just making up stories and she thought the whole thing was a joke from the beginning. If so, then she, as a joke, advised them to evade taxes, beat children, run a prostitution ring, fund a political campaign with funds from prostitution, and threaten people with murder. What a comedian! At the very least, this shows that ACORN is a completely undisciplined organization that funds offices that are run by people who have a broken moral compass and that their hiring practices are laughable. At worst, ACORN is an organization that will try, by any means necessary, to accomplish their Leftist political goals by encouraging illegal behavior and defrauding America’s taxpayers. I believe that the truth is more skewed towards the latter. I call on the President of the United States, who has had extensive ties with this group, to denounce their actions. Somehow I doubt he will.

-AG

Jimmy Carter, the man who puts his arms around the world’s more ruthless murderers, tyrants, and terrorists, yesterday said that race was the underlying reason for the Joe Wilson outburst and the strong resistance to the president’s proposals. Two things: this shows just how out of his mind and how rabidly Leftist that Jimmy Carter is. Fidel Castro felt so comfortable with Jimmy Carter’s ideology that he allowed the ex-president to give an unscripted, uncensored speech in totalitarian communist Cuba. Carter is a communist and/or a communist sympathizer, so of course he has no idea as to why so many Americans are up in arms about Obama’s “socialist” policies. Second thing: race is not the reason that so many people oppose the president, if racism were the reason then the two thirds white majority of this country would not have voted for a biracial president by such margins. That is exhibit A. Exhibit B is that Americans are not protesting against his color, nor his accent, nor anything having to do with race, heritage, etc. People are protesting against his policies. The only thing that even borders on racism are the claims that he is a Muslim, but even that claim is backed up by evidence on paper that shows that Barack Obama (under the last name of his stepfather, Soetoro), as a child, was enrolled in school as a Muslim.

One can assume that it is racism but, again, they would be wrong. Personally, I do not think he is a Muslim (I don’t care if he is), but I do believe that he, like Carter, sympathizes and empathizes with even the most extremist elements of the Muslim world.

Carter goes on to say that there is a “belief among many white people – not just in the South but around the country – that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country.” Again, he distorts reality. Americans who oppose the president, by and large, do not think he is incompetent but rather that he is smart… too smart. Let me remind you that it was a white president, George W. Bush, who was constantly accused of being unqualified by the Left for eight years.

What Jimmy Carter’s comments go to show is that in moments of desperation, Democrats will reach into their political playbook and pull out the race card. How many times already have we seen this move pulled so far this year? We saw it play out with the Gates arrest incident, when the president said that the police “acted stupidly” in arresting his friend Professor Gates, before even knowing the facts of the case. We saw it when Glenn Beck stated an opinion firmly grounded in fact and backed up by the president’s own words and actions (undistorted, in full context), that Barack Obama is racist, in terms of his policies on social justice. I do not believe that the president is a “racist” (in that he hates people of some color or ethnicity) but I do believe that the president does have ideas of racial reparations and racial social justice, which are, by definition, racist (or racially based). Obama said it:

Yet despite his own words, despite written evidence in his books, Glenn Beck was demonized for his poor choice of words. Then we have the case where the charges against the New Black Panther Party members who intimidated voters were dropped by Obama’s Justice Department. Now we have Carter, standard-bearer of the Democratic Party, accusing Americans who oppose Obama of being racist.

I find it humorous that when liberals criticize conservatives and libertarians, they distort the truth, flat-out lie, and misrepresent individual activists or protesters, but when conservatives criticize liberals, all we have to do is play the video, show the transcript, or point to the very words that the Democratic Party leadership say in order to make our arguments. I understand why the Democrats play the race card to defend their president’s policies, especially when these policies cannot be defended on their own “merits.” What I do not understand, for the life of me, is why the Democrats, when in a hole, think that it is a good idea to play the Peanut Card? At least they got his name right when I checked Wikipedia earlier this morning:

-AG

These are general thoughts about recent events:

First off, RIP Patrick Swayze. He will be missed.

Second, Kanye West was rude to Taylor Swift. Get over it. They are entertainers.

Third, Joe Wilson does not need to apologize anymore. Today’s House vote to formally admonish Joe Wilson for his outburst was a complete waste of time. He already apologized to the president and now the Democrat-controlled House is demanding more blood. What more do they want, the Lewinsky treatment? What this shows is that the Democrats are more interested in crushing dissent than in actually representing the American people. Apparently, the tens of thousands of activists that descended on Washington D.C. to protest the actions of the current administration and the Congress this past 12th of September made little impression on the Democrat ruling party. Instead of focusing on the truly arduous and necessary task before them, scrapping the ObamaCare plan and coming up with a more practical alternative, the Democrats of the House of Representatives decided that slapping Joe Wilson’s hands for speaking out of turn during the president’s speech was more important. No wonder about 70% of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

What I found especially rich is that the spokeswoman for Democratic House Majority whip said, about the outburst, that “we’re not the British Parliament for a reason,” but apparently the Democrats want to be like the British “National Health Service” system. Of course, the “fun” part of this whole affair is the sheer hypocrisy of the Democrats because of their own disrespectful comments and interruptions of former president George W. Bush. During a speech by Bush on Social Security Democrats hollered at the president “making it appear for a moment that Mr. Bush was standing in the well at the British House of Commons.” Where were the admonishments? Where was the outrage from the Congress? Do we so easily forget the years of relentless abuse that Bush received from the Left for his whole eight years as president? Let’s get a grip, people. The Democrats are playing partisan politics and they are playing for keeps. The post-partisan era has yet to materialize. Joe Wilson should not have interrupted the president’s speech, but I understand why he did and in that moment that he breached protocol, he spoke for millions upon millions of Americans across the country who were yelling the same thing at their TV screens. It is now a rallying cry for conservatives. Next time you see a Democrat, thank them, because every single day the Democratic Party’s actions make it clear that they care only about playing politics and power.

-AG

The astroturf creeps onto Washington D.C. After months of deriding legitimate opposition to the government-run health care proposals floating around in Congress, the ruling Democrat Party sitting behind the castle walls of Washington D.C. got a glimpse at the country’s popular will: no more big government. Yesterday, the Tea Party Express, a collection of activists that oppose the current administration’s incessant march towards socialism ranging from conservatives to libertarians to constitutionalists, held a protest rally in the capital. At the same time, we have the President traveling around the country trying to shore up support for his government takeover plans, saying that it will not ruin the free market, that senior care will not suffer, and every other lie and misleading argument he has made about his plans. The question is: which message will triumph?

People across the nation are torn between whether they should support the president’s government health care plans or to oppose them. The problem is that, at the moment, the Democrats have essentially convinced the majority of Americans that they are the only ones with a plan and the Republicans are simply naysayers. This leads moderates to err on the side of action rather than inaction, especially since they know what the costs of inaction are: eventual bankruptcy of our current system and ever more expensive health care. Conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between know the stakes, but not everyone is clear on the costs of the Democrats’ proposals. To put it succinctly, the cost is higher taxes AND, most importantly, the end of competition and innovation in health care. The current system we have now is a trade-off between quantity and quality: free markets sacrifice some quantity for quality and government care would sacrifice much quality for quantity. For those with health care, the vast majority, the quality of care is very high. The quantity part is that we do not insure a certain percentage of the population, a percentage that does not have health insurance for reasons ranging from not qualifying for government help to reasons such as refusing health insurance because they are wealthy enough to afford care. Democrats right now are proposing a system that will focus solely on quantity, nothing in Obama’s speeches clearly explains how we will retain the high degree of quality that we currently enjoy. Equally important is the question: should we offer health care to all or should we simply make the system more “fair?” I think that most Americans would prefer the latter, which brings me back to the “marketing” problem that we face.

The Democrats right now enjoy the reputation of being the party of health care and it is something that they deserve, not because of the quality of their ideas, but rather due to the quantity of ideas that they put forth every year. These ideas have one thing in common, more government spending and more government control of health care. The reality is that the conservative side has come up with ideas as well, many of them that target the excessive costs of the current system and how to reduce them. There are many things at the moment that can reduce cost, only one of which the president has addressed (albeit halfheartedly), and these cost reductions would not drain the taxpayers’ wallets. The problem is that the Republican Party has done a very poor job of explaining and “marketing” their ideas to the general populace. The only thing that is stopping the current regime from simply passing a socialized health care system is the fact that Americans are traditionally averse to government intervention in their lives and higher taxes (we fought a revolution over both). What needs to be done is to market the ideas from the Republican camp so that the population can weigh each one and determine what would be in the best interest of the country. Obama would have us do something different. Obama would have us accept his program with some compromise over the minor points. That’s what he calls bipartisanship. If that is the choice, then I would rather go bankrupt at the current pace than accelerate it by adding more government programs, more taxes, and more spending of taxpayer dollars. It is undemocratic to simply present one plan and then claim that not compromising on that one plan is “obstructionist” when there are more plans out there. Instead of simply taking Obama’s word for it, that his plan is the best, shouldn’t the American public know what their choices are? This blame falls only on the Republicans and on that fact that they are content with simply exploiting the anti-government sentiment that is sweeping the country instead of strongly marketing a real, practical solution to the problems we face with health care, problems partly caused by government intrusion already.

This is why the Tea Party protests that have been popping up around the country since April are not partisan. They reject both parties for their inaction and for their corruption. Republicans cannot prove themselves, once again, to be a party of opportunity and instead cast themselves as a party of action on these issues that currently affect us. To their credit, Democrats are a party of action when it comes to domestic issues, but it is an action that leads to government control and inflated bureaucracies. We need representatives out there that will take action to bring America back to its first principles, the ones that you may have heard of before: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If the Republican Party does not do this, then conservatives and libertarians will splinter off and form a third party… giving the Democratic(-Socialist) Party of America a permanent majority for decades to come.

-AG

Yesterday marked the eighth year anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. Today marks the eighth anniversary of 9-12-2001, a day equally important in the history of the United States. It was on that day that a president who initially hesitated several minutes in reacting to the terrorist attack found the courage and the clarity to recognize and explain the world we live in: there exists evil in the world and we must confront it. It was on that day that we understood that nations can either be with us or against us because the mission of America is not to reshape the world in our image, but rather to allow nations to coexist, trade, and prosper in peace. We have a Freedom doctrine, that is undeniable, but that is because it is the truly free nations in this world that shy away from war because when the destructive wishes of some demagogue emerge in society, only the free exercise of speech allow reason to prevail. I have read articles that make these arguments, grounded in real life experience here in America, sound plain old stupid. I guess some people believe that the dreams that founded America are stupid. Good thing that one of those dreams is the freedom of speech.

Specifically, I refer to this article on the Associated Press where the author explains that now Obama has the bullhorn on 9-11, not Bush. This brings to mind an alternate scenario where instead of having Bush as president we would have had Obama. According to the article, Obama released a statement right after the attacks where he talked about improving security, “understanding the sources of such madness,” and about the “fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers.” What immediately bothers me about Obama’s statement after 9-11 was the fact that he immediately empathized with the attackers, writing that poverty and despair was part of the reasons they did this and saying that they need more empathy. So imagine what a president Obama would have done on 9-12-2001. First of all, some sort of military response would have been necessary, Americans would not allow this to go unanswered. After that initial response, which most probably would not have been as robust as Bush’s response, what would he have done to improve empathy among the attackers? Would he go ahead and give a speech to the Muslim world? Would he try to dialogue with Osama bin Laden? Would he start spending billions more on alleviating poverty abroad, money that probably would end up in the hands of corrupt governments, dictators, and the very terrorists that struck us eight years ago? If Obama were president on that fateful day, we know that today Al Qaeda would be a powerful organization, that they would still have a safe haven, and that instead of two nuclear programs today, we would have had three to contend with. My more liberal friends may want to dispute that, but looking at the evidence, it is clear. Bush needs to be applauded for one thing, something that most people in their everyday lives should be doing more often, he did what he thought was right regardless of his popularity. Day after day, he received terrorist warning after terrorist warning, deciding on which ones were credible and which ones were not, knowing full well that a single terrorist attack on American soil after 9-11 would sink his presidency and kill innocent Americans. Imagine the pressure. On the other hand, Obama cares about his popularity. Just think about how he has reversed course on many decisions, from appointing a communist as his Green Economy Czar then firing him to removing the flag@whitehouse.gov snitch email program. Obama always has been a political animal, flashing a smile, talking softly, lying to our faces, and trying to create socialism under our noses. Bush was much more direct and much more clear in his actions.

So when the liberal terrorist apologists say that we need to empathize more with Osama bin Laden, set them straight: America cannot negotiate with terrorists. An empathetic president on 9-12 would have been a national disaster. In the words of Rudy Giuliani “thank God George Bush… [was] President.” The world today is not so different from the world before 9-11, except for one major difference: America is vigilant. Right now, more than 60% of Americans believe that Obama can keep us safe from terrorists (by being nice to them?) when the reality is that only the residual effects of Bush’s anti-terror policies can keep the enemy at bay: a strong intelligence agency, an offensive campaign, and cracking down on terrorist finances. Obama would have us think that we can talk to the enemy and they will willingly abandon their plans to destroy America. The only people who benefit from a worldview that refuses to acknowledge the existence of evil are those who are evil. The only people who benefit from a policy of playing nice with our enemies are our enemies. It is useful to reflect on our own actions, to admit excesses, and to apologize for missteps, no nation is perfect, but it borders on treasonous to adopt the views and philosophies of terrorists who kill thousands of innocents to make their point. Terrorists want us to empathize with them… Barack Hussein Obama is their biggest success story.

-AG

South Carolina House member Joe Wilson yelled this during the Obama speech on health care tonight. Good for him. Sadly, he did not stand by his outburst and issued an apology to the White House. Bad. What we need right now is for the men and women in government, the ones with the courage to stand up to ‘The Empire,’ to speak truth to power. The comment was made over Obama’s assertion that no illegal immigrants would be covered under the health care reform proposal, but it can be applied to nearly everything that he has said over the last 8 months. While many have denounced Wilson for being disrespectful, I applaud his emotional response. It shows that we are not simply slouching towards Gomorrah but that still exists some fire in our bellies, that even some members of that semi- to fully-corrupt body we call the Congress can call out a liar when he sees one. He deserves to be commended for his actions.

He starts his (second!) prime-time speech on health care claiming that he brought the economy “back from the brink,” when reality shows us that retirement plans have taken a beating, unemployment continues to inch towards double digits, credit is still tight, banks are continuing to fail, consumer spending is stagnant, and the national debt continues to balloon. To call the president out of touch would be too kind. The rest of the speech is a flagrant insult to logic, calling our current health care fiscally unsustainable while simultaneously urging Americans to pass a system that will cost, according to the Congressional Budget Office, trillions more. The fact that we are even discussing this distresses me immensely. If the problem is that we cannot sustain this level of expenditure on health care, then we should not be passing a health care program that will cost more money. This cannot be repeated enough.

Yet in a poll taken after Obama’s speech, two thirds of those who watched now favor his plan. This is absurd. Obama simply repeated the same old arguments. He blamed Bush for a deficit that is dwarfed by Obama’s, yet he received a standing ovation. He misrepresented conservatives’ position on health care and presented his Public Option as something that would not destroy the free market. He promised that senior care will not suffer. He lied about the cost of the health care reform plan. He lied about not raising taxes on the middle class while pushing an individual mandate for everyone to buy into the system (there’s your taxes). He denied everything that people have come to hear about his health care reform plan. He denied that federal dollars would be used to fund abortion (they just fund everything else, call it ’subsidizing’ abortions). It went on and on. He used his urgent voice, his soft voice, his dreamer voice and, apparently, a lot of Americans out there fell for it… again.

This is why I worried when Obama was going to give a speech to schoolchildren, because when Obama speaks to adult Americans, polls show that so many of them turn off their brains. I am starting to doubt the accuracy of these polls… otherwise, we are truly entering a brave new world.

-AG

The audacity of Obama knows no bounds. He has taken it upon himself to become the country’s “educator-in-chief” by having schools show a speech that is supposedly a simple “pep talk” about doing well in school but comes with “suggested” lesson plans. Where in the Constitution does it say that the president of the United States can set the curriculum for students. This is a dangerous and unconstitutional action by the executive branch and may be the first steps towards a full-fledged, government-sponsored cult of personality. The great dictators of our time have all reached out to students and indoctrinated them in order to carry out their grand social experiments. Worst of all was the Department of Education’s initial proposal to have students write letters about how they can “help” the president. Given that President Obama’s entire domestic policy is just one redistributionist program after the other, to invite students to engage in thought experiments about how best to implement such socialism is simply another attempt to brainwash Americans, starting from the earliest of ages.

Fortunately, the Department of Education has scrapped its plans to force public school students to write letters, but regardless of that, the president should not have the power to reach into the classrooms of young students and set their lesson plans. The teachers’ union, of course, is in the pocket of the Democratic party and would be more than delighted to show this video to their students… is this not an egregious conflict of interest? Imagine what would happen if there were not a large public outcry from concerned citizens around the country. The White House would have simply gone ahead with making students part of this socialist experiment and encouraging students to see themselves as part of the Democratic Party. It is, by its very nature, a political act, because to help a Democrat in the Oval Office is to believe in his political mission. We need to continue watching Obama’s actions very closely, otherwise we will end up subsidizing a cross-generational indoctrination by the far Left in America. Keep Obama out of the classroom!

-AG

I was just reading that a CNN poll shows that 57% of Americans are opposed to the war in Afghanistan, a war that even the tremendously timid Obama has called necessary. Surprisingly, only about three quarters of Democrats oppose the war, I was expecting something nearer to 100%. The numbers are frightening because they show us two different thing about Americans: we do not understand the stakes in Afghanistan and that it takes a catastrophic terrorist attack to make us understand the stakes. That’s right, on cue I bring up 9-11. Now, don’t ever forget it. It is well worth repeating that what America faces in the world is not a rag-tag team of terrorists here and there, we face a well-organized, well-financed, and relentless offensive campaign against freedom. They are connected… no not in the neoconservatives’ imagination, but rather in real-cold-as-ice-life. Ask yourself why North Korea was building a nuclear reactor in Syria? Why Russia is doing naval exercises in the Caribbean? What we face is an Anti-American Axis that stretches across the globe constituted by nations and groups that want to destroy the type of world we have brought about.

At present, Islamo-fascists, communists, and dictatorships of all types are arrayed in a relatively well-strung-together coalition against all of our interests. Where does Afghanistan figure in all of this? It (and Pakistan) is the epicenter of the most well-organized and anti-American international terrorist organization in the world. Hezbollah is actually better organized, but they are not as virulently anti-American as Al Qaeda… yet. We are fighting two wings, the domestic wing and the international terrorist wing. The former is the Taliban and the latter is Al Qaeda. The former secures a safe haven for the training, arming, recruiting, and planning of the latter. The latter is dedicated to our destruction and/or the re-establishing of the Caliphate or “true Islamic state(s).” If we withdraw at this point, the Taliban and Al Qaeda will make short work of the current Afghan government and reinstate a terror sponsoring state. What person in their right mind would want to let this happen? Do the majority of Democrats truly believe that Al Qaeda was just joking with us that one time in 2001? Do they not understand the threat? To my more libertarian friends I say this: if you believe that blowback was the reason for their attacks against us, consider the near-impossible task of complying with their demands that we leave Muslim lands forever and abandon our ally Israel. What we need to do is complete our mission in Afghanistan and get Pakistan to keep cooperating with us on the War on Terror, I mean Overseas Contingency Operations. We cannot surrender now, just look at Iraq, a partial withdrawal has already increased the frequency and intensity of Al Qaeda’s attacks and now they await our full withdrawal.

The far Left has hijacked the Democratic Party, insisting on socialism at home and surrender abroad. We cannot let the world think that only catastrophes like 9-11 can wake us from our naive slumber, even if it might be true for the majority of the current dominant political party.

-AG

Years ago, I concluded that America was trending leftward politically due to factors such as liberal education, liberal mainstream media, and the changing culture of America. There are many other factors as well, given that we have achieved, as a society, something that may have seemed impossible to generations of the past: ignorance through over-information. Right now, human beings living in America can only remember so much, a slogan here, a jingle there because we live in a society where TV commercials, billboards, spam email, pop-up ads, product placement, and countless other sources (like this blog) are trying to get our attention. Yet mass propaganda has been a specialty of the Left for more than a century, because Leftist ideology is an ideology of the masses, not individuals or human rights. American society is tilting further and further to the left because of this. I say this because it comes from personal experience… let me explain: I am a person of Latin American descent, the eldest son in an immigrant family that came with nothing to this country, and my first language was Spanish. We lived in a one-room apartment in a seedy area of Miami during the days when crack and cocaine overran the streets. I have family members who ended up on drugs, imprisoned, and killed due to the street life. My upbringing was decidedly urban, a mixture of Latin culture, urban music, and street slang. I went to public school where they taught me that affirmative action, welfare, and Keynesianism were all good things. They taught me that the great Presidents were all Democrats (except for Lincoln): FDR, JFK, LBJ, etc. They taught me that ethnic and racial diversity should be mandated. In other words, my experiences within the system was pretty much the formula for creating a “class-conscious,” tax-the-rich, reverse-racist liberal. So why did I overcome these influences and decide on embracing liberty instead of liberalism? There are two reasons for this: the first is that I am an individual and never allowed myself to be sucked into ways of thinking just because it was the popular thing, the second is that I read.

It is rather curious how I became conservative, especially since I accepted a lot of the things that liberalism holds to be true when I was younger, like seeing the world as black, white, brown, yellow, etc. One reason that turned me against the Democrats at a young age stemmed from the fact that they categorized me as “Cuban-American” and I accepted that label… unfortunately for liberals, when Cuban exiles mounted up, landed on the beaches of Cuba with rifle in hand ready to depose the most brutal dictator ever seen in this hemisphere, it was a Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, that refused to provide the promised air support and left my fellow Cubans to die at the hands of the communists. So while they brand me a Cuban-American, their own actions towards Cubans and Cuban-Americans make me more aware of what they, as a party, have done to us, as an ethnic group. So immediately, in my mind, the halo around JFK started to dissipate and I started to question what it was that made him supposedly great. Nice speeches? Great expectations? He had the chance to end communism once and for all in the Americas… this would have meant no Cuban Missile Crisis, no communist guerrilla war in Colombia, no Hugo Chavez, etc. etc. etc. He squandered this great opportunity.

While the liberals taught me that “white” Americans were racist and thought themselves as superior, I came to conclude that racism was a bad thing… but that is where liberals wanted me to stop, they did not want me to actually think. So I, at a young age, realized that if it was wrong of one race to prejudge or discriminate against another, then it must be wrong the other way around, thus blacks and Latins should not be racist towards whites. So when I was told that qualifications were secondary when it comes to getting accepted into college, that first they consider the racial composition (skewed in favor of minorities) of the student body (I am simplifying a bit to make a point), I immediately realized that this was another form of racism and it was completely illogical. The inherent contradiction in liberalism made it clear that it was not “racial justice” that Democrats care about, it is a political maneuver to keep people thinking that they are oppressed somehow and to keep them voting for Democrats.

One of the biggest political influences on my life was Das Kapital and The Manifesto of the Communist Party, mainly because I was revolted by these ideas. The former was a text of utter incompetence written in rich complexity. The latter was a blueprint for a totalitarian state written in clear, direct prose. Both form the foundation for modern American liberalism (in my opinion), from the insistence on absolute secularism to the wealth redistribution methods to the interpretation of History as a perpetual conflict between rich and poor, almost everything that Democrats represent is Marxist. My thorough understanding of this philosophy turned me completely against liberalism… I have always believed in freedom, human rights, responsibility, and I believe that one should be able to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor. There are those who say “yeah, but communism is good on paper, it just doesn’t work in real life,” those who say that either a) have never read Marx or b) do not understand it. It does not work even on paper. If you are one of those, I advise you to reread the books mentioned, it is a blueprint for totalitarianism… read about Bakunin too. Here’s a quick, less known quote from the Communist Manifesto: “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.” Is it any wonder that Democrats are not considered friendly to “family values?”

In sum, my life experience has been an experiment in liberal social engineering and I believe that I am one of the lucky few who emerged with a strong rejection of socialism and a stronger belief in freedom. Because of this, I no longer see myself as part of some group, as a race or an ethnicity, I see myself as an individual, an American. Sadly, most of my peers fell into the liberal trap and continue to twist logic to fit the world-view inculcated by the liberal education we receive on a daily basis. I believe that my path away from liberalism is relatively unique because it is not based on a strong family tradition nor a strong religious background nor a conservative social environment nor even the traditional “Cuban-American” stereotype that we are all Republicans… politics was not discussed all that much in the family, politics cost my family so much back in Cuba (imprisonment for political reasons, blacklisting, family separation) that here in the United States we focused more on living the American Dream. There are signs that the leftward movement of this country might not be inevitable, reading this article about how independents are becoming a larger part of the electorate gives me hope, especially since the current Democratic regime is losing their support rather quickly. From my perspective, there is only one thing that can save Americans from this national liberal indoctrination: the truth. Let’s hope that people keep trying to seek it.

-AG

Well, it has been a hectic week so I haven’t been able to post recently, but my life is stabilizing so worry not, I will be back to posting as frequently as before. I’ve missed you guys and gals out there, whoever you are.

By now, most people are aware that Ted Kennedy succumbed to brain cancer, may he rest in peace. He was known as one of the most liberal members of Congress and was a driving force behind many projects of the Left throughout the decades. His principal issue was health care reform and he favored a universal government-centric system. He called it the “cause of my life.” Now that he has passed, what I see is the Leftist machinery start to do what the Communist machinery did in Cuba: use the death of a national figure as a bludgeon. In Cuba, it was Che Guevara, a person who was essentially sent on a suicide mission abroad to start communist revolutions in Latin America, and his death was ruthlessly and coldly marketed by the Castro regime, having young children recite songs in his honor. While the leftists in America may not go quite that far, I have started to see them start the exploitation of Kennedy’s death.

First I read this article, that called to honor Kennedy by passing universal health care and made the sensationalist (and completely false) claim that 14 million Americans are losing their health coverage every day. First of all, the wishes of one man should not determine whether or not we pass a national government-run health care program. If he wished that the Constitution be repealed would we heed the calls to honor his wishes and change this nation overnight? Of course not. He was a legislator with many ideas, let’s not use his death as an excuse to suspend debate on any or all of them.

Of course, the Democrats in Washington never let a crisis go to waste and they are going to politically use Kennedy’s passing as much as possible. Consider that Senator Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, has proposed renaming the health care bill after Ted Kennedy, could he be more opportunist? Imagine how it would look if anyone voted against the bill. Again, the exploitation of the Kennedy name continues.

It does not end with the Democrats, even in the mainstream media (surprise surprise) Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball, called Barack Obama the “last brother.” Of course, no conservative commentator could ever get away with calling Obama a “brother,” but despite the racial connotation, to knight the current president as a symbolic brother of the Kennedy’s is, again, exploitation of the highest order.

These are just a few examples of what is typical among the Left, exploitation of the death of a national figure. It figures from the illogical promotion of the idea that Kennedy’s death had something to do with the current health care reform debate, that his death was actually a martyrdom. It was not. It is very sad that he got sick and died, even with the extra health care he received, extra care that, as Mike Huckabee said, would not have been possible if not for the choice offered by having a private, competitive health care system. People have criticized Huckabee for saying what he said, but he spoke plainly and truthfully about Obama’s plan. You can see it for yourself below, Obama says that “we as a… society” (that’s code for government) should step in to make decisions about end of life care, crassly saying that maybe instead of trying an expensive or risky surgery, grandma should just take a pain pill. This is what choice is about, it should not be the government that decides this, it should be the patient.

The truth is that we should not be throwing around Ted Kennedy’s name around in the health care debate or using it as a political bludgeon, neither side. It would be best if both sides just stick to the facts about Kennedy’s life and beliefs, but not try to “load” the current health care debate with emotional responses to Kennedy’s passing.

-AG

Ladies and gentlemen, this is insanity! See this short video below:

I had not seen this before, but he was already planning his “change” and telling us to our faces about the radical direction he wanted to take this country. Is this what Organizing for America and ACORN are about, the seeds of a future paramilitary organization? This was done in Germany by Adolph Hitler: the Schutzstaffel (SS). It exists in Venezuela under Chavez: the Bolivarian National Militia. It exists in Iran under the Ayatollahs: the Basij militia. Will it now come to be, right under our noses, here in the United States? I thought this was America, people!

-AG

I was thinking of starting a new blog called NeoSocialista and the posts would look something like this:

“Today I woke up thinking how crappy my life is. I live in a country where there is racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, homophobia, and, the big ‘C,’ capitalism. After I had my ten dollar morning coffee with whipped cream from Starbucks, I got to thinking how great life would be if Obama finally got through his health care reform… I mean really got through what he wanted, not the watered-down public option that he’s being forced to pass by these neanderthal Republicans who want us back in caves beating our women. Seriously, health care is a human right that should be given (by our loving government) to all people just like the right to (im)migration across recognized, international borders (like the one between us and Mexico) or the right for women to choose at the end of eight months or so if they want to abort their babies, err… I mean, fetuses. Obama should simply focus on passing his ultimate goal: single-payer health care. Instead, we have all these paid, right-wing operatives who show up at these town hall meetings with their walkers and canes making a scene and demanding answers. Don’t these people realize that Obama knows best? He went to Harvard for goodness sake! I hope that if single-payer does kick in, the rationing boards will take their age into account, I mean seriously, how can our society progress with all these reactionary, right-wing, fascistic old people still stuck mentally in the Cold War? On top of that, they don’t even work anymore and as a society we need to make these tough choices, otherwise we’ll be dragged down.

Luckily for the rest of us young and productive members of society we can rest assured that we will have health care paid for and on top of it all, it will be for free! At least for the regular Joe’s like you and me, since we are going to tax these greedy capitalists dry for their crimes. Greed is so terrible, I wish there were no rich people. Anyways, like I said, we’ll tax the rich so that we can pay for all these social services and hopefully, make this world a better place. This is the change I wanted and the change I voted for. Furthermore, I think that the health care battle will help bring everyone to the same level where rich and poor, black and white, homosexual and heterosexual, male and female, non-citizen and citizen will all sit side by side waiting for their appointed physician to come and take a look at them. Of course, we also have to consider that the white majority of this country has gotten better health care than all the other minorities, so it would be best if black, Latinos, and other minorities get first dibs on the doctors and the treatments. After all, these people need help so they can be equal to whites and whites are already in such good shape, even white European immigrants since the system was in their favor since they got here (it gets tricky when the white person is also a homosexual or if they are mixed race, but we’ll let the government sort that out). It feels so good, doesn’t it, to send white people to the back of the line? Hopefully, this will finally make it clear that their past racism was bad. Civil Rights wasn’t enough for them to realize it. Affirmative action wasn’t enough either. I mean look at all the fuss that these Republicans and conservatives are making over our first black president, he’s done such wonderful things, like making friends with dictators and promising better treatment for suspected terrorists, but they keep attacking him…. because he’s black of course. Even the libertarians are getting in on it. I have been reporting all of them to flag@whitehouse.gov and I hope that the administration does something about these Reagan-loving crazies.

Come to think of it, we need to have more minorities in government. Sotomayor was a great start but the right-wing conspirators kept wanting to look at her record and tried to make her answer questions about her past. These tactics are reprehensible. Just because she said that Latina women make better judgments than white men doesn’t mean she is racist and just because she said that “court is where policy is made” doesn’t make her a judicial activist. She’s just being honest and the fascists in this country can’t take it. You go, girl! Anyways, back to my depressing life, wondering when my dear president will level the playing field and knock out capitalism once and for all. I wish I lived in North Korea! That’s a place where people are living in harmony.”

I wonder if people would relate more to this blog than NeoRepublica? To tell you the truth I would never start such a blog, I’m too worried that they would.

-AG

Today, California Rep. Maxine Waters called on president Obama to keep pushing for public option and called some anti-public option “Neanderthals.” Maxine Waters is a profound disappointment. She is the person who publicly called for the nationalization of, actually for “socializing,” oil companies for the prices to come down. Here’s the video:

Can we call her a socialist? Yes we can! It should come as no surprise to conservatives everywhere that any time there is some financial problem, the Democrats, and sometimes the Republicans too, offer the same-old, tired prescription that they have always offered: more government control. But I digress. Waters is a piece of work. I guess that whenever a Senator exercises their God-given, Constitutional right to disagree with the President, according to Maxine Waters, that Senator is a “Neanderthal.” Or maybe it’s something else?

Here is a letter from Maxine Waters to the leader of Communism in the western hemisphere, Fidel Castro, where she apologizes for voting on a resolution that requests the extradition of a Black Panther fugitive who is wanted for murder, bank robbery, and kidnapping who is currently being granted asylum in Cuba. What is amazing about this letter is that she humbles herself before a mass murdering dictator, complaining about the Republican Party, and defends someone who is accused of multiple federal crimes, including murder. Her excuse is that sovereign nations have the legitimate right to grant political asylum (she regards murder a “political” act it seems) and she does not want to infringe on that… but is she being honest? During the whole Elian Gonzalez fiasco, I don’t remember her saying that the United States had the right to grant the child asylum, in fact, she said the opposite, that the Elian issue needed to be decided by parental rights and not any “right” of a sovereign nation to grant asylum. So she believes that a child escaping Castro’s gulag needs to be sent back to be re-educated while a suspected bank robber, kidnapper, and murderer should remain living in safety. Makes sense, don’t it?

Elian looks happy right?

It makes sense if you understand why Maxine Waters thinks that anti-public option senators are Neanderthals while she goes on repeated visits to see Fidel Castro in Cuba. Seriously, of what worth is her opinion if she believes that the totalitarian, mass murdering leader of communist Cuba is a decent human being, while senators that are opposed to increased government intrusion in the economy, senators opposed to socialism, are supposedly subhuman? From Stalin’s war on kulaks to Hitler’s rampant antisemitism to Castro’s demonization of exile “gusanos” (worms), totalitarian regimes use dehumanization as a technique to oppress particular segments of their populations and this is the very technique that Waters is currently employing by branding opposition senators as subhuman. Socialists and communists have used these tactics for more than a century, name-calling and dehumanization. I am sick and tired of liberals genuflecting before portraits of Castro and Che Guevara while they try to trample over the Constitution en masse. I am sick and tired of Maxine Waters, Castro apologist and socialist. Maxine Waters needs to look in the mirror and consider who the real Neanderthal is…

-AG

I was reading this blog post on the Florida Progressive Coalition Blog, Florida’s most useful idiots, where they assert that Barack Hussein Obama is not a socialist, because the socialists say so. To begin with, the socialists in this country would never feed into the accusations that Obama is a socialist because it would only push their agenda back by giving the Right more evidence about his socialist-ness. So in itself, the Socialist Party’s rejection of Obama means nothing. The interesting thing is that if you read their reasons for rejecting him, you realize that he actually is a socialist, about 100%.

First, the Socialist Party USA’s spokesperson asserts that socialists advocate direct nationalization of the financial industry. Apparently, buying and controlling majority stake in several major financial institutions is not going far enough. The only difference between what the administration has done and direct nationalization is that the government has taken over certain companies and banks “temporarily.” We saw that the government took majority stake in GM, unions were given majority stake of Chrysler, so far this year 81 banks have been seized by the state, and the government has huge stakes in several major banks… at what point can we cry nationalization? Politically, direct nationalization is impossible in America, no matter how loved the dear leader is. So the government takes the first approach, de facto nationalization and a second approach, destroying private industry. This is evident in the Cap-and-Trade proposal that, in Obama’s own, un-spun words, would “bankrupt” the coal industry. This is evident in the Public Option plan that the Obama administration was pushing, one that would be taxpayer-funded and would destroy smaller private insurers. So when the socialists say that Obama is not pursuing nationalization, their real concern is the speed at which Obama destroys private enterprise and increases government control. Obama’s socialism is socialism by increments.

On the issue of Health Care Reform, the socialists point out that Obama wants to create mandates that would force people to buy health insurance and therefore, they reason, that this actually helps the private insurance industry and is not a socialist plan. Either the socialists are lying or their are oblivious to reality. If the administration introduces a “public option” that is cheaper and subsidized, then the mandates will disproportionately help the government-run insurance program and end up destroying the rest of the industry, except for the very expensive ones. Mandates coupled with a public option of some sort will only accelerate government’s control of health care… but from all indications, it looks like the mandates have been dropped. Obama has made it clear that he favors single-payer universal health care but cannot get there right now and that the best way is to get there through a public option program. Socialists want single-payer right now. Again, it’s an issue of speed, not goals. Obama’s socialism is socialism by increments.

On the last issue of war policy, again the problem that the socialists have is that Obama has not called for a complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, Obama is not defeatist enough. What the administration has done is plan to significantly reduce the number of troops in Iraq while somewhat increasing our presence in Afghanistan. His policy is one that decidedly draws us down and eventually takes us out of the region completely. Already, administration officials are in secret talks with the Taliban, probably planning our exit from there as well. Again, it’s an issue of speed, not goals. Obama’s socialism is socialism by increments.

So, is Obama a socialist? In my opinion, he tends towards socialism. He is taking an incremental approach to socialism in this country, particularly because Americans would never stand for such a society and the Constitution does not grant the federal government the necessary powers to become a full socialist state. Little by little, through a progressive taxation scheme that has the top 5% pay more taxes than the bottom 95%, through class and social divisions like affirmative action and identity politics, through the de facto nationalization of whole industries, and through massive federal spending, the government bureaucrats and socialists are inching their way towards socialism. Americans need live and vote like we are only one inch away from this “worker’s paradise.”

-AG

The Health Care Reform debate rages on. Now, people are starting to look at what Republican Mitt Romney did as governor of Democratic Massachusetts to create an almost-universal health care system. Personally, I am not a big fan of Romney, though I have respect for his accomplishments and think that he has some very good ideas. The MA model for health care provides many lessons for us as we discuss an even more government-intrusive health care system. The first problem I have with “RomneyCare” is the fact that it is based on “mandates,” a government-enforced obligation of all citizens to purchase health insurance simply because they have “health.” This essentially benefits the health insurance industry in general because it expands the size of the market, by force. I disagree with mandates because I do not think that the state should be in the business of telling people what to buy and what not to buy, it is another form of redistributing wealth, only in this case the wealth goes form the general population to corporations. The Obama plan is considering, or was considering, mandates for businesses and/or individuals. So does it make sense, in the current recessionary economic climate, for people and businesses to reduce their purchasing power by mandating that they spend a percentage of it on health insurance? Not really.

The next issue is addressed in this article by a New Hampshire physician: a shortage of primary care physicians. Right now in MA, the average wait time for a new patient looking for a primary care physician is one to two months. So the predictions of long lines and long waiting periods are not exaggerations, they are a necessary by-product of a universal health care system that has a scarcity of primary care physicians. Economically and logically speaking, the only way that we can change this is to have government pay these physicians more, but this would only increase the cost of health care in this country and bankrupt us even faster. In other words, if we enact a near-universal system like MA, we will be stuck with choosing between long lines or national bankruptcy. We have already heard the horror story of the Canadian woman who may have died if she kept waiting for Canada’s universal health care system to help her instead of coming to the US for treatment:

Since the MA system is essentially a government program, it has come in over budget and will end up costing billions more than initially expected. Given that Obama’s plan is slated to cost $1 trillion, it is probable that the real cost will be much higher. With higher costs, we have higher deficits and/or higher taxes.

The fun part of this debate is that every single liberal that I have spoken to is convinced that the current plans will not include rationed care, that there are not long wait times, that the government will keep administrative costs downs, and that the quality of care will not be affected. I wonder what planet they live on. Even in the private health insurance system, health care is rationed: by the consumer’s willingness to pay higher premiums. The question is who should choose the quality and quantity of care, patients or the government? As for the long wait times, look at every country with universal health care. I rest my case. As for a government program that keeps costs down… do I really need to address this? We already have a government “option” for the poor and elderly and we are going bankrupt because of it. As for diminishing quality of care, as soon as government requires tens of millions of new patients to be treated by a health care system that is already overburdened, you can bet that quality will go down.

In sum, RomneyCare, while not overly reliant on the state, suffers from many problems and according to the article I linked above, 70% of the people in MA are happy with the program. Compare that to the 77% of Americans (87% have health insurance times 89% who are happy with their health insurance) who are happy with their health insurance and the fact is that even with universal health care model, people are less happy than with the current unworkable hybrid system that the rest of America has. RomneyCare imposes a government solution on the public (mandates) while ObamaCare (with Public Option) imposes a government solution on both the public and the free market. What we need is to expand the free market model in a way that promotes innovation, quality, and fairness.

-AG

Today, I was very busy and I was not planning to post anything else on NeoRepublica, but after reading this article on slavery I could not help myself. First off, as I often do for the benefit of those who care about class, race, ethnicity, etc. I am a mixed race American of Cuban descent. Cubans, on the island, can be broken down racially as 1/3 white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 mulato or mixed (this is for simplicity’s sake, accurate statistics are unknown). Enough of that though, it is not that relevant. This article was written by a self-described “white” American who is the descendant of slave-traders and from reading this article it looks like the guilt of participating in the slave-trade has spilled across the generations.

Katrina Browne

What she writes is one part liberalism at its finest and another part absolute irrationality (some may say that I am being redundant). Essentially, she concludes that because of the ripples in history caused by America’s history of racially-based slavery and discrimination, apologies are not enough and she “believe[s] [that] we do need more reckoning.” She wrote that equal rights and affirmative action are not enough. This is one of the myriad of reasons that people cite to make the case for some sort of economic redistribution or class preference and all that it does is undermine American freedom.

First let’s talk about the racial part. As a member of a minority group, more importantly, as a dark person (compared to “white” people) in America, I can attest that there is nothing in this world except the degree of my personal effort that has held me down or allowed me to succeed. Even my father, who spoke no English and whose Afro hairstyle would make Ludacris cringe, was able to pick himself up form his bootstraps without worrying about the “privileges” of the “white guy” next door.

Luda

No white privilege stopped me from reading books. No white privilege stopped me from rejecting a culture of mediocrity (these subcultures exist in all communities, “white punks", “black gangsters,” “latin thugs,” etc.) No white privilege stopped me from gaining an education. I could go on, but Katrina Browne personally insults me when she wraps her real condescension in “white guilt” by expressing that the poor “brown people” of the world cannot do anything because “the man” has held them down. If anything, Katrina Browne holds my ethnic “brothers” down with their hand-outs and their affirmative action by allowing us to profit from our race or ethnicity and not our sweat and intellect. So let’s first be clear, race is not a handicap.

Second, if people want to make the case that historical circumstance must be taken into account in the present in order to truly create better society, then we cannot stop with slavery… the list of actions taken by this nation and others against particular racial or ethnic groups is ridiculously extensive. What should we do about the Native Americans who were killed by both disease and military action at the hands of the United States? Should we surrender our entire civilization to them, given that this land was “theirs” before it was “ours"? How about the country of Cuba, where the entire native Taino people were destroyed? How do they distribute “reparations” or whatever other form of compensation? Technically speaking, US crimes against Native Americans and their descendants were very terrible and the inequalities that persist to this day are a result of “our” actions.

But why stop at the United States? Why not go back to Great Britain where the persecution of heretics was prevalent during the 16th and 17th centuries? Or Spain, for their treatment of Jews and Muslims during the Inquisition? Or to any country that ever engaged in any form of discrimination? Why not go back as far as all of documented history and if ever, any nation has discriminated against any race or ethnicity that a person is descended from, why not give that person some form of reparations? Adjusted for inflation, this will make a lot of random individuals in the present very rich for crimes committed by people in the past, a past now represented by certain countries and people in the present. As for me, I will be super-rich. I am certain I have African, Spanish, Native, and maybe even Arab heritage which, depending if they ever lived as a discriminated minority in any country that still exists today, means that I may be getting a good number of checks in the mail. Add to that the fact that I am also of Italian descent that I may get a check for the US internment of Italian-Americans during WWII. Hurray for racial reparations!

This Armenian-American received this chain from the Turkish gov’t as Reparations(jk)

Third, what about immigrants who arrived at this country after slavery was abolished? Are they exempt from having to “do more"? Or are they only exempt if they are not white, given that “white” people have “benefited” from the oppression of African-Americans? I wonder if I have to surrender some of my hard earned money or if my children will have to sit in the back of the bus because other people we are not related to oppressed some other people we are not related to many years ago. Collective punishment for a collective crime will punish people who did not benefit at all from the crime, people who benefited marginally, people who did benefit most, and ironically enough it will punish the people who were oppressed to begin with. The promotion of redistribution of wealth only drives away wealth and rewards people (in the present) on the basis of some genetic coincidence and not effort. The overall effect on America will be to make everyone poorer: less wealthy people, less investment, less businesses, less jobs, less overall opportunity for those poor oppressed minorities.

Fourth, Browne’s insistence that “love” of our fellow man should drive this redistributive experiment is misleading. If she means that out of personal affection we reach out to our fellow man, sure why not, if it’s our free choice? But this is not her intent. She insists that the state take the responsibility of fixing these “disparate outcomes” that exist today in society. The only way that government taking away one person’s wealth and giving it to another on the basis of race won’t be considered robbery is if we love the government for it. How Orwellian. Forced redistribution is “love.”

In totality, what she expresses here is a view of history that would have us look backwards forever until all historical grievances are addressed. Should the Christians continue to persecute the Jews for their complicity in Jesus Christ’s death? This is similar logic: collective punishment for a particular grievance carried out by particular people who are already dead. Luckily, reality is much different. The only way for humanity to progress (yes, that lefty word) is for societies to be forward looking (within reason, some introspection and retrospection is sometimes necessary). We must strive to create conditions and institutions so that the mistakes and crimes of the past are not allowed to occur ever again. We must make sure that there are no more Holocausts, no more slave trades, no more political persecution… and one day we will also realize that there should be no more ever-intrusive governments. If the crime of slavery was giving benefit to one race to the detriment of another, then the solution cannot be the same action in the opposite direction… the solution must be to abolish any system that is NOT colorblind. We can only start setting the foundation for a better world today… otherwise we will forever be condemned to answer for crimes and inequalities perpetrated by people who no longer exist and who have no relation to many in the present.

The truth is that the Left will look for any and every excuse to place the “collective good” or, as Browne writes, “the public good” above individual achievement and individual rights. Race is one of these excuses. I’ll let the Brownes of the world know that while they worry about their historical guilt and historical “disparate outcomes” I will make sure that I live my American Dream… I will live it without worrying about anyone else’s privileges… and I will live it because I have the freedom and the right to. I will not have it derailed by the ancient crimes of people who have neither benefited me through “privilege” nor have any relation to me… and I would hope that no American would have their dreams derailed by the irrational arguments I read in that article.

-AG

Single-party tyranny. Is it any wonder that people compare the Obama administration and his Imperial Democrats to Nazis? According to this article, top Democrats are considering ramming through health care with or without Republican support.

While they’re at it, why not just ram wholesale income redistribution and a centrally planned economy down our throats? Remember Obama’s promises of bipartisanship? Neither does he. We are entering dangerous territory, where one party can come in, spend more money, and create more gargantuan government programs than any time before in our history. From the banking industry takeover to the auto industry takeover to cash-for-clunkers to the welfare-like “Make Work Pay” tax credits to higher taxes on income and tobacco, we have seen the new government put their hands on the levers of the economy while throwing out hand-outs to their base like chum to hungry sharks. Talk of disregarding others opinions simply because they have a bare majority is plain-old tyranny of the majority. Talk of government intervention in so many major economic sectors is the beginning of socialism.

The positive side of this is the inevitable backlash and redefinition of the Democratic Party. Just like Bush’s betrayal of conservative principles caused many within the Republican Party to go back to their first principles, overreach in Democrat single-party rule will eventually produce a huge backlash from a fed-up and informed electorate. Unless the Imperial Democrats can figure out a way to disenfranchise conservatives, libertarians, and independents, this republic will be able to throw off the big government establishment. The Democratic Party will need to become more center and less radically Leftist, with fiscal conservatives taking the wheel, a welcome change from the free-spending, social-engineering, wealth-redistributionist Democrats that currently reign. Let’s just hope that the damage they do now is reversible.

-AG

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad

Right now, as Democrats slowly back away from their plans for a government-run ‘public option,’ another idea is emerging as a possible replacement: health care cooperatives. North Dakota Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who recently said that the administration’s push for a ‘public option’ was dead in the water is a main proponent of this plan. So the question is: is a health care co-op a viable alternative or just the Democrats’ attempt to put lipstick on a pig?

Universal health Care Proponents (Left)

A health care co-op would be a non-profit entity that would offer insurance rates at competitive prices. Any profits they make would go back to the system. Conrad said on CNN’s “American Morning” that this program would attract 12 million customers and quickly become the third largest insurer in the country. The problems with this description affect people on both right and left. Starting with the Left, there are 46 million uninsured people, so the 12 million figure falls short. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the co-ops would provide coverage discounted enough for the less affluent and many existing co-ops can deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. In other words, liberals will complain that this is far too little government involvement.

Protest against Government Takeover of Health Care (Right)

From the Right, the problems are more pronounced. First of all, this plan will end up gaining 12 million members, but from where? Obviously, this means that many of these new members will be people who already have private health insurance, hence when they talk about a ‘competitive’ co-op they mean competition against private insurers. In order to make them ‘competitive,’ government will need to subsidize people’s insurance, this is due to the fact that, unlike what liberals and other who have not worked in the private sector would have you believe, profits account for a small percentage of added costs to health insurance consumers. So you have a government-subsidized health care option… hmmm, sound familiar? So if the federal government ends up setting health care rules and subsidizing a non-profit entity that will very quickly become the third largest insurer (or larger), couldn’t this be called a ‘public option’? What a federally administered or subsidized health care co-op creates is the foundation for a future government takeover of health care… the co-op plan is but a toehold.

Of course, there are no details yet and some of my long-term predictions may be off, but to make a co-op competitive it is likely that we are looking at some sort of federal government subsidy. A co-op will not satisfy the far left unless it involves some heavy government backing and all it will do is compete with private insurers without insuring many of the currently uninsured. The liberal administration and Congress is simply trying to once again get its hands on private industry. Note that cooperative and commune are very similar terms… let’s make sure we keep up the pressure on those who want to turn America into one big commune/communist state.

-AG

A man showed up at an Obama protest toting an assault rifle! No crimes were committed. THIS IS NOT NEWS! The next time I exercise a right guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States I expect to see TV crews outside my home… the next time I water my lawn… the next time I go to the grocery store… the next time I go vote. The Leftist mainstream media is simply reporting every single gun sighting near any venue where the president is present in order to foment panic among the population. In fact, what this also does is inspire other American citizens to do the same, since it will get them on the news and since it is perfectly legal! Funny how the Left accused conservatives and Republicans of fear-mongering whenever they mentioned terrorists (people who actually want to kill us all) and think it is just fine to fear-monger by shining a spotlight on any American who legally carries a firearm. Actually, it’s not funny at all…

-AG

Obama has had a tough time with foreign policy. No single event has captured the full attention of the nation yet and let us hope that nothing catastrophic happens, but in all truth, Obama has fumbled nearly everything beyond our shores. He goes to Europe and apologizes. He gives a speech on disarmament the same day that North Korea fires a rocket over Japan. He claims that the United States is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world during his Islamic appeasement speech. He chastises allies like Israel and Honduras while reaching out to communist Cuba, Chavez’s Venezuela, and terror-sponsor Iran. In other words, he has turned US foreign policy on its head… remember people, the US is the world superpower and our foreign policy had at least a ‘little’ to do with that. Even during the campaign, it was equal parts comical and worrisome when then-candidate Obama vowed quick retreat from Iraq and brashly declared that he would invade our ally Pakistan if we had Osama bin Laden in our sights. So is he a pacifist or a war hawk?

This is Obama’s problem: he doesn’t know what, exactly, to do. So he sends more troops into Afghanistan while started a phased withdrawal from Iraq. The bad part is that our reduced presence in Iraq has only emboldened Al Qaeda while our increased presence in Afghanistan has similarly emboldened the Taliban. Commanders on the ground say that they need more troops, but Obama cannot commit many more troops because it would alienate his far left base, a group that is already mad at him for extending the Iraq withdrawal timetable and not withdrawing from Afghanistan. If he keeps this level of troops or reduces it, then he risks losing significant ground to the Taliban. The president needs to seriously consider increasing our presence, but because of politics he probably will not increase it by much. That is one good thing about former president George W. Bush, he did not care about politics when it came to the war, he took flak for sending more troops into what was starting to turn into a civil war in Iraq, and the surge succeeded. Obama, on the other hand, has his “popularity” and liberal base to take care of. He is between a rock (no pun intended) and a hard place.

Obama’s Far Left Base

Today, he is going to address the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention which will bring this issue to the forefront. Right now, most people are more worried about health care reform and the economy than the threat posed by a resurgent Al Qaeda and Taliban, so he has been getting a pass on his foreign policy blusters. This will eventually change. We cannot turn a blind eye to the events taking place in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan… bombings are occurring over there on a nearly daily basis. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not taking a break for us to debate health care… and with Obama, they smell blood in the water. We should drop the bulk of American military power on their heads, not go in halfway.

-AG

In nearby Cuba, we see it happen time after time. The Castro regime takes some action that the United States does not like such as mass arrests of political prisoners or sending mass waves of immigrants in order to use that manufactured crisis to their advantage. They then start releasing some prisoners or try swapping them. They then stop the flow of immigrants and rafters from reaching our shores. All in exchange for two things: recognition for engaging in “reasonable” diplomacy and for whatever concessions they can get from developed, democratic nations. In North Korea, the same strategy applies, but with higher stakes.

What we see in North Korea is a regime that escalation after escalation showed no signs of wanting to cooperate in earnest. There are two reasons for this. The first is that by not cooperating, they could further develop their weapons technologies, knowing full-well that neither the United States nor anyone else would take any serious action to stop them. The second reason is that only by generating a crisis serious enough does North Korea have anything that it can barter with. After that point, it can start de-escalating and try extracting concessions from the rest of the world. Make no mistake though, they want both: nuclear/missile capabilities and concessions.

This is why North Korea even accepted Bill Clinton’s visit and released the two American journalists, it gave Kim Jong Il international diplomatic capital by demonstrating that they are willing to negotiate. The mere fact that former President of the United States Bill Clinton visited one of the most impoverished nations in the world gave North Korea more legitimacy. Of course, I applaud his success in getting back our citizens. Unfortunately, right now, the more timid elements of the State Department and the Obama administration are seeing this as a sign that Kim Jong Il just wanted attention from the beginning, attention that Obama was focusing more on the Islamic world, Europe, Russia, and the economic crisis. This is the wrong lesson, but North Korea is wasting no time in exploiting this opening. Now, North Korea has expressed that it is willing to resume family reunifications and cross-border tourism once again, a far cry from the North Korea of just a little over a month ago that was firing missiles toward Hawaii in a show of strength.

On their side, North Korea points to continued US espionage, sanctions, and joint South Korean and US military exercises as the provocations that have led to this tense moment in relations. They now portray themselves as the good guys, reaching out to the US by granting amnesty for the two journalists, reaching out to South Korea by granting family reunification and tourism, turning around a ship that was suspected of transporting weapons to Myanmar, and we can expect their weapons tests to be suspended for the time being. It was a manufactured crisis that they are now trying to exploit by reducing tensions and trying to lure the United States to the negotiating table. The Obama administration’s naivete and the Left’s burning desire to engage with communists and enemies of America will all but guarantee another round of concessions. These concessions will be followed by a period of relative calm only to be followed by more North Korean belligerence. This is the unchanged cycle of things. The single, most pressing global security issue is the proliferation of nuclear weapons because of the possibility that they may land in the hands of terrorist organizations. Appeasement of a regime that is determined to make themselves a potent nuclear power will only make things worse. Clinton did it and they became nuclearized. Bush did it and they became even more nuclearized. What do you think will happen when Obama does it?

-AG

I am glad to hear a Democratic Senator admit that there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass a health care reform plan that include a government-run public option. What this means is that the one-party control of Washington is not absolute enough to simply steamroll over any dissenting opinion. What this also means is that the “unruly mobs” supposedly paid by the RNC and “anti-reform PAC’s” are succeeding in stopping a government takeover of health care. Speaking of unruly mobs, I had dinner with two young ladies (and other friends), one a Democrat and another a Republican, who participated in town hall protests down here… rest assured that they were not paid by any organization and are not extremists of any kind, one is a registered nurse and the other works as a physical therapist. This is not what the mainstream media nor the Imperial Democrats would have you believe. They want to keep up the narrative that the grassroots protests are actually “astroturf” or “manufactured” popular protests. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are as organized as the Democrats are, as organized as any other grassroots organization that go make cardboard signs and try to carpool to the town hall meetings.

This goes to show that the far Left’s success in 2008 was the result of their relentless activist campaign against George W. Bush and the disillusionment of the conservative movement, since our leadership was going against our core principles. Now the pendulum has swung farther left and only activism on the grassroots level has been able to counter the president and his cronies. It fills me with pride to think that the President and the Democrats have resorted to attacking the grassroots themselves instead of simply attacking Republicans or corporations. They have insulted the American voter with their condescension and their accusations because they do not understand that neither the GOP nor big business are the source of Americans’ thirst for freedom and aversion to government. It is part of our national character; it is the foundation for our existence as a nation. Democrats always err on the side of big government and excessive spending… promoting collective mediocrity instead of individual empowerment. Only continued activism on the grassroots level can help change politics in America, away from big interests, big government, and the truly impressive cult of personality built up around the current president. This is not a nation run by one dear leader, we are a nation of independent, courageous, and free citizens. Let’s keep acting like it.

-AG

It is high time to bring it back to the 90’s… the 1890’s that is. Here’s a throwback to the days of the Communist Internationals:

Right now we have a man named Wendell Potter, former vice-president of corporate communications at health insurance corporation Cigna, who is blowing the whistle on his former health insurance company. What is he letting the public know about this uber-malevolent organization? They use “buzz” words!!!! Bring out the guillotines, we cannot allow this to happen!!! He accuses them of being masters at linguistics, the fascist version of Shakespeare if you will. Someone tell the president that engaging in PR should be a capital offense.

Potter also accuses them of… [wait for it]… raising insurance rates on people who get more expensive to insure! Heavens no! Didn’t anyone tell Cigna that they are supposed to freeze their premiums regardless of cost? But wait, if Cigna raises rates “artificially,” doesn’t the free market allow their customers to switch to other companies? Never mind that, let’s just focus on greedy greedy Cigna. What can we do to make the company seem even more evil? Let’s look at a case where they made a bad health decision that resulted in death… remember, all’s fair in love and health care reform debates. Apparently, a 17 year old boy died from leukemia because Cigna would not cover their liver transplant… but don’t France, the UK, Germany, Sweden and most European countries with government-run health care systems have higher death rates than the US? Never mind that, let’s focus on the greedy greedy Cigna.

Tired of this class conflict, greedy-corporations-versus-starving-little-Timmy argument? I know I am. Will it work? I certainly hope not. Let’s reform the system in such a way that takes advantage of the free market, lowers cost, reduces the burden on the taxpayer, and find a way to keep sick people from being left without care… without resorting to the easy solution of throwing our hands up and saying “let government do everything.” We can do it. We are enterprising Americans. Yes we can!

-AG

The Obama administration passed spending bill after spending bill the first few months in power. The reason? The recession. Already, his moves have made put America more in the red than any other president has in history… but he is not done. Now he wants to pass a health care reform plan that will end up costing $1 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office but, knowing how government works, it will probably cost more. His reason: the recession is linked with the burden of the health care system. In the current economic climate, with rising unemployment, many people are even more worried about losing their employer-based health insurance. It is an interesting idea, health care partly leads to the recession and the recession leads to less and worse health care, but it is an idea not based in reality. The recession was caused by “a fundamental misallocation of capital” mainly a housing bubble in the US, whether government caused it or free markets caused it is a matter of debate. By linking the recession and the health care issue, he is banking that he can wield his political broadsword before the business cycle takes over and we get out of the recession. That is why he has been so adamant about passing health care reform NOW! Otherwise, people will not be losing their employer based health insurance and the public will not be in the panic mode that the administration wants to generate. Right now, in touting how he has saved the economy with his Stimulus package, pulling it back from “the brink” as he said, it looks like the conditions for passing government-based health care reform are fading away. Like Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Unfortunately for the Democrats, contrary to their lack of understanding of free markets, recessions eventually come to an end. Funny how Obama benefits when America is in crisis, and fails when America is prospering. Actually… it’s not funny at all.

These are not the only outrageous claims that the president has made in order to panic the public into accepting his plan. To cite a few: in order to dispel rumors that he wanted a full government-run single-payer system, he denied ever supporting such a system, this is an outright LIE. See video. The quote: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan.”

In order to scare us into his plan, he tries to turn class-based anger on the “greedy” insurance companies by saying that they have been making record profits. This is a lie. To further scare us into a government-based system, he recently claimed that some doctors have opted to remove tonsils unnecessarily and have amputated diabetics’ feet simply for profit. Specifically, he implies that doctors may choose not to perform preventative treatment because of the amount of reimbursement and simply perform the amputation because it pays more. Outrageous.

These are just a few things that he has said that stretch the truth or tear the truth to pieces. It seems that the president insists on making the American people deathly afraid of greedy insurance companies who maliciously and purposely let people die every year and greedy doctors that will remove tonsils and amputate limbs for profit. This tactic of making outrageous claims is behind the Democrats’ insults aimed at concerned citizens at town hall meetings, calling them unruly mobs. Citizens have the right to petition government, we still have a first amendment… I yesterday saw Chris Matthews of MSNBC raise his voice at a protester who dared carry a non-concealed weapon to a protest, a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment, saying at one point “your carrying a Goddamn gun!” Fortunately, the guest, William Kostric, was calm, explained his point pretty clearly, and was able to avoid being cornered by Matthews on various points, but this only illustrates the point that liberals in the media are marching in lockstep with the Imperial Democrats that now control Washington. Here’s the video:

We, as Americans, cannot allow ourselves to be herded by threats, outrageous claims, or fear. We must think critically and independently. We must use conscience and, most importantly, facts in the face of so much confusion and emotional response. America’s spirit will not be broken by those who try to intimidate its people, our external enemies have failed and our internal ones will too.

-AG

Last month, I wrote a post about Nigeria and how Al Qaeda may be looking to extend its reach to that part of Africa. Just today, Hillary Clinton visited Nigeria and warned about the very same thing: Nigeria may be within Al Qaeda’s sights. Like I said before, the conditions in Nigeria are all favorable for Al Qaeda, especially since there are already terrorist groups with sufficient organization that have been launching attacks for some time now. Recently, a group named Boko Haram (meaning “western education is forbidden") was involved in clashes that killed hundreds in their fight to establish an Islamic State. The most important factors that Al Qaeda looks for in potential host nations is the presence of local militant groups in line with their ideology and a government that is willing to negotiate with them; the Nigerian government has shown a willingness to negotiate with the already-present terrorist groups there, making this country a suitable place to set up shop. This admission by the State Department shows that while Americans look inward at the government’s efforts to insert itself into health care, Al Qaeda and terrorist organizations are still not resting.

Boko Haram militants

The Obama administration has been overly focused on domestic issues while Al Qaeda has been running rampant. Other than the drone strike that supposedly killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan that was blamed for killing Benazir Bhutto and that has been threatening to strike at the United States(as I wrote abou t before), Al Qaeda has not been greatly hindered nor has it slowed its activities. Since our semi-withdrawal from Iraqi cities, Al Qaeda has upped the ante, launching terrorist attacks in their signature style: multiple simultaneous bombings, mainly in Shiite areas. In Kuwait, Al Qaeda terrorists were stopped from bombing and American base. Even more seriously, a leading British expert on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal reported that Al Qaeda has attacked Pakistan’s nuclear facilities three times in the last two years. Al Qaeda is not resting… we mustn’t either.

The threat from Islamo-fascism is as important as the threat from creeping socialism. We would do well in remembering back in the nineties that we were so focused on domestic and internal affairs that Osama Bin Laden was given the breathing room necessary to build up Al Qaeda right under our noses and plan the tragic events of 9-11. We cannot make this same mistake. Recent Al Qaeda bombings and video messages haven’t caught our attention as a nation… we are distracted and that is exactly what Al Qaeda wants.

-AG

Irony. That is what I think when I see reports that religious groups will be coming to the aid of the Obama administration in their push for health care reform. Calling it a “moral issue,” certain religious groups are launching a national campaign called “40 days for Health Reform” in favor of the Obama plan. The real moral issue is whether or not a central government authority should force taxpayers to subsidize other people’s unhealthy lifestyles or subsidize procedures that are against personal beliefs like abortion or sex change operations. Should religious groups open the door for government to mandate participation in immoral acts? Whatever happened to free will? This makes no sense. It makes even less sense to come to the aid of a president who issued an executive order that funds abortions abroad as one of his first acts. In addition to that, opening the door for humans to be harvested for biological material, Obama issued an executive order to federally fund stem cell research. This is a president that calls a baby “punishment.” Personally, I believe in the sanctity of life… I highly doubt that the president shares my opinion.

Not all religious groups have taken a swig of the Obama kool-aid, the Christian Coalition of America and the Family Research Council are still opposed to the president. I find it surprising that any person of faith would support a person who could say that small town people are bitter and “cling to religion.” His condescension is amazing. It further surprises me that his ties to Jeremiah Wright, the reverend who thought it to be “moral” to say “God damn America,” haven’t completely alienated anyone who strives to lead an upright life. Of course I cannot judge them. People have their free will and their reasons for following a man who would take away our freedom to choose who to contribute our money to and for what reasons. I pray for this nation’s future.

-AG

The health care reform battle rages on. In one corner you have concerned citizens who are hearing things about rationing of care, socialized medicine, etc. and in the other corner you have a liberal government that is willing to question the motives of American citizens in order to pass a government overhaul that, by the most conservative measures, will guarantee even more unsustainable spending. Let’s be very very clear… Obama says that his goal is to create a plan that is deficit neutral, assuming this is the case and he is able to create a government run health care “option” at zero net dollars (to be paid for by more taxes I assume), the current unsustainable federal spending on health care will continue rising. Right here is where every American, regardless of politics, must realize that Obama’s solution IS NOT A SOLUTION. The problem is two-fold, current health care spending levels and the actual health care Americans. The latter is not so much of a problem, with 87% of Americans reporting that they have health care and 89% reporting that they are satisfied with the quality of their health care (source here). The former is a titanic-sized problem, with increases in total federal spending reaching higher and higher levels, taxes will go up, borrowing will increase, and the burden on the economy in general will increase. So why is the government trying to sell us a plan that may reduce the number of private insurers that are providing good service and increase government involvement?

Which brings me to the town hall meetings that have Democrats calling concerned citizens various names. Particularly, I want to comment on the words of Arlen Specter (PA-D) when he said at a recent town hall that “in our social compact, we have provisions that see to it that you take care of people who need some help.” What is he talking about?!? First of all, whatever social compact he must be referring to cannot be the Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document do you find that our government is somehow obligated to provide health care to its citizens, in fact, the Constitution explicitly points out that any powers not given to the federal government fall to the states. Limited government was the intent of the Constitution, not a welfare state. Specter is way off. The only way that this statement makes any sense is if Specter is referring to some sort of Rousseau-inspired conceptualization of our society where the individual must bow to the “general will,” a general will that the Imperial Democrats in Congress and the White House will decide for us.

What Arlen Specter faced in this town hall meeting were people of all ages and probably of all political affiliations, standing up and demanding answers. We saw a young woman voice her concern that government creep into the economy will result in socialism. We saw an older gentleman in a very angry state because he was told he could speak but was denied the opportunity (until he made a scene). I couldn’t believe it when Specter said that he was in fact “defending” the Constitution by opposing warrantless wiretaps (even though Obama defends those very policies), bringing up the specter of Bush at a time when we are debating Obama, his spending, and his health care plans. The hypocrisy of these politicians is astounding. Bush expanded government and Obama is doing worse… was it the founders’ vision that the Executive Branch would one day be compiling lists of people who oppose their policies?

The only way for people to wake up in this country and realize that the 2008 elections do not simply mean that we take whatever the Democrats gives us is for ordinary Americans to stand up and be heard. To allude to an old school Democrat, Americans need to “give ‘em hell.”

-AG

The Left is playing a dangerous game. At town halls all over the country, Senators and House Representatives are facing the anger of their constituents over what is perceived to be a government takeover of health care. Democrats are reacting by calling them organized mobs, saying that its manufactured anger, and calling these demonstrations a “violation” of the democratic process. The first problem I have is that these Democrats are quick to brand non-liberal demonstrators as a mob, but when the anti-Bush and anti-war protesters came out, camping outside the president’s home and causing disruptions, they did not make similar accusations. Just as other people have pointed out, it seems that for Democrats, it’s OK for liberals to protest, just not conservatives or libertarians. This is beside the point though, a lot of politicians are hypocrites and that’s just a fact.

The second issue is that Democrats are really missing the point here. They say that the mobs are organized by the Republicans, well then why didn’t the Republicans mobilize these people on November 4th? In fact, if I recall correctly, it was the Democratic Party that was very adept at mobilizing people, not the Republicans. The truth is that many of the people who are going to these town halls are not even Republicans, because the reality is that the backlash is not only conservative, it includes many independents and most libertarians. The Democrats simply do not understand that their actions in Washington run contrary to the very spirit of America. They continuously repeat that they were given a mandate by voters last year, but they misunderstand the mandate or maybe the voters misunderstood it. When Democrats say that we voted for “change” they confuse the true intent: Americans voted for “change from” Bushes, Clintons, etc., they did not vote for “change to” bigger government, more spending, and more taxation.

The outrage is not “manufactured” or “organized,” it is spontaneous and it is very real. Just look at what has happened: Obama explicitly states that he believes spreading the wealth around. His citizenship is questioned because a) his grandmother said that he was born in Kenya and b) because Obama has not shown his long form birth certificate. Pictures of him not holding his hand over his heart during the national anthem while everyone around him is. He vows to raise taxes on the rich but gives conflicting indications of what he considers “rich” to be. He passes a nearly ineffective stimulus package that does little to put Americans back to work but increases the burden on the taxpayer to unprecedented level. He proposes plans [Cap-and-Trade] to “bankrupt” [those are his words, not mine] the coal industry and heavy industry in general at a time when we are in a recession. He travels around the world, apologizing for America everywhere, essentially insulting the American people for their electoral choices over the last few decades. His policies of negotiating with the terrorists and tyrants have only resulted in giving them more time to develop and perfect their nuclear weapons and missiles. Congress falls under complete Democratic rule and the promises of bipartisanship are betrayed. Now, Congress is not listening to its constituents, instead branding them as members of an organized mob. In spite of all this, Democrats still do not understand why people are angry.

Add to everything I just mentioned the fact that Washington is now trying to insert government into health care and you just get more intense anger. The Democrats are making the average voter feel powerless to stop them and worry about what government-run care will entail: senior death notifications, the eventual rationing of health care, taxpayer-funded abortions, taxpayer-funded sex-change operations? All of these things are real concerns and while some in Congress have indicated that they would not do these things, but certain language in the bills and amendments being kicked around leave the door open for several objectionable things.

So, what we are witnessing is spontaneous popular outrage over what is being viewed by many as a government takeover that will affect everyone’s personal lives. This is not a calculated political move. No one from the RNC delivered instructions to me so that I could write this in my blog. That said, for those getting rowdy at town halls (both left or right): try to keep it civil, the last thing we need is for Congress to say “these protesters are crazy” and then dismiss the real and important concerns of Americans all over. On the other side, Democrats need to realize that Americans will not allow their country to be hijacked and changed beyond recognition. We are a free society of individuals, not a commune or a bunch of children that need a nanny-state to care for us. The message that politicians need to hear is this: Respect the American Citizen.

-AG

If you know anyone in Florida, send them this post, because people need to understand what governor Charlie Crist has done, especially since he will be running for Senate. Republicans are supposed to stand for free markets, limited government, and lower taxes, Charlie Crist has done none of this during his time as governor. First of all, in an effort to rein in skyrocketing insurance rates in the wake of two devastating hurricane seasons, he implemented price controls and required insurance companies to get permission from the state if they wanted to increase their prices. He also made it so that these companies will have to “return” the “excessive” profits they make. So much for free markets.

His next move was to make the state-run insurance company, Citizens, more competitive. It’s pretty expensive. After the price control policy was implemented, many insurers have either stopped writing policies or reduced their business in Florida, making Citizens the largest insurer in the state. In essence, Charlie Crist made the state the principal insurer of homes in a hurricane-prone peninsula. So much for limited government.

The next part is the most important. It is simple math. Let us say that Florida is hit by consecutive hurricanes like a few years ago. According to this article, insurance companies ended up paying more than $30 billion to meet their policy obligations. Right now, Citizens faces $400 billion in potential exposure and only has $3.4 billion in net assets. Simply put, a bad hurricane season can put Citizens out of business, but since it is state-run, taxpayers will end up “bailing out” the company. So much for lower taxes.

For the environmentalists out there, freezing prices and making property insurance rates more competitive will only increase urban sprawl and development along the coast. Bad news for the everglades and undeveloped lands. For those concerned with giving people affordable insurance, currently Citizens is among the most expensive insurance companies and if larger, more dependable insurers keep leaving the state, then a lot of people will be stuck with paying higher insurance bills or stuck with less dependable companies that may not be able to live up to their policy obligations.

In all, both Democrats and Republicans have compelling reasons to oppose Charlie Crist. He has put Florida at significant risk in a state where hurricanes are common. More importantly, he lied to and betrayed his constituents, pledging not to raise taxes but did so anyways. He cannot be trusted. Floridians need to make sure not to make this man Senator, we have enough crooked politicians in Washington.

-AG

At first, people around the country were simply doubting the legitimacy of the president. Some called him a fraud and others a usurper. Later, frustrated citizens were demanding proof of his legitimacy but the government simply kept repeating that they were not lying. The government accused the people who questioned their authority of being organized mobs paid for by political enemies, completely disregarding the protesters’ legitimate grievances. The president’s political opponents were branded as domestic terrorists and extremists… This is not merely happening here in the United States, it’s also happening in Iran.

The Iranian regime, which has rounded up and arrested scores of people for their protests questioning the fairness of the last election, is putting about 100 people on trial for their involvement in the protests. Among these people on trial are French and British embassy workers and notable people within Iranian society. It is important that we not lose sight of what happens overseas, because so many of the elements are the same, the only thing missing is government’s use of force, mass arrest, and kangaroo courts to silence opposition. What is worrisome is that fact that there are several independent reports of SEIU “activists” that have been threatening, manhandling, and assaulting people at town hall meetings who oppose the Obama plan to expand the government’s role in health care (examples here and here). We already have seen that the case of voter intimidation by New Black Panther Party members in the last election is being dropped by the Justice Department… I guess that to the victor go the spoils.

Black Panther members intimidating voters

Add to that the Department of Homeland Security report that labeled conservatives, libertarians, military veterans, and anyone considered “rightwing” as potential terrorists, and what you have is an administration that is increasingly using its political and executive muscle to bully political opponents. This is happening in Iran. This is happening in Venezuela. This already happened in Cuba. Americans must be wary: big government and political intimidation never lead to positive outcomes… at the same time, we must not allow ourselves to be goaded into a violent response, that is exactly the excuse that the administration needs to openly persecute patriots who oppose Obama’s expansion of government. Once that happens… let’s just try to make sure that never happens.

-AG

Right now, politics is getting ugly. While conservatives are on the offensive against the Obama administration’s proposed government intrusion into health care, the Democratic Party is striking back by labeling conservatives at town hall meetings: members of organized mobs. This is the second wave of attacks on conservatives in recent weeks, the first being the fact that the left has labelled anyone who wants to see the president’s birth certificate a “birther.” Let us be very clear on this point, regardless of what the mainstream media reports over and over, Barack Hussein Obama II has not EVER released a copy of his official, long form birth certificate. More importantly, he probably never will. That said, conservatives need to take it easy on this point, since it is highly doubtful that any action will be taken to confirm whether or not Obama was a natural born citizen or not. We will have to wait for these files to come out when they release the “who killed Kennedy?” files. You win some, you lose some.

Labeling conservatives that attend town hall meetings a “mob” just shows the desperation of the Democratic party. This is not the first time that this language has been used to discredit people to the right side of the political spectrum. For decades, the communists in Cuba and their sympathizers in the United States have called the Cuban-American population of Miami a “Mafia.” You could say that calling conservatives a mob is straight out of the Castro playbook. Of course, the assertion that every Cuban-American in Miami is the member of a “mafia” is ludicrous… and if it’s true, then I have not been receiving my “mafia” checks in the mail. I am not paid to oppose communism. I am not paid to resist socialism in this country. More specifically, I am not paid to, day in and day out, try to explain on this blog and to people I meet why government intervention into the health care industry is the wrong way to go. I do it because of PATRIOTISM, that p-word that liberals dread oh-so-much. It is my patriotic duty to speak truth, to oppose any agenda that threatens our country, and to fight for the freedoms that we enjoy. Accusing conservatives and libertarians of being an angry mob that is bought and paid for by the Republican Party just shows that A) the Democrats are clueless as to what the average American thinks nowadays and B) the Democrats are out of ideas.

Patriots around the country need to take a real hard look at the liberal agenda, particularly the administration’s health care reform proposals. If they are deficit neutral or cost more money, they will fail. If they don’t talk about tort reform, they will fail. If they cannot guarantee that the majority of Americans, who like their health insurance, will not lose their coverage, they will fail. The solution to the health care problem needs to look something like this: tort reform, cutting costs, tax incentives, quality analysis, and promoting the free market. The Democrats are offering: more spending, bigger and more complicated bureaucracy, higher taxes, centrally planned rationing of health care, and more governmental control. America cannot afford what the liberals are offering… and if it takes a mob to let Washington know what we think, then so be it.

-AG

Today, Senator Mel Martinez (FL-R) announced that he was resigning as soon as the governor can find a replacement for him. His decision comes on the heels of the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor as justice of the Supreme Court, a vote where he broke ranks with the Republicans and joined the Democrats. Just yesterday, I wrote a post about his treason and lo and behold: Mel Martinez resigns. This can only mean one thing: NeoRepublica forced him out of office!

I humbly accept responsibility for driving out this Republican-In-Name-Only. Furthermore, our shared Cuban heritage makes it fitting and ironic that NeoRepublica would be the cause of his demise.

The truth of the matter is that all concerned citizens must speak out, incessantly and passionately, against those who claim to represent us, but instead lie and betray the people’s trust. Like a fellow blogger commented today, we must compile a list of politicians who lie and cheat their way into power and hold them accountable. The next in line for Martinez’s Senate seat is Charlie Crist, current governor, another RINO more interested in political maneuvering than in keeping his promises. Right now, we have a liberal Congress and an even more liberal White House intent on spending their way to “paradise” but instead will lead us to bankruptcy. We must stop them. The more that we reveal the truth about these political animals, the more that we lay out their broken promises and betrayals for all to see, the more honest we keep them and the better they represent us. Like one of my philosophical opponents once said: [bloggers] have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. Let’s keep speaking truth to power!

-AG

The relentless march towards a society that rewards people solely based on their race or ethnicity in the name of diversity is proceeding smoothly. Sonia Sotomayor, the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court, was just confirmed to the Supreme Court today. The vote was 68 for and 31 against, with nine Republicans voting with the Democrats. As a conservative, I believe that these Benedict Arnolds should be burned at the stake for their treason, politically of course. The list includes: Ohio’s George Voinovich, Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg, Indiana’s Richard Lugar, Missouri’s Kit Bond, Florida’s Mel Martinez, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, and Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander. Conservatives everywhere who oppose Sotomayor’s confirmation should call or write to these representatives and let them know how disappointed they are. Remember fellow Republicans, we are elephants and elephants never forget!

I have a few choice words for my own state’s Mel Martinez. He came from Cuba knowing full well what is done in the name of “equality.” It means the forced relocation of people, the forced exile of people, and the subjugation of people in the name of equality. It means labor camps for homosexuals, still prevalent racism, and “re-education” for people of faith. Cuba should have taught him this, that justice must be color-blind and that interpretation of the law does not mean revisionism. I oppose wholeheartedly his decision to back Sotomayor particularly because he used the words “Hispanic-American.” I am considered a Hispanic-American, just as he is, but I will not be pigeonholed, I will not simply bow to the expectations of identity politics-as-usual, I will be an individual, an American. I may use the hyphen to express my heritage sometimes but I consider myself simply American, nothing more nor less. I am not a type of American, I am an American. Martinez’s support of a judge that has expressed openly that court is “where policy is made,” an empathetic judge, a judge who hopes that a wise latina would form better judgments than white judges, and a judge who barely answered any questions during her confirmation hearings is wholly unacceptable. For anyone who saw the confirmation hearings and had the patience to see her time after time refuse to answer simple questions, confirming her is an insult to common sense…

To all the conservatives out there, vote these guys out.

-AG

Today is August 5th and for the Cuban people and lovers of freedom everywhere is a date that shows that decades of totalitarian oppression cannot extinguish the spirit of freedom. On August 5th 1994, the people of Havana, Cuba spontaneously took to the streets demanding a free Cuba and shouting “Down with Fidel!” It was an event that came to be known as the “Maleconazo” named after the place where it all started, Havan’s famous Malecon. This act was not widely reported because of the Cuban regime’s censorship, but it showed that there was massive discontent with a government that brutally represses its own people. It resulted in thousands of arrests and a realization by the Castro regime that they needed to appease the population before a popular revolution overthrew them. This discontent continues to exist to this day and the Castro regime will routinely smash opposition figures, peaceful dissenters, and anything that smells like being pro-democracy or pro-human rights in order to preempt any popular uprising.

Currently, the administration is moving towards easing its policy on the Cuban regime, but it is not aware that, like in Iran, the people are fed up with decades of non-representation, decades of arbitrary imprisonment, decades of oppression, and decades of living in the darkness. All that the Cuban people need is a little bit of help, a little bit of organization, and a little bit of moral support for them to finally rise up once and for all and put an end to the totalitarian nightmare that is currently threatening Venezuela, Bolivia, and the other Latin American nations that have been hijacked by socialism. So this day, we should commemorate the Maleconazo and realize that while we enjoy freedom in this country, there are millions around the world that fight for it every day. Let’s not abandon them.

Viva Cuba Libre!

-AG

According to CNN, Americans are split when it comes to the president’s plan to increase government involvement in health care. Fifty percent are for the plan and forty-five percent are opposed. Most telling is this statement by CNN Polling Director Keating Holland: “Most people on Medicare and Medicaid also don’t think that the Obama plan will help them.” Yes that’s right, the majority of people who already benefit from government sponsored health care do not believe that more government intrusion will help. As I have expressed before, the solution to the health care problem in this country lies in free markets, not in big government. Every day, more people are waking up to the fact that the Obama administration’s answer to nearly every domestic problem is to throw money at it, money we don’t have and money that will eventually come out of the taxpayers’ pockets. Let’s just hope that the Democratic supermajority doesn’t ram this plan down our throats.

-AG

Speaking of liberals who pledge not to raise taxes, in local news Charlie Crist was censured yesterday by the Volusia County Republican Executive Committee for his non-conservative ways. The list of reasons assembled by the Volusian Republican rebels (they are going against the de facto GOP endorsement of Crist) is essentially a Marco Rubio blueprint for attacks against the leathery faced governor.

You gotta love it. A Republican censured in his own state for being a RINO. I do not support Charlie Crist anymore, specifically for his performance as governor… even my father, hard-line right-wing Republican, voted for the Democratic candidate for FL governor. The truth is that Crist is a corporate puppet, a politician in every sense of the word. He betrayed the state, signing tax increases and appeasing the Left by appointing liberal judges. He is just plain dishonest. Moreover, he rubs it in the faces of Floridians by going on a $430K vacation to Europe under the pretense of a “trade mission” on the public dime.

While Charlie “Crispy” Crist was getting tanned on the beach, Floridians have been foreclosing on homes at higher rates than the national average. While Charlie “Crispy” Crist was getting tanned on the beach, Floridians were stuck with paying higher taxes and higher fees. While Charlie “Crispy” Crist was getting tanned on the beach, Democrats around the country have been using Crist’s endorsement of Obama’s plan to bludgeon the Republican party. Being censured in his own state is not enough, Charlie Crist needs to be outed as a closet Liberal. Enough is enough.

-AG

When government takes away your money it’s called taxes. What is it called when government takes away your purchasing power? That’s what unsustainable national debt will bring. That’s what printing huge sums of money will bring. Now, government officials are leaving the door open to increasing taxes on middle class Americans directly. Make no mistake, Obama and co. have already “indirectly” increased taxes on all Americans through higher taxes on capital gains, higher taxes on upper tax bracket folks, and higher taxes on tobacco products to name a few. Those who don’t believe in trickle down wealth better start believing in trickle down taxation. Higher taxes on businesses and business owners translates into higher prices and less jobs. These guys are not about to let a liberal Washington take their money away.

Of course, many politicians make pledges that they will not raise taxes and do so. George HW Bush is the obvious example. Locally, in Florida, Charlie Crist is another example. Barack Obama, of course, is next in line to break this pledge, a pledge that no conservative took seriously. He might as well do it, he keeps getting criticized for his tax policies, so the costs of taxing the middle class directly will not be that high and it may offset some of his ridiculous spending. Of course in the long run, these taxes will probably reduce productivity and end up generating less revenue than initially expected. Not to mention that raising taxes during or immediately after a recession is a terrible idea. I say that Obama might as well take the plunge, if he really believes in it. I have a better solution though, instead of raising taxes on the middle class to balance the budget, he should cut the absurdly expensive spending programs and entitlement programs that he passed. Instead of funding a gov’t-run public option, focus on a cost-cutting approach to health care reform and include the free market through common sense tax incentives. Oh silly me, these solutions are all conservative solutions and do not involve “spreading the wealth around” as BHO famously said to Joe the Plumber. I guess in this administration, ideology trumps common sense. Again, I call for Obama to hire one more czar: the Logic Czar.

-AG

Notice the big smile on Kim Jong Il’s face, could it be that he just took his happy pills or that he’s overjoyed that the man who helped him develop nuclear weapons under the world’s noses is back for a second round? William Jefferson Clinton, former president of the United States, was the man who assured us at the end of his second term that he would stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for billions in aid from the US. Apparently, peace-in-our-time Bill was under the impression that Kim Jong Il actually cared about his people or peace… how wrong he was. Fortunately, there seems to be a good chance that Clinton will secure the release of two US journalists being held there. Unfortunately, Clinton’s visit may also be the precursor to a strategy of direct diplomacy that will result in more appeasement of the communist regime. So far the official line is that this visit is a private affair. I highly doubt that. Slick Willy met his match in Slick Kim Jong Il-ly last time, let’s hope that this time he brought his poker face.

-AG

I am adding the song “Dream On” by Aerosmith to the songs on the left (scroll through the songs to find it) in honor of this visit.

Update: North Korea grants amnesty to the two journalists. Bravo. Only bad thing is that North Korea wins PR victory, but the lives of two Americans are much more valuable. “Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it.” I guess that being a journalist is a “hostile action.” Let’s hope that Clinton or the administration did not make any other concessions to the communist regime… this goes to show that even Democrats can do good things, but at what cost?

I was just reading this article on how Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s second in command, was criticizing Obama for trying to advocate for a Palestinian state that does Israel’s bidding. It is funny that Al Qaeda is trying to slam Obama’s efforts far not going far enough in helping the Palestinian cause. It shows us that appeasement does not work and that extremists will blame us for anything and everything that is wrong in the world, even if we are doing something that they agree with. While some may consider this to be a sign that Obama is succeeding in capturing some Muslim goodwill, the reality is that terrorists are still capitalizing on anti-American sentiment in the region, with groups such as the Taliban, Hezbollah, and Hamas showing no signs of subsiding. They hate us for being a free and democratic superpower, only abandoning our ideals, our allies, and our interests will be enough to appease them.

He also said that Obama’s new nice-guy policy towards the Islamic world was the direct result of the “heavy losses” we have suffered because of them (and other terrorists/insurgents). This was my point from the beginning, Obama is perceived as one who cannot stomach a fight and will surrender and withdraw at the sight of terrorist attacks. Repeated communications from Al Qaeda only further prove this point. It is this very sentiment with regard to the mujihadeens’ fight against the USSR in Afghanistan that made the Taliban and Al Qaeda so appealing to terrorists and would-be terrorists. Beating Goliath is as much a motivator as being beaten by Goliath.

Another interesting thing is that Al Qaeda took the time to criticize Iran for not fighting directly against Israel when they invaded Gaza. Zawahiri called the Iranians sell-outs… which makes it official: even terrorists, our sworn enemies, will stand up to Iran but our president won’t. When Iranian protesters were on the street getting beaten, arrested, and killed as they demanded democracy, Obama said nothing and did nothing. When the abuses became more and more apparent and the international community condemned Iran’s regime nearly unanimously, only then did the president come out and condemn them for their oppressiveness. When Iran publicly expressed their support for international terrorism, the administration again did and said nothing. This is the pattern for the administration and it only enables Iran’s destabilization of the region.

Since Obama will probably do little to defend America from these two threats, Al Qaeda and Iran, I certainly do not mind if Al Qaeda and the Iranian regime go at it… and destroy themselves both in the process.

-AG

Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times.

At this moment, Iran has the capability to develop the bomb and can produce enough enriched uranium in about 6 months. Last January 20th it would have taken them 6 more months, but of course they were not stopped by the Obama administration. Instead, Obama decided it was time to engage in a long-term chat with the Iranian regime. Worse still, Iran’s Supreme Leader has just endorsed the hard-line, Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iranian president, making these US-Iranian tea-time-chats even more useless in advancing our goal of preventing their production of nuclear weapons. When Israel suggested that a military strike was possible and it would push back their development 2 to 3 years, Obama told them ‘absolutely not.’ At what point does timidity become treason?

Worry not, though, I am not sticking to the right-wing talking points, the truth is that Bush also played a huge part in this appeasement strategy. Bush’s botched handling of the Iraq war gave North Korea and Iran the green light to develop nuclear weapons because they knew that we could not commit to another lengthy invasion/occupation like Iraq and Afghanistan. A successful invasion/reconstruction of Iraq would have been the best deterrent, but alas, a failed post-invasion strategy led to a near-civil war and an empowered Iran. Obama made it worse by openly advocating a kids-gloves policy towards dictatorships and terror-sponsoring states… it’s like the more dangerous the regime, the nicer that Obama acts.

If The Times report is accurate, then the civilized world better find a way to stop the Iranian regime or get used to a nuclear-armed state that openly preaches the utter destruction of our allies while sponsoring international terrorism. The thing that Americans need to ask themselves is “Why would president Obama work to further the goals of that hard-line Iranian regime?” The answer straddles the line between the sinister and the naive. The Left has long had a love-affair with totalitarian ideologies because of the fact that they are instinctively suspicious of American power and American freedom. Left-wing ideology stems from a rejection of individual initiative and instead embraces almost any ideology that posits that the collective is superior to the individual. This belief also applies to nations, where they believe that the inequality of nations, the inequality of powers in the world, is inherently evil and leads to war. That’s why Leftists ridicule and fear patriotism, disdain the military, and believe that the idea of “country” needs to go away and be replaced with a unified single world government. The only way to do this is to make countries equal in power, just like the Left’s domestic socialism strives to make everyone equal in wealth. This is why Obama embraces any regime that is willing to challenge American power, it is simply in his DNA to strive to create a world of multiple “equal” powers; he essentially said as much when he visited Europe telling them not to rely on America (economically) as much in the future. In the process, the role of democracy and freedom in the world will be diminished and instead of worrying about an intrusive federal government accountable to the people of America, we will have to worry about an authoritarian global government accountable to no one. It’s a brave new world out there.

-AG

For years, the terrorists of the world have dreamed of setting foot inside the continental United States so that they could wreak havoc… finally, their dreams are about to come true. Our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, is considering bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the continental US: either Michigan or Kansas. We have known about this for a while, but the administration has been unclear as to where they want to take them and Congress recently denied the funds to relocate detainees. The administration is now considering building a prison-courtroom complex to house the suspected terrorists and put them on trial. Remind me again, why can’t we put them on trial in Guantanamo right now? Didn’t the administration put all of the suspected terrorists’ trials on hold? Oh yes, of course, FOX wanted to film a reality-TV version of Prison Break but wasn’t allowed to film in Gitmo.

Closing a perfectly good legal purgatory that keeps the suspected terrorists far away from the American population makes no sense. The reason that the administration is doing this is just politics, appeasing the far left. Let’s get the trials rolling. Let’s make it a bit more transparent so that the skittish liberals can see that we are not torturing anymore, and if they are torturing then it will get them to stop. Let’s keep the suspected terrorists off US soil. Is SANITY from this administration too much to ask?

-AG

I talk a lot about socialists in this blog, particularly Castro and Chavez. My worry, which is the worry of many Americans, is that president Obama is following in the footsteps of these leaders, expanding government to the detriment of the individual and free markets. It is important to highlight the events that are taking place in socialist countries around the world, especially the socialists that base their systems on the ideas of Karl Marx and his authoritarianism. The reason that Marx fails is simple, I have had discussions about this ad nauseam: Marx theorized that organizing the “proletariat” into a ruling class and implementing communism through dictatorship will eventually lead to a “stateless” and “classless” society… clear logic will reveal that making the state all-powerful will likely not lead to a “stateless” society and that making the proletariat a “ruling class” will likely not lead to a “classless” society. Hence, Marxism is a recipe for permanent dictatorship in the name of economic justice and history has repeatedly shown this to be true.

That said, Venezuelan “president” Hugo Chavez has recently shut down dozens of private radio stations in Venezuela in his campaign to stifle all dissent and free expression. This is rule number six as listed in the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” written by Marx and Frederick Engels: controlling all means of communication. Of course, people familiar with the history of Cuba knew full well that Chavez would eventually get to this point; we have been warning Venezuelans of this for years. In fact, Chavez is going further and trying to pass a law that will criminalize certain types of speech. Amending the Constitution, nationalization of private industry, shutting down the media, aiding communist guerrillas in Colombia, and increased militarization of Venezuela are all actions that Chavez has taken to transform that country into a socialist/communist state. He is also exporting this Castro-inspired model to other countries in the region, spending heavily to influence their electoral processes. Is this a person we want to be friends with?

-AG

With the recent declaration from Cuban dictator Raul Castro that he will not end ’socialism’ in Cuba but rather ‘defend, maintain and continue perfecting’ it, I realized that my position with respect to Cuba is diametrically opposed to this administration’s approach. Castro, either Fidel or Raul, cannot be negotiated with, Castro must be killed. Of course, I am no extremist, so when I say ‘kill’ I mean that the dictators should be put on trial and given the death penalty… in other words, there is a legal process, but the crimes are already known, there is not much wiggle room. By Cuba’s very laws, the crimes that the regime has perpetrated at the direction of both Castros are punishable by death. There have been forced deportations, denial of basic human rights, mass executions, disappearances of political opponents, widespread torture, and untold other crimes that the Castros have authorized with impunity.

In a more objective sense, international law calls the Castro regime a perpetrator of “crimes against humanity.” People like Wilhem Frick, a Nazi who ran the concentration camps, was sentenced to death even though his participation was institutional, i.e. he wasn’t personally killing people. The Castros on the other hand were and are the ultimate architects of the daily criminal acts against the Cuban people and they know exactly what they are doing. Just like the Nazis, these enemies of humanity will not just surrender to international authorities, they need to be arrested and put on trial. Apparently, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1674 makes the UN Security Council responsible for the prevention of crimes against humanity and also for the protection of populations from these crimes. This means that Castro, according to international law and the UN, needs to either surrender to the authorities or be forcibly arrested, and given that the United States is the closest and most able member of the UN Security Council, it only makes sense that the US be the nation that carries out this mission. In fact, I will volunteer to join the group that is sent to arrest the Castros… gladly in fact. So, let’s not mince words, the United Nations needs to live up to its mission and obligation to the world and order the arrest of Fidel Castro and Raul Castro (and anyone else that is guilty in the regime)… dictators around the world will be put on notice if the Castros are given the death penalty.

I hope that makes my position on Cuba crystal clear. The Castros need to die.

-AG

Once upon a time there was a country with private run health care. The system was not perfect in that it did not cover everyone, but the quality of care was very high by international standards. One day, a person came along and ran for president. He would come to promise a better life for everyone, a change from the previous government, and the people flocked around him. When he came to power, he started making changes that would eventually result in a government-run universal health care system. Sound familiar?

In this system, if you needed to go to the dentist, you would need to make a line and sleep over the night before at the doorstep of the dentist’s office. Once you would be admitted, all the dental work would be done without anesthesia, because of a shortage, and the dentist would be rushing to get you out. If you moved too much he would yell “Stop moving! I have like twenty other people behind you!” all while hitting a nerve and nearly drowning you with the little water hose (because they have no suction hose either, costs too much).

Well, this is not a story about what is happening or may happen in America, but rather a story of what actually happened in Cuba. The person visiting the dentist was my father and this was a typical visit to the dentist. The regular doctor was not much different. The moral of the story is that government-run health care will invariably lead to rationing and long lines, it already happens in Canada and the UK. If this is the type of care that Americans want, a system that puts people on long waiting lists so that they can simply see, then we can start with a public option that will eventually evolve into a straight government-run health care system. Obama has been very explicit in calling for single-payer government-run universal health care, he is simply going about it a roundabout way. This is a matter of choice: either you deny choice by creating a government system or you allow people to have choice by letting private insurers offer their services. Red pill or blue pill. Should Washington bureaucrats, who refuse to read the bills they pass, choose or the American people?

-AG

This month the Dow surged almost 9% making it the best July in 20 years for the index. Furthermore, the GDP is declining at a slower pace than expected, which is good. See graph:

Was it the stimulus? Unknown, but doubtful. What is known is that as of the end of May, only 6% of the money designated to directly boost the economy was actually spent, with only 5% more planned for the rest of the year. The administration admits that much of the money will be spent next year… how convenient. As I wrote before, the cyclical nature of the market means that we will eventually recover and in fact, this recovery is being seen in different parts of the economy but not much as a direct measurable result of the stimulus. Even the administration’s fictitious claims of creating or saving 150,000 jobs does not come close to the millions of jobs lost the year.

The problem is simple: the economy is showing some signs of recovery already and if we get a huge infusion of cash into the market in the middle of an upswing, we risk inflation. Already, the dollar has weakened and may weaken further, even though just a few months ago we were talking about deflation. By running the US dollar printing press on max to solve our problems all that the administration has done is kick the problem down the road. The collapse of the dollar is worse than a global recession because while the latter affects everyone, the former shifts the balance of power in the world. There are many reasons to oppose or criticize the Obama administration but the most serious one is the unsustainable fiscal irresponsibility because, coupled with foreign policy weakness, it will lead to the end of American superpower status.

-AG

Well, less than a week into the cash-for-clunkers government handout that was tucked neatly in an emergency war spending bill (car rebates in a war spending bill?), the $1 billion program is nearly out of money. How is this a shock to the administration? If you put out $1 billion dollars in a big basket outside of Washington, I would be surprised if the basket itself would remain after the end of one day. Now Congress is thinking of extending the program by a few more billion dollars… typical. People need to pay attention, this car rebate program is a clear example of how government programs tend to exceed cost expectations… so while the administration pushes a Health Care Reform program that will cost $1 trillion, Americans must realize that this price tag will most probably go up.

Socialism, ladies and gentlemen, does not work. I say it time and time again but the government keeps on taking people’s money and handing it to other people. It is human nature to accept money for free, but there is no free lunch and eventually we will have to pay for it, if not with our dollars then with our freedoms. Do not fall for it.

Update: $2 billion in extra funding approved for Cash for Clunkers program.

-AG

I know that many people out there will have a gag reflex after reading the title of this post and by no means do I agree with W. Bush on everything, but facts are facts. Missile defense. It was something much touted by the previous president and now it is something that is a matter of life or death for America. North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and the administration has all but assured us that Iran will develop them as well. Their missile technology is improving on a daily basis and sanctions seems to have little effect on their military programs. Military strikes against North Korea are out of the question while the administration has pretty much commanded that Israel not strike at Iran. This means that now the only thing standing between a nuclear tipped intercontinental ballistic missile and a major American city is a couple of years and missile defense shields. Isn’t it interesting that a major part of Bush’s defense policy is the only thing that can protect us against these threats? People need to be more objective when considering Dubya’s legacy, else we are doomed to be mainstream media controlled zombies.

-AG

In the United States, we have a two ideologies that disagree on the role of government in the daily lives of people and the economy. Conservatives believe that the role, size, and power of government should be limited to only what is necessary. Liberals believe that the role of government is to serve the people, regardless of its size. Both ideologies have merits and both have their weakness: conservatives will err on the side of smaller government and some ‘public’ demands may not be met while liberals will err on the side of larger government with an ever-expanding burden on the taxpayer and gross bureaucratic inefficiency. Many believe our system to be a free market, but general opinion in this case is somewhat incorrect, particularly when it comes to the way that we redistribute wealth. In 2006, according to the IRS, the top 1% of households (in terms of income) pay about 40% of federal individual income taxes while receiving only 23% of total income. The top 5% paid nearly 61% of federal income taxes while earning 37% of total income. What this means is that the average American is not experiencing the costs of domestic policy… so the calculation of the average American is grossly skewed when it comes to deciding government policy.

In having an economic situation where the majority of people suffers little or no tax consequences for passing expensive and inefficient government programs, the average American is being given an inducement to grow government by shielding them from the costs. Interestingly enough, the much criticized Bush tax cuts that ‘benefited’ the rich ended up increasing the amount and percentage of income tax that top earners had to pay, more than during Clinton. Eventually though, we can expect that when the cost of running government becomes sufficiently high, these taxes will start to ‘trickle down’ and affect everyone, else we chase all of the wealth away form the country. We must take this into account when we decide on the Health Care Reform plans that the administration and Congress are trying to pass, especially since we did not think twice about passing the stimulus package which has turned out to be slow, ineffective, yet exceedingly expensive.

If a society burdens only a small percentage of its population with the majority of the costs of running government, wouldn’t this end up encouraging the growth of government? More importantly, wouldn’t this mean that the people who are most affected by government programs are grossly underrepresented? Has our government become a tyranny of the majority (people who pay little to no income taxes)? Our republic has strayed from its founding principles and for the last two decades we have experienced an uninterrupted period of growth of government under both Republican and Democratic administrations. We need to return to our first principles that emphasize freedom and individual responsibility. We have become a nation that no longer believes that happiness should be pursued but instead handed to us and rationed by an all-powerful government. Oh how times have changed…

-AG

This one is easy. Let’s say you are a foreign government or a person with some money to invest and you are looking for a safe investment, especially now during this recession. Well, historically, United States government debt in the form of T-bills, T-notes, etc. have been a good investment, but now, with the reasonable expectation that the administration will create a multi-hundred-billion dollar (on the low end) to multi-trillion dollar health insurance program and will pay for it through deficit spending, the threat of dollar devaluation rises. With inflation possibly over the horizon, investors choose to either wait out to see what happens or they invest elsewhere fearing that the dollar will reduce in value. This means that the overall demand for the dollar falls and as the government prints more and more money to “stimulate” the economy, increasing its supply, the value of the dollar declines in the long and short term.

This has happened already. We have seen that the US dollar has fallen compared to most other major currencies. This in turn leads to higher costs for nearly everything that we Americans buy. The US debt is a major reason that the dollar’s value declines… so we can say in absolute terms, the record-smashing spending passed by the Democrats in Congress have already, in six short months, made Americans who hold US dollars considerably poorer. The more that the administration and the Congress talk about deficit spending or entitlement spending, the more worried investors get. If we cannot get deficit spending under control and get the Federal Reserve to enact measures that reduce inflation once the recovery is underway, then inflation will rage out of control. This is why fiscal discipline, lacking under Bush and completely out the window with Obama, is so important.

-AG

I have been focusing mainly on the international scene for the last few posts, primarily because I think enough conservative and non-conservative commentators have taken up the health care battle with gusto and did not want people to ignore what happens beyond our shores. I would like to change subjects for a moment and write about Marco Rubio who caught my attention due to his actions and recommendations as Speaker of the Florida House. His run for the Senate against Charlie Crist, the current, moderate, ultra-tanned governor of FL, is likely to prove disastrous. Sorry, Rubio. This is not because he lacks substance but rather because he is up against the GOP establishment which has pretty much endorsed Crist (though Rubio denies it). In my humble opinion, there are certain things that Rubio can do to improve his performance in this race. Already, he has made several existential mistakes and so I will endeavor to outline some of his weaknesses and recommend ways to turn them into strengths.

His first “weakness” is actually the central argument behind his candidacy: he is conservative, not moderate. While he may not say it outright during interviews, in typical political style, he starts describing Crist as someone who has betrayed or compromised on conservative principles. The first thing he needs to do is come right out and say it “I will stay true to my principles, unlike Crist.” Be more direct, no subliminals, no politics, just the truth. He just needs to make sure he defines principles, like sound government, personal freedom, or whatever. If he continues to be branded as a “conservative,” while that might appeal to the more right-leaning base (like me), it will make some think that he is an ideologue and not even take a chance to listen to him. Remember, there are centrist Republicans too. Clarity of message, not clarity of ideology. Ideology needs to leave this contest. The message should be fiscal responsibility period. Pound it into people’s heads: Crist raised taxes, Crist supported record breaking national spending, etc. Stay on message. Put Crist on defense. Also, Crist will be running to the right in the primary only to backtrack on his positions in the general. Hold him accountable. Flip-flopping hurt Romney, Kerry, and countless others.

The second “weakness” is his presentation. I like Rubio, he comes off straightforward, knowledgeable, and generally like a nice guy. That said, Crist seems even nicer, in fact, too nice for my tastes. Rubio suffers from a technocratic sort of demeanor, like he knows how to make the best steak but will not dress it up with garnish or mashed potatoes. Well, I hate frills, but I do like to be entertained as much as the next guy. He looks kind of nervous sometimes. Sometimes he looks like he belongs in a lecture hall teaching philosophy to half-awake students. Rubio needs to loosen up when he talks policy. Throw a joke in. Loosen your tie. Smile more. Do something, but don’t overdo it. Of course, Rubio cannot compete with Crist when it comes to looking like a “nice” guy. This is where the weakness becomes the strength. Crist seems way too laid back… I mean, look at the guy, he’s ridiculously tanned. Ridiculous. This makes him seem nice, but it does not make him seem more competent. Rubio must capitalize by keeping his technocratic demeanor in place, with a little garnish of “approachability,” and point out that representing FL shouldn’t be a day at the beach. Make that can-do attitude (with a smile) the basic approach while saying that as Florida’s problems mounted, the person in charge was getting a tan, taking trips, and relaxing a little too much. Take the gloves off but stay positive.

The third “weakness” is his appeal to the GOP. Let’s be clear, just because Crist is not that conservative does not mean that the GOP will discard him. The GOP, like any political organization, is in the business of winning elections and Crist can win elections, general elections in Florida. Regaining a significant number of Congressmen and women is the GOP’s primary aim. So Rubio needs to make his case even more clear. The Obama-Crist link is not enough, it is good for conservatives, but not enough to win. The GOP needs to see results, it needs to see action. What this means is popular support. Crist has proven it, now it’s Rubio’s turn. I’m saying the grassroots should have an even more active role in his campaign, in fact, the grassroots should hijack the Rubio campaign. His participation in the Tea Parties was excellent, now that they know his face, he needs to plan another, and then another and another, he needs to participate in non-stop town halls, continue challenging Crist, get out there, eat at diners, speak everywhere… energy is very very very very important. Not saying that Rubio does not have energy, but this is where the focus should be. I, for example, was a supporter of the Fred Thompson campaign in the primary but was disappointed when the energy wasn’t there… McCain had/has immense amounts of energy and he won the primary even though he was significantly behind and not the most conservative (he then lagged after winning the primary and look what happened). There is a lot of untapped conservative and libertarian energy out here in Florida, if Rubio can mobilize that then he will show the GOP what he can do. Look at Howard Dean, he used this very model and while he did not win, due to self-destruction (byahh!), he did go on to lead the Democratic Party and eventually took control of both Congress and the Executive. Not a bad model… except that he’s as liberal as the current president.

I have more recommendations and observations, but these are the big ones. Hopefully, Rubio will change his tactics a little because he seems to have good ideas and a good heart. I also can relate to his upbringing, hearing stories about the Castro gulag, the repression of faith, the mass extermination of “political opponents,” etc. These stories were our nursery rhymes, these stories stressed the importance of freedom, respect for human rights, and the accountability of government to the people. These are lessons that are ignored by many on the Left, and the main reason (in my opinion) why Cuban-Americans have tended towards conservatism. This race is a microcosm of the greater struggle within the Republican Party, the struggle to define itself as either the party of winning elections or the party of individual empowerment.

-AG

Israel and the current administration have not had the best of relationships. In a world where nearly everyone is sucked in to the Obama mania, Israelis recently held an anti-Obama rally, going so far as to call him ‘racist.’ This is a result of an openly anti-Israel stance taken by the president, in fact, the president’s first official call to a head of state was to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. Add to that relatively small gesture the policy of reaching out to Israel arch-nemesis Iran and regular nemesis Syria and their worry turned into real fear, fear of being abandoned in a sea of Arab resentment. Then comes the words from the administration pressuring Israel to not attack Iran if it acquires or is about to acquire nuclear weapons, intimations from Clinton that a nuclear Iran is acceptable, and Obama’s public call that Israel dismantle its settlements and that fear turns into anger. By and large, we can say that this administration is decidedly not pro-Israel, and many may argue it is anti-Israel.

Apparently, the administration is trying to repair this hurt relationship by sending government official after government official to Israel. While I am usually critical of the president, I applaud this action. Keeping Israel in the loop is something that the United States needs to do, just like we should be doing with our other allies. The truth is that actions speak louder than words and for the administration to rescue our relationship with Israel, we need to take their national security interests more seriously. Obama should keep trying to mend fences with Israel, but diplomacy is but a first step; he needs to take a strong stand against terrorism and Iran, which is something that not only benefits Israel but our security as well.

-AG

While the threat of terrorism increases internationally, as displayed by the events in Nigeria, Indonesia, and North Carolina, the Obama administration has decided to ease trade sanctions on Syria, a nation that gives aid to terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas. Did I forget to mention that they are close allies of Iran? This post should end right here, but I will continue to break it down for my less conservative cohorts.

Trade sanctions are leverage. Right now, we need Syria to make peace with Israel, increase cooperation with Iraq, stop funding Hezbollah and Hamas, not interfere with the Lebanese political process, respect for human rights, and help us in projects like preventing Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. With the unilateral easing of sanctions, we have just removed some of that leverage. What has Syria done to earn this economic boost we are about to give them? Nothing significant. Just like Obama’s Cuba policy, the unilateral easing of sanctions only gives the impression that America is in the business of giving up concessions for little to nothing in return.

We can be sure of one thing: the economic benefits from this concession to the Syrian regime will end up helping Hezbollah and other terrorist groups in the Middle East, enemies of Israel and the United States. The only positive that we can get from making friends with the Syrian dictatorship is the possibility of drawing them away from Iran, but in the long-term it makes no sense for Syria to abandon their long-time ally. Iran is growing in power and may be a serious power broker in Iraq, it only benefits Syria to keep Iran close. Syria and Iran will remain part of the Anti-American Axis in the region, and while Obama is around, they will squeeze us for every last drop, every last concession he’s willing to give them. The Obama administration has been a public relations and diplomatic coup for dictatorships and terror-sponsors around the world.

-AG

I recently wrote about the recent resurgence of Al Qaeda in the world. Their comeback is a product of the new administration’s insistence on dialogue instead of action, on withdrawal for political points instead of acting in accordance with the facts on the ground, and on the fact that Al Qaeda thinks that Obama will cower before terrorist threats, not rise to combat it. Well, over the last few days, Nigerian rebels who are part of a group called Boko Haram, which translates to “western education is forbidden,” have risen up and battled the government. More than 400 people have been killed in the fighting. Last week there was a clash between Nigerian troops and the rebels. As of yet there is no connection between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda, but Nigeria is starting to look more and more like a future destination for Al Qaeda.

The conditions are all there: There is a local terror group trying to impose Sharia on the country, there is high foreign investment in Nigeria, there are groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that are launching terrorist attacks on foreign oil companies and pipelines, and the central government is willing to negotiate with the terrorists. This makes Nigeria, and thus the entire West African region a potential target for Al Qaeda expansion. Already, some traditional leaders in the region have grown wary of Al Qaeda’s influence and have banded together to stop its spread.

Boko Haram Militant

We must not forget that right now Al Qaeda has many supporters scattered around the world, all they need is a safe enough haven so they can start planning their next attack. The United State’s mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan is critical, and Somalia is looming on the horizon. All they need is another psychopathic leader to inspire suicide brigades to strike at us, ‘the far enemy.’ We cannot abandon the war on terror and we must give them men and women fighting that war all the tools they need to succeed.

-AG

Last night I had a dream, it was a strange dream where I was supposed to introduce this very special guest at a dinner but I had no idea who it was. There were blue table covers, people were seated along rectangular tables, and behind the podium you could see a thin, frail man surrounded by much bigger men. I was finally told who I was going to be introducing: Fidel Castro. So, I quickly assembled my thoughts and was going to talk about the truth about Fidel Castro, something I am sure would have gotten me escorted out of the room or arrested. The dream ended before I could give my speech. It was the first time ever that I had a dream/nightmare including this butcher.

To my surprise, sort of, today I read that the Obama administration took down the big screen built along the side of the US interests section in Havana that would display messages promoting democracy and freedom of expression. CNN calls them “anti-Cuba” signs, sayings such as “No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent,” showing that this news outlet simply parrots the Castro regime’s version of reality. Castro ended up putting up more than one hundred flags in front of the screen obstructing people’s view, so that they could not read the screen.

Why is it that every time I hear about some dictatorship or some terrorist in the news, it tends to be because the Obama administration has done something to damage the cause of America. He went to Europe to apologize. He talked about disarmament while North Korea fired off missiles. He would not support the Iranian people’s pro-democracy protests. He supports Chavez allies in Latin America. The list is extensive and it has only been six months. I want to hear that Obama went forth and challenged a country to be free. I want to hear Obama speak truth to power and call out dictators on their record. Instead we get appeasement. In his defense, the screen was not very useful since it was blocked, but instead of doing less to promote freedom in Cuba, Obama should do more. That’s where people get confused about measures such as the embargo. An embargo cannot bring down a regime, if that was the case, Saddam Hussein would not have been in power after the first Iraq war. The embargo needs to be followed up with policies that support the pro-democracy movement on the island. The solution to Cuba is not to make friends with the dictatorship, it is to pressure the regime while supporting the people that want to be free. Does Obama want to go down in history as being the president who abandoned the millions of people around the world who yearn to be free?

-AG

In yet another example of the naivete of the administration’s foreign policy, president Obama declared a new era of “cooperation, not confrontation” with China, apparently the head of state has not been receiving the security memos from the Pentagon… nor has he been watching the news. While Obama’s chief concerns are getting China to cooperate over energy, nuclear proliferation, and other issues, he is completely overlooking the grand chess match that is currently taking place in the world. Russia is down but not out. Islamo-fascism is wreaking havoc worldwide. Authoritarian socialism is sweeping the globe. China is currently growing at a break-neck pace, with aspirations to overtake the first world within decades. Does China really benefit from full cooperation with the United States? Not really.

First of all, China and Russia have been indicating their lack of confidence in the US dollar. This is where Obama’s domestic policies will shift the balance of global power: with the excessive deficit spending threatening to reduce the value of the US dollar, China and other nations will be stop buying the dollar, further reducing its value. So, while China at the moment may not benefit from a precipitous fall in the value of the dollar, it is in their long term interest to promote the decrease in US economic power so that they can rise. Imagine major US firms going out of business and/or getting bought out on the cheap by rising Chinese companies. We may be looking at Chinese ownership of major formerly US-based companies in the near future. China has world power aspirations and the administration cannot lose sight of this.

Second of all, in terms of military power, China has started to beef up its military and build up its navy. The United States’ historical naval superiority is what allowed us to engage in military operations in Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula, the Middle East, Latin America, etc. The rise of China, militarily, is problematic, especially considering their strategic aims: controlling Taiwan and controlling East Asia. Does a pesky North Korea benefit China? Yes, it distracts the US. Does international terrorism bother China? Not that much, internal ‘terrorism’ does. Does nuclear proliferation bother China? Not really. In all, the concerns of the United States are not that important to China, which means to get them to help us we will have to give up more than we should. China is an authoritarian one-party state and it enjoys close ties with every nation that considers itself an enemy of the United States. Does the spread of Anti-Americanism help China? Yes it does indeed. Chinese arms sales have fueled regional conflicts for years now and cause problems that eventually end up becoming US problems.

A policy towards China that involves some cooperation and some confrontation is what is best and we should be open about it. We should press them on the issues we care about, like we are currently doing, but also make it clear that certain things need to change, like their human rights record. We must make it clear that they should pressure North Korea more forcefully. We must support the continued independence of Taiwan. We must not be silent about their brutal repression of the Tibetan people. America stands for freedom in this world, even if we make mistakes in how we work towards that goal. China stands for the repression of its own people and global power. They have already tasted the benefits of opening up their economy, now we can only hope that they will realize the benefits of empowering their people. China is playing to win over the long term, but it looks like the administration is just playing to get some immediate political goals.

-AG

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s Capture

I wrote before that many speculate that the death of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara was caused directly or indirectly by Fidel Castro. The logic is simple: a martyr is better than a living political ally because the martyr cannot challenge your power. This is not an isolated event, communists have a history of using the deaths of other communists as propaganda campaigns. With that in mind, I was wondering if maybe it would occur to Hugo Chavez that the death of Jose Manuel Zelaya, deposed socialist ex-president of Honduras, would actually be more beneficial to the whole “Socialism in the 21st Century” campaign (this is Chavez’s international socialist ‘movement’). Currently, Zelaya is just playing tag on the border with Honduras and Nicaragua, essentially at a stalemate.

Technically, claims of assassination attempts and coup attempts orchestrated in Washington are the most common unfounded claims that these socialists make. Of course, I do not generally believe these conspiracy theories for a simple reason, if the United States or the Central Intelligence Agency wanted to kill a public figure, they would do it pretty efficiently, particularly because it is US policy not to engage in political assassinations but I digress. Chavez has been crying for years that the US wants to kill him, depose him, etc. but the whole “I am a victim, wah wah wah!” routine has gotten kind of old. Chavez’s best propaganda and political tool is to do what Castro has done, take the nation’s national hero and incorporate him somehow in their ideology. The truth is that the best socialist movements need a martyr. In Nicaragua, the socialists are called Sandinistas, named after a peasant rebel called Augusto Sandino who was assassinated by a right-wing dictator, and now the have power in that country. We all know that the Che Guevara image is used on everything from T-shirts to coasters, so much for the whole anti-capitalist thing. Imagine the effect that the death of Mel Zelaya would have on socialism in Latin America… it would breathe life into a movement that may be growing stale. Furthermore, it would create a figure for the socialist movement in Honduras to promote. For Chavez, the assassination of Zelaya would give him the chance to blame the United States for even more reprehensible ‘interventionism’ and again appear like the victim in the international arena.

Honestly, even if Mel Zelaya would return to power, he would probably not have the political capital to impose any sort of socialist program. He can’t use the army either, since the military opposes Zelaya. In a sense, Zelaya would be a lame-duck and he would never be able to run for president again. If he returns and they put him on trial, his credibility and his allies’ credibility will be harmed. All in all, Chavez does not benefit from any of the moves he has in front of him, except assassination. I will not bet that Chavez will do this, but in case it does happen, the fact is that Zelaya’s political opponents will be severely hurt and the socialists will be helped. It happened with Che and his communist sponsor, it can happen again with Mel and his socialist sponsor. He should watch his back.

-AG

It was on this day, in 1953, that a group of rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Cuba and failed miserably. A number of the rebels were captured and executed immediately by the Cuban military, but not their leader, a lawyer named Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz. He escaped to the countryside and was later captured. He was put on trial but allowed to speak for four hours giving a speech that outlined his political views and that ended with the phrase “History will absolve me.”

Many people at the time thought that Castro was not a communist and, in fact, they were probably right. Castro had promised the Cuban people a democracy that redistributed wealth more justly, but now we know that he was simply lying. My grandfather was amongst those people and he, like many others, joined in the struggle against then-dictator of Cuba Fulgencio Batista only to later realize the terrible mistake they made in supporting Fidel Castro.

During the struggle, on the 13th of March 1957, a group called the Directorio Revolucionario (Revolutionary Directorate) would attack the presidential palace and also fail. Fidel Castro hated this group for not joining his 26th of July Movement. Interestingly enough, my grandfather was recruited to participate in the assault on the palace, but for whatever reason the assault went ahead without him. Could that one extra person have made the difference between victory and defeat? We will never know… but if that attack was successful, Castro would not have been able to torture the Cuban people for these 50 long years.

While many Cubans fought for the 26th of July Movement, many more Cubans died because of it. My grandfather hoped that the 26th of July would mean a renewed life for the Cuban Republic but instead it meant the death of Cuban freedom… and ultimately, in an ironic twist of fate, my grandfather died a few years ago on this very day, the 26th of July, never seeing a free Cuba. I will forever remember this day as the day when the forces of tyranny won out over the forces of freedom, the day that took away from me a true revolutionary and a true freedom fighter: my grandfather. Castro will stand out in history books as a great warning to the free people of the world: do not be fooled by great speeches or promises of utopia. And by no means will history absolve anything having to do with the atrocities that started that day: the 26th of July.

-AG

In case Americans have not realized what “change” means, this is how it works: Iran can threaten to wipe Israel off the map merely for existing. Iran can develop their nuclear capability while the civilized world calls for more negotiation. Iran can arm, train, and fund terrorists in Lebanon, Gaza, and Iraq while the administration looks the other way. Iran can imprison and kill its own citizens who are demanding democracy while the free world tries not to “meddle.” While Iran can do all this, the president of the United States says that Israel should not take military action to stop them.

Iran just reaffirmed their willingness and ability to retaliate in case there is any Israeli strike. This comes on the heels of an important development: Hillary Clinton said that the US would consider extending a “defense umbrella” over Israel and Middle East allies to counter a nuclear-armed Iran. This is problematic for two reasons, the first being the implication that the US was preparing to simply allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons (Clinton later clarified that the administration was still trying to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons) and the second is that the administration has no idea what a nuclear-armed Iran means.

The Novice-in-Chief we call president and the political animals he has working for him need to understand that Iran does not simply have the ability to fire long-range missiles, they have the ability to deploy their own version of “smart bombs": Hezbollah suicide bombers. We are not dealing with a conventional enemy, Iran has used suicide bombers as an official war tactic since their war with Iraq. To talk about a “defense umbrella” while accepting the fact of Iran’s terror ties and even tacitly supporting terrorists by providing funds to Gaza and Lebanon, shows that they do not fully appreciate the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose. A defense umbrella is a good first step, but it needs to be supplemented by some policy that also addresses the terrorist threat. The administration is currently setting the foundation for a nuclear holocaust to be carried out either by suicidal terrorists or by a suicidal Iranian regime, probably the former. When talking about Iran, we cannot simply focus on their nuclear aspirations and ignore their support of terrorism. The problem is nuclear weapons AND terrorism. We are already taking a huge risk with North Korea, there is no reason we should let Iran be the next potential nightmare.

-AG

It’s official. Mel Zelaya, the deposed president of Honduras who wanted to violate his country’s constitution in order to extend presidential terms limits, has defied the interim government and, surrounded by supporters, returned to Honduras. Previously, Zelaya supporters blocks roads and troops fired shots, two people may have been wounded. Two hours later, Zelaya retreated back to Nicaragua fearing imminent arrest. Ridiculous.

They should have just arrested Zelaya and kept him hidden in some undisclosed location… all this will do is instigate further violence in Honduras between the pro-Zelaya camp and the legitimate interim government. Zelaya, like Chavez, is just a clown looking for news coverage. I applaud the Honduran government for showing restraint in a situation that could have easily led to even more bloodshed, I only urge that they put an end to this show as soon as possible.

-AG

While America is distracted with the problems of race and the President’s push to pass and expensive and intrusive government health care system, two of the world’s biggest powers have started to cooperate militarily: Russia and China. What does this mean for America? It means that while the United States may remain the only superpower, an alliance between Anti-American states may counterbalance our influence. We already see it happening. Both China and Russia are indicating their willingness to adopt an international currency to replace the US dollar. Both China and Russia are rushing to secure energy and nuclear deals with developing nations around the world. China is brutally cracking down on the Uighur population in its western provinces while Russia recently invaded neighboring country Georgia and redrew their borders (by recognizing former-Georgian breakaway regions). Most importantly, both China and Russia are providing arms, aid, and diplomatic support for most of America’s enemies.

With the recession taking a heavy toll on the American economic juggernaut and with the new administration pumping so much money into the system that it may significantly weaken the dollar, these two nations now see that it is in their mutual interest to join forces against us. The reason is this: these nations want to retain authoritarian control at home and the United States constantly badgers everybody about democratic reforms, tying diplomacy and economic policy. These nations also have expansionist tendencies that do not interfere with each other, for China it is Taiwan and for Russia it is all of the former Soviet republics. The current administration ignored North Korea and they set off an atomic bomb, we engaged with Iran and they starting killing pro-democracy protesters, we cannot ignore nor embrace these developments in Asia. The last thing we need is an alliance between nuclear powers whose only goal is to undermine the United States. I am certain that Obama does not want to be the president who sat by idly as a Sino-Russian Axis became the de facto world superpower.

-AG

I am of mixed race. My grandmother is the color of coal. My other grandmother is brown. My grandfather was white. The races are so mixed, I have no clue what to call myself. I just say Hispanic to make it easy. The sight of a president that was mixed race did not fill me with joy, it just showed me that America is living up to its own standards. My confusion as to my own race makes me colorblind when it comes to dealing with people… I can’t be racist because I would end up hating myself somehow. Which makes questions about what is racist that much harder for me. For example, let’s say I wanted to make a point about Obama’s health care reform by comparing his health system to the practices of a witch doctor. So if I had to superimpose Obama’s face on any of these pictures below, which one would I choose?

Well, if you chose #3 then you are apparently a racist. On Sunday, St. Petersburg neurosurgeon David McKalip, who is also a founder of the anti-tax group Cut Taxes Now, forwarded an email containing this image with the words “Funny Stuff” to members of a Google listserv. Here’s the image:

Now people are saying that Dr. McKalip is a racist. In my opinion, it is pretty funny, then again I, as a “colored” person, am not so bothered by stereotypes. Neither is my “white guilt” on full blast (was that racist?).

So the question I pose is this: did the author have to choose a witch doctor that was not black or black-ish (might be aboriginal) in order to be politically correct? So, if my own face was superimposed, the author could not use the witch doctor #2, otherwise its racist? If this offends anyone I am sorry, but I never picked up the Malcolm X 3-D glasses that casts everything as a racist offense or not. Was it racist of me to talk about Malcolm X? How about we get a little less sensitive about the racism thing unless, of course, the “offense” is clearly and overtly racist. I don’t think this image was… then again, I could be wrong. Remember everyone, the Democratic primary included an African-American, a Hispanic, a woman, and a metrosexual (John Edwards who spends way too much time on his hair, not that there’s anything wrong with that, is this parentheses homophobic?). We elected the African-American by a large margin. It’s time we got a little less sensitive about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference.

-AG

I just finished watching the Obama press conference on Health Care Reform. If you have not watched it, please click above. His opening remarks were the grossest revisionist distortion of reality I have ever heard a politician express. Barack Hussein Obama either believes that the American people are a mass of morons or he perceives reality to be something it is not. Let me address this on a point by point basis:

1. Obama: “As a result of the actions we took in those first weeks, we’ve been able to pull our economy back from the brink… we passed a recovery act that has already saved jobs and created new ones.”

The jobs claim is a plain old dishonest. Unemployment has topped 9.5%, a 26-year high, as of June. So far this year, we have lost 3.5 million jobs, with almost half a million of those job losses occurring in June. Vice President Joe Biden admitted that they misread the economy. The most that the administration claims is to have created or saved is 150,000 jobs. Compared to the avalanche of unemployment, the stimulus gains are pathetic. What is not pathetic is the long-term cost on the taxpayer and the rising national debt… Obama needs to come back to Earth and realize that he has not saved anything. Which brings me to his next whopper:

2. Obama: “The fact is, even before this crisis hit, we had an economy that was creating a good deal of wealth for those folks at the very top, but not a lot of good paying jobs for the rest of America. It’s an economy that simply wasn’t ready to compete in the 21st century.”

Absurd. The United States of America has been the economic engine of the world for decades, that did not change under Bush. We had years of growth and job creation even after the Clinton recession and 911. Obama must have been living in Kenya or Indonesia all these years if he thinks that the US hasn’t been and can’t compete in the 21st century.

3. Obama: “Where we spend much more on health care than any other nation, but aren’t any healthier for it.”

This quote is factually correct… but begs the question: if our government already spends too much on health care, why propose a plan that will only increase the amount of government involvement and the amount of money we spend? Why not use the free markets? Obama is clueless.

4. Obama: “A lot of Americans may be wondering [about health care reform] ‘What’s in this for me?’”

How times have changed. I remember a president not so long ago saying “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Here the Democrats’ pandering is evident… they believe that government’s role is to be our nanny and do things for us.

5. Obama: “It [his health reform plan] will keep government out of health care decisions.”

Flat out lie. Read here. The government will determine what is acceptable, affordable, and treatable. This is why I oppose Obama. He simply, coolly, audaciously lies to our faces.

6. Obama: “Now, if you don’t have health insurance or are a small business looking to cover your employees, you’ll be able to choose a quality, affordable health plan…”

This statement is similar to this one: “if you murder someone, you will get the choice of getting any legal representative you want or the government can give you one free of charge.” Obama is implying choice where there is none. Under the current proposal, there will be an individual and employer mandate that forces everyone to buy health insurance. This will raise costs for small business owners which will be reflected in price and make entering the market more difficult for small start-ups. So when Obama talks about choice, he is really talking about government mandates. I hope you guys have your updated Doublespeak Dictionaries.

7. Obama: “It [his health care reform] will be paid for.”

False. The Congressional Budget Office explicitly stated that the plan will end up costing trillions.

8. Obama: “Our proposals would change incentives so that doctors and nurses are free to give patients the best care, just not the most expensive care”

Didn’t he just say that government would not influence health care decisions??

9. Obama: “So let me be clear: this isn’t about me.”

Another lie. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican who has been working on the health care reform bill, reported that Obama said to a fellow Democrat “You’re going to destroy my presidency.“

10. Obama: “We will do it this year.”

Doubtful. As more Americans wake up and realize that this is just another attempt to make the federal government even more powerful, increase the size of the bureaucracy in Washington, and to increase taxes on every American, there will be even more pressure to stop this proposal dead in its tracks.

We do need real reform. We do need to find a way to make health care more affordable and to stop the runaway spending of the federal government… but simply throwing money at the problem and making government even more involved in administering health care to Americans is like pouring gasoline on the fire. We need to cut costs, increase private ownership, and let the free market’s proven record of promoting efficiency and innovation have a greater role in any health care system we come up with.

After seeing this press conference, I was disgusted. I am sick of being lied to… and I think the American public is too.

-AG

Honduras stands strong. In the face of the European Union suspending nearly $100 million in aid to the country, in the face of United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatening more punishment if the criminal socialist Mel Zelaya was not installed as president, the interim government and the people of Honduras have resisted the wave of anti-democratic socialism that is sweeping Latin America. Americans are proud of you, Hondurans.

The talks taking place in San Jose, Costa Rica, between Zelaya and the Honduran government have been postponed. The main problem is the absurd demand that Zelaya be reinstated. He is a traitor who will be arrested on sight, how can he be president behind bars? As usual, the administration is on the wrong side of history. This cannot last… soon the people of the world will urge their governments to side with the Honduran people and not with the Chavez Axis of Latin America.

Already, the president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, has expressed sympathy for the interim government, probably because of his own experience with the Chavez-backed FARC guerrillas and the drug war. If you recall, Zelaya has been implicated in drug trafficking.

The MSM keeps referring to the execution of a court order to remove Zelaya for treason as a “coup”

The lesson here is clear: freedom is not something won cheaply. Iranians are learning this. Every round of sanctions on Honduras is only strengthening the people’s resolve. Let us hope that the governments of the world come to their senses before they do irreparable harm to this democracy-loving nation.

-AG

Back in the sixties, Fidel Castro sent Ernest “Che” Guevara into the jungles of Bolivia and essentially got him killed, many speculate that he did so in order to eliminate a potential political rival since “Che” was so well-known. I wonder if Obama is doing the same to Hillary Clinton. Right after recovering from a broken arm, she was sent on a trip to Asia right after the terrorist attack in Indonesia. First she visits India, where they promptly tell her to take her “cap-and-trade” and shove it you know where. During her visit, the trial on the Mumbai attacks reveals that a Pakistani terrorist masterminded the attacks, potentially increasing tensions between the two nuclear powers. She comes out with a defense agreement and progress on the nuclear pact (a leftover of the Bush administration), while risking potentially angering Pakistan, India’s historical enemy. Fortunately, Pakistan has shown signs that they will not interfere in US-India relations.

Next, she travels to Thailand, where she talks about the growing threat from Myanmar (Burma) and their military cooperation with North Korea. She recently downplayed the threat from North Korea in an interview with ABC, comparing the regime to “teenagers.” When was the last time a teenager denoted a nuclear weapon? Seriously, does the State Department think that the danger of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists is not a significant threat? Does this mean we will spend more money on aid to Thailand? Thailand itself has problems with its Muslim minority and political unrest. Complicating things further, in Indonesia, a US mining company was attacked by gunmen. It looks like the new XOXObama foreign policy is making Hillary’s job harder than it needs to be.

Indonesian luxury hotels bombed

I would feel bad for Hillary, except for the fact that she called the legal and democratic government of Honduras to threaten them with more action if they did not install their socialist buddy Mel Zelaya. This shows that not only will they let the bad guys operate with impunity in Asia, but they will install would-be anti-American dictators in Latin America. I thought the Hill was smarter than this. I truly wonder who is calling the shots in this administration, or if it is some sort of weird power-sharing deal. Regardless, Hillary is in the jungle right now, dodging terrorist attacks and North Korean missile tests… she seems to be doing alright, but our “changed” foreign policy is not making it easy on her. We’ll see if she survives or if Obama makes her another “Che,” politically of course.

-AG

I was thinking: how do I move from discussing Latin America to discussing terrorism to discussing national security to discussing how the Left wants to leave America defenseless? Talk about drugs. I asked this question because I am one of those guys who recognizes the link between the different policies of the Left in this country. From open borders to drug policy to gun control to government size, all of these policies point to a specific type of society that the Left wants to create; a society based on government control run by bureaucrats and demagogues. My last post talked about Honduran ex-president Mel Zelaya who supports a policy of drug legalization in the United States (to make the violence go away… somehow) and has been linked to drug trafficking by Honduran authorities. Obama supports Zelaya’s return to power. Not a shocker from the guy who was asked if he inhaled and replied “I inhaled frequently… that was the point.” See video in case you missed it:

Well, Zelaya is not the only Latin American socialist with drug issues. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has his own problems with drugs, overseeing a fourfold increase in the amount of cocaine shipped from his country. Obama has been reaching out to Chavez. In fact, Obama didn’t let Chavez’s rants and insults get in the way of their renewed relationship. See this video that I made a while back:

Now, when it comes national security, the drug business is one of the biggest threats to America. Which is why the US government should do more to back governments in Latin America and around the world that crack down on the drug trade. That means opposing people like Zelaya, Chavez, Correa, etc. Which brings me to some positive actions taken by our military; just today, US forces bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in southern Afghanistan in an effort to destroy a source of income for the Taliban: heroin. At the end of the day, only sustained economic activity can preserve a military campaign… which means that the drug war is indeed an integral part of the war on terror, and this drug war is currently raging in Mexico as well.

Just like the administration’s approach to the war on terror, Obama has said on record that the drug war is an “utter failure” and has called for the decriminalization of marijuana.

At the same time, in a press conference with Mexico’s president, he acknowledged that US demand for drugs is part of the problem. So if the president wants to decriminalize some drugs in the US and at the same time thinks that drug violence is influenced by high demand.. isn’t he calling for more drug violence, more funding for drug cartels, and more funding for terrorist groups?

The military is acting in our nation’s interest by recognizing the link between our enemies and drugs and taking action against the drug trade. Why does the Commander-in-Chief seem to favor a policy that increases the drug trade? It makes little sense. Why does the Obama cozy up to leaders who do not cooperate in the war on drugs, like Chavez and Zelaya? Why do the Democrats oppose free trade with Colombia, one of our closest allies in the war on drugs? Unfortunately, the answer that covers all of these questions is: more government power. More drug trafficking and drug violence in other countries means more immigrants coming to the United States. More immigrants inevitably depresses wages nationally leading to more government dependence(if the size of labor pool larger than available jobs). More people addicted to drugs means less productivity and more dependence on the government. More hostile regimes in the world, the more fearful our population, and the more we rely on government to save us. More tyrannical regimes around the world and our own government’s size and power won’t seem all that bad. Just like a corporation strives to increase its profits, government strives to increase its power… and the people are the last line of defense. Let’s stay vigilant.

-AG

I was just thinking earlier today that the Honduran crisis is dragging out for too long. The powers of the world have lined up behind the socialists and are wasting time opposing the democratic process in Honduras. In the meantime, terrorists are attacking in Indonesia, Iraq, and the Afghan Taliban have not been defeated. I have a clear solution for the Honduran crisis and it has two parts.

Roberto Micheletti, Interim President of Honduras

The first part is simple, Mel Zelaya, the ousted president who is also a traitor to his country and is suspected of drug ties, has no legal basis to return to Honduras since he has already violated the Constitution of his country, he is only riding the wave of popular support. His violation was so severe that, Constitutionally, he is regarded a traitor to his own country. The reality of it is that the president was deposed by the military… and unfortunately, to socialists and liberals “military” is a four letter word. So this is a PR issue, not a legal one. With that in mind, the interim Honduras government needs to start winning the PR war. In the early days, they tried to do just that but for some reason have been failing… despite the fact that Venezuela threatened invasion, despite the fact that Zelaya called for violence in Honduras, despite the fact that Zelaya has issued ultimatums while the Honduran government has been willing to negotiate. So… the Honduras government should step up the efforts to investigate this man. Investigate his links to the drug trade. Investigate his motives behind calling for the legalization of drugs in the US. Investigate his improper relationship with Hugo Chavez. Investigate his efforts to extend his term limits. Then publish it all. Already I have been reading on blogs and in Spanish newspapers that investigators turned up computers with the results of the referendum vote already loaded, giving Zelaya a wide victory. The problem is that this vote-rigging discovery is not public enough, maybe it’s not confirmed, but at least it should be made public. Dig up every grain of dirt on this man, there is probably a lot, especially with this arrogant, eccentric guy who wears cowboy hats and sports a ridiculous mustache that puts Burt Reynolds’ to shame. Air out his dirty laundry so that the world has a clearer picture of who this man really is.

The second course of action to take is a little less simple, but certainly doable. Elections. Call for elections as soon as possible. The more votes and democratic actions taken the more difficult it will be for the international community to deny the will of the Honduran people. I know that right now elections are not possible, because not everyone has identification, but the sooner that elections can take place, the better. Each layer of democratic process will make Zelaya’s claim of being the rightful president, more and more hollow.

These two action will make it politically unfeasible for other countries to continue supporting Zelaya since the people of the world will not have their governments side with would-be dictators. The only countries that would continue supporting Zelaya would be the Anti-American Axis in Latin America, just as it should be. Otherwise, Honduras will continue to be threatened by Chavez of Venezuela, Hillary Clinton of the United States, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and every other socialist out there.

-AG

I have tended to be overly critical of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, mainly for involving himself in bickering with other Republicans and not creating a clear message for the GOP. He also spent way too much time in front of the camera and not enough time crafting comeback strategy for the only major party that stands for fiscal discipline and free markets, at least in theory. He has redeemed himself in some respects over the last couple of months, and today on that road to redemption he blasted the president for pushing “a risky multitrillion dollar experiment with our health care.” Steele is right. This is a risk that increase the role of government, an entity that has been shown time and time again to decrease quality, reduce efficiency, and promote corruption. The cost is astronomical. The implications to our freedom in this country are frightening.

The truth is that Republicans need to put their own health care plan on the front page and create momentum behind it. Republicans during the last administration and during this one have done a poor job of communicating their message and the drubbings that the GOP has received at the polls are a direct result of this. It’s one thing to oppose bad policy and quite another to use good policy as a counter. I want to hear a point by point rebuttal of the Democrats’ plan with an explanation of how the Republican plan will be better. We need the party to fight with solutions not mere criticisms. When the president says that “we can’t afford the politics of delay and defeat” he is right, we cannot afford to delay a conservative solution to the health care problem and we cannot let the liberals defeat America’s free markets.

-AG

The stimulus package was 1,000 plus pages and it was voted on in record time. Few in Congress read it. The Cap-and-Trade bill was finalized just hours before the scheduled vote. Again, there was no time to read it all or confer with voters. Now the administration is pushing for another trillion dollar program that will end up increasing the government’s role in our lives significantly, mandating compliance with the government health care system. He insists that we have already talked this problem “to death” and we must “act now”… where are the alternatives? Where are America’s choices? Right now he offers only one solution to the problem of the spiraling cost of our health care: more government. Someone needs to step up and offer a better solution.

By Wednesday, the president wants the Senate Finance Committee to approve his program despite the fact that the Congressional Budget Office reported that this plan would only weaken an already weakened economy. This presidency has been marked by an insistence that Congress, a branch of government supposed to act as a check on the executive, simply follow Obama’s orders blindly. Recently, I heard someone ask ‘what has Obama done that is so tyrannical?’ Obama has been instructing his party to pass legislation that he cooks up behind closed doors without reading it. Democracy cannot work if the legislature acts on orders from the president with minimal to no debate. The stimulus package forced certain changes in states’ laws for them to qualify for federal dollars. That was an attack on federalism. Like throwing a lifesaver to a drowning man only after he hands over his wallet. The administration’s tactic of rushing legislation using their party dominance of Congress is an attack on the separation of powers. Nominating an “empathetic” judge instead of a judge that follows the letter of the law was another attack on the Constitution. Placing an organization like ACORN, which has a history of voter fraud, in charge of the census is an attack on democracy itself. Does America benefit from a government that is directly controlled by the executive?

Tell Congress to read and debate bills before they pass them. Ask them to achieve more bipartisanship. We can’t let our democracy be hijacked. Americans need the right to choose their own future and their own government… we lose that right every time we allow the president to say “act now” and watch helplessly as Congress bends to his will.

-AG

While still on the subject of Cuba, it is good to look at Obama’s plan with that in mind. The first thing is to come to grips with the fact that the Obama plan will substantially increase the role of government in providing health care and will eventually lead to a takeover, see this post. At the very least, if some of you do not agree that it will lead to government takeover, you must agree that a significant percent of the population will be on government run health care… that is the explicit goal of the administration’s proposal, to insure everyone and let people choose the cheaper government program over their current private insurance. So now we can take a look at a health care system that is based on the fundamental premise that “health care is a right.”

The Cuban health care system is exceedingly inefficient, requiring patients to bring their own blankets, toilet paper, and drugs. The scarcity of antibiotics and drugs in general cannot be attributed to the embargo, since the United States does not restrict the sales of medical supplies to Cuba, it can only be attributed to politics. On the other hand, when it comes to tourist hospitals, where tourists pay in cash, or hospitals that serve party officials, these drugs are in abundance. For the Cuban citizen, the hospitals themselves lack maintenance and are dirty. For the privileged, the hospitals are immaculate. For both systems, there is one positive: there is never a lack of personnel. Cuba has one of the highest number of doctors per capita in the world… but this means little when you consider that they make about $15 a month, a small amount even in Cuban terms, and many people prefer to work in the tourist industry or as taxi drivers. The low pay drives away talent and thus reduces quality of care… a characteristic of most government programs.

Infant mortality is low… because abortions are widespread. In fact, the abortion rate in Cuba is the highest in the hemisphere even by official numbers. The total control of the media and strict government censorship does not allow us to know the full story of health care in Cuba, but there have been reports that old diseases that have been eradicated in many parts of the world have resurfaced in Cuba due to the poor state of their system.

So what does this have to do with our own government run health care system? While Cuba is an extreme example of government control, it highlights the problems with government run health care. The reality is that in this country we will be forced to create a system of separate and unequal health care. Expect the government to opt out of the “public option” and the ultra-rich to keep some form of expensive insurance. The government program must be rationed and while the rationing will not be as strict as Cuba’s, we can expect a decline in the quality of care. The question is, why do we assume that the answer to every problem is more government, more spending, and more bureaucracy?

Neither party has come up with a system that takes advantage of the most effective “program” that has ever existed in the history of mankind: free markets. Free markets reward efficiency and innovation. Bureaucracy rewards corruption and inefficiency. Let’s aim for a system that employs more of the former and less of the latter.

-AG

This post is about personal reflection. With today being the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, it is fitting to talk about the achievements of man. While many consider this one to be among the greatest, as a society we have been more focused on the events down here than on how to continue developing human space travel. Humanity has yet to decide on which way to organize itself, so how can we expect humanity to decisively stretch its hand out into space? I hope that in the end, humanity will choose freedom over tyranny, and peace over war, but in this sense, America and the free world are but one small step. With tyrannical and homicidal regimes still out there seeking nuclear weapons, we still have a long way to go.

Which brings me to a certain individual in this human family. He is a person of African descent with lofty ideals and a history of serving his community. He became a community organizer in his neighborhood because the state was not representing its citizens adequately. One of his heroes is Abraham Lincoln. He would eventually start a campaign based on the idea of change from the status quo and gained the respect and admiration of many at home and even more overseas. Sound familiar? Oh yeah, and he is a strong believer in human rights, democracy, and he is pro-life. Still think it’s the same guy?

His name is Oscar Elías Biscet González, I have written about him before, and he is currently serving a prison term of 25-years for discussing human rights in his private residence. Right now there are many others in prison with him for the same reasons: for asking for freedom in Cuba. 90 miles away from the US there is a tropical gulag where its wardens, the Castro brothers, have enslaved 11 million people. Their oppressive ideology has spread to Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and now threatens to swallow Honduras. They have allied themselves with Iran, with China, with Russia, and with any and every other power that would challenge America and democracy.

The ones with the courage to oppose their brand of totalitarian communism are rounded up, imprisoned, tortured, and exiled. It is important to remember them, for it is they who fight our fight, the fight for freedom, in their own countries. If ever there was any hope of regime change in countries like this one, it cannot come at the hands of the US military (we would have to invade half the world), it must come from the popular will of the people of that country. It wouldn’t hurt to give them support… and if we can’t give support, the least we could do is offer them a prayer and, as they languish in jail on their birthday for believing in liberty, ask the wind for their freedom.

The sooner we can learn to treat each other justly on Earth, the sooner we can reach for the stars.

-AG

Just like their promotion of a collectivist state at home, the Obama administration wants to restrict human rights in Israel, at least for the Jewish population. The administration has demanded that Israel stop planning a Jewish Housing project because it will be situated in a predominantly Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood. Israel has refused to comply with the administration’s demand. This marks the second time in a month or so that a democratic nation, presumably allied to the United States, has refused to bend to the will of the Obama administration (see Honduras).

The fact that the administration would try to restrict the rights of Jewish citizens of Israel to carry out legal construction in their capital city because of race reminds me of how they play the race and ethnic card here in the US (see Sotomayor). While Arab-Jewish relations can certainly improve, I would imagine that integrating the populations would actually do some good. Imagine that, Democrats advocating racial and ethnic segregation in Israel.

Will the administration also demand that Israel cease being an independent nation because it is situated in the “Arab neighborhood” called the Middle East? That should have been the president’s campaign slogan: “Exodus We Can Believe In.“

-AG

Throughout the history of the United States, we have faced many challenges and yet have remained faithful to our founding precepts: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. America’s struggle has been singular: the defense of freedom. Today is no different; the only thing that has changed is the amount of information at our fingertips. With the advent of new tools of mass communication, citizens have become more informed than ever before and the internet has only accelerated that process significantly. Unfortunately, all this information has led to a state that is almost as bad as censorship: excessive noise. This noise has detracted from the American narrative, placing theories as absurd as Marxism on an equal moral level as Capitalism, turning patriotic Americans into confused patriotic Americans. The way I see it, as do many people that I have come to know, America is currently in the midst of a struggle between two opposing ideologies: individual freedom versus authoritarian collectivism.

Every enemy we face today embodies an interpretation of collectivism, from a divine mandate denying individual rights represented by the Islamo-fascists to a “greater good” mandate justifying the concentration of power in the hands of a few represented by the socialists and communists. The West in general has moved away from these concepts and towards personal freedom. Maybe it emerges from our Judeo-Christian tradition that emphasizes the role of free choice in attaining salvation, especially since the collectivists tend to follow a more absolutist code or an amoral atheist doctrine.

In America, we are not immune to this conflict of ideologies. There are collectivist tendencies on both sides, but the Left is by far the most vocal in its promotion of the group to the detriment of the member. So while some people look at the world and see just isolated events, I see a clear philosophical tether linking an atomic test in North Korea with a Cap-and-Trade proposal here to the persecution of political opponents in Venezuela. While not a conspiracy per se, these actions and actors move in the same direction: toward authoritarian collectivism. This is why the Anti-American Axis in the world is composed of states and groups with different justifications for their authoritarianism, they agree in the one area that matters (for now): fighting against freedom.

Islamic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ruler of Iran, with Atheist Fidel Castro, dictator of Cuba

So, despite all the noise in our society, one situation clearly exists in America: the battle between individual freedom and collectivism. This is why I came up with the name NeoRepublica, because America needs a renewal of its republican spirit, a renewed understanding that representative democracy is the best defense against authoritarianism. Those who want to weaken our federal republic advocate a socialist or collectivist state run by a small elite who will not respect individual rights. America was founded on the rejection of that notion… and America can only survive if it continues defending the freedom that has made us great.

-AG

They just do not get it. To restore the criminal traitor Mel Zelaya to the presidency of Honduras is unacceptable. Yet that is exactly what the negotiators in Cost Rica are trying to do. Honduras has stood up to socialism and to dictatorship, they should not be forced to accept it simply because the international community wills it. The socialists are pushing hard to make Zelaya president of Honduras… to continue the Latin American Domino Effect that started 50 years ago in Cuba.

Zelaya simply a Chavez robot

The US has a responsibility to be on the side of democracy and not support any compromise that places Zelaya in power. Funny how the pro-Zelaya camp resorts to calling the new interim president “Gorileti” (as in “gorilla") and the pro-Honduras camp just calls Zelaya what he is: socialist. I guess socialists can only resort to name-calling since the spirit of freedom and the will of the people are not on their side.

-AG

Unemployment. Inflation. Terrorism. Sound familiar? Apparently, Obama never learned these lessons from Carter, but these things can sink a presidency, no matter how historically inspiring, faster than you can say “sustained recession” or “collapsing US dollar” or “resurgent Al Qaeda.” Obama’s numbers have fallen below 60% and will continue to drop as America slowly wakes up from the O-hypnosis that hit us last year. One thing is certain though, no one has put the pieces together: Al Qaeda is regaining strength.

Al-Shabaab militant, one of the many Al Qaeda affiliates

They have been launching attacks non-stop in Iraq since they learned that Obama was serious about withdrawal. Just today they killed members of a Sunni militia that helped us turn the tide in Iraq. Then you have the bombings in Indonesia that are believed to have been caused by a splinter group of Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda. Once Al Qaeda strengthens, it will re-assume control over these splinter groups and reconstitute its global network. Right now, we still have the opportunity to destroy Al Qaeda, or at least keep them on the defensive… but the truth is that we will have to leave Afghanistan eventually and Pakistan will eventually ease its crackdown on the Taliban. If we leave before Al Qaeda and its benefactors are defeated decisively, we can bet that the threat against our nation will be more severe than ever in our history… especially in the age of nuclear rogue nations and with an Anti-American Axis that stretches from North Korea to Venezuela. As soon as the president stops playing politics and starts focusing on the long and short-term defense of the our country his numbers will improve… in other words, as soon as the president starts acting presidential.

-AG

Given that the news cycle is a bit slow, with excessive attention being given to the White House health care reform, something that I simply am not in the mood to get stressed out over, I was reading this article on an interesting UK-based blog “POLITICS | by scott” that I found (or rather, that found me). Though I disagree somewhat, I enjoy the way that the author logically approaches the issue. Here’s what troubled me:

He writes: “the real driver of anti-Americanism is dissatisfaction with American policy, not any deeper ideological or philosophical antipathy. On the extremes, of course, there is very real ideological hostility, but the great mass of people across the world retain a deep sense of affection and admiration both for the American system of government, and for its broader ideals.”

The portion I made bold is where I disagree… it may have to do with geo-historic differences between Mr. Scott Green, living in the UK, and myself, an American of Cuban descent living in Miami, FL. Then again, I don’t really know the man, so maybe not.

The real driver of anti-Americanism is the fact that the modern world is ideology, in the sense of the word “driver.” The second driver is the fact that we are the last remaining superpower, the Goliath to their David if you will. Of course I must qualify what I mean by anti-Americanism. The anti-American sentiment of the developed world and of “democratic” nations is one that emerges from our immediate policies, not from the fact that we are who we are, so therefore cannot be accurately referred to as anti-Americanism. Even friends have disagreements, see France or Germany during Bush. These nations simply oppose policies without opposing America itself, just like conservatives in this country may have renamed french fries to “freedom fries” but would be the first ones in line to defend France if it were attacked by Al Qaeda or invaded by Russia. I doubt the people or government of France would celebrate a second 911 simply because they hated Bush.

Which brings me to the real anti-Americanism in the world. From Russia to Saudi Arabia to Venezuela, anti-Americanism spreads for its own reasons, yet all are ideological. They use events in history to justify their interpretation of the world and even in a post-Bush era will not change the tone nor intensity of their rhetorical attacks. They control the media to convince their populations that we must be feared and/or hated. The error they make is perceiving US foreign policy to be a relentless imperial mission and not as one that changes as civilian leadership and ideas change. These regimes are threatened by the mere existence of a system that promotes the idea that the people, not individual leaders or demagogues, should have the right to choose their destinies. This runs contrary to communism. This runs contrary to religious fundamentalism. This runs contrary to authoritarianism in general.

The best example from both study and experience is Cuba under Castro. The Castro revolution benefited directly from US pressure (embargo and diplomatic isolation) on then-dictator Fulgencio Batista. Much aid for the revolution came from the US based exiles. The US was one of the first countries to formally recognize Fidel Castro’s government, which achieved power through acts of terror and violence, bombing theaters and killing civilians. We basically installed Castro! Yet for ideological reasons, at first it was a nationalistic populism and later it evolved into full-fledged communism, that Castro turned on the United States, seizing US assets. Subsequently, Cuba funded and trained guerrilla armies that would destabilize Latin America for decades simply to fulfill the international communist ambitions of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Ernesto Che Guevara. To make the hatred of the United States permanent, total control of the media produced non-stop propaganda blaming America for everything that went wrong in Cuba, some accusations true and some not, yet all weaving the story that the “evil” American “empire” was plotting an invasion of Cuba.

Irony

This message has spread to all of Latin America, magnified in countries where state control of media is progressing, like Venezuela and Bolivia. Nothing that the Obama administration has done or will do can change the fact that anti-Americanism will play a central role in the politics of these demagogues. Obama extended a hand to Chavez and backed his ally Mel Zelaya, yet Chavez still accused Washington of orchestrating the Honduran coup. Obama softened the US embargo on Cuba and did not protests when the Organization of American States lifted their suspension of the communist controlled island, yet the Castro brothers have continued with their 50 year-old message of hating America.

Venezuelan mural

For these regimes to survive, they must reject the philosophy of liberal democracy and particularly the principal defender of this notion: the United States. It also works the other way around, freedom loving people cannot accept the existence of a totalitarian regime anywhere in the world. Americans cannot stand idly by while China or North Korea brutally crushes internal dissent, at least not indefinitely.

My disagreement with Mr. Green is simply labeling dissatisfaction with US policy as “anti-Americanism.” That is overly broad. Anti-Americanism is a reality in the world and will not be solved by any new administration or new policy. The only policy that the Anti-American Axis wants is complete withdrawal of the US from the world… so that they can have the space they need to fulfill their plans. For Venezuela, it is the Bolivarian Revolution to sweep Latin America (Simon Bolivar’s old Latin American superstate). For Russia is to reconstitute itself as a global power. For Al Qaeda, it is the re-establishment of the caliphate across Asia and Africa. America’s mission is much less aggressive: a more free and more just world for all. And this point is where I agree with Mr. Green: simply relying on hard power, on military might will never achieve this goal… smart power is needed. Democracy cannot be forced upon people, and should not. This is why conservatives flocked to Bush when he pledged “no nation building.” This is why conservatives winced when we were stuck doing just that in Iraq. America has many weapons in its arsenal: economic, diplomatic, military, etc. We must use them all. Bush’s initial reliance on the military was counterproductive… but to his credit, he was starting to correct his mistakes in his second term.

What we have now is not smart power… it is a near-complete about-face on foreign policy that assumes that everything done by Bush is wrong. This assumption is as foolish as the Bush administration’s assumption that stabilizing Iraq would be a cakewalk. We are not moving towards smart power as we should, we are moving towards soft power. From domestic spending that is weakening the dollar to a foreign policy that seems too timid, our enemies are taking note and will not waste this opportunity to make this “unipolar moment” in history a distant memory. So let us earnestly hope that the new administration will be shouted down, sniped at and second-guessed until they finally achieve that balance that America’s foreign policy needs.

While I may be challenging Mr. Green’s interpretation of anti-Americanism and the new administration, he should look on the bright side… I just gave him some free promo.

-AG

While the administration’s timid terror policies are tested abroad and at home, the leftists in this hemisphere are still up to no good. This time they have been caught in the act. Colombia recovered electronic evidence of ties between the Ecuadorian government, led by leftist president Rafael Correa, and FARC, the communist guerrilla army that has been waging war on Colombia for decades. A video that was released by the Colombian government shows that FARC gave money to the Correa 2006 election campaign. This video has been shown to be authentic.

For years, communist guerrillas have operated out of Ecuador and Venezuela with impunity due to the political inclinations of their presidents. So why does the administration want to install another leftist to power in Honduras? Are they not aware that the deposed leftist ex-president Mel Zelaya of Honduras was involved in drug trafficking? Did they not know that Zelaya publicly called for the US to legalize drugs? As usual, the administration is supporting a policy of extending a hand to the anti-American leaders in Latin America: Chavez, Castro, Zelaya, etc.

Latin Leftists: Evo Morales, Mel Zelaya, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Rafael Ortega

Many other blogs simply report and give opinions… I’ll go one step further and give you a better policy: economically and politically isolate governments that hurt US interests, support drug trafficking, and destabilize the region. With Chavez, reduce dependence on Venezuelan oil, cut economic ties further, ignore his meaningless antics, and mount international pressure to reduce his authoritarian, anti-democratic practices. With Correa, the same. With Bolivia’s Evo Morales, the same. With Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, the same. With Zelaya, keep him out of power in Honduras. With Castro, press for democratic reforms, make political prisoners famous, and continue a strict embargo on the government. In general, make these socialists famous for their crimes and for their damage to their own countries and people. On the flip side, support governments that fight socialism, promote stability, and fight the drug cartels. We should assist them with joint operations, cooperating on some intel, some international aid, and preferential trade relations. I could go on, but you get the idea. It is a simple philosophy: positive reinforcement for international cooperation and negative reinforcement for destabilizing and anti-democratic behavior. If only the administration had such clear thinking. They need a logic czar.

-AG

Ironically, just as 911 victims’ families got to look at one of America’s weapons against terrorists (Gitmo), there was a terrorist strike on two hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia killing at least six people and wounding more than fifty, eight of those wounded were Americans. As of now, authorities are not sure who carried out the attack and no one has claimed responsibility, but suspicion has fallen on Jemaah Islamiyah, an Al Qaeda linked terrorist group responsible for several high profile bombings in Indonesia over the years.

September 9, 2004 bombing of Australisn Embassy by Jemaah Islamiyah funded by Al Qaeda

Apparently, the CIA was blindsided by the attack even though just yesterday Australian officials warned that the group may still have the ability to carry out attacks. What this shows us is that we need better intel, more resolve, and a political establishment with the guts to fight these terrorists. Instead we get talk of giving them more rights, relocating detainees, and bringing suspected terrorists into the continental United States. We cannot start showing weakness to the terrorists. We need to let them know that our retaliation will be massive. We need to make their decision-making body understand that launching even one more attack means a wholesale retaliation on their cells everywhere. The administration has not made this clear and instead has given them the impression that we are wavering in our commitment to fighting terror. What we need to do is launch another drone attack in Pakistan, invade another Taliban-infested province of Afghanistan, pressure our allies to shut down known terror cells, and restart the trials of the terrorists we have in custody. That might make them more careful in weighing the potential benefits of terrorizing any country… anywhere. So far, the president has simply condemned the attacks… let’s hope he can also walk the walk.

-AG

Here’s the scenario: we are currently engaged in a war on terror as a response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Some persons suspected of having participating in that crime and in other terrorist activities against the United States have been captured. The question is: where do we put these suspected terrorists? Do we bring them to the United States, where we risk escape and they may have access to the general prison population? Do we send them to other countries where they may also escape or be given amnesty by the government? Or do we put them in a relatively remote area outside the continental United States yet still under federal control? Technically speaking, that last option makes the most sense and risks the least.

The only complicated tasks are to make sure that they have the minimal protections under the law that any captured prisoner of war would have, being that the war on terror is currently raging on. Some details remain, such as if we can detain them indefinitely (as long as the war on terror continues) and how we can interrogate them, but in general it only makes sense to hold them in Guantanamo Bay, a US territory without major civilian centers and isolated from the United States. Escape to Cuba is almost impossible, given the major military presence on the border and in the territory in general (unless you’re Harold or Kumar).

What I do not understand is why the administration is so determined to close down this very convenient detention center in Guantanamo Bay. They talk about interrogation methods, but we have already stopped the controversial ones (from my understanding). They talk about more legal rights, but I do not see why they can’t have more legal rights in Guantanamo. They say that some are wrongly imprisoned, but what about the ones that are not wrongly imprisoned. We can release the innocent to whichever country accepts them, but to close down a perfectly situated detention center that can hold the suspected terrorists makes no sense. Just yesterday, families of 911 victims visited Gitmo and expressed their wish that the facility remain open. Why isn’t the administration listening? Why insist that we relocate them to the United States mainland? Why stop the trials altogether, can’t they simply revise the rules and get going?

Right now, it seems that the push to close Guantanamo has no logical basis. Seriously, the administration can turn it into a Disneyland if it wants… but instead they insist on letting them go or relocating them. The only people that benefit from relocation or release are the actual terrorists and the only effect that has is to increase the risk of terrorism around the world. The liberal administration is more interested in its power than the wishes of the people most directly affected by this tragedy. Why won’t Obama satisfy the wishes of the families of the victims of the most horrific terrorist attack on America in history? Who’s wishes is he satisfying?

-AG

Sometimes I use the term “liberal” without explaining it sufficiently. I apologize for that. Let me clarify what I mean by liberal. Technically, these are two types of liberals, I call them: classic liberals and leftist liberals. Classic liberals believe in individual rights, free markets, representative democracy, and limited government… in other words, the opposite of what Democrats represent in this country. What happened with liberalism is that it was perverted by a misunderstanding of what individual rights meant, a redefinition of rights that is leftist in nature. The leftist liberals believe that a central government should have more power, that rights and privileges must be given to and/or taken from racial or social groups, and that the inequalities caused by free market competition are undemocratic. This is what the Democrats in this country represent. This is what I refer to when I say the word liberal. Most liberals actually believe in the classical liberal philosophy but have stuck to the party that, dishonestly, still calls itself liberal. A more fitting description would be leftist.

John Locke, considered father of liberal philosophy, inspired the Declaration of Independence phrase “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness”

So the question I pose to all liberals is: are you a classic liberal or a leftist liberal? If you are the former, I suggest you vote independent or conservative, because the Democrats have hijacked the classical philosophy of liberalism and twisted it beyond recognition.

-AG

Many in the West consider Iran to be a religiously conservative nation, the antithesis of liberal. This belief is mistaken. The error in this widespread belief exists because of a misunderstanding of how the Left and Religious Extremism actually complement each other. In the West, the Right is most commonly associated with religion because of our emphasis on the fact that our Creator endowed human beings the free will to choose between right and wrong and our tolerance of different faiths. Historically, religion has leaned more towards a more communal organization of human beings and so it is with Iran.

Let us begin with the Islamic revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini, which sought to depose the US-backed Shah of Iran and impose a system of government with a religious, moral authority as the absolute power. In the United States, when it comes to the opposing ideologies, conservatism preaches the preservation of federalism, the division of powers, and states’ rights. Liberalism, on the other hand, posits that that central government has the right and obligation to decide uniform law for the entire nation, particularly when it comes to moral (amoral) matters. Liberals want power concentrated in the federal government and use spending, taxes, and federal law to impose their will on all states in the union. This is why the abortion debate rages on, because it applies an interpretation of privacy and what constitutes life that may not be shared by all states, so conservatives oppose it and liberals defend it. So what is the difference between Iran’s liberals and America’s liberals? The former are Islamic, interpreting divine law, and the latter are secular and amoral, adhering to a leftist ideology that denies religion and denies individual rights.

The biggest weakness of the Left has been the fact that the most notable socialists/communists have been atheists and regarded religion as the opiate of the masses. What they fail to recognize is that a society needs to be heavily drugged for them to willingly accept a socialist society, at least a long term one. Neo-socialism does not make this mistake. Castro has allowed some religious freedom. Chavez embraces his faith. Others are quickly following suit. The mainstream left in our country does not readily deny religion, it simply wants to remove it from the state completely. In the end though, absolute state power and faith in a higher power do not converge well, at least not in the modern day, due to the fact that the state must resort to force, incarceration, torture, and murder to retain its rule, while religion does not allow such immorality. This explains part of what is happening in Iran, where the state is acting un-Islamic by squashing protesters who march with Quran in hand demanding the democracy that the revolution promised. To return to the status quo in Iran will be difficult now that dictatorship is standing naked before the people, the very thing that their revolution was supposed to end. There are signs that some of the Iranian leadership may be sensitive to the will of the people, but the problem is the fact that the clerics hold absolute power.

Just like liberals oppose individual rights here at home, liberals crack down on them around the world. So is it any wonder that the liberal administration is so hesitant to oppose the liberal rulers of Iran?

-AG

One would think that the first biracial, African-American President of the United States would be interested in the civil rights of his citizens, but from the looks of it, he seems not to care about them all that much. He is being received by the NAACP on their 100th anniversary. To start, the gay community has been up in arms over the fact that president Obama is not fulfilling the promises and expectations of candidate Obama. Of course not, he’s a politician. Big surprise.

Second of all, the African-American community has criticized him for being condescending and talking down to African-Americans. Obama seems to put more emphasis on personal responsibility with the African-American community while campaigning on a platform of spreading the wealth and increased collective action. Apparently, he envisions an America that is more collective but wants to limit any past collective injustices perpetrated by one group against another. To be more direct, he has moved beyond wanting a state of divided groups vying for justice and rights to a more homogeneous collective society with heavy state involvement. [For the record, I support neither since in my belief it is individual rights that matter the most and the equality of individuals is superior to the equality of racial, ethnic, religious, or whichever social groups.]

Jackson expressed that Obama was talking down to black people

It is here where leftism and liberalism diverge… essentially, creating a society of equal rights between all people (and/or groups) does not mesh very well with creating a society of wealth redistribution and state control. The explanation for this is simple: Obama is not a product of the Civil Rights Movement in America, he is a product of a left-leaning liberal culture. The former emphasizes equal rights while the latter emphasizes equal outcomes. This is why he will increase taxes that affect rich (top brackets), middle class (capital gains, energy), and poor (tobacco, energy), not because he tries to balance the scales of social justice in one direction or another, but because he believes that the federal government should be able to dictate behavior. He will dictate to the African-American community that they need to be more responsible… of course, every race can benefit from being more responsible, so it is easy to say this without regard to the present state of race relations [which I think have improved significantly]. He will dictate to the rich that they must pay more money, not to poor people necessarily, but to the government programs that have become bloated bureaucracies. He will dictate that the auto industry needs to restructure as mandated by the state, giving majority stake to the unions while making significant concessions that end up punishing workers. He will dictate to the energy industry that they need to raise their prices, which will be passed on to the consumer, without addressing the biggest present and future polluter on Earth: China.

It is Obama’s idealism about the role of his government that makes him ignore the gritty realism of the Civil Rights Movement. When analyzed on a case by case basis, the president’s agenda benefits the expansion of the state more than any particular group… and when the state is exceedingly powerful, everyone’s rights suffer. So whenever I see Obama being hailed as a hero of civil rights in this country, I agree only insofar as he is a symbol of reaching a new level of “equality.” In practice, as president he does more to increase the power of the state to the detriment of individual rights. So as the veterans of the Civil Rights Movement applaud their symbolic victory, they should consider what he represents for the future of civil rights in this country… because Obama does not care about civil rights, he only cares for collective rights.

-AG

Identity politics. It is present in the rulings coming from the left-skewed mind of Sonia Sotomayor. It is present in the leftist tactic of classifying everyone by their social group and pandering to each separately. The problem with this approach is that once in power, the Democrats simply cannot please everyone. This is something that President Obama has learned the hard way.

I was reading this article called “Gay is not the new black” where the author makes clear that the gay community needs to stop criticizing Obama and that the African-American community’s plights have been worse than the gay community’s. Pretty silly if you ask me, given that they are supposedly on the same side, but it is a testament to what the left has done in this country. Since the majority of gay people are white in this country, it makes that community somewhat incompatible with the African-American community. Which leads me to some facts: Obama has not spent political capital on gays. That’s a fact. Gay people have all the right in the world to criticize him, as long as it’s civil. My second point is that the plights of gay people throughout history has not been pretty. There have historically never existed any safe havens for gay people, while there is an entire continent where the majority is black. To trivialize their suffering is a slap in the face to the spirit of the civil rights movement.

The lesson here is simple: identity politics cannot exist in a free and equal society. The Democrats’ vision of each racial group, ethnic group, group of similar sexual preference having a special consideration in the eyes of the government only further divides our society. We need to respect everyone’s rights regardless of “classification” otherwise one group’s gain due to race will be another group’s loss due to race. Conservatives would do well by using the inevitable rifts in the Democratic Party, rifts caused when a Gay candidate or Black candidate or Latino candidate serve their own constituencies or neglect a particular constituency. The only way that conservatives can win the votes of people interested in full participation in the American Dream is to make clear the message of conservatism. Conservatives already believe in individual freedom and human rights, we just need to cast off the image of intolerance that the mainstream media and the left has helped create. Individuals in these communities also need to realize that being seen as a category or a label only further divides us.

-AG

Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf said that the Democrats’ plan for reforming health care would drive this nation deeper into debt and substantially increase the government’s role in health care. More debt, more government. That’s all that the Democrats in Congress and the White House have to offer.

This is not a political attack. Simply look at what the Democrats have done now that they are in control of government. The Democrats have passed a largely ineffective stimulus package, a budget that has broken all historical records, increased taxes as much as politically possible, tucked an international bailout in an emergency military budget, pushed a cap-and-trade plan that will drive up energy costs and leave people without a job, and now they are trying to pass a health care plan that involves mandating citizens to comply with the government program and will lead to a weakening of the private sector. I remember the good old days when Democrats complained that Republicans spent too much money… and then as soon as they assumed power, the Democrats spent more money in the first few months than any government in history. America needs real fiscal discipline or our free spending ways will be the end of us. You would think that the recession would have taught us that.

-AG

Apparently, the Taliban captured a US soldier that wandered off base and was drunk. Now they are threatening to kill him if we do not end our military operations in two areas. What this shows is two things: try to be around fellow soldiers if you happen to get intoxicated in Afghanistan or some anti-American region and that the Taliban are hurting from our offensive operations.

The administration must spare no effort to save our soldier. We must also not surrender in the face of threats from the Taliban. We cannot yield to terror. We cannot leave a man behind. We have at our disposal satellites, drones, planes, and human resources. Let’s use them all to save this man. The image that the administration is timid and cannot stomach terror tactics has only emboldened the Taliban. Seeing the left in this country advocate a policy of reckless surrender because of, what is perceived to be, the fear of more terrorist attacks makes terrorist attacks much more valuable. Here is our opportunity to project strength and let the world know that we do not surrender to terrorist demands. The fate of countless other Americans is also at risk.

-AG

While the left in this country lures Hispanics into the socialist trap, that very same plot failed miserably in Honduras. It was there where a nation chose to defend their constitution and oppose the expansion of the power of their president. Since then, the leftists in this country have made it difficult for the Honduran people by cutting off aid, threatening international isolation, and failing to recognize the new interim government. The would-be dictator: the mustachioed Mel Zelaya. The new interim president: Roberto Micheletti. What is at stake? The future of encroaching Socialism in this hemisphere. We already know where the US administration stands.

In a sign that the socialist criminal Zelaya was not about to go down without a fight, literally, he urged Honduran citizens to take up arms against the government. This in turn caused the government to impose a curfew. Here are some more photos of Zelaya supporters:

Pro-Zelaya protesters in San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Of course, Obama, Chavez, and the Organization of American States demand the full restitution of the socialist Zelaya. While the new interim government is not willing to allow a person who has committed treason to be reinstated as president, in a show of good will, president Micheletti has offered to resign if Zelaya ends his claims to the presidency and, logically, his instigation of violence. It’s interesting to note that Zelaya, backed by Obama, Chavez, and Castro, is issuing ultimatums while Micheletti is willing to reach some compromise. Why does our government take sides with the unreasonable side, the side that demands that a criminal, a socialist, and a traitor be made president?

-AG

While many in this country tune in to the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, she brings to mind the relationship between liberalism and the Hispanic population in this country. I previously wrote about the two political philosophies and how neither of them benefited the Hispanic community completely. In my view, leftist liberalism does more to pander to Hispanics and does more long-term harm by promoting government dependence (Dems push this idea on all Americans) while conservatism too often alienates Hispanics by appealing to xenophobia. This is a general observation and by no means implies that all Democrats simply pander or that all Republicans are xenophobic, simply drawing attention to the image projected by both camps generally. This image obscures the severity of the damage caused by the Democratic Party to the Hispanic community and, more broadly, to the people of the Western hemisphere.

Let’s take the left’s position in totality. Too often, when we take into account one position or another position in isolation, we miss how a particular platform creates an actual social system and are not merely moral beliefs. Since immigration is a major topic, let us begin by considering the conditions in Latin American countries. First of all, immigration from Latin America is a complex issue but primarily can be categorized in two ways, sometimes overlapping: violence and poverty. The displacement of populations in this hemisphere has been brought about by different circumstances, in Colombia up to 3 million people have been displaced by a civil war started by communist guerrillas, in Cuba more than 2 million displaced by Castro’s communist revolution, 25% of El Salvador’s population left during the struggle between Castro-Soviet-backed communists and the government, and the list goes on. Right here in Miami, the Venezuelan community has doubled in size due to Chavez’s “socialist revolution” in their home country. The reality is that the rise of communism in Latin America and their attempts to take power by force have caused millions to leave their home countries, the majority heading right here. Of course, with instability comes a lack of investment and a rise in poverty. Unfortunately for people in the Western hemisphere, it is the Democratic Party of the United States that openly supports leftist regimes and movements. Carter is the obvious example, but recent actions taken by Obama in supporting the leftist wannabe dictator Zelaya, strengthening of diplomatic ties with Chavez in Venezuela, unilateral partial softening of the trade embargo on communist Cuba, Bill Clinton’s backing of leftist ex-president of Haiti Jean-Bertrand Aristide, etc. Historically, the Democratic Party has had a love-fest with anything remotely communist in the region (or the world, for that matter).

Violence in Latin America is also caused by drug cartels and paramilitary groups that benefit from the drug trade and the fact is that Democrats have long supported policies y that weakens the war on drugs. This is another way that the left, knowingly or unknowingly, foments violence leading to further immigration. “Most moderate and liberal Democrats have favored an approach that emphasizes prevention and treatment over interdiction and enforcement” according to this article. On the other hand, more centrist and right politicians favor a policy that tries to reduce the supply of drugs by favoring governments that fight the cartels and try to curtail the demand through law enforcement. Changes need to be made, but not in the direction of giving drug lords more freedom.

The second part of the Democratic Hispanic vote plot is their approach to the US border. The first mistake that the mainstream media and many politicians make is that they regard the issue of our borders to be an immigration issue. This is not the case. Border security is a national security issue, plain and simply. A sovereign state has the right to defend its borders against any unauthorized intrusion. Rational people in this country are more worried about violent thugs, terrorists, and drug gangs that cross the border illegally than an immigrant trying to get a job in this country. Both are concerns, but the former is a larger one. Therefore, Republicans and Democrats need to stop talking about the border as if it was an immigration issue. It is a national security issue. Unfortunately, the Democrats have undermined efforts to beef up border security. As of late, they have taken a pro-border security stand but only in rhetoric. The Democrats’ historical opposition to border security actually benefits them politically because a porous border makes it more likely that Latin American immigrants will come into this country, inflating a voter base that is firmly in their hands.

Leftist anti-sovereignty slogans have dominated the conversation

Which brings me to my third and final point, the Democrats support policies that grant more privileges to illegal immigrants. From given illegal immigrants drivers licenses to stopping the enforcement of immigration law, the Democrats want to create conditions where illegal immigrants can partake in the benefits of American society without being citizens of America society.

The rights and privileges that the left strives to give illegal immigrants makes the existence of cultural enclaves possible and only makes America that much more attractive to potential illegal immigrants. If you do not believe me, here is a summary of the Democratic Party’s platform. Living in Miami and being part of two cultures, one American and Cuban, gives me a unique perspective on what it means to incentivize the establishment of cultural enclaves. For one, those immigrants who do not wish to integrate into the system can simply choose to not learn English and work illegally while enjoying the benefits of a secure society, something that is lacking in many parts of Latin America. This creates a society that is “separate but equal” and makes not only America less cohesive but also is a burden on the illegal immigrants who must live in the shadows at all times.

“No human being is illegal” but actions that violate the law ARE

So there we have it. Collectively, the Democrats’ policies of helping Latin American communists and drug cartels, advocating for porous borders and minimal law enforcement, and then helping establish cultural enclaves where parallel, “separate but equal” sub-societies can emerge all serve to increase a reliably Democratic voter base. The problem is that most Hispanics view the Democrats as this benevolent faction looking out for their “rights” instead of seeing the truth that Democrats are drawing Hispanics into the trap of individual stagnation… from the violent streets of Latin America to the stagnant cultural enclaves of the United States, never truly becoming part of the American Dream. The left has done a great job at hiding the ugly truth and the right has done a terrible job of offering a viable alternative. The left’s “success” with Hispanics is what they try to apply to all other cultural or racial groups: keep Americans divided by highlighting the collective ethnic identity of a person, not individual identity of a person. According to the left, there are Black rights, Gay rights, Hispanic rights, Asian rights while in reality there should be only one set of rights for all: Human Rights. I urge all people, regardless of their race of ethnicity, to resist the Democratic Party’s efforts at dividing America.

-AG

Day in and day out, I hear the administration and their lackeys give interviews and write columns saying that fixing the economy is impossible without health care reform. That’s the type of talk the gets me mad. Here is an article by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services. I understand the very loose logic they are using here, that increasing health care costs are an added burden on the economy, but to fix the economy, people need jobs, credit needs to start flowing, and small businesses need a boost. We did not get in a recession because of a health care crisis, but because of a housing crisis. Obama and company have turned their art of PR into something much more dangerous: flat out lying to the American people.

To fix the economy, we need less regulation by government on small business, less quasi-government-run firms like Fannie Mae, more oversight for government-run firms, fairer taxes, and policies that make America more competitive globally. Instead we get platitudes. Instead we get lies like “without health care reform the economy will not make it.” Apparently they had not lived a single day in America prior to the recession, where our lack of health care reform never stopped our collective prosperity. I agree that health care costs are a big problem, but that is because the government has taken it upon themselves to tax every American and create a bloated government health care subsidy system that will be unfeasible in the future. On the flip side, the free market has done what it does best, improve quality and settle on an equilibrium price that covers most people (only about 46 million uninsured, out of a population of 300 million). This means that the solution to excessive, bloated, inefficient government programs should be one that backs away from a public system solution. Instead, the Leftist-in-Chief is using this economic crisis, exacerbated by a stimulus package that simply deepened US debt without providing the jobs bonanza that they promised, to scare people into passing another government-run health care system. The definition of insanity has been on display since 1/20. A recession caused by excessive borrowing, they try to solve by borrowing even more on the federal level. An unworkable government-run health care system, they try to solve by creating yet another government program.

The solution to health care is to unleash the benefits of a free market approach while using government in a very limited fashion to make sure everyone plays fair and that no one is left behind. Mandates, more spending, and more taxing are exactly the wrong way to do things. Dishonestly lumping together the recession with health care reform is the only way the Democrats can scare Americans into accepting this type of plan.

-AG

In the land of the free, House Democrats unveiled a health care plan that will penalize the individual for not participating in the government health care plan for the collective. This is on top of the necessary tax increases that will accompany this $1 trillion plan (Democrats say that actually the bill is half that, but half of a trillion is huge regardless). Of course, Democrats made sure not to leave out the mandatory participation of small businesses that will have to contribute at least 8% of their payroll on behalf of their employees, yet another burden on the small businesses of America. The most significant issue is, of course, the government-run health insurance option which will ultimately destroy small health insurers and lead us straight to a universal government-controlled ad administered health care system.

Is this the best we can do? Tax more, spend more, and punish individuals for not complying with the state? We are losing our way. We, as a society, have decided to throw our hands up in the air and say “we need the government to take care of our every need.” The worst part about it is that not everyone knows that this push for the “public option” is really an attempt by government to take over health insurance completely. Already they have talked about mandated compliance, even before they fully control the system. A government is only justified in existing insofar as it has a public duty, so in order to increase the “purpose” of government Democrats are regulating even more personal areas of a one’s life and creating a bureaucratic framework by which to control those parts of one’s life as a means to expand their government, their power.

Of course, the president is asking that Congress put the bill on his desk by the end of the year, because if his artificially high popularity wanes, then the average American will come to realize that the government has become too powerful and must be reined in. At that point we can be sure that no such plan would pass and instead we would look for ways to let the abundant competitive and creative spirit of America help make health care affordable, not the bureaucrats and politicians who thirst for power. To awaken the still unstirred people of this country to the truth would quickly put an end to all efforts to make government bigger and more intrusive.

-AG

Just watch.

Where policy is made? So what do we trust, her supposed conversion during the hearings where she said that her judicial philosophy was “fidelity to the law?” Or her own words where she said that court was the place where policy is made? Looks like her words are coming back to haunt her, again. In a representative democracy, this would actually matter, but in the one-party state we now live in, we can be all but certain that this sort of judge will be confirmed. Surreal.

-AG

It is commendable that Sotomayor admitted that what she said was wrong and that it was not her intent, but on the case that involved the firefighters who were denied a promotion because minorities performed poorly and the white firefighters performed well, Ricci v. DeStefano, I question her judgment. For those who do not recall, her ruling on this case, which was that the city was legally justified in denying the promotions based on poor minority performance, was overturned by the Supreme Court. The problem I have with the ruling is that it looked at the “effects” of the test, particularly the written portion which was the area where minorities performed poorly, instead of the test itself. Let me be clear: a written test cannot be racially biased unless there is some racial or ethnic component to it, i.e. if there are white-only nursery rhyme lyrics that minorities do not know about. The English language should not be regarded a “racial” component. I am Hispanic. I speak English and Spanish fluently. During my entire period in school, the English language was not an obstacle and I tested, across the board, very well in all subjects. If little old me (a minority) can do this, any minorities can do this, it’s called studying. Here she is answering the question:

She says that the city could decide to deny the promotions if they believed that they could come up with a “better” test that would not show such disparities. This is absurd. In other words, the city can decide to change the test in order to skew the results in whatever direction they want in order to stave off some potential lawsuit. What about performance or qualification? The problem here with her ruling and the law in general is that it judges the fairness of the test by the outcome and not by the actual composition of the test. This means that if it was “Cuban Heritage Day” or something like that the day before the test and all of the Cuban-American test-takers were not well rested and performed poorly, then the government could re-administer the test just so that the hard-partying Cuban-Americans could get better scores. Is this fair to those who studied and were responsible? [I use Cuban-Americans as an example because I am Cuban-American] It is absurd that “disparate impact” is used to judge the validity of an inherently neutral written test. Sotomayor showed either that she blindly ruled using precedent without reviewing the facts or that she actually believes that justice is best served by judging outcome and not the neutrality of the test. Given that she considers herself to not be a “robot,” using her words, she probably falls in the latter category… which means something much more troubling for America: her interpretation of equal justice before the law focuses on outcome, not opportunity. American “equality” has never meant that all Americans must have “equal outcomes” in life, or “equal outcomes” between social classes, but rather that every American be given “equal opportunity.” The concept of “equal outcome” is the fundamental basis of socialism and, its stricter form, communism. The concept of “equal opportunity” is the fundamental basis of the American Dream.

So when I wrote before that Sotomayor figured into the larger conflict being played out in America between socialism and freedom, her own opinion, which holds that laws that promote equal outcome are what serve America best, makes my point. I wholeheartedly disagree with this vision of a socialist America, and therefore wholeheartedly disagree with her confirmation. Unfortunately, the complexity of this issue and the mainstream media focus on her being a woman and a Hispanic will not relate to the American public the grave threat to democratic values that she represents. Modern society teaches us a very important lesson here: abundance of meaningless information is as dangerous to democracy as the utter lack of information. Her race, ethnicity, and gender are meaningless with respect to the position she seeks. We need to remember that.

-AG

While right now Al Qaeda linked terrorist group Al-Shabaab seems more intent on taking over Somalia than on attacking us, a real possibility now that they control parts of the capital, the administration needs to get serious about cracking down on the group before they decide to turn their sights on us. For years I have worried that Al Qaeda sleeper cells and recruiters were infiltrated in the United States waiting for the right moment to strike, a moment of weakness when we would put our guard down. While I think that the administration is trying to create that sense of false security, Al Qaeda still has not recovered from the undeniable punishment it received in Afghanistan… but for terrorism to succeed, only a few fanatics are required. Little would I expect that Al Qaeda and its affiliates were actually recruiting in America in order to ship their terrorists to other countries, it makes sense though: knowing that they could not attack America without risking massive retaliation, they instead decided to use American citizens, the least likely to be terrorists, to conduct their missions all over the world. The ease with which Americans can get visas and travel to countries that Al Qaeda hates also makes this strategy very effective.

The two men in Minnesota who have been indicted for recruiting and assisting Al-Shabaab are a clear sign that Al Qaeda has not left our country, and since they have not left, we can only attribute the fact that we have not been attacked on the actions America has been taking since 911, the majority of that time with President Bush at the helm. While the mainstream media has thoroughly attacked the concept that Bush “kept us safe” because it did not fit with their liberal bias, the actual terrorists have kept to themselves fearing what we might do to the remains of the once robust Al Qaeda organization, a strength that only now they are recovering under the new administration’s talk-first-act-never foreign policy.

Honestly, I did not expect Al Qaeda to turn up in Minnesota, though I did hear rumors that the terrorist group had infiltrated another Midwestern state and was planning to carry out an attack on our financial institutions that would bankrupt us and then cause us to surrender to their demands: withdrawal and negotiation. But when I heard that their operative’s name sounded almost exactly like the name of their leader I thought “no way that we can’t stop this guy.” I guess I was wrong.

-AG

I try not to cover one subject excessively in one day, but the Sotomayor situation has me interested and disturbed. Her statement that her judicial philosophy is simply “fidelity to the law” was grossly insufficient. Her textbook answer of a judge’s role being not a maker of law but an applier of law revealed absolutely nothing about her. Since law can be “applied” as a judge sees fit, the real question is: how will she interpret law? Does she believe, as she implied with her ruling on the firefighters, that the existence of inequality in society due to effort and achievement needs to be undone on a racial or ethnic basis? In other words, does she believe that the “advantage” of being a member of the majority class in the United States be offset through judicial action? Should a judge’s worldview be allowed to distort the intended purpose of law?

In cases that make it to the Supreme Court, where many are not clear-cut situations, it will be these worldviews by people who pledge to be impartial that will skew law in one direction or another. Do we want justices who interpret the second amendment as not a personal right, but a collective right to be usurped by the state? Do we want justices who deny the sanctity of life and interpret that certain laws excuse some forms of murder (or what can be considered murder)? Or justices that define separation of church and state in extremely strictly secular terms, where the mere mention of a religious or moral conviction would be criminalized and sections referring to some greater power in our political documents would be stricken? It is these views that will end up shaping our society and possibly redefining our government if we are not careful. These are the issues that need to be brought up during the “roast of Sotomayor” that is supposed to take place tomorrow. While she may be confirmed regardless of what happens during these hearings, at the very least it may help bring up subjects that are often ignored in the public discourse.

-AG

Kim Jong Il is looking thin, possibly due to pancreatic cancer. While his health is in question and the issue of succession looms large, I find it fitting that the cruel dictator of North Korea, who sacrificed up to 10% of his country’s population by funding a nuclear program instead of buying the food necessary to prevent a 4 plus years long famine, now looks a little more like his subjects.

While seeing this dictator in poor health brings up conflicting emotions of pity and elation, objectively speaking, the death of a dictator who jailed, tortured, starved, and murdered millions of human beings in order to retain absolute power may prevent more death in North Korea and also prevent a possible confrontation with the rest of the civilized world if in fact his successor is, at the very least, sane. It is sad that North Korea had to endure so much pain under the boot of Kim Jong Il and his father, let’s hope that, one way or another, their suffering ends soon.

-AG

Watching the coverage of Sonia Sotomayor’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I could not help but notice that her Hispanic heritage took center stage. As a Hispanic myself, this is very insulting. While it is useful to note the biographical component of Sotomayor, what is truly in question is her fitness to serve as Supreme Court justice, not for cultural attache at the United Nations. Being poor once, being a woman, or being Hispanic do not qualify her for being a justice. Her legal judgment and experience do. The fact that Schumer, Gillibrand, and Sotomayor herself cite her heritage as such a prominent reason to consider her for this position bothers me and should bother every American. Just like no one should be denied on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and so on, no one should be given preference on that very same basis. She is an American, just like Irish-Americans, Chinese-Americans, and Indian-Americans, and therefore should score zero extra points for being Hispanic or a woman. Everyone has a heritage and the promise of American equality means that no one class or group gets an advantage over another because they belong to that class or group. It is her judgment we care about.

From the looks of it, her resume seems rather unremarkable, decidedly “un-supreme.” Is the pool of candidates so shallow that we must reach into the “minority bag” and pull out the first acceptable individual? I do not know enough about this person to fully judge her, though I will be following the process more closely now that it is all but certain that the Democrats will push her confirmation through, regardless of her fitness for the job. One thing that is clear, and was mentioned by Lindsey Graham, is that if any white politician would have uttered the words that she had, their public career would have probably been finished. Imagine some white, male politician with a thorough southern drawl say:

“I would hope that a wise WHITE MAN, with the richness of his experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a LATINA WOMAN who hasn’t lived that life.”

The uproar would have been deafening. I reject regarding one race or ethnicity or gender as superior to any other, whether from a majority perspective or a minority one. Let’s keep true to that American value that says that we are all equal before the eyes of our Creator and not, in the name of some hypocritical interpretation of “equality,” say that the minority is superior to a majority by merit of simply being a minority.

-AG

While our brave men and women fight overseas to defend our freedoms, the radical Left in this country continue trying to curb those very freedoms. America is called the land of opportunity because we have the freedom to gain from our work and not have to give it up to an oppressive central government. House Democrats are on a mission to change that. In an attempt to fund a government-run national health insurance program that will end up destroying the small businesses in this industry, the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee took a page right out of the Communist Manifesto and proposed taxing “the wealthy” to pay for it. We already know that the administration’s definition of “wealthy” includes the middle class, see here, but the interesting thing about this proposal is that it attacks prosperity through taxation in order to fund an attack on the free market (government-run health insurance). In the name of “equality,” liberals will create a society of unequal classes: central government bureaucrats and powerless subjects. A society of crabs in a bucket.

This is the Democrats’ vision for America

The economic engine of America is not the government but the basic principle behind free markets: rewarding productivity. Democrats are openly in favor of taxing that very reward. This is yet another attempt by the ruling Democratic elite to reduce America to a society of uniform mediocrity. Will America wake up in time?

-AG

-fghan Taliban behind. While the administration thinks about negotiating with terrorists, it is important to see what we are negotiating over. First off, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, recently said that “the Taliban cannot militarily defeat us – but we can defeat ourselves.” I interpret this to mean not only that our actions can alienate the local population if there is too much collateral damage, but also that the timid administration and the similarly soft liberals in Congress are the only people who can give the terrorists a victory by leaving early, negotiating, and allowing Al Qaeda to reconstitute itself.

The victories of our troops in Afghanistan cannot be sacrificed in the name of making political points. For example, a few days ago, the Afghan flag flew over southern Helmand province, something that would never have been possible if not for our Marines driving out the Taliban. We did not negotiate with the Taliban and ask them to leave. We came in with guns drawn and defeated an enemy that specializes in running away. What our troops need is more support from everyone here in the United States, especially the Commander-in-Chief, so that we can wrap up the mission in Afghanistan, get justice for 911, and free the Afghan people from the brutal Taliban regime.

If we let our troops do their job, the Taliban and Al Qaeda won’t simply be asking to talk, they’ll be begging for mercy. To our soldiers in the field, keep up the good work.

-AG

Just as I thought that the administration and the Pakistani military were getting serious about the war on the Taliban and Al Qaeda, I read this article. In exchange for brokering the talks, Pakistan wants the United States to take some action with respect to India. It has long been known that Pakistani intelligence was in contact with the Taliban, the surprising thing is that “senior US officials” are actually willing to negotiate with the Taliban and make concessions to Pakistan over India. I have no problem with talking with the Taliban, just as long as the message we deliver to them is: “SURRENDER NOW.”

Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban

Ladies and gentlemen, negotiating with the Taliban essentially means negotiating with their guests, Al Qaeda. The only terms we should be willing to accept is to surrender and to stop protecting Al Qaeda. Nothing less. No power sharing deal. No amnesty. No concessions. First they need to surrender, be disarmed, and then some sort of post-war reconstruction program needs to be set up. CNN’s Michael Ware disgusts me when he says that the US cannot win. To win this, the US and Pakistan need to continue the pincer offensive until the Taliban and Al Qaeda surrender. We cannot allow Al Qaeda and the brutal Taliban regime to reconstitute themselves.

The second issue is that we should not be playing around or taking sides with two antagonistic nuclear powers. Our role in the region should be security first. To give India the impression that we are siding with Pakistan because we are weary of war with the Taliban, a group that came into power because of Pakistan to begin with, will have negative repercussions in the short and long term. I would go ahead and hear out what the Pakistanis want, but I would be very careful in adopting a posture that would destabilize South Asia.

We cannot forget that these people that the administration nonchalantly wishes to “negotiate” with harbored and protected the terrorists that orchestrated 911. 911, people! We cannot accept anything less than total surrender unless we want to show the terrorists of the world that attacking the US will only result in eight years of war. To agree to a ceasefire and pull out of Afghanistan without defeating Al Qaeda would mean that this administration would have put America in retreat around the world. Americans cannot stand for this. For those of you who have forgotten about what happened that day, please play the video below.

Never Forget. Never Surrender.

-AG

I was recently taking a walk at night in a Little Havana neighborhood smoking a cigar, something I do to relax sometimes, and I started thinking about the state of Hispanics in the United States.

To start, I need to make clear that the Miami Hispanic community is different from most other Hispanic communities because Cubans form the majority. In New York there are many Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. In most of the country, Mexicans and Central Americans make up the majority. By and large, Hispanics tend to be Democrats… but is this really in our best interest?

For those following this blog, I am obviously not a Democrat and I am of Cuban descent, so many might expect my opinion to be skewed to the right. I will not be so predictable.

Hispanics come from many different countries with many pronounced differences in culture and way of thinking. Some elements are universal and those are the ones I will address. First off, the Hispanic community is very family oriented, tends to be very religious (Catholic), and very proud of its heritage. Oddly enough, Republicans tend to identify themselves as defenders of traditional family values yet have been unable to attract a majority of Hispanics. Republicans also tend to regard faith as an important part of our society, including public life, something that most Hispanics would also agree with, yet liberal “we” remain.

On the issue of heritage, liberals have an advantage on conservatives with respect to this community. Liberals believe that government should respect and promote diversity while some conservatives believe that Hispanics should assimilate and adapt to their new surroundings. Here is where both right and left get it wrong. Government should not infringe on the rights of anyone to have any culture, but they also should not try to, in the name of equality, force anyone to do anything or adopt another culture. This means that government should not pass laws requiring private businesses to make all of their materials bilingual, trilingual, etc. it should be up to the owner(s) of that company. Hispanic immigrants come to United States knowing full well that they would eventually need to learn English and integrate themselves into the system. At the same time, this system does not require a cultural assimilation… meaning that if Mexican-Americans want to open restaurants where it is Spanish speaking only, they can do so, even if it limits their business. Diversity is a right and should be tolerated. More importantly, a hyphenated American, be they Hispanic or otherwise, can be as patriotic as a non-hyphenated one. Take me as an example, I wave the American flag like no tomorrow and my pride is hurt whenever someone disrespects it, at the same time my Cuban heritage enriches my understanding of American freedom, because my family endured communism and the complete denial of their liberty. The concept that a person is either American or not is an antiquated one. The first Americans were the native Americans, everyone else is an immigrant of some sort and everyone has a different heritage. The first political party that understands how Hispanics’ heritage enriches America will be the most successful… and the Democrats appear to be winning in this respect.

Second, when it comes to the economy, Hispanics have a strong work ethic and are very entrepreneurial, especially because they are expected to contribute to the family here and/or back in the country of origin. Hispanic small business has been growing at three times the rate of the national average in recent years. This means that the Hispanic community would best be served by the party that protects small business, Republicans, instead of taxes it, Democrats.

Yet the Democrats have been consistently able to control the message and cast Republicans as being uninterested in the Hispanic community. They say that Republicans should give Hispanics more tax “credits” that basically amount to welfare instead of creating a generally low tax environment across the board. Read this where the Democrats decry Republican policies recommending what amounts to ethnically based subsidies. I guess no one informed the 1.6 million Hispanic small businesses in existence during the Bush years that Republican policies were hurting them rather than helping them. This approach of giving a man a fish versus teaching a man how to fish may win some votes, but the entrepreneurial spirit of the community is very strong and simply needs some encouragement, not a handout. At the same time, the Democrats, self-appointed defenders of the Hispanic community, just slapped a huge tax increase on smokers, 15% of the documented Hispanic population. When it comes to business and the economy, Republicans have an edge.

Third, in terms of foreign policy, liberals have tended to side with the socialist/communist elements that have destabilized the region for so long. While Hispanics agree with some progressive ideas, in general, it is communism that has caused massive exoduses from Cuba, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua, and the list goes on. Communism has ruined the lives of countless in Latin America and the liberals’ insistence on supporting them has only worsened Latin people’s plight. On the issue of foreign policy, Republicans, who tend to side with the free market and democratic governments of the region (at least for the last two decades or so), score more points with Hispanics. Or at least they should.

Democratic former President Carter embraces Socialist Hugo Chavez

While there are other issues to consider as well, I am going to fast-forward to immigration. Along with the issue of heritage, the Democrats’ message of some type of amnesty and granting concessions to illegal immigrants sounds more humanitarian than the Republican message of no amnesty and closed borders. At times it seems like the xenophobic elements have hijacked the party, especially when Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO) speaks, a person whose every comment in one way or another offends Hispanics.

Seriously, the Republicans need to ignore most of his advice… Latin American immigrants want to come to the US, they/we want to become part of this grand experiment in democracy, not undermine it, so it makes no sense to take a hard stance against an entire ethnic group. People like Tancredo have been around throughout the entire history of this country, fearful of all types of immigrants of all colors, faiths, and cultures… only to eventually have these groups regarded as part of the American cultural quilt that is unique in this world. Ironically enough, Tancredo is Italian and is only a second-generation American, one up on me. I wonder if his xenophobia is more a product of self-loathing than anything else.

In sum, while Hispanics agree with many conservative principles, the Republican Party has failed to capture this community’s vote because it seems that it has rejected the very identity of Hispanics, calling for assimilation, closed borders, and no amnesty. Democrats, on the other hand, have done a great job of portraying themselves as in touch with the Hispanic community.

In general, neither party offers Hispanics a great choice and the main reason is that the left wants to promote class and ethnic divisions while the right plays into this by allowing xenophobia to play a central role in its policies. Both parties are treating our community like Hispanic-Americans, when in reality they should just be treating us like plain old Americans.

-AG

I was reading about the president’s visit to Africa, Ghana specifically, and it came to mind that Obama is still being accused of not being a natural born citizen of the United States and therefore ineligible to be President of the Union. This article sums up the myriad of inconsistencies when it comes to accounts of Obama’s birth. The birth certificate he offered seems to be a fake, he was described as a Muslim in official papers from Indonesia, two different hospitals have been identified as where he was born, he has dual citizenship and is therefore not a “natural born” citizen, etc.; the list is exhaustive. Personally, I thought that these accusations would be put to rest a long time ago; I assumed that Obama would release some real documents or something, but apparently the questions still remain and there are motions before the courts that are trying to get to the truth. At this moment, it seems that the establishment is sticking to its guns and will not waste time looking into these accusations. So, to all the people out there who think that Obama is the Manchurian Candidate: sorry guys, it doesn’t look like he’s going to be disqualified due to his birth circumstances any time soon.

Since the birth issue seems to be a dead end, what we really have to ask ourselves is whether the current president is defending America, our values, and our Constitution or not. Even if he were not natural born but were nonetheless very patriotic and put America first, I would have no problem… just like if he were natural born but bashed America at every turn, then that is unacceptable. Ultimately, every American must judge for themselves whether Obama is the type of person who waves the flag proudly or not.

One thing is peculiar though: while some conservatives question whether Obama was natural born, most liberals ardently believe that Obama was not born at all… he simply descended from on high. At least that’s how they act.

-AG

This post might make some people mad, but it is logical and that’s what really matters. I was discussing same-sex marriage with a friend of mine about a week ago and I boiled down what it truly meant to make it “legal.” I am not going to throw around the usual “social conservative” arguments about undermining traditional marriage, promotion of homosexuality, etc. because I actually do not believe those reasons. What worries me the most about same-sex marriage is the oft-cited justifications behind it.

Let’s start by understanding the problem that some liberals and some social conservatives have with government, oddly enough a place they converge: they do not want the government setting a social agenda for the country. The difference is that these liberals are opposed to imposing a Christian moral code on the country and social conservatives are opposed to imposing a strict amoral secular code on the country. Where they agree is where most Americans agree: government should not tell us what to do. This is where the problem with the whole same-sex marriage comes in. Proponents of same-sex marriage tend to think that the government should “defend” the right of people of the same sex to “marry,” at the very least to have rights equal to those conferred on those who are already legally “allowed” to marry. There are two ways that this can happen: either government gives certain couples special rights or the government simply recognize inherent equal rights of all people to marry whoever they choose.

By and large, from what I have read, proponents of same-sex marriage do not believe that this type of union is a special right, but rather a natural human right. In fact, just google it and read the pro-gay-marriage sites. Neither proponents of gay marriage in general nor opponents believe that the government should create special rights for particular classes of people. Same-sex marriage proponents preach “equal rights.” Which brings me to the meat of the argument.

Since proponents of same sex marriage argue that a person should be free to marry whoever they want, the extension of the definition of marriage from the previously “socially assumed limits” of heterosexual couples means that other “socially assumed limits” can be and, in fact, should be disregarded. What this means is that to accept the freedom for anyone to marry anyone opens the door to incestuous relationships and polygamous relationships. So here we get stuck: if we accept the premise that anyone has the right to marry anyone, then we are open to incestuous relationships; if we believe that some people should not be allowed to marry in our society, like close relatives, then it means that society has the right to restrict same-sex marriage if it so chooses. That’s what it comes down to. If same-sex marriage proponents do not wish to open the Pandora’s Box of any type of marriage imaginable, then they must be open to some sort of government restriction, and if they are open to giving government the power to restrict marriage, then they open the door to restrict same-sex marriage. So the more consistent proponent of same-sex marriage that believes that government should not restrict the right of people to marry should take the full-blown libertarian plunge and say that “yes, we envision a society that permits incest, polygamy, incestuous polygamy, homosexual incestuous polygamy, etc.“

What a possible pro-gay-incest marriage button will look like

This is just food for thought. It’s an argument I came up with a while back but is shared by many other people across the political spectrum. Here’s an interesting article I just read. Sometimes this argument is called the “slippery slope” argument or reductio ad absurdum, but the reality is simple: either a person is free to choose any other consenting adult or a person can be restricted. It is no stretch to say that logically and legally this type of argument for any type of marriage can be used. Here is where I need to clarify though: same-sex marriage itself will not lead to homosexual incestuous polygamous marriage but rather the explicit “freedom” to marry anyone will. So this is not inherently an argument about same-sex marriage, it is an argument about our willingness to let government decide the rules for marriage, e.g. rules possibly restricting gay marriage. So now the question is: do we want to live in a society where we can collectively choose to restrict some forms of marriage or not?

-AG

A swim club in Pennsylvania is accused of discriminating against a group of minority children. The swim club denies it saying that their membership is racially diverse and saying that they simply did not have enough capacity. But members of the swim club were heard, by the children, saying racial comments. The NAACP and the Human Relations Commission will investigate to see whether or not racial discrimination occurred.

Seriously, how is this news? There has been absolutely no confirmation of whether the swim club discriminated against the kids or not. The racist comments came from members of the club, not from the swim club personnel. Even Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, Republican turned Democrat, said this was disturbing, but nothing has been confirmed except that the kids heard racist comments. Kids should not be subjected to racism, but I am certain that this sort of thing happens everywhere on Earth. It is parents’ duty to prepare children for intolerance in the world. What this does show is that racism will not be tolerated, so in a sense, the non-newsworthiness of this story is somewhat of a good thing… but the president is multiracial, I think that racial tolerance is a national creed already… so… before people get all crazy, investigate first.

-AG

While Iranians fight for their rights, Honduras is in the midst on an international political crisis. Since the last post was about what Iranians can learn from Cuban history, it is also fitting to reflect on parallels between what is currently happening in Honduras and what already happened in Cuba.

“Commandant Cowboy, the Constitution is FIRST”

The first thing I want to express before I continue is an opinion of mine, and a fact, that breaks with the orthodoxy of the pro-democracy minded people who support the new Honduran government and the ouster of ex-president Mel Zelaya: the forced expulsion of Zelaya was technically illegal. Before you go ahead and close this browser window or tab, hear me out. According to Article 102 of the Honduran Constitution, no Honduran citizen can be expatriated or taken to a foreign country by the authorities. It is one of their rights. Now, let’s put this in context: Zelaya was violating the Constitution and the will of the people in order to acquire more power for himself… the flagrant violation of the Constitution for the end of consolidating power in the hands of one man, namely Zelaya, would lead to authoritarianism. So if you weigh the violation of one man’s right to remain in his country versus the right of millions to be free, the choice is clear. The only thing I insist is that when a people take action to preserve freedom, they do so with both eyes open and recognize what they are doing right and what we are doing wrong. That being said, history teaches us that the expulsion of Mel Zelaya was the necessary and right thing to do.

Let’s take a little trip back to July 26th, 1953. The place is Cuba. It was that day that a young lawyer known as Fidel Castro led a pathetic and failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in the city of Santiago de Cuba. Castro was captured and sent to prison. It was in prison where he gave a speech where he declared that history would “absolve” him. Less than two years later, Cuban strongman Fulgencio Batista granted him amnesty and so began a chain of events that would lead to the victory of a communist revolution that has inflicted incalculable amounts of suffering on the Cuban people… all because they freed Fidel Castro.

Castro’s reign of terror

The lesson here is clear, when the Cuban government had the chance to stop a wannabe dictator, they gave him freedom instead. So now that the powers of the world are aligned against the Honduran people and demand for the restitution of the wannabe dictator Mel Zelaya, Hondurans must not give in. To allow him back in the country will give him, his foreign backers, and the socialist elements the opportunity to destabilize Honduras, dissolve Congress, and start dismantling democracy just like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has done.

History is following a similar pattern here. Castro claimed to fight for democracy, just like Zelaya claims. Castro went from country to country getting support for his “revolution,” just like Zelaya is doing. Castro was immediately recognized by the United States after taking power, just like Zelaya is being backed by the US government now. The only difference is that the Honduran people still have a chance to stop him… let’s hope that the meeting in Costa Rica does not lead to a restitution of Zelaya. He must answer for his crimes against the Honduran Constitution and people, otherwise he will emerge as a self-proclaimed “hero” who will not stop trying to undermine democracy. The freedom of a people must not be sacrificed on the altar of international opinion.

¡Viva Honduras Libre!

-AG

I have been reading about the continuing protests in Iran and thought that maybe Cubans could offer some advice. The Cuban people, on the island and in exile, have a unique experience when it comes to “revolution” and maybe its lessons can be of use to people protesting against dictatorship in Iran. Personally, my family had/has people on both sides, communist and democratic, and we (mistakenly) fought for Fidel Castro and (correctly) against Fidel Castro, a common phenomenon.

The first lesson of the Cuban revolution is, if you want to preserve the democratic character of your movement, do not create a cult of personality around a single person. Mousavi is not the chosen one. Men cannot choose amongst themselves who will be the one. I think that Iranians understand this already, given that they backed Khomeini and ended up with the system they are fighting against today.

The second lesson is that the use of force against a regime that is willing to use even more force against you is foolish. Non-violence is preferable. This was a miscalculation of the Cuban exiles who landed in Bay of Pigs, in order to fight the Castro regime, and made the erroneous assumption that the United States would stick by their pledge and assist the anti-communist forces. In the end, the US did not assist the Cubans and communism became further entrenched. Since then, no violent action has been able to match or beat the regime’s repressiveness. So, especially in a mass movement in the modern age, do not engage in violence else the state will crush the pro-democracy movement and even more people will die.

The third lesson is briefly mentioned in the second: do not rely on foreign powers. This is Iran’s democratic “revolution,” not any other country’s. No one has Iran’s interests at heart, except Iranians. The problem with the Cuban exile community is an over-dependence on the United States, something that, after decades of broken promises, has made modern-day Cubans realize that the future of their country is in their own hands. Relying on the US only wasted their time… and with this administration in power, Iranians should not expect any help whatsoever. The current president wants to deal with the current government, not the people of Iran. It’s a sad fact.

The fourth lesson is: do not leave Iran. Too many Cubans left Cuba for America, thinking that they would return once communism failed or was defeated. This never happened, specifically because the only people who could or would be able to defeat communism ended up dispersed around the world, with the highest concentration in Miami. It was the erroneous belief that the United States would fix everything that drew everyone who could leave away from the island. This ended up strengthening the communist regime and denying the pro-democracy movement talent, manpower, and funds. My own family left, the vast majority in eighties, after more than twenty years of “revolution” destroyed their country. Iranians cannot afford to leave, though I suspect that they weren’t even considering that.

The fifth and final lesson is: be brave. Since leaving is out of the question and violence against the state is not advisable, the only thing left for the Iranian people is to stand up to the regime, courageously demand democracy, and report everything that happens. The truth is the only weapon that can defeat governments that survive by controlling information… but this means that protesters will be naked before the repressive machine of the state. Iranians must be brave. From what I have read, they already are.

So in a nutshell, these are some lessons that the new pro-democracy protesters can learn from the Cuban experience. Hopefully, they will be able to create a society that truly respects the will of the people and not the will of a small elite that interpret law how they see fit. While the official position of the United States is not firmly in support of the protesters, the unofficial position of American citizens is always on the side of freedom. We pray for Iranian freedom and safety.

-AG

A recent CNN poll about President Obama shows us that confidence in the chief executive has been dropping, particularly when it comes to toughness. [Insert sarcastic inflection here] How surprising. First of all, it should not have been so high to begin with, something I blame on the mainstream media, the emerging subculture of dependency in this country, and the general disinterest in politics from your average citizen who is too busy studying, working, etc. to worry about the national beauty pageant that presidential elections have become. Second of all, the approval ratings are still way too high. Some measures dropped significantly, but most just slightly went down. The one that bothers me the most is the question that asked whether the president agrees with them on the issues they care about and 56% said yes. Even though this figure is down 7% from February, I would think that by now the American public would have realized what Obama “cares” about.

First on the list: himself. Evidence: He re-enacted 911 by flying planes dangerously close to skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty simply for a photo-op. He later joked that his daughters are grounded for taking Air Force One on a joy ride.

Second: Anti-Americanism. Evidence: Making concessions to our enemies, apologizing for defending our interests and allies around the world, betraying democracies, siding with tyrants over pro-democracy demonstrators, abandoning allies, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, etc.

Third: Socialism. Evidence: He said that “spreading the wealth” around was good, increased taxes on small businesses, higher capital gains taxes, increased spending of taxpayer money, increased national debt, bigger government, nationalization of GM, Chrysler and other companies, creation of a nanny-state, etc.

Fourth: himself.

So… there you have it… 56% of Americans believe in Obama’s cult of personality, anti-Americanism, and Socialism according to this poll. I do not believe that this is the case. I believe that the mainstream media has done a fantastic job at promoting the Rockstar-in-Chief… though to be fair, I think that the media has started to be a little bit more objective lately (emphasis on little). What this shows is that disinformation is more prevalent than information, something that needs to change. This should be another wake up call for Americans… if we want to be defined, as a people, by our blind adoration of a mortal man, then we can continue being followers. If we want to be independent-minded, free people, then we need to hold our elected officials accountable and question everything. Let’s hope we haven’t grown tired of our rugged individualism yet.

-AG

Gun control. It is a subject that comes up every time there is gun violence in America. It is usually brought up by people who believe that the human being has no right to decide anything for themselves. They believe that people are children who must be denied and granted certain things, told what to do, and told what to think. It is a system of belief that rejects the basic American value: freedom. Recently, NFL star Steve McNair was killed by his girlfriend, Saleh Kazemi, apparently because she thought he was cheating on her and was distraught over her financial situation. She shot him several times. On cue, the reactionary anti-second amendment crowd start hinting at more gun control laws and restrictions. The problem was that Kazemi was under the legal age to buy a gun, but she was able to buy it anyways from “an undisclosed private source.”

The idea is that, somehow, it was the ability to buy the gun and not the person who murdered McNair. This makes no sense… which brings me to the story of my former best-friend.

My former best-friend was killed by his girlfriend years ago for the same reasons described above. Even the circumstances were similar since my friend was also killed in his sleep. Well, here in Florida, where gun laws are not as strict as other places, this girl decided that she would kill my friend… only she would not use a gun. Instead, she used a heavy electric guitar and a knife. She ended up smashing his head in with the guitar and then immediately afterward stabbed him more than a dozen times in the face and chest. Blood was everywhere. Guns were nowhere. My friend died regardless. Now, do we write to Congress to outlaw electric guitars? Or knives? Or crazy girlfriends? Of course we don’t. The reality is that this girl, who shall remain nameless, killed my friend, just like Kazemi killed McNair… it was not the weapon, but the wielder.

Attacking the second amendment simply because some people abuse it would leave other such freedoms defenseless before government power. Using tragedy to further this political agenda is despicable. Using the illogical assertion that weapons, not people, kill people is just as bad. It is under the guise of security and well-meaning legislation the we most quickly will lose our rights.

-AG

Sending messages to the world that the United States is more about talk than action is a dangerous thing. Yet the administration continues to do just this. In a surprising about-face, American and Afghan forces initiated an offensive operation (Operation Khanjar) against the Taliban last week. Thus far, the operation has been “relatively successful.” I applaud the decision to fight our enemies instead of begging them to talk to us. Unfortunately, the scope of this operation is limited (Helmand province) and if the Taliban are going to be defeated, we will need more than the 4,000 we are sending to clear and hold specific areas. A US commander has already expressed that we need more Afghan troops to supplement our troops that are making up the majority of the forces taking part in the operation.

As a first step, this offensive is a good move, but we need to get serious about fighting the Taliban. We need to vastly increase the pressure on the Taliban and press on other parts of the country before the Taliban get too entrenched. The administration must make it a priority to use as much force as necessary as quickly as possible to totally defeat the Taliban. Until that time, half-measures and incomplete action will end up giving the enemy the breathing room they need to prolong this war and continue attacking American troops. Let’s pray that the administration realizes the need for swift and decisive action sooner rather than later. Let’s also pray for the safety our the brave men and women defending America from the suicidal extremists that hit us on 911 and their benefactors.

-AG

While Obama insists that democratic Honduras make a socialist would-be dictator the president of their country and denies our ally, democratic Israel, the ability to stop a nuclear attack by Iran, he openly embraces the country formerly known as the Evil Empire as it becomes less and less democratic. On Monday as I relaxed in a Key West bar, I watched the mainstream media herald the “peace-in-our-time” agreement reached between US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. First of all, let’s put this new agreement in context. Former presidents Bush and Putin previously worked out a deal to reduce warheads to 1,700-2,200 to be concluded by 2013 while in this agreement Obama and Medvedev agreed to cut them by 1,500 to 1,675… making the new agreement only slightly lower, contrary what the mainstream media would like us to think.

Second, if we want to talk about serious nuclear disarmament, then George W. Bush is your man. The former president cut our nuclear weapons stockpile by 50% of 2001 levels by the year 2007. Of course, don’t expect the anti-Bush liberals to embrace the former president because of this. Even Republicans criticized Bush for his actions. I, for one, do not think that huge arsenals of nuclear weapons are necessary if we can get Russia to reduce their own stockpiles… and the idea of weapons that can blow up the world many times over gives me pause. We already have other weapons in our arsenal that can totally annihilate the enemy without bringing about a nuclear apocalypse.

Third, the true result of the meeting with Medvedev was the reduction of our influence in the former Soviet republics. Obama explicitly pointed out that he wishes to negotiate both nuclear weapons and anti-missile defense programs. At least he did not completely scrap plans for the missile shield, but he has put the plans in jeopardy at a time when North Korea and Iran are developing nuclear weapons and missiles. At the same time, Russia has allowed for NATO to transport supplies through its territory for the war in Afghanistan which is more of a liability than anything else. Once we start using Russian-territory supply routes for our troops in Afghanistan, it will be much easier for Russia to demand that NATO back off from extending its alliance to Ukraine and Georgia, countries that Russia considers to be within its sphere of influence. So far, Obama has not made any commitments except to say that the sovereignty of those countries should be respected and that NATO should not be confronting Russia. We must remember that Russia just invaded Georgia late last year on the premise that it was “protecting Russian citizens” in Georgia. The truth is that NATO cannot afford to act without US leadership and with the ever-so-timid Obama at the helm, Georgian inclusion in NATO may lead to direct war with Russia. Obama will not risk war nor will he risk his supply route through Russia.

Like almost everything Obama has done, US “gains” in this negotiation actually make Russia stronger and America weaker. While I originally set out to praise Obama for not “giving away the store” in Moscow, the fact that the bar is so low made me put this meeting with Medvedev in perspective. All in all, reducing nukes is a good thing as long as no other country has an advantage, while dismantling missile defense programs and letting Russia gobble up its neighbors is a terrible thing. We came out losing on this one, but not as much as I thought. Sadly, if foreign policy negotiations were like poker, Obama would lose every match… despite always having a Royal Flush.

-AG

In the United States, if a person is faced with mortal danger, they can take deadly action in self-defense. Only as self-defense. This means that if a person takes a shot at you while screaming “I’m going to eliminate you” and then you can use reasonable force to stop him/her, including deadly force. I’m no lawyer, but that’s more or less how the law goes… unless the aggressor is Iran and the judge is Obama. Apparently, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States believes that it is prudent to give Iran an indefinite amount of time to develop nuclear weapons by asking, pleading, and begging for direct talks without preconditions. Worse still, the POTUS believes that despite Iran’s repeated calls for the annihilation of Israel, the Jewish state does not have the right to defend itself from an eventual nuclear-armed Iran. So, ladies and gentlemen, if a person adopts a policy that enables the development of nuclear weapons by a country that wants to destroy Israel and then tells Israel that it does not have a “green light” to stop said country from developing nuclear weapons, is that person helping defend Israel or enabling a nuclear attack on Israel? And as a second question, what would a nuclear attack on a nation of about 6 million Jewish people be called?

-AG

While Americans recover from the Independence Day festivities, the international community has continues its relentless assault on Honduran sovereignty and democracy. With the mainstream media and international organizations calling the court-ordered arrest and expulsion of ex-president Mel Zelaya a coup d’etat, Honduras has had to withstand threats of invasion, threats of sanctions, the cutting off of US aid, the cutting off of World Bank aid, demands to violate the Honduran Constitution, demands to restore the criminal Mel Zelaya to power, and threats of further isolation.

Let’s be absolutely clear: Mel Zelaya was, according the the Honduran Constitution, their Supreme Court, their legislature, his own political party, the Catholic Church in Honduras, and the military, attempting a power-grab that is 1) illegal and 2) treasonous. The Honduran Constitution calls the succession process from one president to the next an integral and inviolable part of said document, something that Zelaya was trying to change. The Honduran Constitution explicitly calls for the defense of the Constitution as the principal duty of all branches of government and of the military. Constitutionally, the courts, the legislature, and the military were obligated to stop Zelaya.

Despite this fact, the Organization of American States issued an ultimatum to restore Zelaya to the presidency by today. Honduras resisted. The president of the United States demanded the restitution of the socialist criminal Zelaya. Honduras resisted. Zelaya was attempting to re-enter Honduras accompanied by the UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto, the head of the OAS, the leftist Presidents Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, and Fernando Lugo of Paraguay. Honduras resisted. They, as a sovereign nation, limited access to their airspace and national territory in order to avoid the inevitable bloodshed that would ensue if Zelaya could rally his extremist supporters, pictured below, to riot.

What is the world coming to when a sovereign nation that has not threatened anyone, cannot choose, via elected representatives of the people, to defend their own Constitution? I hope that the situation in Honduras gets resolved soon and I denounce every single person and institution that is taking the side of communist dictatorship under Zelaya over the will of the free and proud people of Honduras. To surrender their national sovereignty to the whims of unelected, foreign, and international powers is to invite the very thing that Zelaya’s removal intended to prevent: dictatorship over the Honduran people. Socialism is spreading in the Americas and it is about time that someone stood up and declared “NO MORE.”

-AG

I’m sure that many of you have had the (dis)pleasure of debating with ideologues of the leftist variety, especially given their prevalence in the revisionism-saturated society in which we live today where current presidents extol the virtues of appeasement and reach out to holocaust-denying demagogues bent on acquiring nuclear arms. The problem with these individuals is that they hold on to their political beliefs as absolute fact and twist and bend truth in order to fit their world-view. It happens on the right too. In my life, I have argued with my own father, a victim of the communist Castro regime, who ardently supported the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet simply because he was not a left-wing dictator while I denounced him for simply being the other side of the coin of despotism. The denial of freedom, whether by a right-wing or left-wing dictators, results in the same thing. While it is a fact that left-wing ideologies, particularly communism, have killed more human beings in the history of our species than any other ideologies, the right-wing varieties also have their fair share of bodies. But even Hitler, often called a right-wing dictator, was the leader of the Nazi party, the National Socialist Party of Germany, which has many similarities to communism: race conflict (class conflict), authoritarianism, militarism, primacy of the collective rather than the individual, etc. Historically, it seems that Communists are those that embraced Marx and Fascists simply reject Marx, while creating very similar types of authoritarian governments. The danger of these ideologies is simple: the disregard for individual rights eventually leads to the violation of individual rights in the name of the collective good or some grandiose goal or destiny.

This brings me to the issue of ideology in general. A dogmatic view of how the world should be is the fastest way to remove logic from a discussion. This is an important lesson for conservatives. Conservatives in America must become more pragmatic, especially since conservative principles are more in line with practicality than liberal ones. Conservatives must reject an approach that posits the absolute infallibility of one argument. An example is free markets, to merely claim that a free market system is superior to a centrally planned economy because it is “free” does a disservice to the philosophy of freedom. A historical account of capitalist success plus a common-sense economic approach can easily destroy any argument from the Left that posits that only a large bureaucratic government can adequately manage the distribution of goods and satisfaction of individual needs. This is why the Left must use slogans instead of arguments. They say “change,” “choice,” “hope,” “progressive,” and a slew of other terms that mean very little. On the other hand, we conservatives use words like “freedom,” “limited government,” “national security,” “fiscal responsibility,” “life,” etc. to describe our positions, words that mean much more to nearly everyone. Of course, party slogans themselves are not enough, a rational explanation of the policy we advocate is what people need; at least in a representative democracy where the voter is, ideally, informed. Often, ideology is the enemy of representative democracy and reasoned argument.

The reason I speak of ideology is because in my personal life, I have known individuals whose perception of the world has been hijacked by certain circumstances and experiences in their lives. In my life, my family’s experience with communist totalitarianism has influenced my view of the world by providing me a clear example of how communism destroys lives (as would fascism), but this example has not influence me enough to denounce any liberal as a cold-blooded murderer nor to denounce any left of center person/government as criminal. I simply believe that they are doing a disservice to individual liberties and should be nudged in the right direction. I believe that a reasoned discussion can persuade the reasonable elements of the Left to see the benefits of protecting the individual and realize that a bloated government simply costs Americans more money and gets very little done. I believe that the inherent optimism of a philosophy of freedom, the optimism that anyone can achieve anything if they try hard enough, can save people from the alternative: the pessimism that people cannot do anything for themselves and need a nanny or big brother to take care of them. Other people, though, are too far gone to be reasoned with.

A perfect example is a recent discussion I was having with a colleague about issues of constitutionality, democracy, and socialism. This colleague of mine comes from a family that lived in a country that was under right-wing military rule for decades, at least one of this person’s family members was persecuted by the government for exercising their right to criticize the government. Due to this family history, my colleague now equates “military” and “right-wing” with “evil” and regards American foreign policy, historically, as being equally “evil.” My colleague has even expressed that if forced to choose between living in a fascist or communist state, that the communist would be preferable. The fact that the crimes of one authoritarian regime that was “right-wing” would make left-wing totalitarianism “preferable” is offensive to logic, especially given their body counts. What bothers me is that there are many individuals like this who have made Blame America First or anti-right-ism a way of life and would stand next to terrorists, criminals, and tyrants simply to make political points. They are indoctrinated early in life, disregard fact and reason and go on to become lawyers, politicians, teachers, and journalists. They take advantage of a free society to advocate for a society that would deny freedom in the name of historical justice or some abstract concept of “equality.” They do not realize that if they lived under a communist regime, their counter-establishment mentality would lead to incarceration, exile, torture, and/or death. They hide behind the first amendment while taking shots at every human right. They denounce our servicemen and women who risk life and limb to defend the very freedoms they enjoy and try to eradicate. They seek to destroy the achievement of the individual for the sake of the mediocrity of the collective. They mistake our freedoms for tyranny and mistake real tyranny for freedom. They are unreasonably convinced of a worldview that will take facts out of context and subject others to a uniformity of opinion. As a conservative who tends towards pragmatism first, as we all ultimately do, I welcome dissent, for it is through the fires of debate that truth can arise. Liberals wish to squash dissent (see the(un)Fairness Doctrine). Liberals have, as of late, become even more entrenched in Leftist ideology openly advocating policies that weaken America abroad and damage the economic engine that has made us a Superpower. This leftward movement of American liberalism has made me increasingly worried over the state of our republic… and to be able to counter this threat, we must be willing to call this political movement its true name: COMMUNISM. So what would that make the politicians and officials that are moving America toward a state of increased government and reduced freedoms?

-AG

North Korea fired off 7 ballistic short-range missiles today in an attempt to send a message to the United States. That message? “Your president is unwilling to take any serious action against us.” But Americans across the country are too busy celebrating our country’s independence from tyranny to care at the moment. Hopefully, the administration will address the North Korea threats before they perfect their technology and build more nuclear weapons… I don’t know what it will take for Obama to realize that a rogue nation armed to the teeth with nuclear bombs is bad for our national security and for world peace.

-AG

While the Defense Department eyes North Korea, nearby in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has announced that she will be resigning this month and will not be seeking another term as governor. People are speculating that she is doing this in order to run for President in 2012. My take on this is pretty straightforward: I don’t like it. One reason I opposed Obama was his utter lack of experience, something that the nation is now witnessing as he fumbles from not meddling in despotic Iran to meddling in democratic Honduras. Not completing a single term as Governor reminds me of Obama not completing one term as Senator. To be clear though, I believe that Sarah Palin’s instincts reflect American values more so than Obama’s. Also, if Palin decides to run for president without even completing one term as the chief executive of her state, then her opponents will charge that she is simply a political animal willing to leave things undone for her own personal gain. Personally, I think that she should finish out her term and then not run for re-election, so she can point to a completed term as governor as evidence of her leadership. The question that the media will ask is: what kind of leader leaves before her term is up? Hopefully, Palin will be able to answer questions raised by her early retirement.

Though I disagree with her move, I understand her decision to leave early since she seems to do better on the national stage that in her own state. Given the relentless attacks she endured from the media which engaged in “gotcha” questioning while giving Obama a pass on nearly everything, she definitely has the stones to deal with an anti-Palin mainstream media. Now she just needs to clarify what she has in mind for America.

One thing is a fact though, if HALF of a term as senator qualifies someone for the presidency, then Palin’s near-full term as governor makes her a shoo-in.

-AG

As Americans get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July by shooting off some fireworks, North Korea seems intent on firing off some rockets of its own around the same time. Yesterday they fired off some short-range missiles off its east coast, trying to perfect their technology and defying world opinion at the same time. At the same time, the British ambassador to North Korea reported that the communist regime refuses to engage in negotiations over its nuclear program, one of the biggest threats to our national security.

Ironic that while the president of the world’s most powerful nation begs dictators and terrorists around the world for direct talks without preconditions, the North Korean regime rejects such talks. Actually, it makes sense: the longer that the US wastes time in pushing for more talks, the more time they have to produce more nuclear weapons and fine-tune their missiles. The administration better start putting on their serious faces when dealing with the enemy, otherwise they will continue to threaten us and defy the will of the civilized world. I don’t understand how the administration came up with the idea that projecting weakness around the world would keep America safe.

-AG

Seriously, he didn’t see this coming? Colin Powell, the “Republican” who broke ranks and endorsed Barack Obama over war-veteran, former Vietnam prisoner-of-war, fiscal-disciplinarian John McCain, today expressed “concern” over the new administration’s excessive spending and the expansion of government that all of these programs will bring about. What part of Obama’s liberal campaigning did Powell not understand? Obama promised to raise taxes, promised to raise energy prices, promised to appease America’s enemies, promised to “redistribute” America’s wealth, promised to spend us into oblivion and yet Powell still endorsed him. Obama explained himself pretty thoroughly during the campaign, was Powell not listening, and if he wasn’t listening then why did he endorse him? This, unfortunately, gives credence to the Rush Limbaugh accusation that Powell only endorsed Obama because of race. Of course, I think that he endorsed Obama for the same reason that many other Americans voted for Obama: to reject Bush. Oddly enough, McCain, who considers probably considers himself nothing like Bush, was fighting against an anti-Bush sentiment that was being incessantly pushed by the mainstream media. But back to the issue, for Powell’s sake, I hope he realizes the gravity of his mistake in endorsing such a liberal for the post of leader of the free world and I hope he comes back to the party reformed and repentant. Republicans should forgive his momentary, though infinitely damaging, lapse of judgment… else they alienate all the other Obama voters who will eventually come to their senses.

-AG

The Dow falls 223 points, 2.6%, because of unemployment numbers that just do not stop worsening. Since the passing of the “job-creating” and “job-preserving” Stimulus package, Americans have been getting laid off consistently. One reason is that the Stimulus spending has been merely a trickle, with most of the heavy spending to be done next year… the problem with that is this: this recession will eventually end due to the cyclical nature of the free market, it has always happened and it is expected. To initiate heavy stimulus spending during a “natural” upswing in the market will do two equally disturbing things: it will make the general public erroneously believe that it was the government’s economic intervention that led to the recovery and it will unnaturally improve the performance of the market leading to bubbles that will eventually bring us back into a recessionary period down the road. Even if the recovery comes later, the public will still be given the impression that the stimulus was effective while leaving the national debt at the highest levels in history. How do we measure the effectiveness of the stimulus and differentiate it from the normal US business cycle? The only thing that can be accurately measured from this stimulus is the inflation of the federal government and the cost to the taxpayer, two things that will end up burdening the economy in the long run and may lead to worse recessions in the future.

The problem with future recessions in a country where we have more than doubled the national debt and where the value of the dollar has gone down is that any future attempts at “stimulus” will not be possible or effective. This is what happened in Europe, where government spending has been at such high levels that they were unwilling and unable to pass stimulus packages like we did, and guess what? Europe’s recovery is proceeding just fine without excessive stimulus spending. Even though their unemployment levels are worsening, Europe’s unemployment is still decidedly lower than ours. What the government should be trying to do is avoid burdening the taxpayer with more expensive government, more taxes, and more free market restrictions. Taxing future America excessively is no solution for “saving” present America.

-AG

When the Obama campaign promised to put more money in people’s hands, except for the top earners of course, he was not kidding. For those who have been following the blog, you may be asking: “Doesn’t he already have another post with a similar title?” Yes I do, this one. But while my previous rant was based on the fact that the government was simply printing more and more money as the solution to the financial crisis, now I have graphs. See below how the value of the dollar has dropped since the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama:

The currencies are the Australian Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Swiss Franc, Euro, British Pound, and Russian Ruble. I did not include the yen, because they have been doing even worse than we have, the Hong Kong Dollar, nor the Chinese Yuan because these last two are linked to the dollar, so the exchange rate is flat. With a weaker dollar, this means that people will now need much more money to buy basic goods… in fact they will need thousands… in fact they will need the Obama Thousand Dollar Bill!

I suggest that the Treasury start printing these bills as soon as possible so that they can begin phasing out the extremely outdated “one-dollar-bill.” Maybe later they can mint the sought-after Clinton Silver Ten Thousand Dollar Coin, made of pure environmentally-safe, biodegradable plastic. Sure it will decompose in a few weeks, but by then you’ll be using much higher denominations, like the proposed Kennedy-Obama Hybrid Hundred Thousand Dollar Bill, here’s the artist’s rendering:

Anyways, as China continues to push for a new global currency and the dollar continues looking as shaky at it does, the above scenario may be in our near future as long as this administration continues to push for more printing, more borrowing, and excessive spending. So, as the anti-Federal Reservists and Ron Paul “revolutionaries” have been preaching, buy gold… at least until we get a fiscally competent government at the helm. And to all those people who have searched for “1000 dollar bill” on google, search no more, I am here.

-AG

I am adding the song “For the Love of Money” by the O’Jays… enjoy

The administration warns of economic catastrophe if Congress does not pass astronomically huge spending proposals. The administration proposes a budget that will end up costing the taxpayers $10 trillion. Now the president is pitching his plans to create a government-run health insurance programs that will end up costing $1 trillion or more. The effects of a government-run health insurance program, from here on to be called ObamaCare, are obvious: ObamaCare will directly compete with private insurers, causing some or all of them to fail, leaving more people uninsured, leading to more people relying on ObamaCare. The exodus of people leaving private insurance for ObamaCare will leave the entire health insurance industry in the hands of a few major corporations and the government. Of course, with more and more people under the direct care of the government, the costs of such a system will increase, in other words: the taxpayer will end up paying for it. Luckily, not all Americans are convinced that ObamaCare is the right answer, though a majority are still drinking the O-kool-aid.

With the skyrocketing cost of running a government that will be charged with taking care of more people, taxes must go up. The net effect of all of these changes being introduced by the Obama administration changes only one thing in America, the rate at which Americans become more indebted to the state, or more specifically to the quasi-private Federal Reserve and foreign governments that own US debt. While the people of America heralded the end of an old order by electing the first multiracial president, this agent of “change” has, through empty party slogans and sweet-talk, rammed irresponsible spending through Congress and opened America up to negotiating with terrorists and dictators. The Democrats, in their supposedly “noble” attempts to redistribute wealth and despite their assurances that only the rich would be taxed, have started creating a system that taxes universally. Already they have increased the price of tobacco products which affect the poor disproportionately and the House passed the cap-and-trade bill that will substantially increase the cost of every product in the name of “environmentalism,” when in actuality it will not help the environment all that much. The Republicans have not done much better, being unable to clarify their message or retain party unity in the Senate and House and losing election after election to the appeasement/spending-minded Democrats. Republicans became mired in the culture wars, in an inability to properly communicate the pressing need for interventions in the Middle East and Central Asia, and the “general consensus” that Bush mismanaged everything he touched. At this point in American history, Republicans and specifically conservatives have the best chance at reversing the national emergency that is the Obama domestic policy and to do so, they need to reach out to the more fiscally conservative Democrats and to independents. If they fail, then a system where the state redistributes wealth wholesale and starts the rationing of goods and services (such as healthcare) will rise in America. Be not fooled by the rationalizing of the administration or the “well-meaning intentions” of the government: this is called Socialism. The outrageous policy of increasing the national debt will end up turning all Americans into indentured servants… how ironic that the president who claims the mantle of Lincoln would have such an effect. I can’t wait to hear the “Subjugation Proclamation.”

-AG

The opposition leader who lost the Iranian presidential elections two weeks ago, Mir Hossein Mousavi, further urged his supporters today to keep up the fight for the people’s rights. This comes after the Iranian authorities validated the outcome of the election, after thousands have been arrested, after an indeterminate number of deaths at the hands of the state sponsored militia, the Basij, after an opposition newspaper was shut down by the government, and after the Iran National Security Council told Mousavi to back off.

The greatest hope for an end to state sponsored terrorism and authoritarianism is when the people unite behind a clear cause, one that defends the rights of a people to determine their own future and their own government. Unfortunately, the Iranian people are faced with a government that is willing to use force to defend itself, even against its own people, and whose rule is “justified” by claims of divine authority. The best weapon against such oppression is the truth. The more that the Iranian people can transmit news about what is occurring, the more photos they upload, the more videos the distribute, the better the chances that this popular uprising against dictatorship can achieve some measure of success. The more irrefutable proof that the government is engaging in behavior that is against morality, by murdering innocents, denying the truth, etc. the more that the regime will lose legitimacy among its supporters. Already, more and more elements of Iranian society are rejecting the regime’s legitimacy. Furthermore, help from the US and the free world will only help the protesters. Contrary to what this article says, money from the US will not undermine the resistance movement because the Iranian people have been listening to the constant denunciations of the US and are numb to further accusations. Just like Americans are now largely unaffected by advertisements because of their near universal presence in our society, Iranians will not care so much about yet another accusation hurled at the US or the west, after all, it is not the west that rigged the elections. The US needs its own revolution against the ever-expanding federal government and ever-worsening national debt… else we all become slaves to the institutions that own that debt, foreign governments and the Federal Reserve.

-AG

France is debating whether or not the wearing of a burqa, the traditional Islamic woman’s “tent,” violates their laws. Apparently, this is a provocation to the extremists known as al Qaeda and they have vowed revenge on France for the “harassment” of their people. It is times like these, when a piece of clothing is enough to declare holy war on a country, that I realize that the idea that we can somehow reason with this type of enemy, or engage in direct talks without preconditions, is completely foolish. So when any proponent of infinite diplomacy and zero action posits that negotiation is the only way, the rational response to those starry-eyed idealists is “you can’t reason with the unreasonable.”

-AG

While Obama calls on Iraqis to celebrate the US military’s withdrawal from the cities, Al Qaeda and the insurgents are also rejoicing. From Pakistan to Somalia, Al Qaeda and their affiliates have waged successful war on the local governments. Those countries receiving sizable US military aid have been the most successful in surviving, while most other countries end up giving them safe haven or making painful concessions to the terrorists. The Bush administration’s initial short-sightedness with respect to the Iraq War led to the rise of a potent insurgency and the empowerment of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a mistake that Bush started to correct in his second term. Now, with most Americans agreeing that a withdrawal is in order while at the same time acknowledging that violence will probably increase, the problem is that neither the media nor the administration has explicitly explained that an increase in violence means an increase in the power of the insurgents and the terrorists. In other words, an increase in violence may lead to the reconstitution or permanent establishment of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

What this means to the average American is that the administration, in ceding ground to the terrorists in Iraq by withdrawing, something that most people agree must happen, should present a plan for fighting Al Qaeda in the region, particularly in Iraq. Thus far, the only actions taken against the terrorist organization is sending more troops to Afghanistan and giving aid to the Pakistani and Afghan governments. This does not acknowledge the fact that the threat is not localized there, but primarily across Asia and Africa. At the same time, suspected terrorists are being granted more civil rights, some of them have been and will be released, the administration is in secret talks with Al-Qaeda-allied Taliban, little has been done to strengthen our border security, and the White House has ordered the use of “less confrontational” language when discussing our war on terror. Americans have a right to know how we will deal with Al Qaeda after we fully withdraw, for if we simply allow them to rearm, all of the gains from our military campaign against the perpetrators of 911 will be wasted.

-AG

While Obama did not call to celebrate the bombing, he might as well have. The Obama withdrawal is based more on politics than reality. He called for withdrawal before we went in, after we defeated Saddam Hussein, during the bad days of the insurgency, and even while the Petraeus “surge” strategy was succeeding.

Today, the US military has withdrawn from Iraqi cities and towns and will be stationed primarily in large bases and outposts. President Obama said that “Iraqis are rightly treating this day as a cause for celebration,” but Iraqis should consider whether the new administration’s timid image and actions have emboldened the enemy or not. Earlier this morning, General Ray Odierno stated that “there is not widespread violence in Iraq,” shortly thereafter, a bomb ripped through the city of Kirkuk killing 30 and wounding dozens more. The last few weeks, Al Qaeda in Iraq and insurgents have been escalating their attacks and bombings, as I have written about previously, in anticipation of the US withdrawal from the cities. We should also remember that the security gains made during the Iraq “surge” involved moving our troops off large bases and making them more visible, now we are reversing course in the hopes that Iraqi security forces can defeat the terrorists and insurgents. The terrorists believe that Obama has pulled back due to their terror campaign in Iraq, just like the terrorists believed that their terror campaign forced the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan. This mindset is what emboldens them, the thought that they can defeat superpowers. While I do advocate an eventual withdrawal from Iraq, we cannot leave them in the hands of terrorists or Iran. Bush left this war unfinished, leaving terrorists and insurgents roaming the country, and now Obama is determined to leave the war on terror to the local Iraqis. Our presence in Iraq was and is an opportunity to deal Al Qaeda a death blow standing side by side with the Iraqi army. Now that we are withdrawing, what is Obama’s plan to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq without troops on the ground? How does he plan to limit Iranian influence in Iraq? Will he redeploy troops to the region if Al Qaeda takes over? I do not believe that the administration fully appreciates the implications of not finishing the job in Iraq.

Let’s hope Iraqi security forces can protect their people, because the their victory over terror is also our victory over terror.

-AG

Mel Zelaya: “You want me to remain in power 16 more years right?”

Socialism vs. Freedom. It is a battle that is being lost in America, but one that has been won in Honduras. At a time when the socialist ideology of hatred has swept most of Latin America, Hondurans drew a line in the sand and said: “Not Here.” While the administration and the biased mainstream media call the ouster of former president Mel Zelaya a coup and undemocratic, regular Hondurans know the truth, they know what was at stake. Mel Zelaya was a criminal president, period. He violated their Supreme Court’s ruling, defied the National Congress, commanded the military to engage in illegal acts, fired the head of the military when they refused to be a part of his push for more power, he planned to dissolve congress, and he ignored the will of the entire country. Their military ousted him on orders from the courts, setting an example for all would-be dictators in the region: no man is above the law. Their congress stripped the president of his powers, elected a new interim president, and kept the democratic institutions in one piece, even vowing to hold all elections as planned. Today, fifty thousand Hondurans marched in favor of the new government and the preservation of democracy. And still, Obama says that he only recognizes Zelaya as president and wants him returned to power. He insists that the “rule of law” be restored, as if orders from the courts are not “law” and as if laws passed by congress are not “law.” Zelaya destroyed a basic principle of any democracy: respect for law… now Obama is siding with the socialists of the region, Castro, Chavez, Morales, Ortega, et al, and directly “meddling” in Honduran affairs by demanding the restitution of the criminal Mel Zelaya. If Obama cannot stand up for freedom, he should at least not interfere with other countries’ aspirations for freedom. Honduras will not be a Venezuelan satellite or another Socialist Gulag like Cuba.

-AG

The Senate is now firmly in the hand of the Democrats, who have been waging an unrelenting war against free markets and national security since the election of Barack Obama, now that the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that Al Franken, comedian-turned-politician, won last November’s election. This means that the Democrats will not need a single Republican vote to push forward their high taxing, high spending, high borrowing, wealth redistribution-ist agenda in the Senate. There are definite benefits from having a two-party system, a perfect example was the stimulus proposal which was closer to $1 trillion until the Democrats compromised slightly with the Republicans. One can only wonder what an unfettered, ideological faction such as the modern-day Democrats will do with their new-found power. With important legislation regarding healthcare, the current international crises involving North Korea, Iraq, and Iran, and with the economic pressure from China, Russia, and the recession, Americans cannot trust a one-party system to come up with solutions that help all citizens. We must turn the tide of one-party rule. Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea are also single-party states… see how well it has served them?

-AG

While liberals and liberal-minded Republicans such as Crist are using their power to increase the cost of living in America by raising taxes, fees, energy prices, and causing inflation, they are also attacking American prosperity from the other end: they are trying to reduce executive salaries and compensation. Fortunately, the administration is aware that the American voter cannot take much more of this big government approach to the economy and their daily lives, and instead of directly putting a “cap” on executive pay, they are looking for ways to pressure them into disclosing all the details of their salaries and give shareholders the ability to have a “say in pay.” While this approach may not work, what bothers me profoundly is that the liberals believe that they have the right to dictate how much a company can pay its employees. Why? If a company wishes to give its executives high salaries or big bonuses, why do liberals think that the government should step in and stop it? Isn’t it the American Dream to be able be as prosperous as one can, without government interference?

The administration’s “say in pay” proposal does more to anger constituents than actually produce results. For those that advocate some sort of pay limits on exec pay, this proposal does nothing to stop companies from awarding large salaries or bonuses since the shareholder opinion is nonbinding. In other words, the rich get richer and that angers the socialists to no end. For those that prefer freedom over government authority, any effort to limit compensation for the end of mere control will make America less competitive and will undermine the American Dream. Talent seeks out compensation, that’s just the way it is… to limit the amount of compensation limits the amount of talent that America attracts. To burden America with unsustainable debt and then, adding injury to insult, to reduce our ability to attract business and talent is to wage internal war on this country. We Americans do not believe in class warfare because we are not an envious people, we believe that through personal effort we can achieve any level of success. We cannot allow liberalism or any other -ism take away our spirit of achievement.

-AG

I just read a tweet from Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who is also running for Senate, asking for support of his campaign. His campaign advocates “less taxes, less government, more freedom.” If only, Charlie Crist, if only.

Barack’s buddy, Crist, talks the talk but certainly does not walk the walk. In Florida, he signed a budget last month that increased taxes and fees by more than $2 billion dollars and he defended his actions by saying that one of the taxes, the cigarette tax did not apply to the majority of Floridians, only 11% (majority of which are mid to low income persons), and that he needed to balance the budget by raising fees on the majority of Floridians. This means:

Crist VIOLATED his pledge to oppose and veto any and all tax increases.

Crist ATTACKED the free market by breaking conservative principles and backing the cap-and-tax bill.

Crist BETRAYED the American taxpayer on the federal level by supporting Obama’s pet projects and eye-popping spending programs.

Too-Close-For-Comfort-Charlie

What audacity for him to run a campaign based on reducing government, reducing taxes, and increasing freedom. The very least that the leather-faced governor could do is be honest and say he is a pragmatist of some sort, though I doubt that he truly is. He seems to be too relaxed and too tanned to be able to defend America values. He will most likely fold if the situation gets too hot. Furthermore, with the I-will-not-die allegations that he is a homosexual and the fact that he denies it, the last thing we need is another Larry Craig in the Senate. Some say this is a low blow, but given the fact that he has lied about raising taxes and about being a conservative, I do not trust his word any more. Crist has officially lost my support in the Senatorial primary. Florida does not need an Arlen Specter.

-AG

While Honduras plays out its conflict between representative democracy and the deposed-president Zelaya’s socialist aspirations, Obama’s Latina nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, is caught in her own version of this conflict. I place the Sotomayor issue in the context of the battle between socialism and democracy because of her now widely reported comment:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

For the record, I am a Cuban-American, thus Hispanic, but my ethnicity does not color my politics, my judgment does, my conscience does, my heart does. For example, the fact that the administration left the Iranian protesters out to dry enrages me as much as if it were Latin people, or African people, or Italian people, or any other people that I have an ethnic or racial bond with. While experiences do enrich one’s life, it is one’s judgment that would help one reach a “better conclusion” not one’s ethnicity or race. So the question we must ask before confirming her is: if her Latina experiences make her more qualified than “white” people, as she hopes, is her judgment sufficiently objective with respect to the law or is it colored by this worldview? It is a worldview that, in the name of equality, rushes to harm one part of society to benefit another, simply on the basis of class or race or ethnicity… and it is the spirit of the socialist movements that now grip the world.

In an ironic twist, the Supreme Court, the job she’s applying for, has just reversed her ruling on a case involving reverse discrimination against white firefighters. Most people agree with the Supreme Court’s decision, both Republican and Democrat. It was an issue of qualification versus “special treatment for minorities” and Sotomayor ruled on the side of “special treatment.” While not an open and shut case, the fact that Sotomayor’s “ethnic experiences” cause her to believe that a democracy is best served when one group is given priority over another simply because of their genetics or culture make me conclude that she is not objective enough for the post. As a Hispanic, I am insulted that anyone would think that I cannot achieve some goal or place in society through merit and effort alone. As an American, I believe in equality of opportunity and such special treatment only furthers the cause of a social and economic system that uses “equality” to bludgeon individuality and personal achievement. Some say that the Republicans may lose the Latino vote by opposing Sotomayor, but to compromise American principles because of race plays into the Left’s hands. The fact that liberal elements insist on classifying people by race and ethnicity should not dissuade conservatives from seeking the only voting bloc that matters: the American voter.

-AG

Facts are stubborn things, unless you work in the mainstream media. Yesterday’s detention and expulsion of the Leftist Honduran president Jose Manuel ‘Mel’ Zelaya was decried by countries around the world and the mainstream media as a military coup d’état. What they do not report is what actually occurred. While Obama is pressing for Honduras to restore “democratic order” and the “rule of law,” showing solidarity with a fellow Leftist leader and claiming that Zelaya is still the constitutional president, the president conveniently ignores the fact that the military action against Zelaya was not the result of some rogue military elements, but rather they acted on orders from the courts, who had ruled Zelaya’s actions as president as illegal. The mainstream media, though, has almost unanimously omitted this fact from all of its reports. From my readings of Honduran news, the month prior to Zelaya’s arrest, the framers of the Honduran Constitution declared that according to their laws, Zelaya’s actions are an act of treason against the homeland [if only our own Founding Fathers could come forward today to put an end to the expanding powers and size of government]. Zelaya was attempting to violate certain parts of their Constitution that are “permanent,” specifically the part about not extending presidential term limits or powers. So when Obama talks about restoring the “rule of law,” he should not be directing these statements at the current civilian government of Honduras but rather at Zelaya, who had defied every branch of government and most sectors of society in order to gain more power for himself. The Honduran courts and congress acted in defense of their Constitution by expelling a president that was also planning to dissolve congress right after starting the illegal vote and change the Constitution in order to introduce a Chavez-style government.

Zelaya telling Chavez “it’s socialism time!”

If not for the fact that I can read Spanish, I would have been limited to the mainstream media’s reports and our politician’s statements, that would have us think that Zelaya was a victim and not a rogue president who thought himself above the law. Honduras has dodged the Castro-Chavez totalitarianism bullet by removing this man, let’s not punish them for preserving their democracy.

-AG

For the record, I believe that the United States should adopt a foreign policy that acknowledges our commitment to human rights, promotes global security, and defends our interests. What I do not believe in is a foreign policy that is guided by politics, one that is just plain arrogant, or one that is overly naive. Which is why the current administration’s policies towards leaders that thrive, politically, off of hating America hurts my sense of national pride and insults my sense of what is rational. For example, with Iran, Obama’s outreach is falling flat. Obama took much care to take a position on the Iranian anti-Ahmadinejad protests that would not be regarded as meddling by the Iranian regime. For all his efforts and previous attempts at reaching out to Iran, Ahmadinejad still blamed Obama for “meddling” in Iranian affairs and an Iranian official accused the CIA of killing the face of the protests, Neda. While Obama continues his “outreach,” Iran is still aiding the insurgents in Iraq and has had even more time to work on their nuclear program. What the administration’s outreach policy fails to realize is that the Iranian revolution was founded on resisting the “Great Satan” (the US), trying to cooperate with them will only strengthen their dictatorship and jeopardize our security.

-AG

Honduran troops surround Presidential Palace

When the executive branch of the government directly defies the legislative and judicial branches of government and the Constitution, what should be done? That is the question that was presented to the Honduran government this week. The president of Honduras, Jose Manuel Zelaya, was ousted and exiled to Costa Rica this morning by the Honduran military after he vowed to hold a referendum vote that would allow him to run for another term. This referendum was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court because their Constitution stipulates that referendums may not be held 180 days prior to an election and that the presidential term limits may not be amended. The Honduran Congress also opposed the referendum. The president then tried to circumvent the courts and the Congress by urging the Honduran military to distribute ballots anyways. When they refused to violate the court’s and the Congress’ decision, the president fired the head of the armed forces, Romeo Vasquez Velasquez, and marched onto the military base where the ballots were being held and confiscated them. Before he could attempt his power grab, the military nabbed him. Reports say he was not harmed. This article says that the military also kidnapped the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan ambassadors to Honduras. According to the military, the detention and expulsion of the president was ordered by the courts. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has threatened to go to war if necessary. What is interesting is that the Leftist Latin American leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina, and Bolivia have all condemned the action while Obama called on Honduras to “respect democratic norms” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that this act should be “condemned by all.” It is troubling to see Castro, Chavez, Morales, et al on the same page as Obama and Clinton.

Hugo Chávez, Raúl Castro, Manuel Zelaya and Fernando Lugo

But the question remains, when the president orders the military to do something illegal, and the military refuses, only to have their generals fired and then have the executive branch try to carry out that very illegal act, what should a democracy do? What happens if one individual can overrule the legislative branch, the judicial branch, the military, the Church (major Honduran institution, called the president’s illegal act a move towards Chavism, or a Chavez-style regime), and the Constitution of a country? Is that not a move towards dictatorship? His own party called it a “personal capricious act by the Executive.”

The Honduran people should be able to choose their own future, that said, no individual should have the power to overturn the decisions of nearly every elected official in government simply because he or she wants more power for him or herself. Since the courts ordered the military to detain the president, it would seem that this is not a military coup but rather an action against the executive by the other branches of government. If the president of my own country openly defied the will of the legislature, the judiciary, the military, and the Constitution, I know what I would do. No man should be above the law.

-AG

As the President of the United States leads the Democrats’ assault on the American economy and taxpayer, the opposition party has posted an “under construction” sign over its political platform. The disagreement is over the future of the party and whether it will pursue a more conservative line or a more moderate line. The problem is that, while conservatism is already pretty well defined, “moderation” is more ambiguous but as a centerpiece I expect that they advocate bipartisanship and reaching compromises on particular issues. Well, here in Florida, Republican Senate candidate and current Florida Governor Charlie Crist represents the “moderate” wing of the GOP while Marco Rubio, Republican Senate candidate and former Florida state House Speaker, represents the conservatives.

Fortunately for us watchers of these campaigns, the “moderate” Crist has made it clear what it means to be “moderate.” Apparently, to be moderate means to be an active supporter of a national “cap-and-trade” system, an active supporter of the Obama Stimulus/Spendulus bill, and to host the Democratic president in your home state while he pushes for a stimulus bill that undermines state government. This means that I am clearly NOT in the “moderate” wing of the Republican Party, because:

a) I reject a Stimulus bill that essentially increases the deficit to historically high levels, burdens the US taxpayer, infringes on state rights, is a handout to special interest groups, and does not work.
b) I reject a Cap-and-Trade system that punishes the American energy consumer instead of focusing only on incentivizing entrepreneurship and innovation that would help the environment
c) I reject any and all politicians who push for excessive government intervention in the free markets and the expansion of government power and size

For these reasons and more, I cannot support the theory of “moderation” of the Republican Party. What the moderates imply is that the conservative wing is out-dated and that surrendering to the will of Obama is the way forward. Conservatives need to emphasize their core values of independence, freedom, and opportunity to a constituency that has been brainwashed into thinking that government is the answer to everything. Those core values, though, represent the American Dream while the liberals believe in liberal spending of our wealth, liberal taxation of our wealth, and liberal appeasement of our enemies. Any Republican message should represent these values:

Independence is the ability to BE
Freedom is the ability to DREAM
Opportunity is the ability to BE what we DREAM

Therefore any government that promotes America’s dependence on government, or curtails our freedoms, or blocks opportunity through obstacles, economic or otherwise, must be opposed. America’s principles are being twisted beyond recognition during this period of one-party rule in Washington. Republicans need to do a better job in stopping them.

-AG

There is a lot I could write about the new cap-and-trade bill that made it through the House of Representatives in a tight 219-212 vote, but I will limit myself in this post to the jobs claims of the Obama administration, already known for making wildly optimistic and unmeasurable job-creation estimates. The President says that the new energy bill will make millions of new jobs, his example of how the cap-and-trade will start employing people: 3,000 new jobs in California to build a new solar plant that will permanently employ 1,000 people. First off, 4,000 jobs in California, the country’s most populous state, times 50 (4,000 per state) equals 200,000 jobs, not millions. If this is how Obama will count jobs, with a large percentage of them being temporary jobs, then the long-term effects on employment will not be that pronounced. Furthermore, if new solar plants employ about 1,000 people permanently, we would need many hundreds of solar plants to even start getting close to the millions of jobs goal, at least in the solar industry. But I am being too simplistic, possibly this is only one example of the many other initiatives in the state, but the claims of generating millions of jobs through shackling the free market will only lead to eventual government subsidies of the “green” energy sector (like Europe currently does) which, in the end, is just plain socialism since the only money they have to invest comes from taxpayers, you and me. Is this a flagrant attempt to nationalize the energy industry?

Second, the modern coal industry labor force numbers 174,000. The coal industry is an established industry with plants around the country, mining operations, and an relatively inelastic demand from a large consumer base and still, they can only employ about 174,000 people. The government’s plan to excessively tax the energy industry (in the form of the permits it issues) may stimulate business growth in the green sector and it will hurt the American consumer, probably resulting in more job loss overall than job creation. Eventually, like in Europe, the government will need to start subsidizing the green industry if oil prices drop, which may happen if the oil-producing countries see our demand fall precipitously, and other energy sources become cheaper. This means more taxes on Americans to keep the green sector alive. Even if the rosy estimates of how many jobs will be created are correct, Obama will alienate the labor unions by replacing good paying heavy industry and energy industry jobs with lower paying “green” jobs. In terms of creating manufacturing jobs, China’s entry into the market has cut the price of solar energy cells and will probably also do so with wind turbines as well, making the manufacturing problems that the US has faced in other industries also affect the future US green sector. The UK-based Financial Times says it best: “For western politicians, the uncomfortable truth is that the expansion of renewable energy in developed countries, aimed at reducing their carbon emissions, may result in a bonanza for poorer nations rather than a grand influx of jobs to their home countries.” In order to compete or to fulfill the promise of millions of jobs, the government will be forced to further subsidize the green sector in order to compete with China, India, and the already well-established European companies. However you slice it, the government will have to increase the tax burden on American citizens.

Third, while they build up this clean energy industry that will supposedly employ millions, Obama has claimed that he will definitely bankrupt the coal industry with his proposals, thus destroying 174,000 jobs just in the coal industry. This is not taking into account the effect it will have on other industries. The steel industry, which has already cut down carbon emissions by a third over the last 15 years, currently being beaten in the global market by countries such as China and India, suffering from Chinese pro-growth policies that violate international trade agreements, not fairing well during the recession, and as of 2006 employed 154,000 people will be seriously hurt by such a cap and trade system that will only further worsen an already challenging situation for the US Steel industry. All heavy industry in general will be given a great incentive, not to reduce carbon emissions, but rather to relocate their operations to third world countries with less restrictions on that good old American value: making money. This means that the whole rationale behind cap-and-trade reducing emissions from heavy industry will be offset by an expansion of heavy industry in third world countries that will be less likely to pass any such legislation. If you thought that China was bad for the US manufacturing industry, just wait until Obama is done with it.

Fourth, the economy as a whole will be hurt by rising prices making the cost of running a business higher and thus contributing to unemployment in this country. Just take oil as an example, gas prices in the US are less than half of many European countries, due to high taxes on energy there, yet Europe’s demand for oil has remained stable.

Graph according to the Energy Information Administration

This means that excessive taxes have merely punished consumers while doing little to curb consumption, which means that Americans will have less disposable income and businesses will have to move overseas to cut costs so that they can make some profit. In order words, less jobs overall. This article says that from Spain’s experience with subsidizing and encouraging “green” jobs, 2 jobs are lost for every 1 green job created.

Simply on the jobs part, the cap-and-trade program will end up costing America far more than it will help either the US economy or the environment. America cannot afford to pass a bill like this one. Sadly, the Republican opposition came up with an alternative bill that focused excessively on research and not enough on what we actually need: action. I back a policy that makes America energy independent, as a matter of national security, and that makes our production of energy efficient and cleaner. In essence, my policy would be one of “Clean Growth,” where government should help the markets tackle this global problem while remaining competitive. An example of this are to use the already existing technologies that make our unrivaled amount of coal cleaner and to make that technology more cost effective. Another example is to get serious about nuclear power, a thought that makes liberals cringe, yet is the most practical and common sense way to power our country, with the disposal of radioactive materials being the most pressing issue to be resolved. Another example is to develop battery technology further, frequent advances are already being made, and support alternative fuel cars, which is actually already a part of this bill.

What I do not support is a policy of “Clean Contraction” that punishes the American consumer for using cars and appliances simply because the Left has changed from believing in red socialism to believing in green socialism. We do not need to contract the economy to become energy independent and protect the environment. We need to unleash American ingenuity. For Republicans to become a viable forward-looking party, they need to embrace actions that lead to “Clean Growth,” especially since we have been funding dictators and terrorists around the world for our cheap oil who later turn around and launch attacks on Americans. It is no coincidence that most of America’s enemies come from regions with large oil reserves. Republicans need to embrace clean energy independence in order to strengthen their national security credentials… the days of irrational liberal policy victories are here, they need to be countered with common sense and courage for our country to survive.

-AG

As if the external threats to America weren’t enough, a few hours ago the House of Representatives passed the Cap-and-Trade bill proposed by the Obama administration, a bill that the president admits will cause the cost of energy to skyrocket. See this clip:

This is absurd. Al Qaeda, US enemy number one, says that their strategy is to “bleed” us until bankrupt. Well, someone inform Osama that he can stop his efforts right now, internally we are doing it to ourselves. Barack Obama has, from day one, has pushed harder and harder to tighten the grip of government on the free market. He has obfuscated and lied about not raising taxes on middle and lower income Americans and he has been helped by the entire extreme liberal voting bloc in Congress. I say liberal and not Democrat because there are many Democrats who do not think it makes sense to raise gas prices and raise families’ electricity costs by passing a bill that may not have any effect on global warming. First off, the effects on the environment that it will have will be offset by the fact that China will accelerate its consumption of fossil fuels as more of its citizens move into cities and buy cars.

Second, the improvement of India’s economy will also cause a substantial increase in carbon emissions. Third, any extensive government intrusion in the economy should focus more on creating incentives for cleaner energy instead of punishing the consumers of an already established market, i.e. all Americans. At this time when energy prices are already going higher and higher and people are making less due to unemployment, it is simply absurd that Congress would pass a bill that does more to punish Americans than try to unleash their creativity and innovation. Since everything that gets produced uses energy, the effects on the entire economy will be widespread. Obama’s efforts to bankrupt the coal industry and tax energy will make America less competitive and make businesses less likely to start up or remain in this country. If this bill passes the Senate, then the economic engine of America will get a bit more sluggish and we will no longer be the world superpower… China will.

Let your Senators know that Americans will not stand for this.

-AG

Yesterday, I watched the movie Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and was thrilled to see that in addition to the spectacular special effects, the movie alluded to the current state of affairs at the White House. *Spoiler Alert* In the movie, the robotic Decepticons are on a mission to destroy the Sun and harvest its energy, but they need the knowledge inside Sam Witwicky’s (main character, college-student) head in order to find the Sun-destroying giant machine that is hidden somewhere on Earth. So the Decepticons launch a first strike that kills upwards of 7,000 people, giving us the shocking attack on a US carrier that we saw in the trailer, and immediately issuing their demand to world governments: hand over Sam or face destruction. Of course, no one knows yet about the Sun-destroying machine. In an excellent display of art imitating reality, after Obama is whisked away to an underground bunker, the administration shuts down the joint Autobot-Human anti-Decepticon task force (defense cuts) and seeks to negotiate with the Decepticons, with the Secretary of Defense indicating that Obama is willing to surrender Sam to the Decepticons in exchange for peace. Excellent! Even in the movies Obama is willing to appease the robots bent on world destruction, thinking that if only we could “talk” to them they would see the error of their ways. Even Hollywood expects his complete capitulation in the face of real danger. I hope that the moviegoers of America realize that appeasement is a sure-fire way to get destroyed… or at least get the Sun blown up.

Movie ticket: $10. Popcorn: $5. Seeing Obama Appeasement on the Big-Screen: Priceless.

-AG

As terrorists chide the United States for not being more active in promoting peace, Somali Al Qaeda linked militants are currently in an active campaign to take over Mogadishu and the whole country. The group is called Al Shabaab, The Mujihadeen Youth Movement, and are currently at war with the Somali Transitional Federal Government and their goal is the establishment of a society based on strict Sharia law, a Somali Taliban if you will. Oddly enough, the transitional government already accepts sharia law as the basis for law in Somalia, but the extremists want to go farther than that, hence why they’re called extremists. It is good to note that some of the radical groups that try to enforce a strict and cruel form of Islamic law have seemingly harmless names in their respective languages, e.g. Taliban means ’students’ and Shabaab means ‘youth.’ We should called the Marines the “Merry Men Corps” to fool our enemies, but I digress…

In a good move for the administration, instead of applying their usual foreign policy prescription when dealing with enemies (direct dialogue without preconditions), they have decided to support the transitional government in their fight against Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda. It’s about time that we started getting more serious about reining in Al Qaeda’s growing influence in Africa, if we allow it to get out of control then the US will be forced to send troops to that regime too, even if the Afghanistan war is still raging on. That is why we need to take bolder action in the region, forming security pacts and alliances with the more moderate countries specifically aimed at stopping the spread of Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-affiliated groups. Right now though, the administration is in secret talks with the Taliban (another Al Qaeda affiliated group), offering them immunity in exchange for assurances that they will not resume fighting and possibly negotiating over Al Qaeda’s status in Afghanistan. If the talks culminate with the “peaceful” return of the Taliban en masse to Afghanistan, how long do we think that peace there will last, especially if we have swelled their ranks with “former” Taliban militants? What the prospect of negotiating with militant groups generates is the expectation of bringing the United States to the table if the terror is intense enough. Negotiation incentivizes terrorism. This means that talking to the Taliban will make all groups similar to the Taliban believe that they too can negotiate with America by killing innocents. The question we must ask as a nation before we continue the current dialogue doctrine is: should America negotiate with terrorists?

-AG

The leader of Hamas, a group regarded by most of the world as a terrorist organization, yesterday called for the United States to play a more active role in the Middle East peace process. What blatant hypocrisy! To say that they want more US participation in order to reach a peace deal while they reaffirm, in the same breath, their continued dedication to armed struggle against Israel is simply shameless. By armed struggle, Hamas refers to attacking Israelis, civilian and military, through gunfire, bombs, rocket attacks, or any other means. Instead of asking the United States to be more active in the peace process, Hamas should be less active in the terrorism process.

Hamas even refuses to recognize the right of Israel to merely exist, so what would they consider to be the “solution” to the Israel problem? Mass deportation or exodus of the Israeli population? Extermination of the Israeli population? Or will they be willing to live side by side with the Jewish people? If modern history is any indication, the prospects of a Hamas willing to live side by side in peace with the Jewish people are slim to none… especially considering that every time they launch a rocket into Israel, they consciously accept the fact that they might kill children. In other words, Hamas seems to lack conscience. I am not saying that Israel does not deserve some blame for the situation, as well as some members of the international community, but the truth of the matter is that if Hamas completely renounced violence and stopped terrorist attacks on Israel, then the international pressure on Israel to find a political solution to Palestinian demands for statehood would be so great that they would be forced to grant Palestinians their independence. If I am wrong, then the only thing we temporarily “sacrifice” is more war, a war that Hamas can simply pick up later if they so desire. If I am right, then both the Palestinians and the Israelis will get peace, even if only for a little while. Doesn’t saving a few lives make a ceasefire worth it? Sadly, history has proven that trying to reason with terrorists tends to be fruitless… and so the bloodshed continues…

-AG

When the United States pounded Al Qaeda after 911, the terrorist organization was essentially neutralized, forced to issue only a few statements from their mountain hideouts, forced to serve as simply the “inspirational” focus of would-be terrorists instead of actively supporting them, and forced to keep their organization small in order to prevent infiltration. They were fighting a relentless US-led campaign to wipe them out of existence for their crimes against thousands of innocent civilians and finally caught a break when Pakistan started negotiating with the Taliban and granting them quasi-autonomy in certain regions. It was in Pakistan’s ungovernable mountainous regions that Al Qaeda could exist with some form of security since the United States would not violate Pakistani sovereignty by invading or attacking the area. The recent Pakistani crackdown on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the terrorist-controlled region has been the most serious effort against the terror group in years, killing hundreds of militants and targeting terrorist hideouts. Despite the Pakistani government’s offensive operation against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the terrorists have not been defeated but instead have launched multiple terrorist strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has also strengthened its presence in Algeria where it has carried out 10 attacks in the last month or so, Yemen where they are suspected of establishing a new base, Somalia where the government says that Al Qaeda-linked groups are too much for the government to handle, Iraq where terror attacks have increased substantially this year, and other countries. What is most troubling is that the mainstream media has not been devoting enough time to this troubling global trend.

In Africa, Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the death of an American aid worker in Mauritania, 39-year-old Christopher Ervin Leggett.

Christopher Ervin Leggett

Algeria is willing to offer amnesty to Al Qaeda terrorists, who recently killed a British hostage and launched attacks against Algerian soldiers, in an effort to reduce attacks in that country, a move that will only benefit Al Qaeda by making Algeria into a safe haven and a base from which terrorists can threaten Europe. In Mali, armed forces took over an Al Qaeda base near the Algerian border killing twelve militants, indicating that the terror group’s infrastructure in the region is pretty far advanced. Furthermore, as the pressure mounts on the Afghan-Pakistani border regions, Al Qaeda is now relocating to the Horn of Africa and setting up terrorist training camps. For example in Somalia, Al Qaeda is threatening to take over Mogadishu, engaging in a series of clashes with government forces recently.

Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, Al Qaeda commander of operations in Afghanistan

Unfortunately, this does not mean that Al Qaeda is giving up in Pakistan or Afghanistan, in fact there are signs that they and their Taliban-allies are getting stronger. First is the fact that they have launched several terror attacks across Pakistan since the offensive began. Second, in a recent interview with Al Jazeera, Al Qaeda spokesman said that they would soon win the battle in Pakistan and that they would use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons against the United States. The Pakistani forces have reportedly made significant gains against the Taliban, but the group seems to continue resisting and carrying out attacks around the country. In a sign that the Taliban is reasserting itself decisively in Afghanistan, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar has reestablished direct control of the Taliban resistance. Previously, the Taliban were a decentralized resistance group that carried out attacks according to the decisions of individual commanders. The Taliban recently launched a rocket attack on the US Bagram Air Base killing two soldiers and injuring six Americans, showing their resolve to continue fighting despite the upcoming increase in US troops in the region.

Baitullah Mehsud, Leader of Pakistani Taliban

Which brings us to Iraq, where recent bombings and terror attacks have increased as US forces have pulled out of Iraqi cities and back to US bases. In that same interviewed with Al Jazeera, the spokesman pointed to the US withdrawal as Al Qaeda’s victory in Iraq and that they have not launched major attacks on the US because they have been too busy fighting in the Middle East and Central Asia. Interestingly enough, this last point was the previous administration’s rationale for going to war, i.e. to bring the fight to the enemy so they do not attack us here.

Possible Aftermath of US Withdrawal

Of course, with a resurgent Al Qaeda that is able to project its power around the world and engage in terror in both Iraq and Afghanistan, countries where Al Qaeda was previously on the run, they will resume their plans to attack the United States mainland. An terrifying example is a recent video released by Al Qaeda that explains how they plan to exploit the security weaknesses of the US-Mexico border and sneak in a biological weapon. For those unconvinced of Al Qaeda’s sophistication in the development of biological weapons, early this year an Al Qaeda cell died of “the plague” at an Algerian terror base reportedly from their attempts to weaponize the disease. The threat from Al Qaeda is now more real than any time since 911.

With the current US strategy of withdrawing from Iraq, Al Qaeda will be able to fully challenge the Iraqi government by fomenting sectarian conflict and try to establish a base there, not to mention the propaganda value of having the US withdraw from Iraq in the midst of heightened terrorism. With the current behind-the-scenes talks with the Taliban, any sort of deal drawn up between the US-led coalition forces and the Taliban will result in the strengthening of the Taliban and subsequently the strengthening of their guests: Al Qaeda. With the current trend of politicization of terrorist groups occurring throughout the region and the US aversion to the deployment of troops anywhere else in the world, the possibility of the rise of an Islamic state-within-a-state with ties to Al Qaeda seems pretty inevitable. Only a sustained offensive policy towards Al Qaeda can stop them from gaining the capability to strike at the United States again. Our failure to address the growing Al Qaeda threat in Africa, inability to motivate Pakistan to crack down on terror, and the unraveling of last year’s security gains in Iraq have contributed to the resurgence of this threat. When one also considers that the eventual release of hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees, Iraqi detainees, and Afghan detainees will only swells Al Qaeda’s ranks with newly radicalized or re-radicalized recruits, it becomes apparent that the United States needs to adopt a better strategy in dealing with the terror group.

A world united against terror would certainly help

Hopefully, the cooperation we have been receiving from other nations and the operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan will be able to keep Al Qaeda from returning… but as of now, our “Overseas Contingency Operations” do not seem to be reducing Al Qaeda’s power. Let’s hope this changes.

-AG

Reading this blog post recently, it came to mind that maybe there was a connection between South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s adulterous ways and his support for opening up trade with the Castro regime. As a Republican he sponsored a bill that would allow for travel to Cuba, hoping to make the Castro gulag a vacation spot for dollar-wielding Americans. He has also taken trips to Cuba himself and has met with Fidel Castro. So what does that have to do with having an extramarital affair? Well, last month I wrote that the Cuban intelligence agency often eavesdropping on hollywood-types and political figures in order to acquire sensitive information that is used to blackmail them into becoming Castro-supporters. Is it possible that Sanford was blackmailed into supporting legislation that would enrich the Castro regime after Cuban intelligence found out about other extramarital activities? Pure speculation on my part, but interesting nonetheless.

What the Sanford affair actually shows is that politicians are humans, ambitions humans with many flaws, regardless of party. Politicians who claim or imply that they are perfect are simply lying. The American system of government was set up to provide some balance to the powers wielded by imperfect humans so that the people would not be subject to the whims of the few. Thus the modern tendency towards concentrating in the executive, the latest example being the appointment of 20+ “czars” accountable only to the president, is a direct assault on the system of checks and balances set up by the founding fathers. No one is perfect, regardless of what the mainstream media might have you think, and to increase the size and power of government, particularly the executive, is antithetical to the spirit of the American Revolution. Government needs to be efficient, smart, and practical, not the gargantuan, wealth-destroying/redistributing institution that it has become.

-AG

Yesterday, North Korea vowed to “wipe out the… [U.S.] off the globe once and for all” if we do anything that it considers a “declaration of war” such as stop to inspect the ship Kang Nam that is suspected of carrying illicit weapons. North Korea said that the United States’ pledge to bolster the security of South Korea against any nuclear strike invites a potential fire shower of nuclear retaliation. Apparently, the act of boosting our allies’ defensive capabilities is also being considered a hostile act. The US response to the sharpest threats from the communist regime has been less than inspiring. Yesterday, the administration renewed our economic sanctions against North Korea, which begs the question: why aren’t the sanctions as tight as can be right now? The second response was: dismissing their threats. The last time that the administration ignored North Korea’s threats, they responded by pulling out of nuclear talks, firing off missiles illegally, and detonating an atomic bomb. I wonder what the tantrum prone rogue state will do this time.

Now, while it may seem that Obama and co. have realized that their kid-gloves approach to our enemies is only making them more dangerous, I do not give them that much credit yet. We must remember that the agenda of our president is not to keep America safe but rather to make America subservient (to other nations), stagnant (by quashing entrepreneurship and freedom), and socialist, all while engaging in flagrant self-promotion. While he probably will not achieve these goals (this is America, people), these Leftist principles give us a pretty good idea of what Obama will eventually try to do. In the Obama spirit of backing down, the administration will not take any actions that North Korea would consider a provocation, which means that if the Kang Nam’s illegal weapons cargo is destined for Al Qaeda, Obama would still insist on not forcibly inspecting or stopping the ship. In the Obama spirit of reasoning with the unreasonable enemies of America, Obama will endeavor to reach out to North Korea one way or another, possibly by apologizing for our history towards them, a communist state that invaded South Korea leading to the death of tens of thousands of Americans. Finally, Obama will try to reproduce a “Nixon goes to China” moment, just like he tried to reproduce an “Ich bin ein Berliner” moment last year, and end up making a series of security concessions in Asia, probably including the reduction of US forces on the Korean peninsula and backing off commitments to Taiwanese independence… cementing Chinese hegemony in East Asia while proclaiming “peace in our time.” These are just some thoughts on what the inevitable consequences of the Obama foreign policy seem to be if the president continues on his current trajectory. So when some people say that they want the president to fail, at least in this case, I wholeheartedly agree. Obama should fail if his actions will make America weaker.

-AG

Authoritarian regimes around the world differ only in the details, their primary aims are all the same: retain power at all costs. To this end, countries such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, brand the United States, Europe, and anyone else want as the enemy in order to legitimize their rule to their own people. In times of social unrest, this tactic is particularly important because it denies dissidents any claim to moral authority by essentially branding them as traitors or as collaborators with “the enemy,” and because these tyrannical regimes control the media in the country, it is usually an easy sell. This is one reason that explains why tyranny lasts so long in certain countries.

On cue and disregarding fact, the Iranian regime scattered the blame for the anti-Ahmadinejad protests on the West, ultimately honing in on one group of countries: the United Kingdom, the United States, and Israel (in that order). The fact that the Iranian regime still blames the United States despite Obama’s attempts to reach out to the regime and his hesitation in either condemning the regime or supporting the demonstrators shows that Iran’s leadership is not responding to the administration’s overtures. This was expected. What was also expected was the fact that Iran claimed that the new symbol of the protests, a woman named Neda who was filmed after she was shot and killed by Basij militia members, was killed by “groups who want to create division in the nation“, then also saying that she was killed because a marksman confused her for the sister of a terrorist. The Iranian regime does not even care if its story makes sense or not, it is just the nature of authoritarian governments to keep pointing fingers at others until the blame sticks to someone.

Neda Agha-Soltan, Face of Iranian Struggle for Freedom

It is interesting to note the developments between the administration and the Iranian regime in light of these protests. Prior to the elections Obama sent a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei requesting direct talks, indicating to the regime that the US was still committed to direct diplomacy. Later, in a Democratic signature move, Obama flip-flopped on playing nice with Iran and“toughened” his criticism of the regime, condemning their actions after more than a week of being careful not to anger the oppressive regime, definitely a sign that Obama is responding to pressure at home from members of both parties who believe in America’s role as the protector of freedom. Now Obama has rescinded its invitation to Iran for the July 4th celebration. It looks like the administration is finally on the right side of history, at least momentarily, by condemning a regime that indiscriminately kills abroad and at home in order to retain its power. What this scenario shows us about Iran is that no amount of outreach will change the principal goal of the Iranian revolution: regional and global power. US demands of respect for human rights, suspension of nuclear development, and renouncing terrorism simply do not fit their plans.

It is in situations like these, when dealing with tyrannical regimes that use the US as a scapegoat, that the Lefty Liberals get tripped up easily. Their confused logic concludes “they are using us as a scapegoat to retain their control over their population, so let’s treat them nice so that they have no reason to hate us.” To that I offer the clear example demonstrated by the Iranian regime’s response to Obama. To this, the hard-core Lefties will say “no we were not nice enough, they still resent us for our past relationship” and they will continue to push for unlimited concessions to our enemies. The reason that simply being nice to them does not work is that the primary goal of authoritarian regimes is to retain power by any means, specifically by creating the idea of an enemy or some bogeyman out there that only the rulers can protect the people from. This means that dictators only use our actions as examples, but ultimately it is our EXISTENCE that they hate. The only thing we can do to change this is to actively help the dictators oppress their people. If America is willing to help preserve and spread tyranny around the world, then we will get loads of love from tyrants everywhere…

How Giving Aid to Dictatorships Works

But if we adhere to the principles that founded this country, that ALL people have inalienable rights, then we cannot actively support tyranny. One good thing that can come from Obama foreign policy failures is that America will realize the importance of resisting terror and tyranny in the world. Unfortunately, it looks like the administration is not done with its mission of aiding and comforting our enemies. It will be a lesson well learned.

-AG

Chris Matthews, political commentator and host of the show Hardball, is a personality that I like listening to but disagree with. Sun Tzu said it best: Know thy enemy. When Republican Senate candidate (FL) Marco Rubio tweeted that “I have a feeling the situation in Iran would be a little different if they had a 2nd Amendment like ours,” Matthews commented on his June 22nd show: “Wow! Things would be different if the protesters had the Constitutional right to bear arms?! To fight back against the Iranian Guard? I hadn’t thought of that. Then again it wouldn’t really be a non-violent protest, would it Mr. Rubio, if the non-violent protesters were walking around with guns!” Matthews is flat wrong in his analysis.

First off, Matthews’ own position on limiting the second amendment is clear, as shown in this video where he says that he wants people “disarmed":

In criticizing Rubio’s defense of our Second Amendment rights, Matthews seems to confuse strength with violence. Apparently, he has never heard the adage: “If you wish for peace, prepare for war.” The Second Amendment right is not to be interpreted as a mandate to go and use weapons on anyone or everyone, as some Democrats would have us believe, but rather as a reminder that the ultimate authority in our system of government is the people and the right of the people’s self-defense cannot be denied by any governing power. In practice, the Second Amendment serves as a deterrent to the rational-minded and a defense against imminent harm. Matthews’ assertion that the protests would turn violent if the Iranian people were armed is incorrect, just look at the vast majority of political protests and rallies in the United States that do not turn violent. The truth is that if the Iranian people had a Second Amendment, then the Iranian regime would not crack down on the protesters so heavy-handedly. The right to defend themselves would serve as a deterrent and the right to be heard would more likely be respected. The greatest fear of tyrannical regimes is a population that can defend itself.

Both on the domestic and international front, the Left is trying to disarm the United States, believing that somehow the criminals, terrorists, and dictators will respond to a defenseless America by becoming our friends and abandoning their evil ways. Freedom-loving Americans must not allow Democrats’ plans for unilateral disarmament to come to fruition. On that note: good for you, Marco Rubio, for pointing out that our rights in this country have been indispensable in securing our freedom and that some in the world can learn from our example. We ignore this lesson at our own peril.

-AG

With the Democrats’ two-pronged foreign policy strategy, appeasement and apologizing, and the Anti-American Axis‘ two-pronged responses to American weakness, threats and weapons development, will the issue of national security prove fatal to the Left in the next election cycle? I have three theories. The first one is simple: the media will spin all of the Democrats’ failures as successes and attribute any sort of positive development to Obama’s actions. So far we have seen this occur, from reporting that the Lebanon vote was swayed by the “Obama Effect,” then ignoring the “Obama Effect” as it applied to the Iranian vote/fraud, then ignoring the non-responsiveness of the administration to North Korea’s explosion of an atomic bomb, then ignoring the daily terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda affiliated groups, etc. The media, aka the government propaganda machine, has not taken a hard look at the short- nor long-term implications of getting friendly with regimes whose only claim to fame is their continuous practice of trying to kill Americans and weaken America. The media is supposed to be the watchdog of a healthy democracy, instead we have a mouthpiece for the president and considering that the government is currently pressing the need for more “oversight” of the free enterprise system and society in general, who will end up watching the watchers?

The second theory of how the security issue might affect the next elections revolves around the Democrats’ use of image instead of substance. Right now, the sitting president is a political “rock star” liked by many regardless of his actions while the Republican party is essentially leaderless and many of the more known personalities are not well regarded by the public. This means that if the Cheney’s, Limbaugh’s, and Bush’s of the world take center stage versus the “oh-so-cool” Obama, then the national security issue will be neutralized by the political popularity contest that will ensue. Turning democratic elections into a popularity contest by reducing the candidates’ positions on issues to soundbites and slogans, similar to what was done in ‘08, is more detrimental to the democratic process than anything happening in Iran right now. To avoid this, the American public must demand accountability from our elected officials and the Republicans must not put forward candidates without excessive baggage or negative publicity points like the aforementioned personalities.

Theory number three is that Republicans unify with a clear message about how America should be a responsible leader of the world. Hegemony is not forever and Obama is making sure of that. If we want to reverse the trend of a weakening America, then the Republicans will need to unite behind a clear, concise plan of how to promote American strength. Essentially, a metaphor for what is currently happening with America can be found in the plethora of action movies we have all watched: terrorists/bad guys start causing havoc in the world, the government and authorities are powerless to stop them, then the hero comes on stage and starts foiling the bad guys’ plans, all of this accompanied by stunning visuals and explosions. The better that the Republicans can narrate this story, with the conservative movement being the hero, then the better they will do at the polls… to their advantage, the emboldened terrorists and powerless government are already a reality due to this administration. I am not saying that instead of making elections a popularity contest, we should make them an action movie, but rather that the current administration has created the conditions for our enemies to threaten us and the Democrats are powerless to stop them, paralleling an action movie plot. In the present situation, reality imitates art… which means that the Republican Party can play the part of hero in real life. The only thing lacking is a focal point, i.e. a leader, party unity, and clear communication of the message: Peace through Strength. Or at least a variation of that message.

I believe that what will eventually play out is a combination of the first two scenarios and I am hoping that the Republicans take the course of action outlined in theory three. I am actively rooting for the underdog in the next elections, especially since I am so very proud of being an American that Obama’s country-bashing disgusts me. Our elected officials’ love of country should be as strong or stronger than mine, but many Democrats deride patriotism as having no part in public life. This is why Obama supporters forgave his insistence that he would not wear an American flag lapel pin or his insistence that not putting his hand over his heart while they played the national anthem was acceptable. The greatness of America is manifest in the greatness of Americans, their courage, their service, and their generosity… and it should be celebrated. The Republicans should launch their new united campaign for American freedom on July 4th… the most Republican of holidays.

-AG

Syria is a supporter of the terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, it supports Iran’s nuclear program, it is technically in a state of war with US-ally Israel, and it allows foreign fighters that eventually fight American troops to enter Iraq. US and Israeli intelligence also reports that Syria was building a nuclear reactor, with help from North Korea, which was destroyed in a surprise Israeli air strike. Syria was also suspected to have played a hand in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was seen to have opposed Syrian control over Lebanon near the end of his life, and after his death, Syria withdrew their forces from Lebanon. It was due to this Syrian involvement that the United States withdrew its ambassador in protest. So what does the Obama administration want to do with Syria? Normalize relations. It’s a surreal world indeed.

Obama will be sending a new ambassador to Syria in order to re-establish relations with the terror-sponsoring country. He also wants to build a new embassy in Damascus. Apparently, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, friend of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, has been having “productive” conversations with the administration’s envoys. Talking to a regime such as Assad’s is only worth it if they are willing to make concessions. Particularly, Syria would need to do at least three major things for any serious talks to take place: stop supporting terrorist groups or get them to stop terrorizing Israel, secure the Syrian-Iraqi border, and come clean about any WMD or nuclear programs. Anything short of these three would seriously undermine US security. It is a process that worked with Libya, a former sponsor of terror that has agreed to dismantle its weapons programs. The problem with Obama’s approach is that it puts the cart before the horse. With Libya, we only sent an ambassador and built a new embassy once they changed their ways, a decision they made with the Iraq invasion fresh in their minds. With Obama, Syria will receive recognition from the US in exchange for… the sliver of cooperation we have received on the border issue with Iraq. Bad negotiating technique. Especially when the stakes are so high.

The administration needs to look at Syria’s history and its friends before it starts recognizing and legitimizing terror sponsoring states. By legitimizing Syria, the administration is signaling to the population of Lebanon and other nations that voting for an anti-American party or group will have no repercussions. Hezbollah was defeated in Lebanon, but won the popular vote, with the most decisive factor contributing to their defeat being the fear of Syrian and Iranian influence. If the US conveys to the world the false illusion that Syria and Iran aren’t really that bad, then future elections in moderate Middle Eastern countries might go to the radicals. I do believe that some sort of communication with the regime can be constructive, especially since General Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, has indicated that Syria is taking some action to secure the border. I personally do not think that these actions are enough though, especially considering that Syria’s willful neglect has probably led to the deaths of American soldiers and their continued support of terrorism and Iran is a threat to the world. Obama’s move toward the normalization of relations is giving them too much for too little in exchange and it sends the wrong message to the world. Dictators around the world now expect the red carpet treatment from Obama regardless of their crimes or actions… while Obama makes sure to not fully support pro-democracy protests. We must beware abandoning freedom, lest freedom one day abandon us.

-AG

One would expect that an emergency war supplemental bill to be a bill that primarily deals with funding for our troops, but under the Democrats’ regime that we currently live under, this expectation proves false. Essentially, the Obama administration has taken an emergency war spending bill that should mainly have been used to support the troops and added to it provisions that give an unaccountable international organization billions of dollars as a bailout. This means that the American taxpayer will now be footing the bill for not only the US financial institutions that got us into this economic crisis but also for European banks that made risky investments in Eastern Europe. The bill in itself is for $106 billion with about $80 billion going to our troops, but it authorizes a $108 billion loan to bail out the International Monetary Fund. This bill was a brazen attempt at tying “global bailout” efforts to supporting our troops, an underhanded move that split Senate and House Republicans, with the former supporting it and the latter voting almost unanimously against it. An emergency war supplemental bill should support our troops, not to spend taxpayer dollars to bail out other countries’ banks… instead, the administration should request the money for international organizations and foreign banks separately, but apparently they were betting that such a bill could not pass. They’re probably right.

This Supplemental Appropriations Act lost the support of 35 Democrats who were worried about the fact that Obama has not presented a thorough exit strategy for Afghanistan while allocating even more money to their military and non-military affairs and of course due to the $108 billion in loans to the IMF. Also, the bill initially requested funds for the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States mainland and for the release of photos of detainee abuse that could be used in terrorist recruitment in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fortunately, the money was denied and it was decided that the photos would not be released, but it shows what the Obama administration’s agenda is all about and it’s not the safety of the American people or our troops. The bill prohibits the establishment of permanent bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is a premature commitment on the part of the administration. We cannot and do not know about the need for permanent bases, especially considering the worsening situation in both countries, therefore to ban bases is completely short-sighted. What this bill does is unnecessarily tie the hands of the military in the global war on terror… or should I say our “Overseas Contingency Operations.” What the military needs is a war spending bill that is not used as a Trojan Horse for the administration’s political agenda and that actually focuses more on the real-world security concerns of our country. With the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and Afghanistan we need more direct funding for the military, less funding for international organizations and foreign banks, and zero restrictions on our efforts to fight terror… it also wouldn’t hurt to resume the use of the ever-so-clear expression Global War on Terror.

Republicans should have been more united in opposing this bill and very loudly and publicly offering a better alternative, or at the very least demanding that the Democrats separate the part that actually funds the troops with the part that funds foreign governments, some of which actively support terror like Iran. With a united Republican opposition it may have been possible to secure more funds for the troops at a time when terrorism around the world is on the rise. The Democrats have been very clear on their plans for our enemies, diplomacy even if it means that they develop weapons of mass destruction while we negotiate with them. The Republicans must show that they are in complete opposition to this agenda by supporting a strong military force that will serve as a deterrent to rogue states developing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism. If the Republicans do not know how to remain united, then they should listen to this guy:

Politics should never be put before our troops.

-AG

As the external threats of an overtly oppressive and bellicose Iranian regime and the possibility of Iraq succumbing to terrorist forces or sectarian fragmentation continue to weigh on the American consciousness, it is important that we not be distracted from the domestic policy failures that will play an important part in the reduction of American influence in the world. Let’s go back to the days when a novice president said that the “time for action is now” and if that we did not act then “crisis will turn into catastrophe.” It was under these pretenses that the new administration reached into the dusty shelves of macroeconomics libraries and pulled out an economic theory conceived more than 70 years ago… so much for change. The idea was that the government could stimulate the economy by printing more and more money until the economy recovered, regardless of how the money is spent. Well, despite being completely absurd the idea that more borrowing and spending beyond one’s means was the solution to an economic recession caused by excessive borrowing and spending beyond one’s means, it turns out the the so-called “Stimulus” package rammed through Congress by the Democrats in power has actually not done its job. What the Stimulus has stimulated is special interests and the national debt, it looks like change hasn’t come to Washington after all.

First off, the administration propaganda-machine estimated that the Stimulus would create or save 750,000 jobs by early August. The reality is that for the month of May, unemployment rates increased in every state except for Nebraska. No new massive influx of the government-touted “green jobs” or “shovel ready” jobs. It was in manufacturing, in Michigan, where the highest unemployment rate increase occurred. Manufacturing jobs were hit hard by the repercussions of GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, despite the government spending billions of taxpayer dollars on these companies. So even when we stimulate individual companies, they still fail… why spend the taxpayers’ money to begin with? One thing is certain though, the UAW, a Democratic-voting union, was handed over 55% stake in Chrysler and the government has taken a majority stake in GM. Unions and the government are taking over the free enterprise system… all at the taxpayers’ and the consumers’ expense. Ain’t it grand?

Second, instead of stopping or slowing the recession, we have seen what we expected to see from a free market correcting itself, some economic sectors improving, some bottoming out, and some getting worse. One thing is certain though, companies such as GM and Chrysler would have gone into bankruptcy much earlier with much less cost to the taxpayer if the government had simply not intervened or not “stimulated” them and today we would have been talking about a resurgent American auto industry. Instead, we had months of uncertainty that only hurt the markets and an eventual outcome that put the government in the driver’s seat in terms of running these companies.. with the American taxpayer holding the bill. Just yesterday, as an example of how the Stimulus is only stimulating government size and power, we saw the stock market take a hit, with the Dow Jones dropping 201 points, after the World Bank estimated that the world economy would contract 2.9%, more than the previously projected 1.7%. I guess the world economy doesn’t feel stimulated yet. Add to that laws such as the new bill that gives the FDA overwhelming power over the tobacco industry, allowing the federal agency to ban flavoring, control advertising, and control the ingredients that go into tobacco products. This bill was signed into law by a guy who is himself a smoker, it could be that he’s trying to get the federal government to support his efforts to quit. The regulation of even advertisement, beyond merely requiring truth or warnings, shows that the government regards the American public as little more than children who need to be mommied and watched over lest we do something they think is “bad.” Government intervention in our daily lives is growing under the current administration.

Third, one thing that the Stimulus is not stimulating is the talent at firms that have accepted federal money. A brain-drain is currently going on at banks and financial institutions that have accepted, sometimes by force, stimulus dollars. This means that America, historically the beacon for talent from all over the world, is losing to other countries who have no such restrictions on compensation. The administration has appointed about 20 different “czars” that regulate areas from the auto industry to the amount of money executives can get paid. John McCain has joked that “Obama has more czars than the Romanovs,” but in truth, the expansion of executive power is no joking matter, not in this administration nor in the previous one. The executive branch has no business trying to supervise the compensation of employees at companies, especially in the cases where they had to take federal money against their will and have not been allowed to repay that money. Excessive government intervention will lead to the weakening of America’s economy.

The real threat to America is an overly ideological stance when it comes to government. It is practicality that Americans want and need. Right now, the administration has made its position clear: it stands for increased government intervention in the economy. Many may feel that the term “socialist” is unfair, but when you have an economic policy that is based on the redistribution of wealth, like Obama explicitly expressed during the campaign and during his presidency, it is a “socialist” policy. On the other hand, even the previous administration expanded government and redistributed wealth to some extent, despite its claims of being conservative. What this means is that Americans must judge a government by its actions, not only whether it is “liberal” or “conservative,” and unfortunately for us, both liberal and conservative administrations have conspired to increase the size and power of government, each for different reasons. Americans must stand for freedom… the freedom to live one’s life without government intervention, the freedom to succeed or fail in life as a result of our efforts and talents, the freedom to choose our own path… Affiliating with Republicans or Democrats or whatever party should only reflect that basic desire for freedom. One thing is certain though, giving government the power to control the free enterprise system, intrude on our personal life, and give away our tax dollars to special interests compromises our freedom… we must take care not to willingly give away our freedom simply because we “like” the current leader. A cult of personality is no substitute for a healthy republic.

For years, the Democratic choir sang the praises of being nicer to the enemy, of more rights for suspected terrorists, and for the normalization of relations with abnormally cruel and dangerous tyrants. With the Left firmly in control of Washington what we are witnessing in Iran is the logical consequence of that policy. The new administration has abandoned the courageous Iranian people who risk life and limb to demand freedoms that we Americans take for granted. Technology now allows us to see the raw reality of the Iranian regime’s crackdown on unarmed protesters, including the murder of individual protesters that serve as heart-wrenching rallying cries for the pro-democracy demonstrators and people around the world. In real-time, Americans can now watch what happens when tyranny goes unopposed and unchecked in the world… if this is how they treat unarmed protesters, then imagine what the Iranian regime is willing to do to us and Israel with nuclear weapons. Yet the unfolding events caused or enabled by a weakened America have not taught the new administration that their soft approach to our enemies is just plain wrong…

Enter Iraq, where Obama pledged a withdrawal of troops and is currently reducing our troop levels there. It was a short-sighted reaction to what was and is an unpopular war. The withdrawal of troops, to be mostly completed a year or so, is seen by the enemy as a direct consequence of their prolonged terror campaign against our troops. The problem with Obama’s plan for withdrawal is that it does not seem to outline a “post-exit strategy.” Take the recent events in Iraq that have largely been ignored by the mainstream media: four bombings in Iraq killed more than 20 including one that killed three students on their way to exams, more than 9 killed from bombings and gunmen attacks Sunday, last Saturday a suicide bomber killed about 80 people in a Shiite mosque, in separate attacks 4 people were killed on Saturday from bombings, gunmen attacks, and mortar attacks, just to name a few. Add to that the fact that the new administration is started to release thousands of suspected terrorists and insurgents as the dismantling of the US presence continues, and what you have is a situation where all of the gains made by the surge are being undone. The logic of our enemies in Iraq is clear: Obama responded to terror attacks by calling for a withdrawal of troops, therefore if they increase their attacks, Obama will accelerate his withdrawal while Al Qaeda and other groups can claim victory. By withdrawing because it is politically expedient rather than because we have achieve sustainable security gains, we are handing Iraq over to our enemies. Just by looking at another multi-religious state in the Middle East, Lebanon, we can expect Iraq to divide along sectarian lines and break into different sub-states. This exists in Lebanon today, where the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah is the de facto government in many areas and cannot be disarmed by the central government. While I advocate an eventual withdrawal from Iraq, I am more concerned over whether Iraq will become the new epicenter of Al Qaeda and/or other international terror groups because of a weak central government… or whether the Iranian “revolution” will spread to Iraq, which may spark a major war between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East, eventually involving us.

The new administration’s policies in these two countries will leave a lot of unresolved issues and may lead to the rise of a new terrorist state in Iraq. Obama has not thoroughly addressed how the Al Qaeda threat will be neutralized in Iraq during and after the withdrawal of US troops nor how we will deal with excessive Iranian influence over the Iraqi government. To leave these questions unanswered, or half-answered, will lead to an emboldened and strengthened enemy that we will have to face in the future. When the Bush administration was in power, they miscalculated and did not have an adequate “exit strategy” but at least they recognized that withdrawing as a response to terror attacks or setting arbitrary timetables would only invite more attacks on our troops. The Obama administration is making a similar mistake by not preparing for the consequences of our withdrawal, except that the cost of giving Al Qaeda the opportunity to re-constitute itself in Iraq or for Iran to turn Iraq into a satellite state is far too great. Worse still if half of Iraq goes to Iran and the other half to Al Qaeda. In retrospect, the Bush strategy of taking the fight to the enemy is superior to the Obama strategy of allowing the enemy to bring the fight to us. Al Qaeda cannot be allowed to rise again… which means we cannot hand them Iraq on a silver platter and we cannot engage in talks with their allies, the Taliban, like Obama is currently doing. The security of our citizens depends on a smart and strong foreign policy, not a weak and ideological foreign policy. Great nations only fall when they are weak, not when they are strong.

-AG

Today, Republican Senators criticized Barack Obama’s “timid” stance towards the protests in Iran. The Republicans have not been doing an overly effective job with their own public image by not offering a clear alternative to the Democratic agenda that is marching relentlessly forward. By taking a stand on issues like this and offering alternatives to the pseudo-socialist Democratic proposals, the Republican Party can finally come out of obscurity. Merely by reading all of the content on conservative websites, the Republican leadership can get more in touch with the “street” and refine their message. The times when assuming that the left-leaning-media could not erode the American public’s confidence in the values of Independence, Freedom, and the American Dream are over. The overt bias of the American media in favor of the current president has made independent thought a revolutionary act. Republicans are the new American revolutionaries.

On the issue of foreign policy, the Republicans have an opening… no, in fact, they have a duty to our country to point out how policies of weakness and timidity. The last time we had such a weak president, Iran became a totalitarian theocracy, Angola and Nicaragua were taken over by communists, El Salvador was fighting off commies, and the Soviet Union was invading Afghanistan. It took a Republican president to turn the tides. The current president is quick to point to Reagan as an example of how “talking with the enemy” works, but Obama is missing the entire point of HOW Reagan talked to the Soviets. When Reagan talked to the Evil Empire, he did so while significantly increasing military spending, restarting weapons programs, aiding anti-Soviet and anti-communist forces around the world, trying to deploy the “Star Wars” missile defense system, and deploying missiles to West Germany… peace through strength.

Obama, on the other hand, has unilaterally eased restrictions on communist Cuba, has apologized for American “arrogance” around the world, pledged disarmament (possibly unilateral disarmament), has waffled on missile defense shield plans, granted more rights to suspected terrorists, tried brokering immunity deals with the Taliban, and abandoned pro-democracy groups in Iran and around the world… peace through aiding and comforting the enemy?

So when Obama talks about Reagan engaging in direct diplomacy with our enemies, he is misleading the American public by omitting the part about the fact that diplomacy only works when the enemy respects or fears you, and the Republicans should pounce on these claims. The Republican party can only survive if it is willing to hold Obama accountable: accountable to his own words and accountable to the American people. The Republican party can only challenge the leftists currently in charge by offering an alternative to one-party rule, which means: proposing ideas that honor American principles and proposing ideas that work.

At this moment, when a terror-sponsoring totalitarian regime is being confronted by a people who are tired of having their voices ignored and their opinions steamrolled by the official government slogans, it is necessary to draw a clear line in the sand about where America stands. Reporters and demonstrators are under attack, getting beaten and shot in the street by government-sponsored paramilitary groups, and our own government has not stood firmly behind the victims of Iranian oppression. Republicans and Democrats alike need to search deep in their hearts and decide whether we should comfort the Iranian regime by offering only “cautious” words or if we should loudly and clearly commit ourselves to the spirit of freedom currently under attack in Iran. This is the chance for the party of no-more-socialism to become the party of yes-more-liberty.

-AG

Thanks to the internet, the repressive hand of tyranny can no longer operate in darkness with impunity. Below is footage from the Iranian protests currently taking place. The media is being strictly controlled, so the only way for information to trickle out is through the internet. As the Iranian dictatorship turns its guns on students, women, and protesters of all varieties, Obama continues to turn a deaf ear to the cries for help. People are dying in the streets supporting the cause of freedom, the right to choose their own government, which are rights that we Americans take for granted. The President in the meantime said that he would try not to meddle in Iranian affairs, only going as far as politely asking for the Iranian government to stop its “unjust” actions… Obama does not want to do anything to agitate the Iranian regime, forgetting that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

America must do something.

Caution: the images below contain raw footage of violence.

I added the song We’re Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister in honor of the protests.

-AG

Protests rage on in Iran with the reformist candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi saying that he is ready for “martyrdom.” In the meantime, the president of the United States of America has decided to stay a cautious distance away from the best opportunity for freedom in Iran in three decades. While Obama insists that he does not want to interfere in Iran’s affairs, Iran’s rulers have already charged us with doing just that. So the question is: if they already believe that we are “meddling” why not take the plunge and actually help the pro-democracy protesters by showing our support?

The reason is that standing with the Iranian people is not what Obama wants. Obama wants to stand next to the Ayatollahs. Obama wants a to hold a “historic” dialogue with Ahmadinejad. Obama wants a photo-op. Freedom is not what the president wants. While he talks about outreach, he is actively NOT reaching out to the only people in Iran that, in spite of suffering beatings, incarceration, and getting killed, are still out there on the street demanding real change. He is actively reaching out to thugs, tyrants, and terrorists because it fulfills some sort of ideological fetish, the idea that bad guys are just misunderstood. By turning a blind eye to the regime’s abuses, we are essentially enabling oppression. Yesterday, Ayatollah Khamenei issued his ultimatum, practically saying that any harm that befalls the protesters is the protesters’ own fault. This means that Iran will soon start taking the gloves off and really crack down on the demonstrators… if and when that happens, will America simply be standing to the side as the spirit of freedom gets crushed? Or will America be the defender of freedom?

Unfortunately, the president has already shown us his ability to ignore the suffering of the Iranian people. Our actions now will influence the future of our relations with Iran. If we abandon the people then both the regime and the people will hate us. If we stand against tyranny then only the regime will hate us. I think the choice is clear, but for a person like Obama, who excuses his relationships with former terrorists and excused the vicious anti-American diatribes of his former-pastor Jeremiah Wright, choosing freedom over tyranny is not so easy. Is it too much to ask for the president of America to actually act American?

To the Iranian people who oppose tyranny, the American people stand with you, regardless of what our politicians say or do.

-AG

When it comes to dealing with the thugs, terrorists, and tyrants of the world, direct talks without preconditions is naive, a betrayal of American values, and a threat to the security of the world. Just take the new administration’s approach to historical enemies of the United States, what the president calls “tough diplomacy” has, in 5 short months, increased the influence, strength, and belligerence of dictators and terrorists across the board. The amount of damage caused by the mere promise of holding direct talks with countries regardless of their human rights records, regardless of their complicity and participation in the deaths of Americans, regardless of their direct support of terrorism, and regardless of their nuclear aspirations has already been substantial. The examples are numerous and the effects of the administration’s new naive foreign policy have been felt on every continent.

To start off we have communist North Korea, a country that prior to Obama’s election was vilified as a member of the Axis of Evil and was in the process of suspending its nuclear program (at least in theory). During the election they favored the Democratic candidate because of his overt stance in favor of engaging with rogue states. Once the herald-of-change was elected, North Korea also changed. They threatened the destruction of South Korea, as they have in the past. They carried out illegal missile tests, as they have in the past. They pulled out of the six-party negotiations and resumed nuclear development. They conducted a new nuclear test. They launched medium-range missiles. They regarded the new United Nations resolution that tightened the arms embargo on North Korea as an act of war. They declared that they could not guarantee the safety of ships in disputed waters. They are currently preparing for the launch of a long-range missile, possibly towards Hawaii. The US response has been to urge them to return to the negotiation table. The State Department and the President have been repeating that North Korea’s actions will lead to further isolation and that the world will not tolerate these threats. In other words, the new administration has decided that the best course of action is diplomacy and each round of empty threats from the US have been met with new weapons tests and new provocations. Obama recently warned that North Korea “must respond to diplomacy” and warned that tougher actions would be taken otherwise. The reason that North Korea has not taken Obama seriously is that the president has made every indication that he would exhaust diplomatic venues before even considering a military response. While Obama waits for a response, North Korea will accelerate its weapons development programs and figure out how to best use their new weapons to blackmail the United States. While Obama waits for a response, Alaskans and Hawaiians worry a little more every day despite assurances from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that we are prepared for any potential missile attack from North Korea. While Obama waits for a response, the peoples of Japan and South Korea anxiously hope that the last bastion of freedom, the United States of America, will be able to solve this problem, which to them is an existential one. This is what the promise of negotiating with a madman like Kim Jong Il has brought us.

Which brings us to another nation that aspires to possess a nuclear capability: Iran. Run by a council of Islamic clerics and a hardline elected government headed by the Holocaust-denier, unstable Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. When Obama offered to extend a hand if they unclenched their fist, Iran’s leaders immediately seized upon this as an excuse to demand an apology for all of our past actions. Iran’s efforts to increase their influence and power in the region after 30 years have led them to support sophisticated and well-organized terrorist organizations, interfere with US forces by arming and training insurgents, and develop a nuclear capability. Recognition by the United States and the world has been one of its primary goals, one that Obama went far to help them reach by offering to talk to them. The problem with recognizing this rogue state as a regional or world power is that it legitimizes their actions. It incentivizes sponsoring terrorism. It incentivizes pursuing nuclear weapons. It incentivizes military action against the United States. As I wrote before, Iran-sponsored terrorist organization Hezbollah recently met with officials from the European Union. In the last election they garnered the support of 55% of the Lebanese population. Actions that lead to the legitimization of terrorist organizations or regimes that vow the destruction of other countries, like Ahmadinejad has vowed to do to Israel, only lead to the spread of their murderous ideologies and their success at gaining political power. If Obama’s overtures to Iran did anything, it was to show the Iranian people that taking a hard stance against the United States will eventually cause us to back down and sue for peace. Even now, with demonstrations against Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei spoke about accepting the election results as people chanted “Death to America”. The message that the US will respond to threats and attacks only helps terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Taliban gain and retain power. Right now, patriotic Iraqis are in fear of an Iranian-controlled government taking power as soon as the US withdraws its forces. Many Lebanese people fear that a disagreement between the central government and the terrorist organization Hezbollah will lead to another civil war. They also fear that Syria and Iran (Hezbollah’s sponsors) will come to wield undue influence in their country and that Hezbollah might launch another attack on Israel, dragging them into war yet again, or worse yet, another dose of Israeli occupation. Israel itself is afraid that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, which is now all but assured due to US insistence on dialogue which just gives them more time to finish their nuclear development, might bring about a nuclear Holocaust. Were Hamas to be more legitimized by the United States and the world, they would have the ability to smuggle more weapons into Gaza and continue their terrorist campaign against Israel. The US already has pledged hundreds of millions to help Gaza while insincerely reassuring the world that these funds would not make their way into terrorist hands. Ultimately though, the legitimization of Iran as a regional power in the Middle East makes it a perfect model of an Islamic fundamentalist state to be emulated by any other terrorist movement in any other country. By offering recognition the United States has just made extremism into a form of mainstream-ism in the world.

Which brings us to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. After being almost totally routed in Afghanistan, the Taliban and their Al Qaeda guests relocated to Pakistan’s ungovernable tribal regions. In that area, due to the Pakistani government’s unwillingness to crack down on the terrorists, these organizations regrouped and rearmed. Upon assuming office, Obama has repeatedly proclaimed that the war in Afghanistan is being lost in spite of the fact that the Taliban have been ousted, they are forced to blend into the local population, and rarely engage in anything other than guerrilla attacks. To his credit, even General David D. McKiernan, the Commander of NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, agree with him. Among the solutions proposed by the commander-in-chief was to engage in dialogue with the Taliban. The United Nations also says that we must talk with the Taliban, including “alleged war criminals.” Another country that repeatedly has advocated talking to the Taliban is Pakistan, a country that is currently engaged in an offensive operation and in the midst of a terror wave. Apparently, the multitude of cease-fires, agreements, and negotiations did not prevent the Taliban and Al Qaeda from gaining strength in the region, so why does the Obama administration believe that some form of dialogue with the Taliban would do us any good? It is unknown why they believe that discussions with the Taliban would benefit US security, but since February, such secret talks with the Taliban have been underway. Of course they are secret, because if the American public was made aware that backers of the criminal terrorist Osama bin Laden are being offered immunity and other concessions, then there would be a great public outcry. To this date, negotiations are taking place in Saudi Arabia. While the Taliban are engaged in talks with the US, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Taliban terror attacks in Pakistan have been escalating. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have learned that if they continue to pressure these governments, they will eventually try to negotiate a way to end the conflict. Talking to the Taliban has only emboldened them. Right now, the citizens of Pakistan and Afghanistan are in fear for their lives while their governments and ours is legitimizing the Taliban terror campaign by engaging in talks. The security of the world will be severely jeopardized if Al Qaeda is once again allowed to use Afghanistan as its training camp or if the Taliban once again assume control of the country. If this occurs, then Al Qaeda can claim victory over the United States and the memory of 911 will be betrayed. Obama’s policy of appeasement will only lead to more terror.

Which brings us to the western hemisphere. On Obama’s watch, the Organization of American States has lifted its suspension of communist Cuba after 47 years and now Cuba is well on its way to being recognized as a legitimate state. While Cuba has rejected OAS membership because of the stipulations that Cuba must re-apply to the organization and meet certain human rights standards, what this move signifies is that regardless of a regime’s crimes it will be accepted by the international community and the United States in particular. It also means that Castro-imitators will be accepted by the international community. Thus, to legitimize Castro by unilaterally easing restrictions on the embargo and lifting its suspension from an international organization of mainly democratic states is to legitimize Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela that has been, by increments, consolidating power in his and his party’s hands. Not to mention the fact that Obama has said that he is open to direct talks with Chavez, further legitimizing the socialist movement that has gripped the governments of many countries in Latin America. For example, Chavez recently has been cracking down on his political opponents and stripping them of power without the US saying a word, nor the media even mentioning it. When one also considers that these “socialist” governments are united mainly by their opposition to the United States and that they have been reaching out to anti-American nations around the world, it makes it clear that the threat to our country is closer than the new administration seems to believe. Chavez and Raul Castro have reached out to Iran.

Reports abound that Hezbollah has infiltrated Latin America. Bolivia’s ties with Iran have also increased substantially since the assumption of office by Evo Morales, Chavez’s good friend and fellow socialist. Some fear that this new relationship between these two America haters will lead to or has already led to the establishment of a terrorist cell or camp in Bolivia.

Ahmadinejad and Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, getting really friendly

Obama has treated these anti-American thugs with kindness. The president has not addressed their ties with Iran, probably because he is trying to engage with Iran. The policy of offering direct diplomacy without preconditions to these leaders only helps strengthen these regimes by giving them international legitimacy, even while the plot, prepare, and participate in attacks against America. In Latin America, an emerging socialist bloc threatens to reawaken the communist guerrilla armies that wreaked havoc in Colombia, Peru, and Nicaragua to name a few Latin American countries that have been affected by socialism/communism. In turn, civil wars in these countries will lead to a greater displacement of people and increase in the drug production and trafficking.

In the short time that this new administration has been in power, the seeds for regional destabilization have been sown and the enemies of the United States have been strengthened. It is now almost impossible to isolate Iran or North Korea. It is now expected that we negotiate with the Taliban and take a softer stance on the war on terror. It is now a fact of life that Latin America will consider the emerging socialist internationalist movements as a preferable alternative to free markets and trade with the United States. All of these states, organizations, and movements have one thing in common: anti-Americanism. They are reacting to the fact that America represents the eventual universal emancipation of people around the world. America represents the model for a government of, by, and for the people… a model where any person, including those who will undermine our national security due to poorly-conceived idealism, can become president. Thus, the idea that direct talks with our enemies without preconditions will lead to an era of dictators acting nicely and terrorists renouncing their ways only empowers both… our enemies have smelled weakness in our new government and although they have been united in purpose for some time now, they are increasingly uniting in action… they are forming an Anti-American Axis that is dramatically different from the Evil Empire that we faced in the last century. The potential loss of their entire country and people kept them from using weapons of mass destruction on the United States. Suicidal extremists have no such constraints.

When faced with such an enemy, the popular refrain seems most fitting: Talk is Cheap.

-AG

For the last couple of days, in the midst of North Korea’s serious provocations, I have been reading reports on how the President was able to kill a fly. They reported how the organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) reacted to the fly-swatting incident. Then I read a report that Abraham Lincoln also swatted a fly in his day, yet another “similarity” between Obama and the great emancipator. In fact, I am sure that every president, like most human beings not living in Antarctica, have had encounters with flies… the question is: should the media be wasting the public’s time with insignificant stories like this one?

The mainstream media has had a very public love-affair with the Obama administration. Recently, the editor of Newsweek Evan Thomas compared Obama to God, topping the list of ways that the media has been genuflecting in front of the Celebrity-in-Chief. The fact that those in the media do not even pretend to conceal their bias shows the public that the mainstream media does not even try to uphold standards of objectivity. Here’s the clip describing Obama as God:

Thinking about it yesterday, stories like the fly-swatting one only serve one purpose: they distract us from what the president is really doing. Think about it, Obama has inserted the government in the free markets, he has angered the gay community which is one of his most important voting bloc, he has asked for talks with Iran and that has resulted in the re-election of Ahmadinejad and giving more time for Iran to develop nuclear weapons, he has allowed North Korea to detonate another nuclear weapon and launch missiles, and the stimulus has yet to do anything noteworthy. While the media has reported these items, they have done so with kid gloves. For example, when Hezbollah failed to overwhelmingly win the Lebanese elections, the media immediately pointed to Obama as a main reason that the pro-western political coalition won (see this article). On the other hand, when discussing the “Obama effect” on the Iranian elections, the media seems to point to the demonstrations as the only sign of it. What the media does not do is address the fact that Ahmadinejad was leading in the polls before the election, regardless of Obama or maybe due to Obama, and if it is true that the vote was rigged, it shows that the ruling clique of Iran is not worried about being flagrantly dictatorial. Where’s the “Obama effect” here? Of course, even with the Lebanese elections, the media distorts the “Obama effect” when they do not report that despite Hezbollah’s loss, they actually won 55% of the popular vote (see the end of this article). This means that in spite of Obama’s rhetoric, the considerable majority of the Lebanese people believes that Hezbollah and their political allies were the better choice, not the pro-western, Obama-backed parties. It looks like the “Obama effect” has actually not done anything to weaken Iran nor Hezbollah, a fact that the mainstream media will ignore completely.

The media is giving the president a pass on his myriad of failures and promoting him as the world’s “savior” at a time when the enemies of America are re-arming, re-grouping, and challenging our place in the world. Imagine the raucous laughter emanating from Bin Laden’s cave when this cowardly terrorist hears that the American public is more interested in Obama’s fly-swatting adventures than the re-emergence on the Taliban. Seriously, more people have heard about the fly-swat-heard-round-the-world than about the near constant terrorist attacks in nuclear-armed Pakistan… how many terrorist attacks have there been you ask? Well, in descending order, there was the bombing of three schools today, the bombing of a market in the city of Dera Islamil Khan that killed 8 on Sunday, the killing of an anti-Taliban cleric and the suicide bombing of a mosque on June 13th, the suicide truck bomb of a hotel in Peshawar that killed 15 on June 9th, and the list goes on. I guess the mainstream media does not regard the possible implosion of a nuclear state to be newsworthy.

The Anti-American Axis of terrorists and tyrants, fundamentalist and atheist, is not resting. Instead of informing and alerting the American public, the mainstream media is comparing Obama to God, talking about his dog, and swooning over his wife. Our enemies are more than happy to see the American public so thoroughly distracted so that they can work in peace. It is the duty of all Americans interested in the preservation of this great nation to stay informed and form independent opinions. What the mainstream media is spoon-feeding us is tainted by their adoration of this false prophet, we must not allow them to tell us what to think… this is yet another way that the preachers of conformity and complacency are turning America away from our spirit of independence. We must resist!

-AG

It is a problem that has plagued presidents for decades and it is a problem that Barack Hussein Obama has inherited. For the last two administrations, our government’s prescription for the problem of the North Korean threat has been appeasement; I say appeasement and not compromise because while we gave them billions in aid in exchange for a suspension of their nuclear program, they never stopped developing nuclear weapons or missiles. It turned out that we were giving in to blackmail and the North Korean dictator understood the success of this formula: threats + weapons tests = billions in aid. What is different today compared to the last administration is the way we are treating North Korea. The last administration, for all its faults, made it absolutely clear to the world that North Korea’s dictator is EVIL. Can’t get more clear than that. Unfortunately, with our war on terror and the Iraq invasion, our ability to seriously consider the military option was diminished, especially when one takes into account the fact that many countries of the world made it a sport to oppose any US policy. So the Bush administration followed in the completely discredited footsteps of his predecessor, Bill, and adopted a policy of negotiations. Of course, few in the world gave him any credit for his multilateral diplomatic approach, like the Democrats were/are preaching, and in addition to being a failed policy, it was not even applauded (like Obama’s every move is applauded).

Which brings us to the Obama administration, whose foreign policy strategy was touted as “tough diplomacy.” The thing about “diplomacy” is that North Korea considers itself an expert at negotiation and therefore saw this president as a golden ticket to all of their desires. Once we understand this fact, we can understand the logic of North Korea’s moves and ultimately their motives. Like Carter before him, a soft approach to the Anti-American Axis that exists in the world only emboldens the enemy.

When Obama met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, he reaffirmed America’s commitment to South Korea’s security as well as saying that the goal is the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Obama said that he would not reward North Korea for their threats and that their nuclear development was unacceptable. Bold words from a mild man… but, to North Korea’s rulers, they are utterly hollow. They know that Obama will not risk a war and that South Korea will not want to be wiped off the map. So North Korea will continue their tests, improving the range of their missiles so that they can hit the contiguous US mainland, improving their nuclear weapons, developing warheads, etc.

North Korean Poster

In the meantime, North Korea is holding two American journalists on the charges that they were participating in a “smear campaign.” They were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for their slandering the North Korean regime. Obama did not make a mention of them in his remarks after meeting the South Korean president. Way to root for the team, Barack! While the president was talking tough about Korea, the Pentagon recently capped the number of interceptor missiles in Alaska and California, saying that there are enough in place already… but how do we accurately know how many long-range missiles North Korea has produced and hidden? If anything, this indicates to the North Koreans that we are truly not interested in any sort of conflict… just talk.

The more pressing threat of course is not merely the development of their conventional weapons, since we have been preparing for such a threat for most of the last century, it is the threat of nuclear technology and weapons falling in the hands of a nihilistic group, e.g. Al Qaeda. While we know that North Korea had help from the Pakistani nuclear program, what we do not know is how far does North Korea’s contact in the Middle East, Central Asia, or South Asia goes. Right now, the US is tracking a North Korean ship suspected of carrying weapons or technology. They insist that they will not forcibly board the ship because North Korea would view that as an act of war… so I wonder, what would we consider the transfer of North Korean nuclear weapons technology to Al Qaeda? An act of peace? We need to have the option of forcibly boarding and inspecting the ship… this is for the purpose of mankind’s security, not merely our own interests. Our policy of treating our enemies with kid gloves will only allow them to strengthen and eventually strike at us. For the Obama administration, the possibility of a mushroom cloud over an American city is not enough to persuade him to get a little tougher.

What I do not understand is how the current president Obama and former president Carter can nonchalantly express the desire that we negotiate with terrorists and tyrants when these terrorists and tyrants are actively looking for ways to kill Americans. Americans are being imprisoned abroad, used as bargaining chips, while world peace is threatened and the president offers us only words. Just words. Nuclear weapons cannot be allowed to fall in the hands of a suicidal terrorist group, not from North Korea nor Iran nor anywhere else. How far is the current president willing to go in order to ensure the survival of our nation and our civilization? From the looks of it, not far enough.

-AG

What Hezbollah could not do early this month in Lebanon was accomplished by terrorist organization Hamas three years ago in the Palestinian territories. Now, Hamas finds itself governing only in Gaza, in a conflict with Fatah which controls the West Bank, isolated from the international community, and under siege by Israeli forces. Of course, the Israeli “siege” has come about because Israel is sick and tired of Hamas firing rockets into its territory. While the situation seems bleak for Hamas and the battered residents of Gaza, there is one person that they can count on for “support” (other than Syria, Iran, and other Arab state sponsors): Jimmy Carter.

Yes, former president of the United States Jimmy Carter visited Gaza in order to see the destruction of the conflict last January between Hamas and Israel. Instead of offering a sober appraisal of the current situation in Gaza, the causes and consequences of war and terrorism, Carter simply criticized the international community and placed the blame on everyone except Hamas, the group that routinely fires rockets into Israel. Carter said “the responsibility for this terrible human rights crime lies in Jerusalem, Cairo, Washington, and throughout the international community.” I guess that the appropriate response to terrorism from Hamas should be to simply take it, according to Carter. It is easy to sympathize with the Palestinians in the aftermath of a disproportionate strike by Israelis, but how else can Israel react to the near-constant terrorist strikes it endures?

The only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation is for both sides to commit to peace, meaning an end to Palestinian terrorism and an end to Israeli expansionism. When a former US president completely ignores the fact that Hamas’ indiscriminate attacks on Israel are the major cause of the recent conflict, he is exposing his bias and/or his idiocy. In order to put an end to terrorism, the world must recognize it for what it is, murder, and demonstrate that there can be no benefit from it… not sympathize with it. Carter needs to stop giving aid and comfort to terrorists.

-AG

While Iran’s rulers try to contain the mass dissatisfaction over the last election by arresting opponents, protesters, and further controlling the media, in another Middle Eastern nation, Iran’s power is still holding strong. On June 7th, Lebanon held elections where the pro-western Sunni dominated bloc won a decisive victory over the pro-Iran, pro-Syria Hezbollah dominated bloc: 71 parliamentary seats to 57. While the western world breathed a sigh of relief, the truth is that Hezbollah’s participation, concession of defeat at the polls, and capture of 57 seats have brought a brutal terrorist organization into the mainstream. Currently, the armed wing of Hezbollah is regarded as the most powerful military force in Lebanon: they kidnapped Israeli soldiers, launched thousands of rockets into Israel, withstood an Israeli counterattack, and currently have tens of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel. While the elections may seem like a setback for the group, the real power of Hezbollah lies in its willingness to use force to get their way. For example, for more power in the government, Hezbollah took over half of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, in May 2008. They only withdrew after their demands were met. While the government has been trying to persuade Hezbollah to disarm, the terrorist group has refused, saying that they are the only ones who can defend Lebanon against Israel. In other words, the Iranian-backed terrorist group will remain armed and retain its power in Lebanon.

With a firmly entrenched Hezbollah in the semi-failed state of Lebanon (central gov’t is unable to control paramilitary groups), the former head of homeland security Michael Chertoff has warned that they may surpass Al Qaeda as America’s greatest terrorist threat. The fact that Hezbollah has state sponsors, more fighters, rocket and explosives technology, international legitimacy (except for with the US and Israel), and a safe haven in Lebanon make this terrorist group light-years ahead of Al Qaeda, which is currently under siege and on the run. Hezbollah has been implicated in the bombing of a US Army barracks in Lebanon in 1983 with 200 casualties and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 with 20 casualties. They have also been implicated in bombings of Jewish targets in South America. The fact that they started a war with Israel and survived is, in itself, troublesome enough to take this terrorist threat seriously. Especially when one takes into account that Hezbollah’s boss, Iran, may soon develop nuclear weapons… making the possibility of a “suicide nuclear truck bomb” a real possibility.

Instead of taking these threats seriously though, the current administration and the European Union have been trying to “talk” to Iran and Hezbollah. We all know that the president has repeated over and over his willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions… I would remind the audience that Iran sponsors terrorism, is developing nuclear weapons, captured British sailors while in Iraqi waters, has killed American soldiers in Iraq, and has threatened the destruction of Israel… In the spirit of the new willingness to talk to extremists, European Union officials held a meeting with Hezbollah officials four days ago. Inviting representatives of terrorist organizations and officials from terrorist-sponsoring states will only give them more legitimacy and in the end, more power. So while Hezbollah aims more rockets at Israel, extends its reach to the western hemisphere, and Iran develops nuclear weapons, the US and our allies are engaging in “dialogue.” The enemies of America are collaborating against us and our allies, but the real threat to our safety is a weak and naive foreign policy. Pretty speeches and starry-eyed idealism is a poor defense against nuclear bombs and missiles.

-AG

Over the last few days I have been reading reports about the protests in Iran over the landslide “victory” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in their recent presidential election. His opponent was Mir Hossein Moussavi, a reformist candidate, who has accused the government of widespread fraud. There were many serious irregularities in the voting patterns, but it will be difficult to prove whether or not the election was rigged. What can be proven is that the entire system is rigged… because at the end of the day, it is Ayatollah Khamenei who controls Iran’s fate.

The government that exists beneath the totalitarian regime run by Iran’s clerics is simply an exercise in democracy, not the real thing. In theory, this “democracy” can serve as a useful distraction to the masses giving the clerics the ability to seem above-it-all and not directly responsible for Iran’s problems. In practice, it creates a civil society that will yearn for real results from their real participation in this fake democracy. These protests are a direct result of that miscalculation. The reaction of the ruling religious clique has been identical to the reactions of their atheist communist colleagues: shutting down media, violent suppression of protests, and incarceration of political opponents.

The question is: will the rulers of Iran continue this sham of government or will they simply make it clear that there is no real freedom in that country? I applaud the courage of the protesters and those that believe in a government of, by, and for the people… it shows us, a world away, that the human spirit for freedom is universal. Hopefully, the protests will bring about real change in Iran, but unfortunately history has shown us that those with power seldom give it up easily.

-AG

I added Rock the Kasbah by The Clash in honor of the protests… enjoy

Nuclear Blackmail. That’s the name of North Korea’s game and it is a game that we cannot afford to play. North Korea has vowed to strengthen its nuclear capabilities and weaponize plutonium in response to the UN resolution that tightened sanctions on the nuclear armed communist nation. As I have been writing about for months, North Korea is a nation that believes that they can throw a temper tantrum and push the United States around. They are ruled by a paranoid regime that has militarized every aspect of their society. With previous US Presidents they toed the line and got away with it… there is a real danger that with this president, who is perceived as weak by many of our enemies around the world, North Korea will finally cross the line.

The previous administration insisted on missile defense shields in order to prevent rogue nations from launching missiles, especially nuclear-armed ones, at the United States and our allies. Since the start of the new administration we have seen hesitation and uncertainty with respect to our missile defense initiatives in Europe… instead of hesitation, we need an expansion of our defensive grid. More dangerous still is the possibility that these nations will sell or give nuclear materials or technology to Al Qaeda. This is not a threat to be taken lightly and unfortunately, since January, each North Korean escalation has been met with either silence or some prepared statement by the State Department. The world needs to unite against the possibility of a nuclear war… this is where the country formerly-known-as-a-superpower, Obama’s United States, needs to show some leadership.

We voted for change and we got it: change from superpower status to paper tiger. We should not have to fear what we can easily defend against, just because the people in Washington don’t have the courage to protect our great country. This is what happens when the last bastion of liberty is perceived to be weak…

-AG

I have been writing about North Korea’s provocations for a while and so far, since the start of the new administration, nothing has been done except issuing “strongly worded” condemnations. In the meantime, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il has tested more than half a dozen missiles, threatened the annihilation of South Korea, pulled out of the six-party nuclear negotiations and conducted another underground nuclear test with a weapon about as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. Well, finally, the United Nations Security Council has decided that North Korea’s actions are unacceptable and they have agreed on tougher sanctions.

While I commend the fact that something is being done, the reality is that the world stood by and did nothing while North Korea escalated from threats to missile tests to exploding a nuclear weapon. While an aloof President of the United States talked about disarmament in Europe, a tyrannical madman was launching missiles over Japan in Asia. What the new administration thought was mere saber-rattling has turned into a real threat. In Alaska, worried residents are fully aware that they are within range of North Korean missiles and are not confident in the administration’s assurances that the military will be able to “deal with it.” The UN’s recent actions do not offer much more comfort. To impose tighter sanctions on a country whose leadership was willing to starve millions to death in the 90’s because they preferred investing in their weapons programs may not have the intended effect. What is needed is a set of sanctions that more directly affect the ruling party and their weapons programs. What is needed is a set of sanctions that weaken the grip of the government on North Korean society. What is needed is a set of sanctions that will make China reconsider its nearly unconditional support of its neighbor. Only then can sanctions make a difference… and unfortunately, there is no other realistic course of action in the near-term, especially since the United States is currently run by an administration that believes in the inherent “goodness” of murderous dictators and is willing to stake our security on that belief. Let’s hope that the sanctions are able to put an end to North Korea’s weapons programs before those weapons are ever used against anyone.

-AG

For 30 years, ex-employees of the State Department Walter Kendall Myers and his wife Gwendolyn Myers passed classified materials to the Cuban government in exchange for little monetary compensation. Their motivation? A starry-eyed idealism that held Cuba’s totalitarian communist society as the model that man should aspire to. It is an idealism that has certain elements that diverge from reality so drastically, that one wonders how they can subsist in a day-to-day fashion. It is an idealism that proposes that:

• Total denial of individual human rights by emphasizing “Collective Needs” is a type of progress
• The United States is the source of all evil in the world
• Murder is justified in the name of Communism

Those are only a few of their “ideals,” and these are only a few of the spies. Cuba has specialized in recruiting the true believers in their tyrannical ideology in order to obtain sensitive materials that may eventually find their way into the hands of our enemies. Ana Belen Montes, the senior Cuba analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, was another one of these spies who passed sensitive information that directly led to the death of a US operative in Central America. Her motivation was likewise ideological, an ideology that seeks to destroy the United States.

Ana Belen Montes

So as the people in Washington debate on how to play nice with the Castro government, maybe they should consider how a country with highly restricted trade and travel with the United States has been able to infiltrate our intelligence agencies. Before opening our wallets and borders to Communist Cuba, the government should first ask the question: will normalizing relations with a country that steals US secrets and passes them to our enemies help national security or hurt national security?

-AG

As I have written about earlier, the Taliban have been planning to attack Pakistan in response to the recent offensive operation in the Swat Valley region. They carried out a few attacks and just today they struck a five-star hotel in Peshawar that is mainly frequented by foreigners. This is the problem with appeasement. For years, the Pakistani government was negotiating with the Taliban and trying to get a firm ceasefire. So the Taliban would agree to a ceasefire, only to use the lull in the fighting to plant sleeper terror cells around the country, to be activated if and when the Pakistani government decided to drive out the Taliban. So now, innocent civilians are being bombed and shot by Taliban terrorists in an effort to turn Pakistani public opinion against the military offensive.

The Obama administration should take the Pakistani experience as a lesson. The more that we normalize relations with states that sponsor terrorism and extend our hand to our enemies, the more that they will use our goodwill against us wherever possible. Appeasement is never the answer. Obama should think it through: even if Obama is absolutely right and the evil terrorists and tyrants of the world huddle around the campfire singing kumbaya, the long term strategy of these terrorists will be to threaten and strike at America because they know, like we know, that the President of the United States is seldom as naive as Barack. They know that the next President will not take provocations lying down and will not allow nations to threaten others with nuclear weapons or terrorism. So for the sake of the safety of American citizens, Obama must not appease our enemies.

-AG

While I usually could care less about the opinions of actors and actresses, Jon Voight really hit it out of the park recently. At a Republican fundraiser he asked Republicans to “bring an end to this false prophet: Obama.” He went on to say that everything that Obama has recommended has turned out to be disastrous and that his weak foreign policy is based on the naive assumption that our enemies will back down if we act nicely towards them. In fact, here is a clip:

America needs to wake up and stop this false prophet before it is too late.

-AG

The next time you decide to go on vacation abroad, expect your money to stretch a lot less. In the tradition of African demagogues (read Mugabe), the President of the United States has decided that the best way to solve the country’s economic crisis is to print, borrow, and spend more money leading to two inevitable consequences: more taxation and more inflation. We already know that Obama has increased taxes in the short and long term and right now is pushing for a health care system that will cost Americans trillions more. That is old news. That is what voters chose last November. That is what we must endure. What many have not fully considered is: what happens after the federal government floods the economy with fresh and crispy hundred dollar bills? The same thing that has happened throughout history: inflation.

Already a hedge fund has bet that Obama’s spending will lead to hyperinflation, essentially putting their money where their mouth is. What inflation means to America is clear: higher costs at the supermarket, higher cost of gas, higher cost of clothing, higher cost of everything… Major investors and funds are already getting scared and investing in metals and other currencies rather than the US Dollar, if the trend continues a run on the dollar will mean that our currency will collapse and our most powerful weapon, our economy, will be rendered useless. It makes sense if you think about it, how else could Obama put his face on the one thousand dollar bill?

-AG

Update here.

In the past, one word summed up the politics of the Cuban-American community: Republican. But times are changing. With the new generations of Cuban-Americans born in the United States and the new waves of refugees coming from Cuba, the political identity of this community is changing fundamentally. It’s not a result of youth per se, but more so a change in collective consciousness and different historical circumstances. Essentially, the Republican and Democratic elements in the Cuban-American exile closely reflect two groups that exist: those that feel the effects of Castro’s totalitarian regime and those who do not. I use the present tense to emphasize that while many have been first hand witnesses and victims, some of those have detached themselves from the reality of the regime due to the dulling effects of time: apologizing for or ignoring the excesses, the violence, the murders, and the denial of basic dignity by emphasizing a sense of nationalism. The logic is odd, given that some of them tout the regime’s “universal health care system” and at the same time ignore or rationalize the thousands who have been sent to labor camps and/or have been murdered by the regime. Also, there are many who did not experience the “revolution” directly, but truly feel wronged by the regime. In these cases, these individuals feel a sense of connectedness with Cuba and/or patriotism. The new leftward movement of the exile community can be explained in these general terms… of course like all generalizations they do not fully explain the individual reasons that one would be a Republican or a Democrat.

On foreign policy, the exile idea that the United States must take a severe and uncompromising stand against the Castro regime was betrayed by the Democrats under John F. Kennedy and taken up by the Republicans. Those who experienced the violent victory of communism or the betrayal of the Bay of Pigs invasion would side with the right for decades. The monolithic exile community promoted the embargo and censure of Cuba for its deplorable human rights record. But the mere survival of the Castro regime started to change the minds of some of the younger generations, who seemed to reason that if one approach didn’t work then the polar opposite would work and started to think about lifting the embargo and dialogue. Add to them the incoming waves of Cuban refugees who, while in Cuba, were reminded on a daily basis that the embargo itself was to blame for all of the hardships on the island, and the calls to lift the embargo started gaining strength, driving more Cuban-Americans into the Democrats’ arms. They completely ignore the fact that lifting the embargo unilaterally only strengthens the Castro regime’s grip on power and the repression associated with it.

On the issue of national security, the Republican position of a strong national defense resonates more with those that believe that freedom must be defended against its enemies, otherwise it will be lost. This transpired during the lifetimes of those who lived through the revolution and those who see history as a conflict between freedom and tyranny. Those who did not personally lose this freedom and experience the triumph of tyranny in Cuba are more likely to ignore these issues as unimportant to life in the U.S. Younger generations trying to build their lives outside of Cuba enjoy freedoms that are well-defended against and see them as an intrinsic part of society. These persons tend to be more Democratic because they believe that the greatest threats to freedom are intolerance and forms of social injustice, thus national security is less important in terms of preserving freedom. The Democratic prescription for these problems, of course, is for more government intervention and turning a blind eye to terrorists and dictators that openly call for the destruction of America.

Which brings us to government. The traditional Cuban exile position tends towards less government since on the island the state usurped all of the rights of the individual. Hence, again the Republican Party seems more in line with the Cuban reality of the time, emphasizing individual responsibility rather than collective decisions. But more recently, with the aging of the exile population, the new influx of refugees that experienced the collapse of the communist bloc and the ensuing economic downturn, and the younger generations born in the U.S., the belief that problems need to be solved by the federal government has gained strength. Particularly the idea that, contrary to historical examples, our rights can better be protected by big government has become more common. Be they women’s rights, African-American rights, Hispanic rights, gay rights, consumer rights, immigrant rights or any other sort, these are exclusively in the realm of problems that the more Democratic leaning persons believe can only be solved by big government. They fail to realize that a government big enough to give us everything, can also take everything away.

This brings us to the intervention of government in the economy. The regime’s totalitarian control over all aspects of the individual’s life did not stop with the economy. With forced relocations, land redistribution, expropriation of businesses, wholesale rationing, a fully planned economy, and total prohibition of free enterprise, the Cuban exile population again gravitated towards the party that emphasized free markets: the Republicans. But the Democratic agenda of universal health care, wealth redistribution, and reining in of free markets, started to encroach on the exile’s long held beliefs that the collective should never supersede the individual. Universal health care becomes more popular to an aging population and also to a new generation that has confused the individual rights (what government cannot take away from anyone) guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution with collective rights (what government must take from everyone and redistribute). Furthermore, the idea that only big government can provide universal health care becomes the Democrats’ signature policy and those in the community agreeing on the urgent necessity for it trend Democratic.

For these reasons and others, the Cuban-American community is no longer the single-issue voting bloc that it used to be. While the old guard may lament this fact, the Cuban-American community benefits more from political flexibility than blind loyalty. Republicans have long thought that support from the Cuban-American community was a fact of life and have taken them for granted in many ways, paying lip service to many of their concerns and sometimes ignoring them altogether. On the other hand, a fractured voting bloc is not effective in advancing the goals of the community.

Ultimately, the solution to the dictatorship in Cuba cannot be solved in Washington; it must come from within the island. The party that helps end this nightmare is the one that deserves the exile vote (on this issue), though at the moment, the Democrats’ intentions seem to benefit the dictatorship (Democrats want a dialogue, to end the embargo, cutting funding to pro-freedom programs, and leaving Cuba to its own devices: policies that the Castro regime wants) and the Republicans seem to want to keep up this stalemate. There is a real movement on the island and in exile struggling for freedom from tyranny; our government should empower them to help defeat tyranny instead of helping the Castro regime remain in power. America requires an effective and tough policy towards Cuba that reflects our commitment to freedom around the world… the Cuban-American community has long been a powerful voice for the spirit of that very freedom and, now, in the face of the Democrats’ current goal of extending our hand to dictators and terrorists, we need this voice and the voice of all Americans to demand a return to our values. It is here that the Republican Party can strengthen their position in this community, and taking into account the betrayals of Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama, it shouldn’t be so hard.

-AG

A Miami resident, Gustavo Villoldo, recently won a civil suit against the Cuban government for driving his father to suicide and was awarded $1 billion. Villoldo will try to collect the money from frozen Cuban assets but it will not be very easy, given that much of that money has already been awarded to other individuals who won suits against the Cuban government. This story brings to mind a very important topic of interest to Cubans and Cuban exiles: the issue of compensation for property that was expropriated by the Castro regime.

The issue of claims to property in post-Castro or post-communist Cuba is a difficult one to untangle. The Castro regime created a catastrophic mess when it expropriated billions of dollars in property and businesses from Cuban citizens and other property holders. In the fifty years since, Castro has parceled out homes as he wished and redistributed wealth as he saw fit. This fact is central: the Cuban people have endured terrible suffering over the last five decades at the hands of this dictator. So what is to be done with respect to property rights and claims?

The solution to this problem must take into account the most important considerations when dealing with a post-communist Cuba: rights of the Cuban people, revitalization of the Cuban economy, and stability/security. Very simply put: if we allow Cuban exiles to rush back into Cuba after the end of communism and claim properties that were confiscated fifty years ago, this will effectively create a two class system. One class will be the Cuban exile class with roots in the United States and with ownership of significant portions of the Cuban economy and the other class will be that of ordinary Cubans who have absolutely no ownership in today’s Cuba and will not have as much of a say in tomorrow’s Cuba. This situation is unacceptable because it punishes ordinary Cubans who remained on the island… and it will possibly lead to instability and violence. The mere fact that Cuban exiles have long been expecting that their claims be honored and that Cubans on the island have expected the exiles to take back all their land, has made it a real concern for those who want change in Cuba. The exile’s demand for property has only strengthened the communist regime’s position by generating the fear of losing one’s home in ordinary Cubans. Therefore, it must be made clear that in a post-communist Cuba, claims to property cannot be honored simply on the basis of “property rights.” In other words, former property holders with proof of ownership will not be considered to have any right to those properties in any way. The best that they can hope to get is some sort of compensation, which I will address later.

The right to property cannot be regarded as a natural (and negative) right since property rights are by their very nature a contract between an individual and all others. Property is not the natural state of man, i.e. we do not come into this world clutching a deed to a house, we come into this world with self, life, and liberty… that’s it. The right to property is something that comes through negotiation with society. In Cuba, that contract was ruptured by a revolution that became communist and declared that everything belonged to the state. So when a new government is established in Cuba that is based on human rights, liberty, and justice, that government is coming into power with a blank slate in terms of property claims.

The revolution was a game-changer. A New Cuba after communism does not imply the return of the Old Cuba. Decisions over property and wealth distribution must be made on a national level and the vast majority will probably not be too keen on allowing faded pieces of paper held by aging Cuban exiles to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few… the suffering of the Cuban people was nearly universal and therefore the rebuilding of Cuba requires universal contribution and effort.

On the other hand, while I do not advocate honoring property claims in such a way that harms the regular Cuban population, I do advocate instead some sort of compensation if possible. The Castro regime has created a two-class system in Cuba: the higher communist officials and the regular citizens. Given this two-class system and the “illegal” concentration of properties, privileges, and wealth in the hands of the Castro cadre, the exile community should have the right to go after some or all of these assets as compensation for confiscated property. What is clearly the personal wealth of the ruling clique should be given back to the people whose property was confiscated as compensation. The process should go through courts established specifically for this purpose and only then should claims to property be considered. If no such assets can be clearly identified and/or recovered then zero compensation will go to the former property holders.

The policy is simple: do not punish ordinary Cuban people and award some or all of the assets of Cuba’s oppressors as compensation for those whose property was confiscated by Castro. All of this should be done through the courts of course.

This is simply my view in a nutshell… the varying types of confiscated properties and businesses, the treatment of Castro regime officials after a transition, the actual process of dividing up property among the local Cuban population, etc. are all issues that play a part in a post-communist or post-Castro Cuba and, in truth, the way that a transition takes place will decide a lot of these questions. In the meantime, all we can do is offer up our view of how justice will be best served in a post-communist Cuba.

-AG

Three weeks ago I predicted that the Taliban would start setting off bombs in the middle of Pakistan’s major cities and last Thursday, that is exactly what took place. The Taliban carried out a terrorist attack in Lahore killing 27 and wounding 250. In Peshawar, they set off a series of bombs hat killed 8 people. Of course, to be fair, I predicted that a terrorist organization would engage in terrorism… pretty much a no-brainer. Regardless of that, it is important to understand that the enemy that Pakistan is currently trying to defeat is not one that can be defeated using conventional strategies and conventional armed forces. The problem with these organizations is that they do not have standing armies, they do not wear distinct uniforms, and they do not always congregate in one area. They look like civilians, act like civilians, and smell like civilians… and if Pakistan stations its entire army in that region, then the Taliban will simply take off their ski masks and melt away into the civilian population.

What this means is that even if Pakistan gains control of a city or region, like they recently did, it does not mean that the organization is significantly closer to being defeated. Right now, we can expect that Taliban elements have dispersed throughout the country and are planning to carry out further bombings… so while the conventional battle may have been won by Pakistan, the unconventional war may rage on. The terrorists have several advantages: a clear set of demands ("Sharia Law"), support from the local population that fears creeping westernization, and years of preparation. If they can convincingly express that they will cease their attacks in exchange for the right to live by Islamic Law and convincingly portray Pakistan’s government as being Washington’s lapdog, then they can win the psychological war. Pakistan must preempt this strategy by launching and sustaining their own PR campaign (psy-ops) and by stepping up their counter-terrorist efforts in order to smoke out the terror cells set up around the country. They must also make sure that the internally displaced population is properly taken care of, otherwise these people will blame the Pakistani government for their woes and become ripe pickings for terrorist recruiters. The internal refugee population will become a ticking time bomb if not taken care of.

So far, Pakistan has been pursuing a policy more in line with logic than their previous policy of appeasement… it seems that the Obama administration is partially responsible for pushing them to crack down on the terrorists. In spite of that, I fear that the Pakistani government will not have the will to fight a prolonged guerrilla war in Swat Valley and a prolonged terrorist threat throughout the country… they have shown time and time again that they are more willing to negotiate with the terrorists so that they can “control” them rather than fight them. Let’s hope that the Pakistani government does not surrender and let’s pray that the Pakistani people do not suffer at the hands of terrorism.

-AG

I have been away for some time and it seems that the forces of tyranny have not relented… I guess there’s no rest for the wicked. So here goes:

First up: North Korea. First they test a nuclear weapon in direct violation of international law. Then they fire three short-range missiles off of their east coast, raising the stakes in its confrontation with the civilized world. Finally they threaten war if South Korea attempts to participate in efforts to stop weapons trafficking. All in a week’s work for dictator Kim Jong Il.

In response, the Obama administration has issued strongly worded condemnations and warnings of consequences for these actions. Let’s be serious, Obama has ignored North Korea for the majority of his tenure so far and Kim has been proceeding with his tests and nuclear arms buildup without a care in the world. How is it surprising that Kim Jong Il exploded a bomb similar to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How is it surprising that they launch missiles? How is it surprising that they threaten war?

Kim Jong Il took one good look at Barack Hussein Obama and he laughed.

North Korea will continue to provoke the international community as long as he believes that the United States and the UN will do nothing except issue denunciations or slap sanctions on their country.

The current weak president has only emboldened our enemies. Watching the situation unfold would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Obama should make sure that North Korea does not give this technology to our other enemies… otherwise it will be on his watch that Al Qaeda becomes a nuclear power.

-AG

That is what Pat Buchanan wrote in this article where he talks about Dick Cheney, Obama, and national security. While I respect Pat Buchanan for being one of the few conservatives in the mainstream media, I disagree with two points he made in this article. The first is regarding Barack Hussein Obama II (the president of the United States). He writes: “Barack is not into ideology. He is into Barack.” This is not correct, Obama is both highly ideological and highly “into himself.” The “into himself” part is pretty evident from his actions and speeches, like for example when he “re-enacted 9-11” in order to get pretty pictures of his new plane. The ideological part is evident in everything he has been doing. Take into account his overt policy of wealth redistribution, his overt embrace of foreign America-hating tyrants and domestic terrorists, and his overt efforts to treat enemy combatants nicer; how are these things not based on a far left ideology? Obama’s every move is defined by finding the most politically expedient way to implement his radical left ideology, in that sense he is somewhat pragmatic and not some raving lunatic foaming at the mouth. To simply dismiss him as an egotistical, young politician is to ignore the ideological coup d’état that has been carried out on this country. Who could ever imagine that the President of the United States would be personally consorting with people that openly advocate the destruction of America like Bill Ayers,? Who could ever have imagined the President of the United States openly supporting a system of wealth redistribution in this country which was founded on the principle of personal liberty? Pat Buchanan is just plain wrong in thinking that Obama is only about the fame.

The second issue I take with Buchanan’s article is the fact that he is convinced that Al Qaeda will strike again within the United States. Let’s be clear, America has been winning the war on terror. As long as America keeps going on the offense against the terrorists, an attack on US soil will not be likely. We have good soldiers out there in the field. We have satellites peering down at every Afghan goat herder on the ground. We have analysts listening in on terrorist chatter from all over the world. We are prompting foreign governments to disrupt the finances and operations of terrorist organizations. While it is certain that Al Qaeda is planning another attack, it is by no means certain that they will be successful. To suggest otherwise is fear-mongering and is a slap in the face to all of our service men and women out in the field. The only thing that will make another attack probable is if we stop our operations against the terrorists or appease them in any way. A weak foreign policy is the terrorist’s best friend and this administration is looking awfully friendly.

-AG

Speaking of Obama making friends… I am adding the song “You’re my Best Friend” by Queen.

Rush, pick on someone your own size! 97-year-old Roberta McCain had a few choice words to say about Rush Limbaugh a few days ago: “I don’t know what he is, but he does not represent the Republican Party that I belong to.” Roberta is absolutely right. Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly violated Reagan’s 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

I know that Rush is not always at fault, for example, Michael “in da heezy” Steele had no business calling Rush irrelevant, but the truth is that Rush has been very vocal in attacking fellow Republicans, particularly Roberta McCain’s son. We must be realistic for a moment… do we want the Republican party to be a clique where only the most loyal conservatives can join or run for office? Do we be so exclusive that we save ammo for Republicans who stray even an inch from the official party line? Of course not.

I am no supporter of moderation in the defense of freedom, but I am neither an imbecile when it comes to backing people who are more conservative versus more liberal. Any day, I would rather have a McCain than an Obama. More generally, on any day I would choose a liberal Republican over a liberal Democrat, or even a conservative Democrat, because the truth is that Democrats DO NOT agree with the fact that “bigger government means less freedom” and conservatism holds that to be true (within reason of course: limited gov’t is the goal, not zero gov’t). The Republican Party cannot turn into the political version of the middle kingdom… we must be willing to accept some dissent.

This does not mean that we must moderate, it means that we should have lively debate within the party, and we must not become stagnant like the Democrats who decided decades ago that more taxes, more spending, and more government was the answer to society’s woes. For that reason, Rush is starting to stretch my patience to its limits. Reagan created the 11th Commandment for a reason… and we started winning election after election because of it… because we did not allow our inner policy debates to become weapons for the Democrats to use against us. Jeb said forget about Reagan… Rush seems to be following suit… now is not the time to betray his memory by destroying the Republican Party through civil war.

-AG

Army Maj. Steven Hutchison served his country honorably. He served two year-long tours in Vietnam. At age 57, he rejoined the military after the 911 attacks and after his wife passed away due to breast cancer. He died from the wounds inflicted by a roadside bomb and is the oldest serviceman to die in Iraq, at the age of 60.

One of his last acts in Iraq was to rescue a dog and find him a good home.

His brother told reporters that “he had a big heart.”

For defending freedom in this world, all Americans say:

THANK YOU

-AG

The problem I have with the Obama administration’s approach to terrorism is simple: they are looking for nicer ways to treat terrorists. You know who the terrorists are: the guys who killed thousands of Americans, blow themselves up, and decapitate journalists. These guys:

Apparently, Obama is considering restarting the Bush administration’s military commissions, which is a good thing. The only thing is that the suspected terrorists will be given more legal rights, which might not be so good. If they were waterboarded, will they be able to sue the US? Can their defense call on American citizens as witnesses? What if they are acquitted and then rejoin Al Qaeda as a hero once released? What exactly does “more rights” mean?

The problem is that Obama is not asking the right question when it comes to terrorism: how does America uphold its values and defend its values? Those are two different things. The former requires that we not abuse these suspected terrorists despite their beheadings of civilians, despite their vows to destroy any American, despite their dedication to a homicidal and suicidal ideology. The latter requires that we keep these suspected terrorists off the battlefield, outside of the US mainland, and that justice is served… but the administration is not asking this question.

Obama is asking: what is the nicest policy we can adopt without too much resistance from the American people? So he will restart the military commissions, but give them more rights. The Democrats will try to sweep Nancy Pelosi’s foreknowledge and complicity under the rug so that they can investigate only the Republicans who knew. Obama will consider sending some suspected terrorists to Saudi Arabia for “terrorist rehab.” Obama seems to be more interested in the well-being of terrorists than his own people… it is worth discussing that Obama’s interest in the lives of terrorists is high while he has absolutely no interest in the lives of the innocent unborn. It is worth discussing that he will spend hundreds of millions on Gaza when its rulers, Hamas, launches rocket attacks on Israel on a daily basis.

The accusations of knowing and being friendly with Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist, are being vindicated by Obama’s actions now. His moral compass is broken. His sympathy for terrorists and tyrants is guiding his foreign policy in a way that has not been seen since Carter, the one-term president who presided over Iran’s taking of American hostages and “economic catastrophe.”

Now, I am not one who ignores excesses in Republican behavior. I gladly point out that when Bush and co. took off the gloves, we did go overboard. I understand why, I voted for it, and so did millions of Americans who supported our tough stance against terrorism. We were faced with an enemy that would commit suicide in order to kill innocents. They would kill children for no reason. So did Bush overstep when he slammed two countries that were supporting terrorism (their support of terrorism is a FACT, whether affiliated to Al Qaeda or not)? Possibly some of our methods went too far. For example, a Powell aide recently said that the Bush administration was pushing interrogators to find the “smoking gun” between Iraq and Al Qaeda. While it seems that they pushed too hard… we must consider the alternative? Would we be willing to allow Iraq, which historically has had nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs, to collaborate with Al Qaeda? The UN had imposed crushing sanctions on that country, Hussein had used chemical weapons before, and Hussein was funding different terrorist groups already, did we want to wait until he decided to work with Osama bin Laden? America did not want to risk it, especially after 911. America made the best decision and re-elected Bush despite an unpopular war… because we had to do what was necessary to ensure that America was safe.

In retrospect, it is easy to criticize the Bush administration, but the truth is that the American people were there, Congress was there, and both parties voted their conscience. We now know the full details of the enhanced interrogation techniques and we reject them on the basis of our Constitution, which is a document that is not merely a contract between government and the people, but between the American people and the world. When we wrote that we would reject “cruel and unusual” punishment, we decided that we would hold ourselves to a higher standard than the monarchies and dictators of the world. In a sense, we failed to uphold that, all for understandable reasons, but now we can return to our principles. We should never have abandoned them. Also, EITs do not work so well. I do not suggest that we treat enemy combatants or suspected terrorists nicely, just that we do not stoop to their level. Waterboarding is nothing like public decapitations, nothing like pouring acid on prisoners, nothing like public lashings which are practices of the Taliban and Al Qaeda… but it is beneath the moral code of America. Let’s be rough with our enemies, but within the limits that we set for ourselves more than 200 years ago. It’s the American way.

-AG

Fidel Castro’s daughter Alina Fernández Revuelta spoke to a full house at Ohio University on Monday describing her life and experiences in Cuba. Castro’s own daughter fled the island in 1993 as a political refugee after she broke with her father’s totalitarian ideology. She describes how the “revolution” became endless and was used to militarize every aspect of Cuban society. Extreme rationing led to a breakdown of social values, where the average Cuban had to resort to breaking the law and participate in the black market simply to survive.

Young Alina Fernandez with her father

She explains that the transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his younger brother Raul Castro did not mean that much would change in the country, saying that “What is happening in Cuba is bizarre; it’s like a family business.” She also reiterated what I have written about before and what countless others believe: that Cuba should not “move toward a political or economic model like that of China.”

Fernandez describing the exploitation of Cuban women for foreign tourists

If America is to go into the business of propping up totalitarian, anti-American dictatorships, then we should do it with both eyes open. Around the world, America’s new approach to dictatorship shows the would-be dictators that authoritarianism pays, just as long as they can do business with the United States. We are giving legitimacy to those regimes that systematically deny basic human rights to their own population, at least in practice. In the name of cultural tolerance, liberals say to themselves: that’s the system they like, so why try to force them to change? The truth is that the oppression in these countries does not stop at “regular” folks but even reaches the very daughters of the dictators, because blood is not thicker than power. The oppression extends even further, with the exportation of an ideology that cultivates either apathy or sympathy here at home, the latter being the most dangerous threat to what we call freedom.

As we speak, Latin American countries are being taken over by leftist leaders that vow a radical socialist revolution based on defeating “the empire” which is code for “the United States.” The Domino Theory is being witnessed as we speak, and as long as these socialists can keep the propaganda flowing and keep their domestic situations from destabilizing excessively, we can expect the continued spread of communism and socialism in or own backyard… that is, unless something were to stop this downward spiral into socialism. Cuban-Americans have been warning of this for decades. Even Castro’s own daughter is warning us of this. An active anti-American alliance is being formed south of our borders united behind a love of tyranny, a love of Castro, and a hatred of free markets and free expression. Will we stand up against tyranny before it is too late? I hope so.

-AG

These were the words of President Barack Obama urging Congress to forgo scrutinizing, debating, and reading the massive stimulus package that he proposed and to simply pass it. His remarks about the imminent “economic catastrohpe” if we delayed acting took place more than two months ago. Here are his remarks below:

Well, Congress took his advice and along partisan lines the Democrats passed the stimulus package in record time… so what has happened since passing this massive spending bill? The federal government has spent less than six percent of the allocated money. What happened to “acting now?” With millions of people losing their jobs since the recession began and with more unemployment claims expected to come in due to the government-managed Chrysler bankruptcy and inevitable GM restructuring, the Democrats’ claim that the stimulus is the only thing that could “jolt” life back into the economy is not being followed up on.

The truth of the matter is that the “stimulus” was really never meant to stimulate anything but government itself. A lot of the money being “offered” to states is not coming for free, but rather with strings attached. For example, here in Florida, in order to receive $444 million in funds, the state would have to expand unemployment eligibility which would eventually mean raising taxes in Florida. Some of the money is being diverted to supplement government-run programs that have been underfunded through regular taxes, for example $600 million to the Superfund program that cleans up pollution which was supposed to be financed by an energy tax (this tax has been brought back) that expired in 1995. The article says that “Ronald Naman, the E.P.A. [Environmental Protection Agency] manager for the Vineland site, said the new money would create or save about 20 jobs.” $600 million = 20 jobs. Wow! At this rate $787 billion = 26,233.3 jobs. Which brings us to the “oxymoron of the day:”

GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY

The stimulus will end up changing state laws and bloating government programs that will, in the end, need sustained funding from the taxpayer, i.e. us. The Democrats made a big deal about exit strategies a few years ago, well… where’s the stimulus package exit strategy? Is it any wonder that Republicans were almost unanimous in voting against this flagrant attempt at inflating the size of the federal government? With all the infighting between Republicans after losing the election, such common sense and such solidarity was a welcome breath of fresh air.

So… for all the fear-mongering about the collapse of the economy, barely 6% of the “urgent” stimulus has been pumped into the economy. Did the new administration just pulled a fast one on all taxpaying Americans? I think you guys already know the answer to that one.

-AG

Obama’s new best bud Hugo Chavez, “president” of Venezuela, has ordered the seizure of a pipeline and natural gas compression terminal owned by Williams Cos. Inc. after this company sent default notices to Venezuela’s state-owned oil monopoly PDVSA for lack of payment. Very interesting business move by Chavez, he owes money and then seizes the company that he owes money to… if only American citizens at risk of foreclosure could do the same thing.

Chavez also went ahead and ordered the seizure of 11 vessels and an operations base of New Orleans-based company Tidewater Inc. also coming after PDVSA fell behind on payments. Again, a shrewd business move… except for the part where both of these companies will not invest further in Venezuela and possibly move their operations out.

These moves come on the heels of other Chavez political hit-jobs such as stripping the mayor of Caracas, the capital, of his powers and persecuting the mayor of another major city, Maracaibo. The mayor of Maracaibo ended up asking for asylum and receiving asylum from Peru. Both of these gentlemen were Chavez opponents. Chavez, in early April, arrested former Venezuelan Defense Minister Raul Baduel at gunpoint in front of his wife for alleged corruption. Baduel was a principal player in restoring Chavez’s power after a coup against him but broke with him in 2007 in protest of Chavez’s power-grab. How quick friendships can unravel when they’re in the way of absolute power.

When you look at what’s been happening over here: nationalizing private companies and threatening to investigate the former administration… it’s no wonder Obama got all cuddly with Chavez.

-AG

It is despicable to see the state Republican Party try to invoke Rule 11 that will focus all of the party’s funds on the officially endorsed candidate, in this case Charlie Crist. It is a brazen attempt to exclude Marco Rubio from contesting the Senate seat… it is also a brazen attempt to shatter my dreams of seeing a battle between moderates and conservatives!

Right now the party needs to have a public debate about what it stands for and will stand for after the thorough thumping that we have received in the last two elections. While some Republicans lean towards “moderation,” the Democrats embrace their most liberal members, the ones that said that we lost the war, the ones that have increased the deficit to four times the previous level, the ones that knew about torture and now act like they had no clue. What the Republicans need to do is defend personal liberty, defend America, fight for smaller and smarter government, and stress fiscal responsibility. They need to strengthen the message, not moderate it… but in the spirit of fairness, I would love to hear how standing next to Obama and embracing higher spending is better for America; I would love to know how acting like a Democrat will help the Republican Party…

I feel that the moderates have not proven their case and, by the same token, neither have the conservatives. So let’s debate it, not drown it out in procedure and premature endorsements… Let Marco Rubio, the Conservative Contender, give us a fresh new look at how to move forward… we owe it to ourselves.

-AG

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a leader of the leftist ruling faction in Washington and next in line to become president if both president and vice-president die or are incapacitated, continues to deny that she knew about waterboarding all the way back to 2002. The back story is this: Pelosi was interested in establishing a truth commission to investigate how waterboarding came to be authorized and it was revealed last year that Pelosi was indeed briefed by the CIA about the use of waterboarding. Pelosi denied it, saying that they described the technique but did not say that they were actually using it. During that briefing it was reported that no one raised objections, so why the outrage now? Anyways, the CIA, a week ago, released memos detailing how the briefings on waterboarding included describing how the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) were being used on terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah and how Pelosi was informed of this. Yesterday, a source reports that her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, actually informed Pelosi that waterboarding was being used. As expected, Pelosi has today accused the CIA of misleading her and that she did not know. Then comes a confusing account of how she actually sent a letter in protest, even though she never mentioned it before when asked if she objected during the briefings, only mentioning now after we know that her aide actually told her. Oh the tangled webs we weave…

Here is more irrefutable proof that Pelosi lied.

Pelosi’s denials do not stand against this mountain of evidence that is being stacked against her. I must commend the press in this case since they are, contrary to form, holding a Democrat accountable. The problem with the whole waterboarding issue is that Republicans AND Democrats knew about it and in the end, the outrage that we see today was absent during all those years. Were the democrats just waiting until the administration finished extracting all the information they needed before protesting? That implies that they thought that the EITs worked. The simple fact is that due to their silence, they were complicit. What is happening now is that the ruling party wants to hold a “public execution” and a McCarthyist witch hunt in order to embarrass the last administration and the Republican party. What the people in Washington need to do is fix the problems with the economy, win these two wars (one of which is pretty much wrapped up due to the Bush surge), and get back to the business of serving the people… instead they are squabbling, finger-pointing, and spending taxpayer money like no tomorrow.

In my opinion, the Democrats are using torture as a diversionary tactic as they spend record amounts of money and increase the size of government… even Obama put a stop to the release of certain photos showing the mistreatment of detainees. He deemed dangerous to our troops on the ground because they could be used to recruit more members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. These inquiries would be better to have later, after we decisively win the war on terror, and they should not be turned into a circus, their purpose should be to calmly and objectively ascertain the truth. Americans understand that we are currently at war with an enemy that does not care about the Geneva Conventions or any international treaties, an enemy that cuts people’s heads off simply for being American, an enemy whose singular mission is to kill all or any of us. Let’s focus on making the world safe from these maniacs first… we can play politics later.

-AG

Shanna Moakler, executive director of the Miss California USA pageant, has resigned because of the recent events involving Carrie Prejean, the current Miss California who answered that she believes that marriage is between a man and a woman and was subsequently disqualified. Moakler had accused Prejean of violating her contract with the pageant by speaking out in support of organizations that oppose gay marriage and for posing almost naked in pictures as a teenager. Apparently, the contract does not allow a contestant from exercising their first amendment rights to free speech, at least when it comes to gay marriage. Donald Trump, the pageant owner did not disqualify Prejean for the photos or the comments she made saying that even the president agrees with Prejean on this issue. Moakler, oddly enough, said that she would be starring in an ad promoting gay rights.

What we have here is an individual in a position of “power” in this organization that seems to be unhappy about another person having an opinion that is shared by the majority of the United States. Moakler has the right to resign, but what she represents is a type of liberalism that is condescending and that ultimately undermines the rights of all Americans. What the judges and people in charge wanted from Miss California was a non-answer or a dishonest answer and when they did not get it, they tried to exclude her and attack her, releasing videos with profanity and invective against her. What I do not understand is how can the pageant allow that sort of political question coming from a seemingly biased judge and then punish the contestant for answering truthfully?

Prejean actually did get involved with organizations which are opposed to gay marriage and is featured on this video:

It is this sort of intolerance to speech and religion that our founding fathers wanted to avoid and that those calling for “gay rights” accuse others of doing. There is a word for this: hypocrisy.

In this country, there is nothing wrong with debating both sides of the question and in the guise of being politically correct we have certain elements that are trying to stifle this debate. Questions about such a fundamental social change must be raised before we take action, especially when more states are passing laws that expand the “traditional definition” of marriage like New York. What does it mean that marriage is no longer a contract between a man and a woman? Do we simply expand the definition to man and man or woman and woman? Or do we go further and allow man, man, and woman? In other words, do we allow polygamy, bisexual polygamy, etc.? Is this the society that we want? If America believes that there is nothing wrong with this, then so be it… but let there at least be a debate in the public square.

A word on “gay rights": Human beings are endowed by their Creator (God, nature, or whatever) with certain inalienable rights. All humans have these rights and are thus called human rights. I do not support any distinction between humans when it comes to human rights; they are universal. The only case where I would deny certain rights is to protect the rights of others, like in the case of criminals where society must make sure that everyone is safe from them. African-Americans have rights and they are not called “African-American rights.” Japanese-Americans have rights and they are not called “Japanese-American rights.” So why does a section of society, distinct only in their sexual preferences, need to specify a distinct set of rights? Are they not human? Let’s not use the term “gay rights” when referring to the issues affecting this one group. In a free society, there can be no “gay rights"… only “human rights.” And I (like all Americans should) support the human rights of all people, including gay people.

That’s how I see it and whoever wants to take offense, can.

-AG

I’ve added a new feature to the site! It will now have a “songs of the moment” on the sidebar to the left… I will be changing it whenever inspiration strikes… or after people send me their requests at ag@neorepublica.com

Enjoy!

-AG

I like it.

Jim Greer is the chairman of the Florida Republican Party and after Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, democrat, announced that she would be running for governor of Florida, he said “I welcome former banker Alex Sink to the Governor’s race. After years of smoke in mirrors, it is about time for Floridians to meet the real Alex Sink.” The Florida Republican website lists these things that Alex Sink has done:

• The real Alex Sink was paid millions of dollars while overseeing what the head of Atlanta’s Legal-Aid called “subprime predatory mortgage lending.”
• The real Alex Sink fired thousands of Floridians while earning her millions through these predatory lending practices.
• The real Alex Sink used the very same practices that well known economists have linked to the significant economic downturn that Florida is facing today.
• The real Alex Sink played the leading role in tanking Florida’s economy.

Personally, I did not pay much attention to Alex Sink until she came after Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum for his ads that informed Floridians about online predators. The ad drives home the fact that predators now are using the internet to target children instead of simply hanging around playgrounds or elementary schools with their hand in their pants. Sorry for the gratuitous imagery. Here’s the ad:

This ad is excellent except for the fact that the statistics make it seem like every single child that goes online will be solicited for sex at one point or another, which is not really the case. It does make the point that the chances of being solicited are very high. Back to the point though: Sink, in an attempt to score political points against McCollum who may also run for governor, decided to go after him and investigate the company he used to produce the public service announcement (PSA). Apparently, McCollum employed the video production company that he has used before in a no-bid contract, which he is legally allowed to do. To Alex Sink, this was unacceptable, because it seemed like a campaign ad instead of a PSA and because it showcased McCollum instead of someone like America’s Most Wanted’s host John Walsh.

I am glad that McCollum was on the ad because now I know that the FL Attorny General is doing his job protecting Florida. If it were Alex Sink that was actually doing something to protect Florida’s children, instead of playing politics and using her position as CFO to advance her political career, then I would like to know it was her who ran the ads. In this episode, Alex Sink showed the Florida electorate that she is more interested in playing politics than protecting Florida’s children from predators. Shame on you, Sink.

It’s about time that politicians did something good for their constituents and live up to their title: “public servants.” I applaud Bill McCollum for informing the public of the new manifestations of very old dangers.

-AG

Friends, please look at this graph, I’ve posted it before but its importance cannot be overstated:

Government Spending

The Obama presidency, riding a wave of popularity, is creating record deficits in order to create a “new foundation” for America, which is really a “new foundation” for government. Obama is concentrating more power in the hands of a bigger government that is getting more expensive to run. Just think of the government agency that will be charged with ensuring that all currently uninsured Americans have government-run health insurance if Obama’s government healthcare agenda is passed, and how much money in the short and long term will be spent. Or how the government will administer the shares acquired with trillions of taxpayer dollars that they pumped into banks and other companies. The promises of bipartisanship and transparency have gone up in smoke with a Democrat controlled legislature ramming through their proposals and bills without healthy debate, without even giving the American people time to understand what is being passed. The radical left has gained control of the Democratic Party.

The Republican opposition, in the meantime, is stuck trying to figure out its next move. The chairman of the Republican Party, Michael Steele, has been sparring with conservatives around the country. The oft-reviled Dick Cheney has been criticizing moderate Republicans and the Obama administration, probably doing more harm that good, not because he is necessarily wrong but simply because nowadays politics is really a beauty pageant, and Obama is the prettiest contestant around. There is no powerful voice to unite around. One can only hope that the Republican Party can find that “eye of the tiger” and rebound.

For your viewing and listening pleasure

What is especially troubling is that now Obama has asked supporters to write letters to newspaper editors expressing support for his spend-our-way-to-socialism budget. The press in this country will do a good enough job of supporting Obama’s plans on their own without any input from the Obamatons, but this only shows how determined the Democrats are in consolidating and retaining power. This video below demonstrates how regular people are starting to take notice of these alarming developments in our country:

The radical left has tightened its grip on power and I urge both Republicans and especially Democrats to try to reverse this before it is too late. The Democrats of this nation need to take off their blinders just for a moment and consider if it is in our best interest to spend so many trillions, to have a government that is so huge and intrusive, and to give government excessive control over the free market. If this does not bother the Democrats, then perhaps they should consider what would happen if another administration similar to Bush came into power with a government made more powerful by the Obama administration. A more powerful Bush surely would scare Democrats. A stronger government in general is opposed by conservatives already. All Americans, regardless of party, can unite around the idea that more government inherently means less freedom… and we should start uniting now while we still have the chance.

-AG

I am flagrantly pushing for a Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio “grudge match” where the moderate Republican camp goes up against the conservative Republican camp. Though I have not endorsed either candidate yet, I am a bit disillusioned with Crist’s support of the very liberal president’s very liberal spending policies , as I wrote before. It looked like Crist was going to be a shoo-in for the GOP nomination, especially since Texas Senator John Cornyn, who is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, quickly came out to endorse Crist right after he announced he was running for the Senate. That endorsement combined with support from Mel Martinez, the current occupier of the Senate seat in question, made it look like they were brushing Rubio aside.

Well, it looks like some people are saying “not so fast.” The Miami Herald columnist Myriam Marquez wrote that this quick endorsement shows that in the GOP “only white-haired RINOs [Republicans-in-name-only] need apply for the Washington job.” Ouch. One of the arguments is compelling but I think it is a non-conservative argument by its very nature. The argument is that a “big tent” Republican Party, facing a Democratic Party led by a biracial person, needs to reach out to Hispanics and minorities in order to be viable in the long term and Marco Rubio is Hispanic. As a Hispanic myself, I did not become a conservative because the Republican Party “reached out to me” but rather because conservatism is a more logical set of ideas that emphasizes on the achievement of the individual and the Democrats’ liberalism can only lead to total government intervention in the lives of its citizens, and I cannot support that. Therefore, whenever we make decisions on who the candidate for the party should be, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. should not be a consideration. The GOP does not need affirmative action or racial quotas. We are all Americans. I do not expect an African-American or an Indian-American or a Mexican-American to be any less American than the non-hyphenated Americans. Americans are Americans, we need to accept this and move on. So when Rubio supporter Ana Navarro says that Republicans “have paid all this lip service to how desperately Republicans need to build bridges with the Hispanic community and young people, but a 37-year-old Hispanic running for statewide office gets the door slammed in his face,” she is doing the Republican party a disservice by asking for a “racial quota” or primary “affirmative action.” That’s a tactic used by liberals to divide up Americans along class lines, race lines, religious lines, and now sexual-orientation lines while Republicans should simply advocate the respect of human rights regardless of social “difference.” I like Rubio, but I just call ‘em how I see ‘em.

In the end though, this argument might win out. I think that the real argument that should win is the one that I keep hearing: Rubio is the most conservative. The question remains: does Rubio have the best ideas?

With conservatives and moderates vying for more influence in the party, this primary race will be very significant. I think it’s time for a healthy debate.

-AG

I read an article a few days ago that brought to mind a long-standing objection I have had for years about Europe’s Holocaust denier laws that essentially make it illegal to express or possess anything that is either pro-Nazi or that denies the Holocaust. As an American citizen, these laws smack of censorship… a sort of reverse book-burning as practiced by the Nazis back in the day.

The reason it bothers me so much is that I once knew a Nazi-sympathizer who, in a very matter-of-fact fashion, explained to me why the Nazis were correct in their actions. At the time (I was very young), I was not very well informed as to the historical fact, so I hit the books, and lo-and-behold! I realized that this older gentleman was very much mistaken. So when I later learned that in Europe they banned all sorts of literature on Nazism, it disturbed me for two reasons. The first reason is that I truly believe that we must learn from history: about how a population could be kept in the dark about atrocities committed by the government on such a massive scale, about how demagogues use their oratorical power to hypnotize the “masses,” and about how we can avoid this type of thing in the future. To erase from our memory the motivations behind such genocidal and insane behavior would actually help the next genocidal dictator come to power, since no one would know what signs to look for. The second reason is the fact that the illegality of speech, even hate speech, is a violation of a basic human right to free expression. To lose an inch of our rights is a precursor to the complete loss of our rights.

Well, the article in question was a clear example of how compromising our right to free speech can be a slippery slope. In Russia, the government is considering what is called the law “Against the Rehabilitation of Nazism” that essentially makes illegal any sort of criticism of the Soviet Union’s actions during the Second World War. It makes it illegal to deny that the Soviets were the ones who won the war. It makes it illegal to criticize the tactics used during the war. It makes it illegal to say that the Soviets did not liberate Eastern Europe, which it did not… the Soviets simply replaced the Nazi occupiers with Soviet puppet-dictators. The sad part is that they point to European laws against Nazism to justify their move.

While the immense sacrifice of the Soviet Union during WWII cannot be denied, to criminalize the analysis of their history is to doom them to repeat the same mistakes. The first mistake was that the Joseph Stalin, then dictator of the USSR, carved up Poland with the insane Adolph Hitler… but under this law, that cannot be talked about. Another sad point during the war was the ruthlessness of the Soviet commanders who sent wave after wave of soldiers against the German without much consideration for their lives… but under this law, that cannot be talked about. At the end of the war, one dictatorship was replaced by another one that was paranoid of the west and possibly had designs for their own empire… but under this law, that cannot be talked about. Modern-day Russia will be forced to accept the highly dubious and skewed accounts of Soviet performance during the war and if anyone disagrees they may be sent to prison for three to five years.

Particularly, this law is intended to prevent the destruction of Soviet-era monuments to the war found in newly independent Eastern European states and will prevent their politicians from traveling in Russia if they have made comments denying Soviet victory over the Nazis. Practically, it is yet another blow against free speech in the world and Europe’s own laws played a part in justifying this law. The laws themselves are easy to pass because the world already knows about the gruesome and despicable acts carried out by the Nazi regime on people simply because of race. So when the average voter is asked whether we they should make Nazism illegal, a great majority will follow their gut instinct and vote to make speech illegal… I understand the urge to want to punish the Nazis of the past, present, and future with the only weapon that we have: our vote… I feel the same way about punishing Communism… but in our rush to get “revenge” we end up compromising our own freedom.

The greatest weapon that free people have against hate and tyranny is information. While the acts of the Nazi regime are amongst the most evil in history, no nation should criminalize the free speech of its people. In the United States, where there is no such prohibition, there are various pro-Nazi organizations and the mainstream has rejected them outright. As long as they abide by law and not endanger others, they should have the right to express their historical, political, racial, or any other views that they may have. If Europe is so intent on making hate speech illegal, then they should make the display of Che Guevara and communist insignia illegal as well. Communism has killed many, many millions and around the world they are unrepentant. Of course, they have done no such thing, and, even today, those that revere mass murderers like Che Guevara and Stalin get a free pass. Poland recently proposed banning images related to communism, but the “enlightened” Europeans have yet to catch on.

I do not wish to take away the right of an ignoramus or a radical leftist to wear Che Guevara shirts. Neither do I wish to take away the right of a neo-Nazi to wear a Hitler shirt. I disagree with both of their ideologies and their methods… but interestingly enough the communists and the national socialists have one thing in common: they would both take away everyone’s right to free speech. In tolerating them, I reject them.

It is kind of tongue-in-cheek, being that I exercise my right to free speech on this site, but to cite a famous quote: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

-AG

I am proud to present The Official Florida Senatorial Republican Primary Pre-Debate Debate: Conversations in Conservatism right here on NeoRepublica.com where I show what a debate between Charlie Crist aka “The People’s Governor” and Marco Rubio aka “The Conservative Contender” (I made that last one up) would look like. The first question is on offshore drilling and shows their respective positions on that issue. Both seem to favor drilling with Crist being hesitant in supporting it until it is proven that it can be done safely while Rubio insists that it would be economically beneficial and in the best interest of national security.

I hope that The Official Florida Senatorial Republican Primary Pre-Debate Debate: Conversations in Conservatism videos will give Floridians and Americans a better understanding of their relatively unknown positions. As of now, Crist has the name-recognition advantage and Rubio has had limited exposure. Hopefully, this will level the playing field. Enjoy!

-AG

He is the son of a great religious icon and a popular leader of a guerrilla army that was fighting against a foreign occupier with entire entire regions carrying his banner. So how did the United States manage to defeat him? He is Muqtada al-Sadr, son of a famous Iraqi Shiite cleric that was murdered by the evil Saddam Hussein, who created a fearsome guerrilla army that was ultimately defeated by US troops and the new Iraqi armed forces.

The United States, known around the world for being unable to fight protracted guerrilla wars like Vietnam, was able to do in the 21st century what it could not do in the 60’s and 70’s: defeat a popular guerrilla army. For the record though, in Vietnam the US military won every single battle and undeniably devastated the enemy through superior performance and superior technology even though we were outnumbered and in difficult terrain. In the end, the US government, under extreme political pressure, decided to withdraw from the conflict and let the South Vietnamese take care of their own country resulting in what we wanted to prevent: the communist takeover of the South. The reasons for one unsuccessful and another successful engagement is complicated and involves the politics of each time period, the different terrain, the different strategies employed by both sides, and differences in the sheer number of participants. What this conflict teaches us is that the United States military can adjust to urban combat, recruit local support, and be successful.

First, the Mahdi army was Sadr’s militia which formed a sort of government running parallel to the recently established Iraqi government. They took care of the security of Sadr city (a Baghdad district) and some other southern majority-Shiite cities. In 2004, the Mahdi army started on offensive across various cities and clashed with coalition forces (US, British, and Iraqi security forces). The militia was beaten back, but the Mahdi army did enjoy some success early on in their campaign. What ensued was an on again off again guerrilla war between the Mahdi army and Coalition troops that eventually culminated in an all out crackdown on the Mahdi army throughout Iraq. Coalition forces fought the Mahdi army in Basra and, in its first major operation, the Iraqi security forces (with US support) pushed into Sadr city. Sadr ordered a cease-fire last year and the Mahdi army has ceased its guerrilla operations since.

Throughout the entire conflict, Sadr was given the choice to join the political process if he disarmed and in fact was very successful in creating a political bloc in the Iraqi parliament. Some called this appeasement, but in what was essentially a civil war, to adopt a strategy that excluded them from politics and tried to capture or kill them would have been the equivalent of kicking and imprisoning out all southern governors, congressmen, and judges after the US Civil War. That just could not realistically happen. The success of coalition forces can therefore be attributed to three major accomplishments: sustained military crackdown of Mahdi army, political inclusion in exchange for ending violence, and limited collateral damage. The last one is very important, since an unrestrained campaign against Sadr resulting in the deaths of too many innocent Iraqis would have strengthened the Sadr organization. The other two is classic carrot-and-stick which worked well and, in a sense, Sadr’s decision to reorient his organization towards politics may have backfired since his brand of sectarianism seems to have been rejected by the electorate already weary of dictatorship and bloodshed.

Of course, this is not the end of Muqtada al-Sadr. Reports are that he is currently engaging in religious study in Iran with aspirations to become Ayatollah, a designation that will make it a religious obligation to follow his edicts for many Shiites. Eventually he is expected to return and, with the Ayatollah title, may become even more powerful politically than he ever was militarily.

What this episode in American history teaches us is that victory requires the smart application of power, not mere words, not mere dialogue, and definitely not appeasement. Had the coalition forces merely tried to negotiate with Sadr instead of actively neutralizing his faction throughout the whole of Iraq, then we would still be dealing with high levels of violence against our troops over there. More importantly, it shows the American military that we can confront an enemy that uses guerrilla tactics and win.

So I ask myself: if we can win this type of war, why are there people in Washington that are so eager to declare defeat and retreat as quickly as possible? Why did Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rush to declare the war “lost” instead of working to win it? Why are we entertaining the thought of negotiating with the enemy when we should simply be dictating our terms?

The illogic of the far left is astounding. We need to restore intelligent and courageous leadership in America.

-AG

Recently, the US military announced that they would be changing the general on the ground in Afghanistan as they continue to implement Obama’s Afpak strategy. As I reported yesterday, this decision, in addition to Obama considering a reduction in drone strikes in Pakistan and concentrating his new strategy on military advisers rather than combat troops, has emboldened the Taliban who are sensing either indecisiveness or weakness or both. To Obama’s credit, today there was a drone strike in Pakistan that killed some militants, so the Taliban still have reason to be afraid.

The Taliban attacked the city of Khost and entered government buildings killing security guards, police officers, and civilians in the process. US forces have entered the city in response and have killed some militants. This offensive is the logical consequence of their perception of our indecisiveness. The Taliban understand that they cannot win this war military, so their strategy is a psychological one, a terror-based one. They want to discredit the central government and demoralize coalition forces through surprise attacks, suicide attacks, and raids like this one.

In order to defeat the Taliban, we must win the psychological war and we must not allow for the continued existence of safe havens anywhere, particularly in Pakistan. We can only win the psychological war by making the Taliban understand that they will be defeated no matter what they do, by not turning the local population against us, and by empowering the Afghan and Pakistani government. Empowering does not mean unlimited aid, it means helping in joint missions, some joint intelligence, using precision air and drone strikes, and helping in the training of their forces if they need it. We are already doing most of these things, but increasingly the current administration is being pressured into abandoning precision strikes and leaving the battle only to the Afghans and the Pakistanis. The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is against the Taliban and Al Qaeda that launched a terrorist attack on us, so we cannot simply let others take responsibility for this war. Hopefully, the new cooperation that this administration says it is receiving will help bring this war to an end sooner.

-AG

Michael Steele has redeemed himself in my eyes. While I have been hard on Michael Steele (no homo) for being the Republican version of gaffe-machine Joe Biden, I think that his analysis of the Miss California and Perez Hilton issue was spot on. For some background, here’s Miss California who was asked by Perez Hilton, an openly homosexual blogger who is a Cuban-American Miami native, a question about same-sex marriage during the Miss America beauty pageant:

Her answer was less than stellar, saying “I think that I believe…” instead of simply expressing her view, too much hesitation, but the question itself was a loaded one being asked by judge who was viewed to be biased. Perez Hilton immediately posted a video blog where he calls Miss California a stupid b**** and says that the correct answer would have been that “states should decide whether or not they want same-sex marriage.” I guess that standing up for her beliefs that marriage is an institution between a man and a woman was the wrong answer. Here’s the clip:

We can see from the first clip that people applauded her, so I’m not sure that Perez is being truthful when he called it the worst answer in pageant history and that she was booed. He signs off by saying that he “needs a cocktail.” Alcohol, bad language, and bias all within the span of two minutes or so… definitely not the type of person who should be judging the personalities and beauty of others.

Anyways, Michael Steele makes an excellent point where he points to this Perez Hilton affair, that there are elements in this country that are trying to impose, using “political correctness” as a cover, their own agenda and silence opposition. For a beauty pageant judge to say that support for heterosexual marriage is “divisive” and that opening the door for same-sex marriage is by definition a “unifying” message is to advocate the silencing of the debate on the subject. Worse still is the fact that Perez seems to have disqualified her because of her honest answer that he disagreed with and then decided to go online and call her all sorts of nasty things. Here’s Michael Steele’s take, who talks about how this “empathetic judge” used a certain community’s beliefs to hijack this event and is but a microcosm of what liberals want to do, pit one community against the other:

Furthermore, if I were a judge on this panel, I would never ask a question on Che Guevara… why? Because I know what this person has done to humanity and if a contestant would have answered that they loved Che (because they are ignorant) because he represents “change” or “revolution” or whatever, then I would immediately disqualify them. I might not be objective. So I would not ask a question like that without first being prepared to accept the opposing point of view. Perez Hilton has said that the answer would have had to appease the gay and lesbian community. That is just plain wrong. The answer should be honest. Miss California having to answer Perez Hilton is like the scene in Star Wars where the commander has to tell Darth Vader some bad news:

Miss America contestants should not have to pass the same-sex marriage litmus test in order to be crowned.

-AG

Mitt Romney never was my cup of tea. That said, why the hell is Michael Steele saying that Romney’s Mormonism was a major contributing factor in his failed presidential bid? Does he not see that the President is biracial? Is he not aware that he himself, Michael Steele, is an African-American and was elected by Republicans? What about Eric Cantor from Virginia, a Jewish Republican?

The truth of the matter is that the American electorate has looked beyond socially divisive issues like race and faith, Republicans included. Just look at Glenn Beck, a very popular, very conservative, and very MORMON commentator on FOX, or look at Colin Powell an African-American (actually, a Jamaican-American) who, prior to his betrayal of the Republicans during the presidential election, was loved by many Republicans. What matters to voters in the modern day is not social or religious differences, but the character of the individual and the ideas of the individual.

So when Michael Steele mentions Romney’s faith as a reason that he was not elected, he is making a serious mistake, and he is calling the Republican base bigoted. Steele is disappointing me again. The rest of what Steele says is accurate and is the real reason that Romney did not win the primary. Romney changed his position on abortion from pro-choice to pro-life creating doubt in his true stand on the matter. Strike One. Romney raised taxes and/or state fees in Massachusetts. Strike Two. Romney supported a timetable for a withdrawal from Iraq and then lied about it during a debate with Huckabee. Strike Three. He’s out.

Michael Steele correctly hit upon the abortion and economic question but missed the bus completely when he said that Mormonism was a big factor. Romney was polling very well in different states and I knew many Romney supporters down here in Miami.

Romney hit back today saying that Steele had missed “the target” on the analysis that he offered up. Michael Steele, like I have said numerous times before (here and here), needs to get back to the work of staging a Republican comeback and stop undermining his own party by casting doubt on potential candidates or picking fights with conservative commentators. Steele is very at ease in front of a microphone or a camera and that can be a great advantage or it can be an embarrassment. For Steele, it is definitely the latter.

-AG

Charlie Crist, popular governor of Florida, known as the “People’s Governor” has thrown his hat in the race for the Senate seat to be vacated by Mel Martinez (R-FL). He is considered to be the favorite but will face some competition from Marco Rubio, a Miami conservative who believes that Crist has compromised too much. Already the Democratic Party has produced an ad video attacking Crist as a “quitter” leaving Floridians with a “mess.”

It is unlikely that this will have much of an effect on his candidacy given his high approval ratings in Florida and name recognition. At stake is the balance of the Senate, which right now is in the hands of the ruling party in the United States: the Democrats. The primary race will give us an idea of whether Republicans are willing to compromise some principles to win elections or whether the Republicans will stick to their guns on small government and less spending. It could prove to be an interesting match.

Here is Marco Rubio, the conservative contender, firing the first shot:

I like it.

-AG

Here is how it works: when dealing with the Cuban government DO NOT QUESTION THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD. That’s the lesson that Canada learned yesterday when Cuba “postponed” Canada’s junior foreign affairs minister’s trip to Cuba. Peter Kent,the minister of state for foreign affairs for the Americas, planned to press Cuba for democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners. Silly representatives of democracy… they should know by now that the communist dictators do not tolerate dissent, not even from foreigners. This visit would have been a historic event since Canada rarely sends government officials to the communist island.

Canada has officially maintained uninterrupted diplomatic relations with Cuba even after the communist revolution. Fidel Castro has visited Canada twice. Canada, a democracy that respects human rights, does extensive business with Cuba and, guess what? Cuba is still a communist dictatorship. Pardon my sarcasm but… what a surprise. Fifty years of supporting the Cuban revolution through trade and diplomatic recognition have contributed in keeping the Castro dictatorship in place. 22% of Cuban exports go to Canada and Canada sells oil and food to Cuba (as described here). More importantly, Canada is Cuba’s largest source of tourism revenue… so when we talk about the ineffectiveness of the US embargo, we can point to our neighbors to the north who have undermined our efforts to leverage the Castro government to reform its ways.

Some people never learn: if you subsidize tyranny, you get tyranny. I hope that the Canucks enjoyed 50 years of Cuban beaches, because I can guarantee you that the Cuban people did not enjoy one minute of it.

-AG

This is the Cuba that Raúl Castro wants to create. In a marked shift from the Marxist totalitarianism that his brother imposed on the island, Raúl Castro has said what every competent human being knows:

“Equality is not the same as egalitarianism. Egalitarianism is in itself a form of exploitation; exploitation of the good workers by those who are less productive and lazy.”

Unbelievable that a communist would finally admit this after 50 years of failed revolution that has only brought misery to Cuba. Castro has been pushing for wage reforms that tie wages to productivity and decentralizing agriculture a bit. What he has not changed and does not seem to want to change is state control of the economy or the population. Some people believe that Raúl differs from Fidel in that he wants to create a system similar to China’s; these steps seem to be a step towards that goal.

Here, though, is where what some consider “modernization” is simply dictatorship by other means. What Castro is modernizing is the communist dictatorship, from a Stalinist model to a Chinese model, without making any changes to the repressive machinery that continues to deny basic human rights to the Cuban people. The Chinese model of dictatorship (or one-party rule) is not communism-lite as many people have suggested for years, just ask the victims of government repression in Tibet or the unknown number of political prisoners still languishing in Chinese prisons.

For those who have read George Orwell’s “1984,” China is looking more and more like the dystopia that he vividly describes. It is a government that does not stop at political control but uses all of the technology at its disposal to control the information that exists out in the world. Information is the single most important weapon that a society has against tyranny and strict censorship is an attribute that almost all existing dictatorships share. This is the beginning of total Thought-Control, something that this humanity has not truly witnessed simply because the technology to facilitate it has never existed before. Cuba, for example, uses “actos de repudio” or “acts of repudiation” to intimidate activists through mob violence in addition to overt police control. Thought-Control is the next level of totalitarianism… and it is the path of Chinese Communism.

So while communist regimes around the world are starting to “modernize,” what they are actually doing is coming to understand that they no longer need fully centralized economic planning in order to control a population. They have learned that to control the human mind is the ultimate power, so when anyone comes to believe that Cuba embracing an economic system less directly controlled by the government is a good thing, I advise that they pick up a copy of “1984.”

In the novel, the existence of “Big Brother” was more a construct of the ruling Party than reality… In Cuba, we have not seen Fidel Castro in public since July 2006, the only thing that anyone has seen or heard is still photos, articles in the newspapers that bear his name, and rumors that he has been seen on walks… when a government can control what we know reality to be, they can make us believe anything.

-AG

So is “human rights in China” and “brainwashing” and “withdrawing from the Communist Party"… the list goes on of course. China has censored many of these types of phrases from China’s largest internet search engine, Baidu.com, according to this New Tang Dynasty Television article. The Baidu search engine is not the only one that has caved to Chinese government pressure, other companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google that have benefited immensely from freedom of expression also censor a significant amount of content on the internet in China.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has reported that Myanmar (Burma), Iran, Syria, and Cuba are the top countries where the internet is highly restricted and where bloggers and independent journalists face steep punishment for expressing themselves. Though they say that China has the world’s “most comprehensive online censorship program” and imprison many writers as well. Apparently, the internet companies that work with the Chinese government do not have the courage to defend the very freedom that made them successful in the first place, the freedom to post anything on the internet.

Those who facilitate tyranny in the world are partly responsible for their atrocities. These companies are responsible for aiding in the totalitarian mind-control of a large section of mankind. The least that these companies could do is start de-censoring certain content by degrees or help develop ways around such censorship. Yes, I suggest that these companies undermine their own censorship efforts, otherwise we will be creating a blueprint for a world where governments around the world can limit the greatest hope for freedom around the world: the Internet.

-AG

In light of the recent events involving the current administration’s soft touch with regards to Cuba and the new Orbitz campaign pushing to do business with the Castro communist dictatorship, it is necessary to point out that repression is still alive and well in Cuba. Here is a video showing the Cuban police arresting several women who are pacifist pro-democracy activists, part of the group Movimiento Feminista por los Derechos Civiles Rosa Parks (Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights:

For those who do not speak Spanish, these ladies were dragged to the patrol cars and beaten brutally by the male police officers for the “crime” of going to visit another, more well-known, pro-democracy activist, Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez. According to the ladies, they were kicked in the ribs, thrown against the patrol cars, kneed, pinned on the ground, choked, and thrown in a cell for about three hours by the police officers.

I wonder if Orbitz will take tourists on a tour inside the Castro prison cells, some of them the size of small closets called “gavetas” (translates: “drawers") where they cram multiple prisoners who must take turns sleeping since there is only space for one person to lay down. That would be a memorable experience for their customers… I would advise the directors on the board to try it first though, so they can experience the “magic” themselves.

Are this the type of regime America should be doing business with?

-AG

As I insisted in previous posts, Al Qaeda sees the recent conflict in Pakistan as fertile ground to launch attacks that can eventually destabilize the country, at least according to intelligence officials. They also say that Al Qaeda is stepping up recruitment around the world, motivated by the potential terrorist takeover of a nuclear armed country, a move that will turn make the world a much more dangerous place. To the credit of coalition forces, Pakistan has intensified its offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley region and the United States is sending more troops to Afghanistan. The problem is that Al Qaeda, sensing a weak Pakistan and a US administration that is taking a more “measured” approach to the war on terror, may escalate its attacks in order to force a cease-fire in Pakistan that could result in more safe havens for the terrorist groups.

While the Obama administration continues its strategy in Afghanistan that focuses less on combat troops and more on military advisers and is seen replacing our top commander over there, the Taliban and Al Qaeda will point to our indecisiveness in this war as a sign that they are getting results. Already, the terrorists have the impression that Pakistan cannot stand up to a prolonged guerrilla conflict or terrorist offensive since this is not the first time that Pakistan has attacked the Taliban. Every other time, Pakistan has agreed to a cease-fire with the terrorists and the last agreement actually granted their demands for Sharia law (Islamic law) in certain districts. America must be more decisive in this war so that the enemy is not emboldened.

Another significant obstacle that the US military faces in its operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban is the fact that both the Afghan and Pakistani governments have been protesting air strikes conducted by the US. In Afghanistan, the president Hamid Karzai has been protesting the death of civilians in air strikes that are aimed at neutralizing an enemy that hides among the local population and uses human shields. Karzai has gone as far as calling for an end to US air strikes. I am sure Al Qaeda and the Taliban are thrilled that they have the Afghan government on their side. Furthermore, the Pakistani government has denounced US drone strikes inside their country, for the obvious reasons of collateral damage and violation of sovereignty. The administration is even considering stopping these attacks which, up until two weeks ago, were the only actions being taken to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Again, Al Qaeda and the Taliban are probably ecstatic that the Pakistani government is pressuring the US to stop these operations.

Will the United States Military be given the tools and the permission to go after the terrorists given the political climate? This is unknown as of yet. There are good signs and bad signs coming from Washington. Unfortunately, this uncertainty makes one thing certain: Al Qaeda will try to create more chaos anywhere and everywhere it can. Our soldiers can handle Al Qaeda, but not if we tie their hands and legs behind their back. The sooner they can do their job, the sooner they come home victorious… and to all the men and women fighting over there, know that the American people “got your back"…

-AG

Washington has outdone itself. While the last administration was able to turn surpluses into deficits, with some help from the Clinton Recession and the worst terrorist attack in US history, under the current administration the deficit will balloon up to $1.84 trillion, a record high. As expect, the current administration blamed the last administration for this deficit… but unfortunately for the administration these excuses cannot last forever, especially when Congress’s figures and the White House’s figures make it clear that even next year’s deficit will still be at historically high levels. See these graphs:

So when conservatives used to talk about fiscal responsibility, Americans would look at Bush’s spending and think that conservatives were being hypocritical. The heightened spending during the last eight years included spending on two wars and to help get us out of a recession. Now, Americans realize that the real heavy spenders in Washington continue to be the Democrats who now control Congress and the White House. That’s why they’re called liberal.

Republicans over the last few years have strayed from having a balanced budget but now must return to our principle of fiscal responsibility… abandoning fiscal responsibility was one of the major reasons that so many voters felt that the Republican party was not living up to its own rhetoric. A Republican comeback will only be possible if we can bring back some sanity to Washington spending.

With the current administration in power making the difference between conservatism and liberalism crystal clear with respect to spending, the question is: does America want the burden on the taxpayer to skyrocket as much as Washington is planning? The truth is that government does not create wealth, it can only take away wealth from those that create it. At a time when the economy is hurting everyone, the government is spending taxpayer money like crazy and giving it to the very companies that created this whole mess. Did “spreading the wealth around” actually mean giving billions to failing companies and hundreds of millions in bonuses to the people responsible for the mess?

America needs to wake up.

-AG

I am glad to report that Roxana Saberi, Iranian-American journalist that was imprisoned by Iran for alleged spying, was released by Iran. While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US was “heartened” by this move, we cannot start rewarding countries that can arrest people arbitrarily for releasing prisoners they should have never detained. This is a tactic commonly employed by Cuba, where they crackdown on activists and journalists, the US issues a statement of disapproval, and then Castro would release a fraction of the political prisoners in a show of “good faith.” The reality is that there is no “good faith” coming from repressive governments that can throw people in jail for trumped up charges simply because they want to silence them.

I wonder if, in another age, Saberi’s efforts and the international outcry would have gone unnoticed. Saberi went on a two week hunger strike that was covered by free press organizations, human rights organizations, the mainstream media, and bloggers, like yours truly. Even the president took notice of her case and spoke out about it. Our interconnectedness made it possible for the news of her unjust imprisonment to circle the globe many times and put Iran’s repressive character on display. Imagine what this could do in North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and other countries where the government denies human rights. We might get regime change without a single shot fired… all that we need is to directly fund the activists that are fighting for freedom in those countries and abstain from doing business with the oppressive regimes. Too bad Washington wants to do the opposite: make friends, give aid, and do business with the bad guys. What a shame.

-AG

While Washington engages in XOXO-diplomacy with countries that sponsor terrorism or interfere in the war on terror, some states are taking a stand against terror by stopping businesses from investing in terror-sponsoring countries. Here in Florida, both chambers of the legislature have passed a bill that Charlie Crist promises to sign that will divest any public funds from companies doing business with terrorist sponsors. Indiana has done the same. California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania also have similar laws and all together will deny terrorism billions of taxpayer dollars that have no business undermining this country’s security.

Compare the states’ actions to the administration’s recent move of providing around $900 million to help rebuild Gaza which is currently controlled by the terrorist organization Hamas. The administration says that it will give the money only to the Palestinian Authority and NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) so that it does not reach Hamas, but how can Hamas not benefit from a $900 million infusion into Gaza?

Then comes Cuba, another country on the list of countries that sponsor terrorism that this administration has enriched through policies easing travel restrictions and allowing more remittances to the communist-controlled island. Add to that Iran, a country that this administration is trying to talk to directly in spite of its terrorist support and nuclear ambitions.

Our federal system that divides powers between the central government and the state governments allows for a more level-headed approach to terror on the state level given that Washington seems to be more interested in playing nice. I am proud that the American system of government decentralizes power in such a way, otherwise every tax dollar from every taxpayer in this country would be used to assist whatever regime that the current office-holders in Washington happen to sympathize with regardless of the implication on national security and/or moral stance. America should not be funding the tyrants or terrorists that are planning to kill Americans. I’m glad that these states agree.

-AG

Speaking of commies… we now take a trip to Peru, where a little group that calls itself “Sendero Luminoso” (Shining Path) unleashed terror on their entire country in the name of Mao and Marx back in 1980’s. The terrorist organization was funded mainly through trafficking cocaine and was headed by the then-mysterious Abimael Guzman. In 1992, Guzman was captured by Peruvian police, but not before his group turned Peru into a war zone. Peruvians I have spoken to describe bombings, assassinations, and massacres as a common occurrence during the years that the group was active. From 1980 to 2000, total deaths and disappearances from the conflict neared 70,000.

Once Guzman was captured, he was exhibited in a cage to the Peruvian public and humiliated. Later he was sentenced to life in prison for his actions.

Fast-forward to 2009 and we find that Sendero Luminoso has come back thanks mainly to cocaine trade. They control a mountainous area of the country and the Peruvian army was sent in August 2008 to try to contain a resurgent guerrilla army. Thus far, 33 soldiers have been killed by the terrorists and they have been capturing and killing peasants who collaborate with the government. Peruvian General Otto Guibovich told a local news source that Sendero Luminoso can count on help from Colombia’s own communist guerrilla army FARC. Peru needs to stop them now before it is too late, but in a country where former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori has been convicted for crimes against humanity due to cracking down on opposition and also for his heavy handed tactics against the terrorist group, it may be difficult for a sitting Peruvian government to go after the rebels.

The violence we have been seeing in Mexico coupled with a fanatical Maoist ideology that can eventually gain support from leftist Latin American leaders, if it hasn’t already, can become one of the most serious security threats in the region. The rise of revolutionary socialism in Latin America is not a matter to be taken lightly. It started in Cuba and has spread to Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and now El Salvador. How far these countries will go in spreading their ideology by force of arms is not yet known, but to ignore them is to give them what they want: time to overrun Latin America. Peru itself is between Ecuador and Bolivia in addition to sharing a border with Colombia which can be used as a supply route between Sendero Luminoso and FARC. This is no time for our government to start using kid gloves when dealing with Chavez or Castro.

-AG

Well, not only has Orbitz Worldwide, a Chicago based outfit, decided that traveling to Cuba is a good thing, it looks like some farmers from Illinois took a tour of Cuban farms and recommended that we open up trade with the island. They met with government officials, but of course did not meet with the democracy activists or the families of political prisoners or anything human rights related… it was pure business at the expense of the Cuban people.

John Block, also from Illinois and former U.S. secretary of agriculture under President Ronald Reagan, said “We met with (Cuban) government officials. They desperately want trade and tourism from the United States.” Good, then let them put an end to the systematic repression, the funding for terrorist groups, the continuous espionage, the unconditional support to anti-American leaders around the world, and then we can consider business. It’s called leverage and we should use it. Some people say it is not enough, the leverage has not brought change to the island so we need to abandon it… that’s ridiculous. If it is not enough, then we need more leverage, specifically by directly helping democracy activists get their message out. Imagine what camcorders coupled with the Internet could do. Cuban authorities could not easily get away with the flagrant mass arrests and repression of peaceful activists anymore. To sit by and simply funnel money into the pockets of anti-American tyrants is not only morally wrong, but it is un-American and it is dangerous to our national security. We have done it before and it has backfired. We gave aid to Kim Jong Il and look what that got us…

-AG

For years, Democrats have been accusing the Republican Party of engaging in politics of fear. Yet throughout this few months, since Obama came into power, the “cool” president and his government has caused and warned of various panics in the United States. Most ridiculous has been the swine flu scare which the media and the government have over-hyped. Let’s put the swine flu in perspective for a moment:

Since the start of the year, about 53 people died from different influenza types in the United States. Swine flu so far has, tragically, claimed three lives since it appeared in the US. It looks like regular influenza is much more deadly, yet no alarms are going off, no panic about regular influenza strains, no government officials saying to stay away from “confined places” due to regular influenza. I already know of several friends’ friends’ children reporting that they “have” swine flu and dutifully not going to class. The atmosphere of fear created by the government in ridiculous. Let’s get a grip, people. If that’s how people react to a disease like the flu, imagine what would happen if the timid elements realized that so far this year more than 4,600 people have died due to drunk driving! We might just bring prohibition back!

Add to this panic the words of our “beloved” president about imminent economic catastrophe if we didn’t do exactly as he said and passed the enormous stimulus package that spends unnecessarily on special projects, and North Korea, in sensing the president’s weakness, illegally launching rockets, and reports that Iran will be able to produce nukes within the year, and possible plans to bring relocate terrorists from Gitmo to the US mainland… and what you have is an administration that has elevated the level of fear in this country to unnecessarily high levels.

Maybe we should be afraid, not of economic catastrophe or the flu, but of a government that uses these unwarranted fears to spend more money, raise more taxes, and make government bigger and more powerful. Next thing you know someone will set fire to the Reichstag building… and there’s no easy way back from that.

-AG

The former VP Dick Cheney said today this about Colin Powell: “I didn’t know he was still a Republican.” This remark comes after Colin Powell explained that the Republican Party would do better by not listening to Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh fired back saying that Powell should go ahead and become a Democrat already. A few things trouble me about this little verbal spat that has started within the Republican Party.

The issue here is one of principles and strategy. People like Cheney and Limbaugh seem to think that Republicans would do better by sticking to their principles in order to win elections rather than “moderate” or compromise some of them. Powell and his ilk believe that figures like Limbaugh are polarizing and “appeal to the lesser instincts” of those in the party. Personally, while I respect Colin Powell for his service to this country and his rationality when it comes to matters of national security, I disagree with him for a few reasons. The first reason is that Powell abandoned his party at its time of need by endorsing Obama.

I question Powell’s logic when he chose the candidate that opposed the winning strategy in Iraq, the candidate who was involved (in some way) with anti-American terrorists, the candidate who has been endorsed by terrorists and tyrants around the world. I think Powell followed his heart and not his mind. I understand it, but I disagree with it.

Second, when Powell insists that Republicans stop listening to Limbaugh, he is advocating that the Republicans not listen to a man who has devoted years to helping organize and motivate conservatives around the country. While I do not agree with everything that Limbaugh says, I believe that he has the right to give his point of view and people should listen to what he has to say. When Limbaugh says that Powell voted for Obama because of race, we should hear him out, at least to be able to refute him… which leads me to my next point:

Third, the reason that Powell pitched for the other team is not so much race, as Limbaugh implied, but rather as a rejection of Bush. In a sense, I do not blame him. Remember, it was Powell who stood before the UN with “proof” of WMD’s in Iraq only to later find out that the intelligence was less than reliable. Powell was left holding the bag. Powell was excluded from a lot of the policy decisions after the Bush administration decided to take the gloves off after 9-11. His advice was ignored. All the while, he faced criticism and inquiry from everyone. Sadly, the Bush administration left him hanging out to dry and when a person like Rush Limbaugh says things like “I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making him a four-star and secretary of state and appointing his son to head the FCC” I sense a condescension that deeply disturbs me. Powell’s service to this country earned him his stars and his positions and it is disrespectful to call them into question simply because of his recent actions against the Republican Party. Back to the point though, Powell has drawn his weapon in response to the Bush administration’s actions… so why must conservatives around the country be targeted? Why not just contribute to the discussion instead of criticizing conservatives in the process? Bush is not the Republican Party and in many ways Bush was not completely a conservative. All conservatives should not have to pay for their disagreements.

The fourth reason that leads me to disagree with Powell is that he insists that the Republicans need to move more to “the center” and that people are more interested in government intervention in their lives. Well, technically I think statements like this show that Powell is no longer a conservative, if he ever was. Conservatives cannot abandon “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as their motto, and anyone who would diminish the “liberty” part has definitely gone astray. Specifically, Powell said that people are willing to pay for government services, but any transaction with the government requires surrendering more power to them and essentially limiting our liberty even further. Conservatives need to stick to their principles… Powell above all others should understand that the problem with the Republican Party is explaining the message, not the message itself. Bush was not effective at communicating the message and now what we need is an effective communicator, a Reagan.

The VP formerly known as Cheney (now known as Vader) is correct in rejecting Powell’s message but wrong in rejecting Powell. Republicans need to be open to all points of view, in as far as they do not contradict the basic values of this country, and the Democrat point of view that government needs more power to take care of everyone is against our first principles. Instead of arguing amongst themselves, Republican figures need to be discussing these issues. Listening to Powell nowadays, one would agree with Cheney that Powell seems to have left the party… what we need to do is invite him back… we need popular, rational people like him to carry our banner…

But only after he stops drinking the Obama kool-aid.

-AG

Ever wonder why the Hollywood-types experience the political version of a wet-dream whenever talking about Cuba or Castro, one of the longest reigning dictators in history? According to the Canada Free Press, the reason that Hollywood loves Fidel Castro is simple: he blackmails them. Actors and directors such as Sean Penn, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, and Oliver Stone have, throughout the years, only expressed kind words for a regime that has the blood of more than 100,000 on its hands. The regime that put hippies in labor camps has also been using its methods on modern-day hippies, but instead of using rifles, the communist regime uses eavesdropping to threaten celebrities into working for the regime as spokespersons. They send spies to follow them, install hidden cameras, and bug their phones in order to learn their secrets and use this information against them. This report comes from a high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector named Delfin Fernandez and, if true, restores a little faith in celebrities who many of us have thought were either unbelievably unintelligent, incredibly naive, or just plain old communists.

This paranoid and erratic behavior is not uncommon for totalitarian communist dictators. For example, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, apparently in love with the work of a South Korean director, kidnapped said director and his actress wife and put them to work in the communist state. The dictator Castro is paranoid to the extent that he has bugged the rooms of author and “friend” Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the last pope, John Paul II. The latter one apparently found the eavesdropping devices, probably from extensive experience with different paranoid leaders. When an entire nation is subject to the paranoid and cruel character traits of individuals like this, it’s a recipe for disaster.

It does not make sense to get into bed with these people that actively turn their countries into military camps, develop terrifying weapons, and send spies to infiltrate military bases and intelligence services. These tyrants are even coming after actors and actresses. It isn’t paranoia when they are really coming after you.

-AG

Yes, Chicago is the node for all things in favor of normalizing relations with Castro: Barack Hussein Obama, Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan, unrepentant former terrorist William Ayers, and now: Orbitz! According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago’s Orbitz Worldwide will be lobbying Congress to lift travel restrictions on travel to communist Cuba. Instead of sending money to the families of political prisoners… instead of campaigning for democratic reforms in Cuba… instead of of lobbying Congress to pursue a Cuban policy that empowers democratic activists on the island… instead of calling attention to the decades of anti-Americanism and decades of human rights abuses… Orbitz will be spending unknown sums of money lobbying Washington in order to open up business with the Castro regime.

Starting tomorrow, they will be hosting a website that will feature links to send petitions to members of government urging them to unilaterally allow travel to the communist regime. Indifferent to how the regime will use this money to further the repression of the Cuban people, they will offer a $100 credit towards Cuba travel to everyone who lobbies the government via their site. Barney Harford, president and CEO of Orbitz, calls the Castro’s Caribbean Gulag “a magical country.” Here are some pictures of that “magic":

Here’s the CEO in all his amoral glory:

This is a perfect example of how greed and corporate interests are teaming up with communist sympathizers in leading the charge against freedom in Cuba. I, for one, will boycott Orbitz for its indifference to human suffering and I urge others to do the same… and hopefully, free market participants will also defend the freedom they enjoy by switching to another service like Expedia, Priceline, or Travelocity. That is, unless they jump on the pro-communist bandwagon too.

-AG

A recent article by Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, describes Obama’s recent actions at the OAS summit as a calculated act of diplomacy that deflates Hugo Chavez’s dictatorial ambitions. The reality: Vivanco is wrong.

The reason he is wrong is the same reason that so many other international observers have been wrong; they fail to recognize the fundamental difference between the traditional Latin American “caudillo” (or military strongman) and the communist/socialist demagogue. The former swoops into power in order to accomplish a handful of goals. The caudillo is a product of political impasse, of popular dissatisfaction with a government, and the personal ambitions of a military or political figure. The caudillo generally does not remake or destroy the institutions of the country. Exceptions exist of course, but in general, these regimes tend to worry about their own country and neighbors.

The communist dictator or demagogue is a completely different species. By the very nature of their ideology, they believe that they themselves are historical figures fighting the imperialist armies intent on conquering the world. They back up their authoritarian rule with an ideology that they export around the world and use to justify any sort of abuse or atrocity. The first such dictator was, of course, Fidel Castro and naturally his successful subjugation of Cuba for more than fifty years serves as a model for other would-be dictators. The other main difference between military dictatorships and communist/socialist dictatorships lies in their approach to human rights. While both violate basic rights, the socialist variety denies that they exist altogether (at least how the world believes in rights). The state or the collective usurps all rights: property rights are nonexistent, people do not have the right to express themselves without permission, people do not have the right to assemble in groups, people do not have the right to travel without government permission, etc. The entire political structure of the country is remade radically. What I am describing is the Cuban model which, as of now, does not yet exist in the Latin American countries engaged in a “socialist revolution” like Venezuela and Ecuador.

Many people consider Chavez to be a clown who simply uses a populist platform to consolidate power over Venezuela, similar to Juan Peron (except for the clown part), but when you look at Chavez’s actions, he has restructured Venezuelan politics and has actively turned it into a one-party state. He rewrote the Constitution, remade the national seal, changed the flag, renamed the country to the “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” arrested political opponents, has ruled by decree, nationalized foreign businesses, and the list goes on. Chavez is not going to let all of this work to “go to waste;” he is going to make sure that he retains power indefinitely… and therein lies the rub.

Those that say that Obama’s friendliness actually undermines Chavez do not understand that this individual does not plan to ever lose power, especially through those pesky things called elections. What happens when Obama comes with his hand out? Chavez says that he has made progress in stopping the imperialists by making them respect Venezuela, acting like a national hero.

What about Colombia? The fact is that Venezuela’s involvement with Colombian guerrillas has brought a lot of friction between both countries; at one point Chavez threatened war if Colombia pursued terrorists or guerrillas into Venezuelan territory. Chavez has a heavily armed, Washington-backed foil next door that he can goad into conflicts by supporting their local guerrilla armies, what does he need Washington for? He continues to deny that he supports drug traffickers or guerrillas, any action against Venezuela will be seen as a violation of their sovereignty. That means that Chavez still has the nationalism card that can be used to distract the populace from its current woes under the Chavez government. Worse still, the United States will most probably have to stand by our Colombian allies and therefore be complicit in any sort of problem involving a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty.

What about the inevitable rise in the price of petroleum? Eventually, China’s insatiable appetite and recovery from this recession will push up prices. At that point, he can do what he has always done, throw money at the impoverished masses and mobilize their vote while continuing policies that will keep them impoverished.

What about the press? Chavez’s war against the free press will continue and his party will have control of all media. He already shut down anti-Chavez radio stations and TV stations. He has also shown the propensity for sending troops to nationalize businesses and private property. With a press under his control, he will have a rather easy time creating an alternate reality for the Venezuelan people.

So when someone writes or says that the Obama handjob… i mean, handshake just made it harder for Chavez, he/she does not understand that while heightened friction between the United States and Venezuela has served as a useful distraction for the Venezuelan people, it is not the only thing keeping Chavez in power. It does not make sense for the United States to get in Chavez’s corner at a time when Chavez is trying to increase his influence over Latin America, is in the process of building up its military, is thought to actively support communist guerrillas, is thought to undermine the war on drugs, and is improving ties with Iran, China, and Russia. Today, we perceive Chavez as a clown because of his antics at the UN and pronouncements at home and by extending our hand to him, we give him the appearance of being a reasonable person. “O"-pologists and starry-eyed idealists think that we can defeat our enemies through kindness… if that were the case, then Neville Chamberlain would be a hero for negotiating with that clown Adolph.

-AG

“Guantanamo Bay – known as GITMO – doesn’t house middle-of-the-road, white-collar criminals. Instead, this detainee facility houses deadly terrorists, including 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” said Kit Bond from Missouri, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

That’s absolutely right. While the government issues reports classifying military veterans and libertarians as “right-wing extremists,” the Obama administration continues to push for more legal rights, the relocation, and/or the release of suspected terrorists currently at Gitmo.

While some of the detainees have been cleared, there are still terrorists at Gitmo that would love to make their way into the US mainland or back to the Middle East somewhere. Obama seems to want to give in to their wishes too. Fortunately, there is stiff resistance in Congress not only from the reliable opposition but also from Democrats who are starting to realize that a foreign policy that emphasizes retreat and surrender will only make America less safe. Bond accuses Obama of employing a “ready, fire, aim” strategy when it comes to national security and I happen to agree. The ultimate question for foreign policy is “will it make America safer?” but it looks like Obama’s foreign policy decisions are not based on this criterion at all.

For example, how does talking to Iran, a country that recently stood by terrorist organizations, threatened to destroy Israel, and that is almost finished developing nuclear weapons, help America’s security? If we actually talk to Iran, are we willing to let them keep working on nukes during our negotiations? What concessions are we willing to give up to the Iranian regime?

Or with Chavez… what do we plan to do to increase our influence in the region and stem the tide of socialism? How do we persuade Chavez to stop buying so many weapons? How do we persuade him to stop his support of communist guerrillas in neighboring country Colombia? What concessions are we willing to give up to the Chavez regime?

Now, how does the relocation of terrorists to the US mainland make America safer? Or how would putting detainees through “terrorist rehab” make America safer? These are the questions that Obama must answer clearly before going forward with his agenda. Obama is overly ideological when it comes to these real, practical problems, regardless of what his PR office… err, I mean, the mainstream media says. I will close with another quote from Bond that hits it on the head:

“When it comes to national security decisions, I prefer aiming before shooting, which is why I keep calling on President Obama to tell us, the American people, how his plan to close Guantanamo will make our nation safer … I think the American people have a right to know exactly what the White House plans to do with these terrorists.”

-AG

Roxana Saberi, Iranian-American journalist imprisoned for alleged “espionage,” was granted an appeal from the Iranian judicial system after going through a two-week hunger strike in protest of her arrest. Iranian officials say that Saberi has confessed to espionage, But her father believes that she was forced to admit to things she did not do. There are many organizations and prominent individuals that have denounced Iran’s imprisonment of Saberi and presenting her as a poster child for the fight for freedom of expression.

Roxana Saberi, former Miss North Dakota

It is great that the world has taken notice of Saberi’s unjust imprisonment, even the president called for her release, but the world needs to divert its attention to all other regimes that imprison journalists and human rights activists. Worldwide, repressive regimes use terror, imprisonment, and death to beat their populations to submission simply to retain power by controlling what people say and think. It is these very regimes that, in their quest for absolute power, seek out weapons in order to export their socio-economic model. Power knows no bounds, so when these repressive regimes develop weapons, they do not develop them for mere self-defense, they develop them in order to threaten other nations. For example, currently North Korea has an thousands of artillery pieces hidden away in well-protected underground emplacements all aimed at South Korea and is holding that country hostage. With all of its cannons aimed at US positions and densely populated South Korean cities, the chances that that any or both of these two countries would invade North Korea are slim to none, but this insurance is not enough. North Korea, despite their genocidal deterrent, has still been developing nuclear weapons. Why? The only thing that nuclear weapons do is give North Korea greater weight at a negotiation and make them more dangerous. If they improve their missile technology, they can threaten the United States with a nuclear attack. They can also threaten the US with releasing nuclear material or weapons to terrorists.

The moral of the story is: if a dictatorship views free thought as a threat to their existence, then their paranoia will lead them to ever more irrational and dangerous behavior. Tyranny is a disease that stems from the absolute corruption of absolute power. To ignore it or to appease it is to surrender to it.

-AG

What some have referred to as “Obama’s re-enactment of 9-11″ has finally resulted in the resignation of a responsible official. Unfortunately, that person’s middle name is not Hussein. Louis Caldera, the director of the White House Military Office, submitted his resignation to a “furious” Obama. For those unfamiliar with the story, read here.

Flyover-Gate ended up costing the taxpayer $328,835 for updating Obama’s plane’s pictures. Here’s a video of the ensuing panic over Obama’s 9-11 re-enactment:

This photo-op shows just how far the president and his office is willing to go in order to polish his image. The Celebrity-in-Chief needs to get to the business of defending this nation and fixing this economy and not panicking New York so that he can show off his shiny new plane. I repeat this because it is worth repeated: Obama, stop disrespecting America.

-AG

Time is almost up. According to a US Senate report, the Islamic Republic of Iran will have enough material for the production of a nuclear bomb by the end of six months. Iran is headed by supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and elected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the latter of which has called for the elimination of Israel and has denied that the Holocaust definitely occurred. As reported before, Iran has repeatedly shrugged off UN and US economic sanctions and continued working on its nuclear program, which it insists is only for energy despite the fact that Iran has some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves.

This report comes on the heels of a recent statement by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that reiterates the Obama administration’s policy of direct dialogue with the Iranian government. Instead of talking a harder line, the current administration believes that continuing a policy of sending seasons greetings (as Obama delivered on the Iranian new year) will somehow get the Iranians to stop their nuclear program. Maybe the White House should send a hallmark card… it could read:

We cannot allow madmen who question whether the Holocaust took place or not to possess the weapons to produce one of their own. Particularly madmen who preside over crowds screaming “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” These demagogues need to be stopped, not encouraged by offering them any concessions or dialogue… otherwise the world may be reminded of the reason for the phrase “Never Again.”

-AG

Let’s look at the timeline, demands, and actions of the North Korean dictatorship which has developed nuclear weapons:

North Korea demands one-on-one talks with the United States.
After Obama’s election, North Korea threatens war with South Korea.
While Obama gives a speech in Europe about “disarmament,” North Korea launches a rocket over Japan.
Later, North Korea backs out of six-party negotiations, kicks out nuclear inspectors, and restarts nuclear program.
A week ago, North Korea threatens to conduct nuclear tests.

Obama’s response: Agree to North Korean demands.

When a dictator issues a set of demands then fires rockets, threatens the world with war and nuclear tests and the President of the United States agrees to these very demands, it is called appeasement. To be more exact:

ap·pease·ment (ə-pēz’mənt)
n.

1. An act of appeasing.
2. The condition of being appeased.
3. The policy of granting concessions to potential enemies to maintain peace.

“O"-pologists cannot keep getting away with saying that the current president is not in the business of appeasement, even if they use different words like “engagement” or “soft power” when they really just mean giving in to the enemies demands. For the Bush haters out there, it is true that the former president also engaged in diplomacy with a regime that is known for breaking agreements. We need common sense policy from our leaders, but what we have been getting is naivete and weakness. North Korea understands that they can keep pushing us around as long as we are afraid of this:

We should not fear them.

North Korea has been able to extract concessions from Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. When will the president stand up to terrorists and tyrants? When will the president start standing up for America?

-AG

Yesterday, I focused on whether they had the will to win. Today’s escalation of attacks on the Taliban-controlled Swat Valley and the scrapping of the peace deal gives hope that Pakistan will finally get serious about fighting the terrorists instead of just talking to them. The truth is, though, that the stakes are high for Pakistan and its democratically elected government. The Taliban in Pakistan have several possible strategies that can tip the scales in their favor and the Pakistan intelligence services and armed forces need to guard against them.

So far it seems that in terms of conventional fighting, the Pakistani army is holding its own and beating the Taliban. What the Taliban must now resort to, if they cannot fight a conventional war, is to fight a guerrilla war and to use terrorism. A few suicide bombs in the middle of their metropolitan areas or their capital which is nearby will do much to shake up the Pakistani operation. Yesterday, Pakistani police arrested three would-be suicide bombers in Lahore, so we can expect that there are more of them scattered throughout the country. A second possible strategy that might change the game is a terrorist attack on India. The last thing that Pakistan needs right now is for India to somehow become involved in this fight or to threaten Pakistan. This may end up backfiring if the Indians actually help the Pakistanis against the Taliban, but it would be a wild card.

At the end though, Pakistan is dealing with a very resilient enemy that has a base in Afghanistan and in difficult terrain. The Taliban claim to control 90% of the Swat Valley region and there are fears that they might target high profile officials. For thousands of years these people have inhabited this regions and have never been easy to govern. This disturbing video shows just what type of enemy that Pakistan is dealing with:

Pakistan should try its hardest to limit collateral damage and civilian deaths before public sentiment turns against the war. They should also try to wrap this up as soon as possible. America knows all too well how a democracy dislikes war. If Pakistan does in fact win, then the civilized world would have won a major victory against terrorism.

Again, I am astounded. In a previous post I wrote that finally, there was some sort of common sense coming out of Washington when they denied Obama the funds to relocate Guantanamo detainees to the US mainland. Boy did I underestimate the top Democrat. It looks like the Obama administration is looking to offload 100 Yemeni detainees, who cannot be sent home because there is a high likelihood that they will be released and may join or rejoin Al Qaeda, on Saudi Arabia (a country neighboring Yemen) for: terrorist rehabilitation. That’s right: rehab. It looks like the guys in charge of national security came up with the idea: “if it works on Britney, it should also work on Bin Laden.”

Just last month, the National Counterterrorism Center said that the United States is not doing enough to defeat Al Qaeda. Given this reality, how can the administration think that it is a good idea to send them back to the Arabian Peninsula? The push for appeasement is unbelievably strong in this administration. Some might say “well, maybe rehab works.” Well, let’s take a look at what happens in “terrorist rehab.”

According to Slate, they are sent to a desert resort where they swim in pools, play video games, play soccer, and learn to practice moderate Islam. Of course, their version of moderate Islam is Wahhabism which “prohibit jihad unless there is an official fatwa.” So in terrorist rehab, they do not change them from being terrorists, they simply change the conditions under which they engage in terrorism. It has to be an official “fatwa” for their terrorism to be “good.” To graduate, they take an exam and if they pass, then they are released.

There you have it: lemonade by the pool, PlayStation games, a written test and voilà ! no more terrorist (unless of course a fatwa is issued). If the interrogators at Guantanamo would have known this then the type of waterboarding we would have used would have involved a surf board and sandy beaches. Silly CIA.

Of course, some of the graduates have returned to Al Qaeda’s ranks already. What a surprise. Obama’s agenda of closing Guantanamo regardless of the national security consequences is irresponsible and dangerous. This is the most naïve presidency since Carter… when will America wake up?

-AG

Day after day, the president continues to either amaze me or insult my intelligence. Apparently, in referring to wasteful government programs Obama said “There is a lot of money being spent inefficiently, ineffectively, and – in some cases – in ways that are actually pretty stunning.” This is they same man who just got Congress to approve the largest budget in the history of the United States, a “meager” $3.4 trillion. In an effort to “rein in spending” the president has proposed $17 billion in cuts. If Obama were truly interested in reining in spending, then he should just resign.

Then comes the issue of being “out of touch.” After spending the whole day yesterday in a powwow with the beleaguered presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to coordinate the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Obama then decides that it would be a good idea to cut the military spending. What?!? The president just talked about how we need to recommit and double down in the war against the Taliban only to go and propose budget cuts that target military spending. Here’s some of what he cut:

* Recruiting and retention adjustments: $6.24 billion
* Future combat systems of manned ground vehicles: $2.98 billion
* F-22 raptor fighter aircraft: $2.9 billion
* Transformational satellite: $768 million
* Joint strike fighter alternate engine: $465 million

Unbelievable. This comes a week or two after the Taliban got within 60 miles of the capital of Pakistan, a nuclear armed country. The threat from radical Islam is as bad as ever and instead of funding the military to fight this war, the Democrats are raising taxes and spending trillions on their agenda. I have had enough of Obama’s change, time to change Obama.

-AG

Or CNN, has come out with an article about the book “Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image” by Michael Casey, which I wrote about in a previous post, talking about the Che icon. Whenever we talk about Che Guevara, we must talk about what he represented and what he did. We must talk about his summary executions of thousands of political opponents. We must talk about his promotion of violent revolutions around the world. We must talk about when he said that “a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.” Of course, CNN did no such thing, simply calling Che Guevara a “charismatic and controversial leader.”

Not once did the author of this article, Brian Byrnes, use the word murder… or execution… or rationing of goods… or brutal… or any other description that strays from the portrayal of Che as an icon for “change” and “rebellion.” Imagine an article about Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, or John Wayne Gacy without ever mentioning the words “serial” or “killer.” I guess when you kill dozens you’re considered a murderer, and when you kill thousands you’re considered an icon. It is disrespectful to the countless dead as a direct result of his communist revolution and to the millions of Cubans living in exile because of the brutal regime he was a part of.

There is one thing that we learn from this blind reverence of Che Guevara: in the modern era, so called “educated” people can still fall under the spell of demagogues despite their crimes against humanity… and that should scare us all.

-AG

Currently, Pakistani forces are attacking the Taliban in the Swat Valley region. This counterattack started a little more than week ago, after the Taliban infiltrated neighboring regions dangerously close to the capital city of Islamabad. Not so coincidentally, the president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari is meeting with the presidents of the United States and Afghanistan. So the question is, after 8 years or so, will Pakistan finally get serious about fighting the Taliban and driving out Al Qaeda? Or is this simply a temporary operation meant to make Obama feel justified in offering more billions in aid to Pakistan?

While the Pakistani army proceeds, we can expect the Taliban and Al Qaeda to launch attacks in Pakistani cities. Hopefully, Pakistani forces can stop terrorism before it happens, but the fact is that the cease-fire agreement between the government and the Taliban gave them ample time to set up sleeper cells throughout Pakistan. If terrorism becomes a reality, the question will be whether Zardari’s government can afford suicide bombs going off in major cities or will he back off the attack? Given Zardari’s low popularity, the ensuing political instability may bring an end to Pakistan’s offensive against the terrorists. America should do everything within its power to back up the Pakistani counterterrorism efforts, otherwise these recent gains will be reversed.

This assumes that Pakistan’s leadership isn’t just playing games… if they are playing around, then they might one day get bitten by the very snakes that they’ve raised. If that happens and Pakistan falls into extremist hands, God help us all.

-AG

The problem is simple to describe but difficult to solve. How do we gain control of Al Qaeda’s last safe haven? Today, President Barack Obama, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, and Afghan president Hamid Karzai will be meeting to discuss just that. The complicated part of this problem is that Al Qaeda’s safe haven is within Taliban-controlled areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. While our forces can easily attack the Taliban in Afghanistan, the enemy, who operates without regard to borders or sovereignty, is hiding out in Pakistan where American troops cannot go. The only thing that we have been able to do is strike certain targets using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s). Now it’s Obama’s turn to take a crack at the Taliban.

Obama’s plan is simple:

- Send more troops and military advisers from the US and NATO to train the Afghan army
- Spend billions in military aid to strengthen the Afghan and Pakistani armed forces
- Spend billions in nonmilitary aid to help the Afghan and Pakistani people

The simplicity of this plan does not address the major issues in an active way. What it does do is put Pakistan and Afghanistan more directly in charge of this war, and therefore more directly in charge of the war on terror, which is a national security issue we cannot outsource. The simple rule is: the more you subsidize something the more of it you will get. So, if Pakistan and Afghanistan realizes that their fight against the Taliban is what keeps America’s wallets open, then there is no incentive to end the fight. Instead, Pakistan will just contain the Taliban, like they have been doing during all of these years. On the other hand, we need to understand that Pakistan either does not have the capability or will to destroy the Taliban and root out Al Qaeda.

Karzai and Zardari

Just spending more money will not be enough. What needs to be done, as I described in a previous post, is convince the Pakistani people that restoring stability is necessary and is only possible by defeating the extremists. It may require a new government. It may require a more robust diplomatic effort. For example, Obama needs to not only include the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but also India if he wants a lasting solution to instability in the region. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Hussain Haqqani has expressed that if the US would convince India to reduce military forces on the border, then Pakistan would redeploy its own troops to the fight against the Taliban. Instead, Obama has ignored India, despite the fact that the Pakistani government has admitted that this would be very helpful and it is in the best interest of world peace to reduce tensions along that border.

We cannot simply blame Obama’s inexperience, because he is currently surrounded by very experienced people, but the truth is that the administration needs to really look at all its options seriously. Add to the whole billions-in-aid plan, that has only extended this war, the fact that Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the US are either currently negotiating with some elements of the Taliban or is prepared to do so, and one realizes that Obama’s plan is as insufficient as his predecessor’s. Without a doubt, the problem of defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda is not an easy one to solve and it requires involving all of the important players in Central and South Asia. So far, Obama seems more interested in spending taxpayer money on other people’s countries and figuring out the best way to withdraw instead of actually trying to win this war.

A “Responsible Withdrawal” policy should not replace a “Defeat Al Qaeda” policy.

-AG

Just today, former Florida state House Speaker Marco Rubio, a conservative from Miami, has declared his candidacy for the Senate seat that will be vacated by Mel Martinez next year. According to this article he said that “the more Republicans become less distinguishable from Democrats, the less people will vote for Republicans… I don’t agree with the notion that to grow our party we need to become more like Democrats.” Amen. This could be a criticism is current Florida Governor Charlie Crist who was a vocal supporter of the massive spending contained in Obama’s Stimulus Package. Interestingly enough, Crist is expected to run for that same seat, though he has not announced his candidacy yet.

With Crist’s high popularity in Florida and name recognition it will be difficult for Rubio to secure the party’s nomination, but this race will give voters a chance to see a moderate who has sided with the president pitted against a more conservative candidate. Crist has been named the RINO of the Year in 2009 (so far) by conservative website Humanevents.com for giving in to Democrats’ opposition to the appointment of a conservative judge to the Florida Supreme Court. Crist also swam against the current and in spite of nearly universal rejection of Obama’s higher spending by Republicans, he actually stood by Obama and defended the stimulus. I completely disagree with Crist on this point. See this video:

This may come back to bite him especially since the mood of the GOP is strongly against taxes and spending. In this article he is being compared to Arlen Specter, who recently left the Republican party. Crist also opposes offshore drilling, not an unpopular position in Florida with its beautiful beaches. Add to that a new documentary that questions Crist’s sexuality, a rumor that seems unsubstantiated but won’t go away (various men have said that they know first-hand that Crist is gay). These rumors never cost him politically though, especially since Crist is strongly in favor of a Florida Defense of Marriage Act that makes marriage an institution between a man and a woman. The rest of his positions are pretty conservative, promising no new taxes, being pro-life, tough on crime, pro-second amendment, etc. He’s a tough guy to beat.

Crist has often appeared on the national stage with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Marco Rubio has guts to go up against a big name candidate like this, but the political process is all about choosing someone who will represent his or her constituents best. Rubio’s politics are easier to characterize, something that might end up working for him in the election. With respect to education he proposes making our current comprehensive tests reflect a world-class standard and incentivizing good student and school performance. He stands for transparency in government budgets. He advocates tough penalties for sex predators, for those enabling sex crimes, and to get tough on gangs and hate groups. Reduce the scope of government by privatizing certain services such as the Division of Drivers’ Licenses and to partner with private companies to improve roadways. Also is for lowering or eliminating taxes in order to stimulate the economy and communities. The list goes on and a lot of his ideas can be found here.

While I am not endorsing anyone yet, it looks like it might be a good race to watch. Good luck to both.

-AG

Robert Gates, Obama’s Secretary of Defense, has confirmed that the administration will continue to reach out to Iran despite the negative signs they see coming from the Islamic Republic. In the meantime, 25 senators have introduced a bill that will impose new sanctions on Iran if it does not halt its nuclear work. The bill will give the president the authority to impose sanctions on companies that supply Iran with fuel. In response, Iran has said that the sanctions would not stop them from continuing their nuclear work. Every round of international sanctions has failed to stop Iran’s nuclear development.

The threat of acquiring nuclear weapons was not enough apparently, because today, just as the Isreali president Shimon Peres, Iranian and Syrian presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bashar Assad met and declared their support for “Palestinian resistance…until all occupied territories are liberated,” which is code for “until Israel ceases to exist.” Ahmadinejad plans to meet with representatives from Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the western world. At a time when most of the international community is calling for an end to violence in Israel and a two-state solution, the Iranian and Syrian governments are encouraging more war and backing terrorist organizations. Are these the type of people that Obama should be trying to make friends with?

Iran recently affirmed that it will take them no more than 11 days to wipe Israel out of existence if there is an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Here’s video

Which means that Iran is holding Israel hostage: either Iran, a nation that openly has called for the destruction of Israel, acquires nuclear weapons or if Israel tries to prevent it militarily, they will destroy Israel anyways.

What’s worse is that, just as Iranian elections near, Obama’s overtures toward Iran may make the Iranian people think that Ahmadinejad’s policies are working and that his threats are finally bringing America to the negotiating table. Talking to Ahmadinejad or reducing pressure on the regime will only give them more time to develop nuclear weapons and make other dictators think that they can take advantage of us.

What we need to do is make the case to the world that a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable, impose sanctions, build up international pressure, and seriously consider the military option if necessary. If Obama wants a nuclear-free world, then he has get serious about it. Inviting the seemingly unstable Ahmadinejad to a political discussion over tea and biscuits while Iranian nuclear scientists perfect their bomb is not the answer. In this era, when rogue nations are developing nuclear weapons and aiding terrorist groups, we cannot afford a Weak President.

-AG

The soul of the Republican Party is currently in turmoil. Since the last election, conservatives around the country have been offering up their ideas on how to stage a comeback. Most notably, we have seen personalities such as conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, chairman of the RNC Michael Steele, Virginia representative Eric Cantor, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, current Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, and others offer their voices to this debate. Unfortunately, conservatives have yet to create a united front against the liberal onslaught that currently has strengthened its grip on the legislative and executive branches of government. The most promising group out there seems to be The National Council for a New America which is a group of national Republican leaders seeking to come up with a new foundation for the party. Here’s their video:

Unfortunately, some conservatives, like this blogger, have protested that this group is run by a bunch of RINO’s (Republicans-in-name-only), such as John McCain. For Republicans to be able to defeat the Democrats, the party must decentralize and change the strategy of spreading the message from a top to bottom approach to a bottom to top approach. While the Democrats insist on listening to tyrants and terrorists, Republicans must insist on listening to the American voter. Like the blogger I just mentioned wrote, it is the grassroots after the communications revolution that now does not need the party to hand down the message of freedom. In fact, the Republican party should be true to its convictions and not merely preach that the free market model works but actually employ it in the political sphere by allowing the sea of conservatives activists out there to have a say in our future direction.

There are signs that this the Republican party is taking this direction, but when Jeb Bush goes on camera saying that we need to forget about the nostalgia of the Reagan years it only goes to show that some of the top “leaders” are out of touch with the base. Did the Democrats says goodbye to JFK, LBJ, or FDR? Absolutely not.

Bad Bush.

What the Republican Party needs to do is better organize the grassroots not better organize the top leadership as it is currently doing. I see that they are currently getting on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. but what is needed is to get the activists active and to focus on the message. Focus on the message! What’s the message: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This includes, but is not limited to: smart and efficient government, not bigger and bigger government; less unnecessary taxation, not hurting small businesses and their employees; fiscal responsibility, not skyrocketing spending. Strong foreign policy, not the “yellow doctrine;” respect for our Constitutional rights.

These values are American and conservatives do not need to apologize for them.

-AG

Like in previous posts of mine, I have repeatedly pointed at the flagrant bias of the American media. Wellm I just ran across this video showing how obviously disrespectful the press corps was towards Bush, and how they show the utmost respect for Obama. Here’s one video:

Here’s another:

Man! George is fast! But back to the point. The first video just further illustrates that the press in this country is obviously biased in favor of Obama regardless of what he does. Media today is becoming like fast food and if the media outlets decide to feature sound bites and video bites of one president that are positive then a great number of the less independent minded among us will think that the president is doing a great job. What bothers me is that there are some Democrats like Richard Durbin (D-IL), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), John Kerry (D-MA), etc. that want to limit conservative talk radio by reinstating the “Fairness Doctrine” which essentially does not allow a commentator to control the contents of his/her show. With a mainstream media that is clearly biased towards the Left, to require a conservative commentator to express views that are not his/her own is, in my opinion but not the courts, a violation of the first amendment right to free speech. Fortunately, the internet serves as a great equalizer, where ideas from both sides can be expressed freely… that is, until the liberals find a way to extend the government’s reach into this environment too.

-AG

CNN correspondent Nic Robertson recently interviewed Zabiullah Mujahid, one of the spokesmen of Mullah Mohammed Omar the leader of the Afghan Taliban. The reporter goes into great detail about the meeting and makes us feel like we are sitting there with him, but I am more interested in what the enemy has to say. The highlights are these:

Taliban goals: Enforce Sharia Law and drive out foreign forces from Afghanistan

Taliban justification for suicide bombs: Taliban believe it is justified in Islam

Taliban Plan to win the war: Mujahid says “We believe by both … by negotiation and also by war … we ask them to leave the country we are ready to talk … so they are not ready to leave so they want to talk by the mouth of the gun we will talk by the mouth of the gun.”

Of course, this last point is the most important one to me. With the Obama administration declaring that they will pursue talks with “moderate” Taliban, as the Afghan government is currently trying to do, and with the Taliban high command also open for talks, does this mean that we will negotiate with the Taliban? Already, as I written before, we see that Pakistan’s talks with the Taliban led to concessions and those concessions only emboldened the Pakistani Taliban. To repeat their mistakes would be dangerous for America. First of all, the Taliban will want a full withdrawal, second they will want to establish an “Islamic” government in Afghanistan, and third they will reserve the right to host Al Qaeda as part of their tradition of hospitality, especially since Al Qaeda has been helping the Taliban fight the west. To agree to any of these terms would be to effectively surrender the fight in Afghanistan. Talks with the Taliban can only occur after they have been neutralized and disarmed, never before. Victory in Afghanistan, in my view, does not require that we annihilate the Taliban, but rather that we leave in place a government that has the ability to fight and control them.

America has been forgetting the reasons that we invaded Afghanistan in the first place, so here I present the context of this war again as a refresher: Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, was using Afghanistan as a base under the protection of the Taliban who were effectively in control of most of the country. Al Qaeda attacked the United States by hijacking four planes, crashing two into the Twin Towers which collapsed the buildings, then crashing one into the Pentagon, and then the fourth was brought down by the passengers who resisted the hijackers. The Taliban did not hand over the terrorists and continued offering them protection. America went to war with Al Qaeda and their Taliban protectors.

Never Forget

Let me put it simply: Al Qaeda and the Taliban did not want to “talk” to us before they crashed planes into our buildings and killed thousands of innocent civilians… America should not be “talking” with the Taliban, unless we are accepting their surrender. Victory first, talk later.

-AG

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is currently being investigated by federal authorities to determine whether he spent campaign contributions appropriately. Being investigated is more than $100,000 in payments made to the firm of Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom Edwards had an affair. For those not familiar with the story, John Edwards cheated on his wife and admitted it to her, but not the public, in 2006. During his run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2007, it was reported by tabloids that Edwards was having an extramarital affair with Hunter which he initially denied. Last August, Edwards admitted to the affair and dropped out of the public eye. Normally I would not delve into the personal nor moral issues affecting people’s lives unless they affect the public, but this serves as an important lesson for voters, especially in light of Edwards’ politics.

Edwards and Hunter

Edwards ran on a platform that was excessively radical and leftist. By simply reading his stand on the issues without much analysis one can immediately understand the type of America he envisions: a Marxist one. This is a direct quote of Edwards’ goal from his campaign website: “Creating a Working Society… In the Working Society, everyone who is able to work hard will be expected to work and, in turn, be rewarded for it.” This quote is eerily similar to the popular slogan first expressed by Karl Marx that summarizes communism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The Democratic party has become the party of the radical Left and the fact that Edwards had a chance at becoming vice-president in 2004 makes me very nervous for the future of this country. This federal investigation into Edwards possible corrupt conduct by funneling more than $100k to a girlfriend’s company, including suspicions that he illegally used thousands in funds for personal use, shows us that to give the federal government more power over our lives will lead to abuse motivated by self-interest. I am not implying that Edwards did in fact behave corruptly, but rather pointing out the risks of believing in a charismatic leader who promises a Utopia in exchange for excessive power.

The founding fathers of this nation understood that human vices needed to be kept in check and that any government with excessively concentrated power might turn tyrannical. Human moral failings and ambitions coupled with an all-powerful central government will almost inevitably lead to dictatorship and the end of American freedom, Edwards is a prime example of this. The reason I do not like to delve into people’s personal lives is because the current American political system makes personal vices relatively irrelevant… but if we continue down the road of strengthening and growing government, like Edwards campaigned for and like Obama has been doing it will be these very personal vices that will lead to tyranny. I expect the mainstream media to make a big deal about Edwards’ personal life, I hope they do not turn it into a circus for his family’s sake, but the least they could do is turn it into a positive lesson for the American people… about how his wife was able to forgive… about the fact that no one on this Earth is perfect… about how our political system should not be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer imperfect people. The whims of the few should never be given absolute control over the fate of hundreds of millions… to lose sight of this maxim is to lose our freedom.

-AG

It’s a battle that many of us realists thought was lost on November 3rd and then again on January 21st, when the president pledged to close Guantanamo within a year and halted all trials including that of the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole. Well, it looks like the Naïveté Brigades currently heading the US government are wavering because of how difficult it is proving to find a place to relocate a lot of the detainees. With the limited willingness of Europe to accept some of these detainees and due to the fact that we cannot relocate a lot of them because their home countries would probably release them, the pressure on the current administration to relocate them to mainland United States has increased. Fortunately for us, unfortunately for the president, House Democrats rejected the president’s request for $50 million to relocate Guantanamo detainees. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) expressed that the relocation plan was too ambiguous and would face enormous pressure from lawmakers who do not want suspected terrorists in their “backyard.” Looks like not all Democrats are immune to common sense. To their credit, Republicans have generally agreed that bringing the detainees to the United States would pose a national security threat. Imagine the possibility of mixing hardened terrorists with common criminals, that was probably Al Qaeda’s intention all along.

Not So Fast, Barack

These developments, including the fact that some detainees who have been cleared cannot be sent back to their home countries because they would be persecuted like the Uighurs from China, might lead the Obama administration to break two key campaign pledges. The first being the possibility of restarting the military tribunals, which is opposed by human rights groups, as admitted by Attorney General Eric Holder. The second being the possible continued indefinite detention of the most dangerous detainees, as admitted by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. It took a cold splash of reality from a complicated international scenario and from Democrats and Republicans in Congress to snap the Obama administration out of this dream that it would be easy to close Guantanamo.

Personally, I believe that we should make the detention facility more transparent, process and try the suspects more quickly, and use a military tribunal system that is suited to this task. Indefinite detention costs the taxpayers money which could go to more useful programs. I am not thrilled that my money is being used to keep terrorists clothed, housed, and fed. We should be very sure before we release any of these suspects as well, else they rejoin the ranks of Al Qaeda. To make Guantanamo more efficient at processing suspects and to establish a definite set of legal guidelines for interrogations should be the goal. Instead, I see this administration disregarding security in order to score political points. Fortunately, reality has prohibited them from realizing their agenda. We may finally see security defeat naïveté, at least in this single case. I hope this realism spills over into the rest of his foreign policies.

-AG

Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the group “Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” is an up-and-coming jihadi who has evaded capture and has threatened to strike against the United States, as I have reported before. It seems that his knack for evading the Pakistani armed forces is a result of his ties to the Pakistani intelligence agency that tips him off before any operation is carried out against him or his group, at least according to a theory presented by two counterterrorism experts. While currently the government does not believe that Mehsud has the capability to strike at the United States, his rise in popularity amongst extremists and elusiveness make him a threat that should not be ignored. That perception of “harmlessness” is what gave Al Qaeda the opportunity to sneak up on us last time.

I remember when Osama bin Laden came to our attention and when he issued his declaration of war against the United States. Bill Clinton’s reaction was lukewarm. He ordered strikes on a site he thought was producing chemical weapons for Al Qaeda but it turned out to be an aspirin producing plant with little evidence of involvement with Al Qaeda. Clinton also struck at four terrorist training camps that were mainly empty at the time due to the arrest of an Al Qaeda member which made Osama and company cancel a scheduled meeting for fear that the US knew the details, at least according to John Diamond, a former national security reporter. In fact, Clinton admits not being able to do enough against bin Laden:

And former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer says that Clinton did not give the go-ahead to kill bin Laden on the 8-10 occasions that the opportunity presented itself:

But the issue here is not blame, the issue is being vigilant. With Al Qaeda, America was not vigilant enough. Now we have another madman with ties to Pakistani intelligence who is leading the fight in Pakistan and Afghanistan and vows to attack the United States. The current administration must not allow him to develop the organizational and/or operational capacity to attack us. All that this man needs is some logistical and operational “talent” and he can bring terrorists into the US and attack. We cannot let our eyes off of him. We must learn from our mistakes and act. History has taught us that the price of insufficient action is too high.

-AG

Driving around southwest Miami today I saw a sign reading “Obama ♥ Chavez” on the median (next time I’ll take a picture). I do not know if that’s true, but then again, what else could explain the fact that Obama was all chummy with the would-be dictator even after Chavez said so many offensive things about him and this country. Hopefully, more people out there will protest the “changes” that are jeopardizing the future of this country.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I present this montage:

Also, on May Day, Chavez took the opportunity to denounce the “infamy of Obama” due to a State Department report listing Venezuela as a country that does not support the fight against terrorism. It looks like that’s how Chavez is going to play it: nice on the world stage, belligerent at home.

The same day, hundreds of Venezuelan police fired tear gas and water cannons in order to disperse a march that was protesting the recent measures enacted by the Chavez government that stripped the mayor of Caracas (the capital) of most of his budget and makes him report to a Chavez appointed official.

It looks like Venezuela’s socialist “revolution” is leading the central government to interfere in local governments… that sounds awfully familiar though. Maybe the governor of Texas isn’t so crazy after all.

-AG

I was just reading an article on The New York Times by Roger Cohen who characterizes the president’s new foreign policy philosophy as “The Mellow Doctrine” that includes, in his own words, “acknowledgment of the limits of American power; frankness about U.S. failings; careful listening; fear reduction; adroit deployment of the wide appeal of brand Barack Hussein Obama; and jujitsu engagement.” In all truth, this could better be described as “The Yellow Doctrine” but in spite of that I admire the author’s honesty in describing the Obama foreign policy, something lacking in mainstream media today. As a former practitioner of judo, cousin to the aforementioned martial art, I do not see anything “jujitsu” about the yellow doctrine, at least not yet. Unless this is what Cohen meant:

As for the rest, this philosophy of “hoping” that our enemies will play nice if we put on a big, sloppy, goofy smile is naive at best, cowardly at worst. Of course, the author does not think so and runs through a list of “accomplishments":

- Cohen writes: “the Castro brothers in Cuba are squabbling over the meaning of Obama’s overtures.” In a sense, this is true, but what they are squabbling over is what they will be willing to negotiate. Raul seems to have no use for the pro-democracy dissidents while Fidel wants to keep them as a scapegoat and as hostages. This is a question of tactics not strategy. The Castros will use the political prisoners and dissidents as a bargaining chip one way or another, especially when they can very easily round up a few hundred more political prisoners to replace any that are used as an “exchange.” The administration is clearly waiting for the Castros to “concede” something so that they can issue a new round of unilateral concessions. This is hardly an effective policy. It gives the communist regime what they want: more dollars and more recognition.

- Cohen writes that “Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez has gone gooey-eyed over the “Yanqui” president.” The author obviously has not heard what Venezuela has said about Obama at home. Chavez has called him a “poor ignorant,” has told him to “not mess with Venezuela” and mind his own business, has told him to stop going down the “path of stupidity,” has said that he represents the “destroyer” of Latin America and in the same breath has called for the “fall of ‘the empire’ [America].” Come time to get in front of the world’s cameras and Chavez acts all warm and fuzzy, gives Obama a gift, and from the looks of it did not get the opportunity to give him a kiss, but who knows what happens back-stage. Chavez is playing with Obama and with the Venezuelan people. By the looks of it, Cohen is falling for it. By all estimation, Chavez will eventually fall in line behind the Castro strategy of asking for concessions. All he wants is to continue his own private socialist “revolution” in Venezuela and extract as much as he can from the United States.

Chavez says: “Don’t Mess With Me, Mr. Obama” [Spanish]

- Cohen writes that Bush era policies made things “easy” for our enemies. While I concede that Bush’s PR and bad handling of certain matters, exacerbated by the wars, made a lot of people mad at the United States, they also helped crystallize who was our friend and who was our enemy. In the post-911 world, this is critical. Now Obama wants to make friends with everyone and reduce “fear,” when what is needed is for the United States to be either respected or feared in the world… and to extend your hands to your enemies while they talk about destroying your country is not going to generate respect nor fear, it will only project weakness and make America less safe.

At the end, Cohen clarifies what the success of the yellow doctrine will look like: “it will succeed if America’s foes understand that normal relations with Washington do not imply the loss of distinctive cultures and politics or the imposition of U.S. values.” The author has it backwards. The issue is not our foes’ fears of compromising their own values… the issue is that by accepting terrorists or dictators with open arms WE end up compromising our own values… and that, my friends, is what the enemy wants.

-AG

In Cuba that is. Today marks the international workers’ day and it is celebrated in all communist countries around the world. Cuba is no exception. While the government sponsored celebration takes place around the country, pro-democracy activists are languishing in Castro’s gulags. There is no May Day party for them, only arbitrary confinement and the faint dream of freedom in Cuba. News agencies have been reporting on these festivities but will not be reporting the ongoing human suffering on the island, particularly they will ignore the repression of nonviolent dissidents. Gotta love the media.

Some May Day celebrations turn violent

How is it not newsworthy to cover the activities of pro-democracy dissidents in Cuba? As members of a profession that exercises free speech as a part of its soul, why not use their voice to help bring free speech to that corner of the world? There are some who have reported but, by and large, the press would rather report on Kim Kardashian’s cellulite than on political prisoners imprisoned for demanding their inalienable human rights, and the public is more acquainted with the former than with the latter. It’s a surreal world. So on May Day, I present the profile of one nonviolent pro-democracy dissident in Cuba who is fighting for freedom:

Guillermo Fariñas Hernández

Fariñas is a doctor of psychology and an independent journalist in Cuba who has undergone various hunger strikes protesting against censorship in Cuba. Reporters Without Borders, an organization that supports free press around the world, has awarded him with the “Cyber-freedom” prize in 2006 for his unyielding commitment to this cause. For his trouble, the Castro regime has sent people to harass him, threaten him, beat him, and detain him frequently.

Fariñas after state-sponsored beating

He staged a hunger strike in 2006 asking the Cuban government to allow free internet access to all Cubans and to respect the rights of independent journalists to report on the island. Seven months later, after being hospitalized and put on intravenous drip to save his life, he ended the hunger strike, vowing to continue the struggle in another way. Reporter Without Borders reported that “the day before he reached his decision [to end te hunger strike], his mother, Alicia Hernández, had reported that he was suffering from fever, convulsions, kidney problems, a swollen abdomen and a heart disorder.” He was already in the intensive care unit for nearly two weeks.

Fariñas hospitalized while on hunger strike

From the multiple, prolonged hunger strikes that he has gone on he now suffers from permanent health problems, yet repression continues on the island. He is one of the brave independent journalists that has endured so much abuse at the hands of the Cuban state simply for reporting the news and is an example for the many other democratic activists on the island. Hopefully the world will one day hear his own “mayday,” and forget the other “May Day” that celebrates a system guilty of innumerable crimes against humanity.

Let’s help the brave men and women who suffer so that future generations can be free, not appease and do business with their oppressors because we are interested in one day vacationing on Cuban beaches.

-AG

Well, it looks like while the administration may be willing to talk to Cuba and ease restrictions on the regime, they are not quite ready to remove them from the list of countries that support terrorism. This begs the question though: is it a good idea to open trade with a country that supports terrorism?

Cuba currently harbors members from many different terrorist organizations that operate in Colombia, Spain, Puerto Rico, and other countries. This reassertion that Cuba still sponsors terrorism comes on the heels of a declaration by Raul Castro that it should be the United States who makes the important moves towards the normalization of relations since it was the US that imposed the sanctions to begin with. Of course, with the restricted media in Cuba it is not easy to refute this assertion, but the fact is that the embargo was put into effect (on Castro’s regime) as a result of Cuba’s expropriation of US businesses and their alliance with the Soviet Union. That was so long ago that people tend to forget. It shows that the Castro regime is only interested in extracting concession after concession from the United States instead of seriously changing its ways. This is not a surprise. The Castros’ intransigence is something that the Cuban-American exile community has been trying to explain to the world for 50 years.

America cannot keep sending the signal to the world that we will simply give in to the whims and the demands of rogue nations that support terrorism or pose a threat to stability. Cuba, historically, has been the focal point of the most fervent anti-Americanism in the region and is the “godfather” of the leftist movement in Latin America that are currently gaining traction. A mixture of local corrupt government and US inattention has left Latin America vulnerable to the utopian ideals espoused by communism, but the militant communism present in Cuba is only possible through the repression of the local population and support from other nations. Currently, the Castro-Chavez axis has been able to recruit several other nations in the hemisphere and they openly undermine our interests wherever they can. We cannot turn a blind eye to Cuba simply because it is no longer an active threat to the United States. Our enemies in the region are increasing and Iran’s relation with Cuba and Venezuela have improved significantly. The threat of a nuclear armed terrorist-sponsoring state with allies in this hemisphere would put our national security at serious risk.

Cuba has become an ideological battlefield where “socialism” is perceived to have defeated democracy and free enterprise. Were we to help change that, the leftists coming to power around the region would no longer have an example or a model to point to… the tools exist on the ground: there is a growing and more vocal pro-democracy movement on the island that is shaking things up. Right now, the worst action to take would be to give the Cuban repressive machine a new lease on life by opening up trade and normalizing relations with the communist regime. We need to help those dissidents who are peacefully resisting the dictatorship, both for moral reasons and for national security reasons.

What we have witnessed instead is increasing calls for doing business with the communist regime and praise for their “great” health care system. Congressional delegations go to the island without visiting the families of political prisoners or observing anything outside of what Castro has authorized. Presidents have paid only lip-service to the cause of Cuban freedom since the days of Kennedy. Between the simple publicity stunts such as Jimmy Carter’s “endorsements” of the Castro regime and the Michael Moore documentary that extols the greatness of communist healthcare much harm has been done to the cause of freedom in Cuba, imagine what opening up our wallets would do…

-AG

One month ago, I predicted that the Obama administration would bail out Chrysler and GM, even though they had threatened to withhold federal funds. I was right (at least with the Chrysler part and probably also with GM).

Obama authorized up to $8 billion in aid to Chrysler and said today “I can report that the necessary steps have been taken to give… Chrysler, a new lease on life.” Chrysler, for its part, forged an alliance with Fiat, an Italian automaker, and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which will essentially mean some restructuring and a change in management (not liquidation of assets). In the meantime, the United States taxpayer will provide this failing business with 3 to 3.5 billion dollars to help with operational costs and 4.5 billion dollars to help with the alliance with Fiat. Oh, and the American taxpayer also pledges to stand behind every Chrysler warranty. Didn’t you get the memo??

The government will now own 8% stake in the company. Currently, the government is actively pushing debt holders to drastically cut down what they are owed but some of the smaller debt holders are resisting. Bankruptcy courts (or another government bailout) will end up resolving this.

What is most curious about this deal is the fact that as part of these negotiations with the government, the United Auto Workers labor union will own a 55% stake of the company (though the government will administer its stake). Yes, you read that right, the labor union (represented by government) now has majority stake in Chrysler. In exchange, the union agreed to some pay cuts and reduced health care benefits. Ladies and Gentlemen, let me quote something from a curious book written in the 19th century: “The proletariat [workers] will use its political supremacy [Democrat-controlled gov’t] to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie [entreprenuers and business-people] and, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State.” This is a quote (I added the brackets for clarification) from The Communist Manifesto. 100 days later we have: flagrant Communist economic policy.

Communism must be defeated.

-AG

As a present commemorating the first 100 days of the Obama presidency, Congress passed a $3.44 trillion budget. This is the largest budget in history. No Republican from either the Senate or the House of Representatives voted for the bill and some fiscally conservative Democrats voted against the budget too. The Democrat-controlled Congress has just placed an even greater burden on the backs of future taxpayers. If you are planning to be a future taxpayer in America, then that means you. First off, the Bush tax cuts will expire in 2010 and second, the Obama “tax cuts” are scheduled to expire after 2010. Then comes Obama’s “goal” of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his term, the only way he can do that and cover all of his additional spending is to raise taxes again. While Americans around the country are cutting back and budgeting more because of the recession, the Democrats have decided that it is a good idea to take more money away from people through higher taxes and to pass a budget that funds all of their pet projects. “Out of touch” doesn’t even begin to describe this. America needs a viable alternative to the reckless Democrats in Washington.

-AG

Well, yesterday we passed the hundred day mark for the current president. As I wrote a few days ago the main proponent of the Barack Obama presidency is the mainstream media. They do more to tout the party line, the White House line than any other body I can see. I gave three example last time, here’s one more

- CNN’s Kristi Keck writes about Obama’s 100 days citing a historian who compares him to FDR, JFK, and LBJ. Fortunately, Obama was also compared to Jimmy Carter (I think it was meant as a compliment), the one-term, UFO-spotting, weak president who allowed Iran to take American hostages, unilaterally withdrew the nuclear deterrent on the Korean Peninsula. I second that comparison (except I don’t think that Obama has ever seen a UFO). Anyways, the article completely misses the fact that the president has spent trillions and trillions of taxpayer dollars and increased our national debt significantly. This is the most historic thing that this president has done, in a little more than three months proposing and passing nearly $5 trillion in budgets and stimuli, while the Federal Reserve printed $1.2 trillion. Obama has spent more money in his first 100 days than Bush did during 2,922 days (here are some sources: “Obama Doubling of National Debt”, “Obama Spending Shocks in Scale”, Obama driving up National Debt to 80% of GDP, “Obama outsources his presidency”…), . Take into account that Bush had to spent on two wars and expanding homeland security during that time. This article is little more than cheer-leading and the only time it mentions anything negative, the author writes “the Republicans think that…” Shame on you, Keck. One other huge omission is Obama’s entire foreign policy, probably because the only accomplishments are photo-ops with dictators and dictator-wannabes and unilateral concessions to dictatorships. That’s the media for you.

President promised to cut deficit in half by first term

I could keep going, but first off, it’s bad for my blood pressure to read this mainstream media spin and second, it seems that the overwhelming majority of articles I read on the main news sources tend to be just the same. But in spite of the non-stop pro-Obama media propaganda, when left to their own devices, people seem to be thinking on their own. Here is an excellent and unexpected example. On MSNBC, readers were asked to rate the first 100 days and after nearly 350,000 votes, the majority of respondents gave President Obama an F on his performance. Shocking! It looks like the hypnosis might be wearing off after all. Here’s the link, it should be changing as time progresses.

The fact is that president Obama is a highly polarizing figure in American politics, a far cry from the “post-partisan” fairy tale he was telling the Obamaton children during the campaign. The change he is offering is a break from American greatness. His accomplishments are all based on throwing enormous amounts of money at problems, more money than any president in history, and even then, we have not seen any results yet. His foreign policy essentially aims at removing the “power” from the term “superpower.” 100 days in, we have witnessed the Party of Carter rise to power again… we should remember that it takes a Reagan to beat Carter and, unfortunately, the minority party doesn’t seem to have one.

-AG

That is the question. To answer it, let’s imagine that “we” are the commander of Al Qaeda in Iraq. I know this might be difficult, but in order to defeat the enemy we must think like the enemy:

First off, after the US surge and enlisting local Sunni’s to fight against Al Qaeda, “our” group is not doing so hot. Essentially the US turned the tables on “us” and got Sunni and Shiite on the same team, a historical improbability. So “we” would hide out and wait until the Sunni and Shiite start having disagreements and friction. Al Qaeda took this very step because the surge worked. In the meantime, “we” start following US news and try to figure out their next move. Watching TV in our hiding place “we” stumble across a candidate who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, advocates a quick withdrawal, and does not believe that the surge is working.

And praise be to Allah! Obama actually wins. In addition to bringing America change, he brought Al Qaeda’s strategy change. Before, if Al Qaeda would get out of control, the Bush administration would get tougher: sending more troops, attacking insurgent strongholds, and training more Iraqi soldiers/police. With Obama, the more pressure that Al Qaeda puts on America, the louder the Democrats’ call for withdrawal. So what do “we” do? Come out of hiding and start causing trouble. The more trouble, the faster Obama will withdraw. So far, Obama has pledged to withdraw the majority of troops by August 2010. So “we” get back to the proven strategy of attacking Shiites in order to create a backlash against Sunnis and start a full-blown civil war. (That concludes this thought-experiment.)

Well… that is exactly what has been happening. Just today, two car bombs ripped through a Shiite neighborhood killing 41. Last Friday, 60 people were killed in bombings outside a Shiite shrine. Last Thursday, 78 people were killed in bombings of a humanitarian aid distribution area and a crowded restaurant… and the list goes on. All of these were blamed on “Sunni insurgents” and could have been Al Qaeda affiliated or not. The distinction does not matter to Al Qaeda because their goal is to divide Iraq into two or more camps: Sunni and Shiite. Of course, these attacks come on the heels of the withdrawal of thousands of “surge” troops and promises to reduce forces by August 2010. With Obama as president, the worst case scenario for Al Qaeda: hide out until the withdrawal date and then start wreaking havoc. Best case scenario for Al Qaeda: wreak havoc now and accelerate US withdrawal. They are counting on the Weak President to get frightened at the sight of explosions and beheadings.

The problem is that we have not only told the terrorists and insurgents that we are leaving Iraq, we told them when and how many troops we may leave behind as a residual force (50K or less). While it is a relief that Obama has not pulled out troops at the breakneck pace he promised during the campaign and his withdrawal is more orderly, the reality is that Al Qaeda is paying attention and is adjusting its own strategy accordingly. The question should not be: how do we go about withdrawing effectively? The question should be: how do we make sure that Al Qaeda is fully defeated? The former question does not take into account the consequences of leaving Al Qaeda intact, while the latter question implies not only an eventual withdrawal but it takes into account the fact that we might have to go back to Iraq if Al Qaeda takes over. In other words, the first question implies artificial timetables (politics-based) and the second question sets real timetables. Timetables should not be set by politics in Washington but rather by conditions in Iraq. Artificial timetables only give the enemy an edge in this fight… interestingly, some say that it’s what gave the Democrats an edge in the last couple of elections.

There’s one timetable that I agree with though: January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2013. Let’s see if it holds.

-AG

Listen to Obama’s naive goals of cutting funding for missile defense systems.

Russia’s response:

The Russians have announced that they will be testing at least five of these Bulava missiles that they can launch from their submarines anywhere in the world. These advanced ballistic missiles can hold up to six nuclear warheads, have a maximum range of about 6,200 miles, and can be launched even if the submarine is moving. After years of neglect, the Russians are spending heavily on defense in order to modernize their armed forces.

The only thing that a weak foreign policy will “reset” is Russia’s military might.

-AG

The liberal takeover of America is proceeding smoothly. Today, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter announced that he was switching parties from Republican to Democrat because he finds his “political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.” This means that now, Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority and will have an easier time ramming their agenda through Congress. Apparently, Specter previously denied that he was interested in changing parties by saying “to eliminate any doubt, I am a Republican, and I am running for reelection in 2010 as a Republican on the Republican ticket.” Oh, how times have changed.

Anyways, maybe it is better that Benedict Specter leaves the party, since he was not very helpful in opposing the Democrats in the first place. Sure he voted against the Labor Union-backed “card check” act… and he opposes gay marriage believing that marriage is an institution between a man and a woman… and he voted to protect the secrecy of the CIA’s interrogation techniques… and he opposes most forms of gun control… and he supports drilling for oil in Alaska… but all in all he just wasn’t a team player. Jack Cafferty, CNN commentator, called him a “gutless Republican worm.” I guess now he’s a “gutless Democrat Benedict Arnold worm.” Not much of an improvement.

To the Democrats I say “good luck.”

-AG

President Obama has officially let his presidency’s PR get out of control. In New York yesterday, residents of the city looked up to see this:

For half an hour, this plane and an F-16 fighter circled the airspace over New York at low altitude prompting offices to evacuate and causing panic in a city that less than eight years ago experienced 9-11. Why were these planes flying so low near buildings and the Statue of Liberty? A photo-op.

Obama said it was “a mistake” and that it would not happen again. The fly-over was part of a series of photo-ops of the Obama plane in front of national landmarks. Ridiculous.

What’s next? A swarm of bombers flying over Pearl Harbor? I was not one of those who thought that Obama was “elitist” or a “snob” but with this stunt, Obama showed me that he is more interested in publicity and fame than the feelings and safety of the American people. Shame on you, Obama. He goes around the world apologizing for America and listening to anti-American tirades and when he gets back home he ignores the sensibilities of New Yorkers by staging a “mock 9-11″ for a photo op. Obama, stop disrespecting America.

-AG

In a surprisingly naïve and insulting move, the United States embassy in Argentina sponsored readings of a new book detailing the “enduring iconic power of Che Guevara.” While the embassy’s spokeperson Mara Tekach insists that it was hosting this event in order to promote free speech, I do not believe that the United States should be actively sponsoring events glorifying communist Che Guevara aka the “Butcher of la Cabaña” who executed countless Cubans without trial, persecuted political opponents, and helped lay the foundations for Castro’s totalitarian regime. Not to mention that his resistance to democracy around the world was “inspired” by a militant adherence to Communism, a system that killed hundreds of millions around the world.

The book itself is titled Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image and is written by Michael Casey. According to Roger F. Noriega, who wrote this review about the book, the author describes the murderer Che’s “heroism,” compares him to Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. The author apparently goes further and in an effort to excuse Che’s crimes compares right-wing Latin American dictators (like Chile’s Augusto Pinochet who killed around 3,000 people) to Adolph Hitler and Pol Pot (which caused the deaths of millions), a ridiculous stretch… as ridiculous a stretch of comparing Che to Stalin (though I may feel like Che deserves worse, he just can’t stack up to good old Uncle Jo). Here again we have one of these idealists who only listens to the words and does not look at the deeds of his “hero” like the countless persons who wear his image on their shirt without knowing that he stood for killing anyone that stood in the way of communism. At least many of the latter are simply ignorant, while the former uses a logic that rationalizes mass murder for simply having different ideas.

It is reprehensible that the United States would sponsor such an event. I believe in free speech, but to host an event like this and to respect an event like this is completely different. We should not be hosting things that stand in stark opposition to our ideals.

Early Communist Indoctrination

I find it fitting to end this post with an excerpt from Noriega’s review:
“Millions of Cuban schoolchildren have been indoctrinated in the dead-end, destructive ideology of Fidel Castro’s totalitarian regime. “We will be like Che,” these tots and teens are forced to cry out in unison, as they appear in public assemblies to demonstrate their unthinking loyalty to a political system that has stolen the God-given rights of 11 million Cubans.

“El Che” would be proud. Michael Casey is fascinated. The rest of us should be appalled.”

-AG

Like Stalin’s kulaks in the Soviet Union and what Marxists describe as petite bourgeoisie, America’s small business owners have become a target, only in this case a target of the Democratic Tax Machine. The problem is that when it comes to taxes, a lot of small business owners report profits on their personal income tax return, which means that they have to pay Obama’s higher taxes. Obama’s tax plan, in this respect and others, is counter intuitive when you take into account the recession we are in; we need to strengthen entrepreneurial activity and small business which employs over half of the US workforce as I wrote a month ago. Add to the higher direct tax on business revenues the higher energy costs and capital gains taxes on those who reinvest their profits in the market and we have a significantly increased burden on small businesses.

Of course, not all small businesses will be affected, but the National Federation of Independent Business took a poll and found that approximately 15% of small businesses will be affected, particularly the most successful ones with the most employees. While liberals may look down their noses at Republicans who believe in “trickle down economics,” I am sure that they would not dispute the fact that when the cost of business goes up, management tends to “downsize” or in layman’s terms: cut back hours and lay people off. This chain email presents it perfectly. Trickle down taxation turns into trickle down unemployment.

-AG

Remember, that this whole mess of Taliban invading Buner, killing a Pakistani police officer, and Pakistan retaliating by attacking an area with only modest militant activity started right after the Pakistani government surrendered to the demands of the Taliban. Well, now the Taliban say that their “deal” is “worthless” after the Pakistani armed forces used helicopters and artillery in the Lower Dir region looking for militants who were hiding out. The Taliban stronghold is the Swat Valley bordering Afghanistan but Pakistan is currently simply trying to contain them there by finding Taliban militants in neighboring districts. Operation Taliban Whac-a-Mole continuing splendidly.

The lesson? Appeasement does not work.

On cue, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari used this opportunity to ask for aid money in order to defeat the Taliban. I think (like Hillary Clinton) that Pakistan is not taking this threat seriously, especially in light of the fact that the Pakistani military has been training for war with India which allegedly included the training of guerrillas in Kashmir. I think they are well-equipped to deal with an insurgency on their own soil, especially one without popular support in the rest of Pakistan. Like I have said before, it is in the interest of Pakistan’s enemies (e.g. India) for Pakistan to stay in a state of civil war… so I would assume that if Pakistan’s leadership was interested in joining the rest of the regional and world powers then they would put their serious faces on and strike at the heart of the Taliban instead of the periphery. As an inducement, the US could offer aid money, but only AFTER the Pakistani army is neck deep in fighting the Taliban.

-AG

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, a Hugo Chavez friend and Latin leftist leader, handily won re-election yesterday. The election comes after the establishment of a new Constitution, the favorite move of leftists as soon as they assume power, that consolidates more power in the executive, extends term limits, and, interestingly enough, drafts the first bill of rights for the environment. The new constitution was drafted by an assembly whose vast majority belonged to Correa’s political party (Alianza PAIS). This president now has the power to dissolve congress within the first three years of its four-year term, rule by decree when congress is dissolved (until new congress in place), run for another term in 2013, and allow him to directly control monetary policy. Here’s an image on his website:

“Hasta la Victoria Siempre” translates to “Until Victory Always” and is a universal communist slogan

Here it is on a Cuban mural

This is yet another Latin American country that has had its political system hijacked and remade by self-described socialists. Correa has already racked up an impressive little resume by Marxist standards. His hits include: defaulting on the national debt (he said that he would not pay because the debt is “illegitimate"), nationalizing tv stations, aligning himself with Venezuela and Iran, allegedly aiding communist guerrillas fighting in neighboring Colombia, and not allowing American use of Manta air base after lease expires in 2009 (Correa offered it to China instead).

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been fighting communist guerrillas that take refuge in Correa’s Ecuador and Chavez’s Venezuela

This just goes to show that ignoring the rise of what can now definitely be described as Latin socialism will only result in a continued “domino effect” across the region. While at the moment, there is no direct military threat, these nations are starting to ramp up military spending and have been invited China and Russia into this hemisphere. In the long-run, it would be better to have our own neighbors on our side than give any other world power an opening.

For now we can expect Correa’s brand of socialism to be more moderate than Chavez’s but with an economic system based on antagonizing any sort of foreign investment, cancelling the national debt, and unstable due to expropriations and renegotiation of contracts with foreign firms, we cannot be sure that a more radical Correa won’t emerge if things start looking bad. Latin America has come to believe that democracy and free markets are not desirable because of the rampant corruption that plagued the systems of government in the past. Once they experience what militant socialism has to offer: poverty, rationing, authoritarianism, and wholesale repression of human rights, they will come to know that freedom, while imperfect, is the best state for mankind.

Oh and curiously enough, Ecuador’s vice-president’s first name is “Lenin"… then again, our president’s middle name is “Hussein"… two leaders that advocated extreme government intervention or control. I guess citizens of free countries miss the warning signs out of tolerance.

-AG

I was thinking of giving Obama a progress report on his first 100 days, but I felt that it is far too premature to judge his actions and their consequences. All in all, Obama has strong-armed Congress with his domestic policies and weak-armed tyrants and terrorists with his foreign policy. Since his domestic policies involve the expansion of federal government, increased spending, and increased taxation (during a recession), I disagree with both internal and external policies. Though I think that my restraint in judging Obama prematurely is a virtue, the mainstream media has no such illusions. The judgments passed these first hundred days have reinforced the view that the current president has enlisted the media as a personal PR machine.

Here’s a few examples:

1) Newsweek opens one article with “he’s in league, so far, with FDR and LBJ” and another article is titled “The Halo Holds“

2)On MSNBC, Howard Fineman delivers a roughly 900 word ode to the president’s “Coolness” without even mentioning the word “policy” (not once, look it up if you don’t believe me).

3) CNN’s John King barely mentions anything that Obama has done wrong and cites the various legislative proposals rammed through Congress by a one-party controlled government as major accomplishments. The broken promises on bipartisanship, on transparency, the foreign policy weakness, and the increases in taxes are not referenced.

The list is longer of course, with a lot to come since the actual 100-day will be hit on April 29th. The media has mainly been concentrating on certain Republican remarks rather than Republican policy proposals: seizing on Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” comments and making a quiet mention of Republican budget proposals to counter the borrow-tax-spend Democratic budget. The media worried more about how Republicans would back ever-increasing government and more taxation, instead of asking whether these things were inherently good in themselves.

On top of that, the media scarcely mentioned the specifics of Obama’s original proposals that included so much un-stimulative special project spending showing that the Democrats were more interested in scoring political points and paying special groups that helped get them into power than with actually stimulating anything. On the other hand, the media keeps repeating over and over the White House line that the Stimulus Package was full of infrastructure spending while in reality it is not so bold. Caterpillar Inc. CFO Dave Buritt says that China is doing much better with regards to infrastructure spending, approximately three times what the US is spending.

The media’s “objectivity” was woefully missing during the campaign and seems to have continued into the presidency as well. Unfortunately, the only thing that will shock the media out of the Obama-hypnosis is a major mistake. While I hope that does not happen, it just goes to show that in today’s world: “image is everything.”

-AG

Since invading the Buner district, 60 miles away from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, Pakistani troops have been pouring into the region in order to contain what is being perceived as an invasion. The Taliban insist that they are carrying out a non-violent preaching campaign, but there was at least one confirmed dead during a skirmish between Pakistani forces and the radicals. A few days ago, a prominent Muslim cleric who helped draft the cease-fire agreement that imposed Islamic law on the Swat Valley area in exchange for cessation of hostilities asked the Taliban to leave the Buner district. The Taliban complied.

Today, Pakistan launched an offensive in the district of Lower Dir where Taliban militants have been increasing their presence. Dir is itself covered under the cease-fire deal that imposes Islamic law. Pakistan insists that the presence of militants will not be tolerated and that they should lay down their arms in accordance with the deal that gave in to their demands. The government insists that in spite of this new offensive, the peace deal is still intact.

It is about time that the Pakistani government took off the gloves in dealing with the Taliban. They should be careful not to enter into a prolonged guerrilla conflict which will only further destabilize this nuclear-armed country, but to allow the militants to swarm other districts and impose martial law is not acceptable. The war in Afghanistan is being fueled by Taliban safe havens in Pakistan and elements of Al Qaeda are currently hiding there. Victory will not be possible without stopping terrorist and militant operations in that region… which means that either Pakistan handles it or Pakistan must let the USA handle it. I prefer the former.

-AG

But don’t think that the war is over. The president that thinks that small town people get bitter and “cling to guns” and made it his priority to make permanent gun control laws, has realized that he probably bit off more than the American people can chew in these first few months. Already America will be forced to pay higher energy taxes, pay higher energy costs due to a “cap-and-trade” interventionist policy, pay higher tobacco taxes, pay higher capital gains taxes, pay a higher “death tax” (the tax was supposed to drop to zero next year, instead Obama has kept it at 45%), and pay trillions more to “bailout” Wall Street and fund the Democrats entitlement programs. Add to that a foreign policy that some people characterize as soft on terror and soft on tyranny and we have an administration that has “changed” America’s strategy of projecting power and stimulating free enterprise to a strategy of “playing nice” and increasing government economic intervention. Obama has not succeeded in implementing this strategy completely but he has started veering us in that direction. Fortunately, since we are still a nation where our voices count somewhat, Obama and attorney general Eric Holder seem to have backed off from their previous gun control goals, primary amongst them the assault weapons ban. At a time when liberals have been relentlessly attacking conservatives and constitutionalists, their push to change the spirit of American freedom is finally showing signs of strain. It’s about time we got some good news.

The fate of the Second Amendment was looking bleak as a recent string of shootings by deranged individuals and reports that Mexico’s drug violence was being fueled by weapons smuggled from the US were used by liberal elements in the media to push for gun control. The only sign that the government was not going full-force against the second amendment was the Supreme Court ruling that reasserted the right of individuals to own guns rather than just organized militias. Apparently, even though the liberals are in control of Congress, they do not have the support to restrict the right to bear arms which means that two government branches are not willing to pursue this agenda. That leaves the Obama administration with little to no chance that any aggressive restrictions on the second amendment will be enacted for the next couple of years. This does not mean that the administration won’t try to place restrictions one way or another, but it is a victory for Americans who believe that this right is necessary for freedom to endure. And to those who do not believe that it is vital to democracy, here’s what Lara Croft thinks:

-AG

America agrees with these two assertions:

1) Torture is unacceptable.
2) Mass murder is unacceptable.

The question is: what happens when faced with the choice between preventing mass murder by torturing a terrorist suspect or allowing mass murder by not applying enough pressure? The Bush administration, in the aftermath of 9-11, toed and crossed the line on torture in order to get valuable information from captured terrorist suspects. At the time, America was more worried about security than the legal and moral implications of using excessive force during the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The country was in a “do whatever is necessary” frame of mind… but after Al Qaeda was stomped in Afghanistan, their top leadership in hiding, captured, or killed, and with no further terrorist attacks on the United States, the general public started to question if the ends justified the means in this war on terror.

A lot of “good” people around the world can make the argument that the comfort of one person is not more valuable than the lives of countless of innocents. Of course, in practice that “one person” becomes “some persons” only to eventually mean “any person.” So where do we draw the line? Personally I believe, as did the Founding Fathers, that the United States should never engage in torture, but I have no tears for the terrorists who were waterboarded. As a matter of conscience, I believe that waterboarding is wrong because it is a form of torture that causes physical harm (damage to respiratory system by introduction of liquid) to the “torturee.”

The current issue is whether or not we should prosecute anyone involved in the facilitation or practice of torture. Obama has giving conflicting indications of what he would be willing to do, first he wanted to look into possible crimes committed, then he told the CIA that he would not seek the prosecution of operatives engaged in “enhanced interrogation,” only to later say that he was leaving the door open to prosecution of Bush administration officials who were involved, only to later back away from this idea saying he wants to look forward not backward. A bit confusing. In a way I feel bad for Obama, because he has to figure out a way to serve justice without damaging America’s security.

Right now, members of both parties are scrambling to find out who knew what and when because the reality is that Congress did not raise significant objections to this policy during the years that it was employed. It is known that these methods were described in detail to members of both parties as reported here. The truth is that the government erred on the side of security and to go back and prosecute those who were acting in the best interest of this country may not be the most productive action for us to take. The timing of the release of these memos was particularly bad. At this time of war, releasing these memos will only serve as a powerful recruitment tool for terrorist organizations and give the moderate elements in Islamic society a reason to side with them.

While I believe that the truth should come out, Americans should first take into account what it will do to the men and women serving overseas when the non-radical elements of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. are privy to memos detailing how the United States engaged in torturing their brethren. America must not stray from its founding principles though and I do agree that some sort of investigation should be conducted because truth is necessary for a healthy democracy, we should just be sure that the timing is right.

To be sure though, the prosecution of Bush administration officials for a policy that is deemed illegal will create a nightmare scenario for our system of government. What would have happened if Lincoln’s administration was prosecuted for the times that it suspended habeas corpus and the first amendment in the name of national security? Or when Ulysses S. Grant suspended habeas corpus in order to fight the Ku Klux Klan? Or when Franklin Delano Roosevelt interned Japanese-Americans during WWII? There are countless decisions made by different administrations that can be deemed illegal after the fact and if the president, when faced with a crisis, could not react due to fear of prosecution of himself/herself or his/her administration then this nation would cease to exist. While in many cases, the excesses were unwarranted or unnecessary, to limit an administration through fear would severely undermine national security. The current administration cannot seriously prosecute the previous administration over policy differences, only in clear instances where the law was violated or where people went outside the scope of what was deemed legal at the time. I say let there be a truth commission but not a witch-hunt and absolutely not a partisan political circus where Democrats parade Republicans in front of Congressional hearings. The last thing we need is to surrender government to the whims of people who would rather witness this:

than witness this:

-AG

Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, the elected leader of a semi-autonomous region of Somalia called Puntland, was recently interviewed by Newsweek and gave his opinions on the recent uptick in piracy coming from his country. His advice was simple, giving in to the ransom demands will only strengthen the pirates, instead we must fight them. Of course, he took this opportunity to ask for international aid in order to fund an effective Somali Coast Guard that can deal with the pirates and with illegal fishing that occurs off their shores. In all, his statements, from the source of piracy, are a sober appraisal of this current crisis and how we can fix it.

On this point, I will give Obama some credit. In this case he pledged to crack down on piracy by using the military, international support, and stabilizing the Somali government. I only wish he would crack down on terrorism, communism, anti-Americanism, and nuclear proliferation by taking a similar approach instead of his usual foreign policy prescription: “listening,” bowing, criticizing America, direct talks without preconditions, and unilateral concessions.

Another idea floated by Ron Paul is to issue “letters of marque and reprisal” which allow the government to hire private citizens to act like bounty hunters in international waters and collect bounty for taking out pirates. It’s an intriguing idea and might serve as the best solution in terms of a way to get the government to spend less on military matters, but I don’t think it can work. The pirates have made piracy their lifestyle, if private commercial ships start carrying guns, the pirates will carry rocket-propelled grenades. if the private ships respond in kind, then you’ll have more pirate ships attacking from multiple vectors… and each escalation will make the pirates more and more sophisticated and effective, making the less guarded ships big soft targets. In the end, only a proper navy will be able to deal with such a threat… but that’s my opinion, and it looks like it’s Obama’s opinion too. In the spirit of fairness, here’s Ron Paul pitching his idea:

-AG

In February of this year, The Pakistani government decided that the best way to deal with the Taliban in the (ungoverned) Swat Valley was to engage in diplomacy with them. Instead of going after them or asking the US to help eliminate them, the Pakistan government signed a cease-fire agreement where they agree to allow Taliban-style laws in exchange for an end to terrorism. In essence, this can be described as “appeasement.” So guess what happened?

The Taliban decided that it would be a good idea to spread their influence to the neighboring Buner district which is 60 miles from the capital. Pakistani troops have been mobilized to secure the area but have been met with gunfire and resistance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists” and that the Obama administration was trying to convince the Pakistani government that the more imminent threat came from Islamic extremists rather than India. These events continue to show us that a foreign policy that relies too heavily on reasoning with the unreasonable is destined to fail. Oddly enough, the Obama administration, while it condemns Pakistan for talking to the Taliban, is pursuing a strategy of talking to the “moderate” Taliban in Afghanistan. So I ask, when is it acceptable to negotiate with terrorists?

The answer is never. The Obama administration’s foreign policy should take a lesson from what is happening today in Pakistan and realize that excessively focusing on diplomacy is dangerous when you are dealing with dictatorial regimes or terrorists whose only motivation is to bog the United States down, either in guerrilla war or in negotiations. The effective answer to terrorism is twofold: military neutralization and ideological opposition. In order to castrate a terrorist organization, we must cut off its potential to grow by emphasizing how destructive their ideology is and we must strike at the organization itself. Pursuing a policy of diplomacy with an enemy whose divine mission is to spread their perverted version of Islam by the sword will cause the loss of more American lives and threatened peace around the world. Now we can only wait and see what Pakistan’s soft approach to terror will lead to… and with Pakistan having an arsenal of nuclear weapons, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

-AG

The reclusive and ailing absolute dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro, today published an essay where he indicates that US president Obama misrepresented his brother’s (Raul Castro’s) offer to hold direct talks with the United States. He asserts that those that we call “political prisoners” are, in his words, actually agents “in the service of a foreign power that threatens and blockades our homeland.” While Fidel Castro may be insinuating that he is unwilling to negotiate with them, in reality, he is just stating the official policy of the communist regime with regards to political prisoners and letting Obama know that a) the Cuban regime does not recognize them as political prisoners and b) they will be treated as agents of a foreign enemy.

I expect that any negotiations having to do with these political prisoners may require either an implicit or explicit admission by the United States that they (the prisoners) were in fact agents of the US. Castro will settle for exiling them, as he has done in the past. In essence, Castro is educating Obama on how to refer to Cuba’s political prisoners while reiterating that they are willing to exchange their prisoners for the five convicted spies that the US currently holds. Castro also criticized Obama for not doing more to lift the embargo.

Obama must stop using gentle tones and unilateral concessions in dealing with this dictatorship that only wants to eliminate the threats to their communist system by jailing and exiling pro-democracy activists. It is counter-productive… and it’s embarrassing.

Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) describes recent US “embarrassment”

-AG

Recently it was revealed that firms that were “bailed out” by the federal government have been spending millions to lobby the government to ease the restrictions on the use of that money. While this is not surprising to most who understand the system of Corporate Socialism in this country, some people have been having a hard time understanding this system. Here’s a tutorial:

Let’s say you are a huge company in the United States and you contribute to what is being called the Great Recession. Things couldn’t be looking better for you. Here’s how it works:

- First: your business practices and the market climate bring you to the brink of bankruptcy

- Second: fortunately the millions that you spent on lobbying government officials makes them “sympathetic” to your irresponsibility

- Third: the United States government swoops in and hands you and your buddies billions of dollars in “bailout funds” (taxpayer dollars)

- Fourth: you use this money as operational capital, including, but not limited to, paying yourself millions in bonuses and millions in lobbying

- Fifth: the millions that you spent on lobbying government officials makes them “sympathetic” to your irresponsibility

- Sixth: the United States government helps side-step the rules attached to the bailout funds to make it easier to use the bailouts at your discretion

etc. etc. etc.

In a nutshell see this graphic:

While the left will point to capitalism as the culprit, they could not be further from the truth. The system of Corporate Socialism provides a way to avoid the boom-and-bust cycles of the free market. Free market capitalism does not prescribe for excessive government intervention in the form of bailouts and preferential regulation. In socialist countries they use the wealth of the people to benefit the communist/socialist government and their state-funded enterprises, while the system we have now uses the wealth of the people to benefit the government and wall street. Interestingly enough, the large portion of the financial sector recently became “state-funded,” bringing us closer and closer to a true socialist model. We need to return to the free market and unleash America’s entrepreneurial spirit… not continue bailing out irresponsible behavior.

-AG

In a display of true dedication to their cause, a Cuban human rights activist, Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation, has expressed that most of the political prisoners held in Cuba would rather serve out their long and unjustified sentences than be exchanged for Cuban spies being currently held by the United States. He is in frequent contact with political prisoners and their families in Cuba. This swap was suggested by Cuban “president” Raul Castro in response to Obama’s recent easing of restrictions on the regime and comments indicating the possibility of normalized relations between the two nations. These Cuban spies were implicated in the 1996 murder of American citizens and residents in international waters by the Cuban air force.

Elizardo Sanchez

As in the previous post, playing this game with the Castro regime will only raise the value of imprisoning people for political reasons and may backfire in the long run. Obama should demand the release of all political prisoners in Cuba (and around the world) without preconditions and immediately dismiss the idea of any sort of prisoner swap. America must help those that struggle for freedom through non-violence instead of unilaterally adopting policies that end up giving dollars to anti-American dictatorships. Let’s hope our president listens.

-AG

The FBI has added another suspect to their “Most Wanted” list. The suspect:

- wanted for bombings of two corporate offices in 2003
- member of a group called “Revolutionary Cells”
- has tattoo that says “it only takes a spark”
- may be living in Costa Rica

Oh, and did I mention, he’s a US citizen, a LEFT-WING extremist fighting for animal rights and a vegan.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, animal rights terrorist

The ironic thing is that the Department of Homeland Security recently published a report of threats that specifically pointed to war veterans who might be susceptible to RIGHT-WING extremism and violence. It points to pro-life groups, veterans, and supporters of gun rights. In its assessment of left-wing groups, they point to “cyber attacks” and attacks on property rather than violence. The left-wing assessment specifically references certain eco-terrorist and radical groups, it does not point to entire classes of American citizens (veterans, second amendment supporters aka Federalists or Constitutionalists, etc.). It’s absurd that under this administration we would have right-wing groups singled out while in reality, left-wing extremism is just as dangerous.

We should get back to focusing on violent extremists in general, regardless of ideology, that seek to disrupt or remake American society by any means necessary. Witch-hunts directed at American citizens because of their political beliefs is treasonous in my view and goes against our first amendment rights.

On a personal note, if the right-wing believes in life, liberty, love of country, and security for America, then I will gladly proclaim myself to be a RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST.

Remember that this guy was too…

-AG

The current president yesterday said that Raul Castro’s offer to be willing to discuss the fate of political prisoners was “a sign of progress.” That is exactly was Castro wants.

People in Washington are confused about the communist regime in Cuba. Whenever Cuba wants to negotiate, they are looking for substantial concessions from the United States. They want to score nationalistic political points by getting us to give in to their demands for the release of Cuban spies. They want the United States to start sending over dollars in the form of remittances and aid. They want trade credits so they can buy without putting up cash… ever. They want an end to the embargo so we can send over tourists, just as long as we don’t try to mess up the little gulag-setup they have on the island… and with this recent statement of praise from President Obama, it looks like we’ve taken the bait.

It’s a sweet deal for Cuba… because now it looks like they can use political prisoners as bargaining chips. Right now on the table we have a few hundred political prisoners… at least that’s what the Castros would have you think. In reality, Cuba’s laws prohibit just about everything in terms of human rights, meaning that technically, Cuba has more than 11 million political prisoners. With laws such as “dangerousness” and “counter-revolutionary activities,” the communist regime can charge any citizen that does, says, or thinks anything deemed dangerous to the dictatorship, and since the United States president has just raised the value of imprisoning someone for political reasons, it has just become more profitable to crackdown on the non-violent, pro-democracy activists on the island. Their subversive activities? Staging hunger strikes, marching, protesting in front of government offices, discussing human rights, hanging the Cuban flag upside down, and discussing human rights, amongst other things.

“Las Damas de Blanco” Activist Group’s March

Obama has done a disservice to Cuba by hinting that exchanging political prisoners for some degree of normalization is possible. I hope the president demands the release of all political prisoners simply because it is a violation of human rights, not as a quid pro quo… otherwise, the American people may end up paying a steep price for each of the Castros’ 11 million hostages.

Not to mention the pain it would inflict on the Cuban people.

-AG

Dear Mr. President,

In light of your current policy shift towards Cuba, I would like to offer the perspective of some of us, Cuban-Americans, who have a great deal of first and second-hand information about the current situation in Cuba. The unilateral move taken by your administration seems to be based on a humanitarian concern, but unfortunately I, as well as many other persons, disagree with this concession to the Castro dictatorship.

My primary concern is that this move is unilateral and what it effectively accomplishes is nothing less then enrich the Cuban government while doing very little with respect to human rights violations in Cuba. In particular, this policy does nothing to help the political prisoners now languishing in Cuban jails simply for expressing their opinions. How will you explain this new approach to Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet, a prominent political prisoner currently serving a 25-year sentence for meeting with human rights activists?

Dr. Biscet has been arrested numerous times for his non-violent protest of human rights violations and for his protest of abortion in Cuba. The last time he was arrested was in December 2002 while going to meet activists that were planning a non-violent protest. He was sentenced to 25 years for “disorderly conduct” and “counter-revolutionary activities.” Since his arrest, he has been beaten, tortured, and kept in special cells called “tapiadas” which are small, humid cells with no light. He was kept in these cells for 8 months. In spite of these hardships, Dr. Biscet refuses to wear the uniform of common prisoners and remains in high spirits knowing that his cause is just. What do we tell him and others like him about what the United States of America is doing to help them?

Replica of Dr. Biscet’s Cell

How can we justify unilaterally easing restrictions on this dictatorship? Why did you not ask for the release of political prisoners as a precondition? Why must those who ask for freedom suffer while the oppressors get to enjoy more economic engagement with the United States?

I hope you will respond and explain your rationale and how it will ultimately help the cause of freedom in Cuba. Hopefully, the answer is not that you simply don’t care.

Sincerely Yours,
AG

Bowing to kings… offering “new beginnings” to communist dictators… and shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. All in a days’ work for Obama. In the meantime, Iranian nuclear development continues undeterred and North Korea restarts its nuke program. The long-term repercussions of nuclear armed rogue states will be catastrophic for the United States, just as will be economic assistance to our long-time enemies such as communist Cuba.

Just today, Venezuelan strongman (president) Hugo Chavez, who has actively sought to undermine the United States all over Latin America, told Obama: “I want to be your friend.” Once again, the enemies of freedom have posed for a photo-op with the world’s most famous person, all smiles and holding hands. I’d rather get shoes thrown at me. What would it mean if the United States became part of the Chavez-Castro axis? I can only suppose that it would mean the victory of Bolivarian Socialism in the Western Hemisphere and the end of American liberty. We already have a rash of nationalization occurring before our very eyes. We already have one-party rule in Washington. We already are passing a budget that redistributes wealth and punishes productivity.

At least we still have the right to vote and petition the government for grievances… I urge all Americans to exercise this right as much as possible before it’s too late.

-AG

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued this statement in response to the sentencing of Roxana Saberi to 8 years for allegedly spying:

“I am deeply disappointed by the reported sentencing of Roxana Saberi by the Iranian judiciary… we will continue to vigorously raise our concerns to the Iranian government.”

Deeply disappointed? When my cereal gets soggy I get deeply disappointed… not when journalists are imprisoned by rogue nations developing nuclear weapons.

I remember a time when an American president stood up to an evil empire and boldly commanded a dictator:

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!“

Two years later, the wall came down… That’s change I can believe in.

-AG