If there was one thing you could always say about President Bush, it is that he always stood on his principles and values.  He had an enormous amount of integrity and did not compromise any of those things for political expediency.   He firmly believed every move and decision he made was based on what was best for the American people.  He did not rely on polling data or popularity statistics.  President Bush’s firmly held beliefs in a post 9/11 world are what guided him.

Now President Obama, on the other hand, stands on his teleprompter.  As he has “navigated” his way through the first 100 days in the Oval Office, we have yet to really see the characteristics of integrity or doing what is right by the American People.   At least two of his cabinet members should have been tossed; Turbo Tax Tim Geithner and Secretary Napolitano, both of whom have embarrassed the Oval Office and outraged the American people.  If he really stood on principle and integrity they would have been gone.

President Obama showed signs of this early in the election cycle when he said he would accept public financing of the campaign, but when the primary season was over and he was the nominee, he opted out of the system and continued to collect just shy of 3/4 of a billion dollars, most of which is untraceable.  That in itself goes against the Open Government Act by fully disclosing all donors.

President Bush walked his talk after the campaign.  He worked with the Democratic leadership, showing bipartisanship on the budget, FISA, immigration and other issues.  The only thing he would not compromise on (thank goodness) was a troop withdrawal time table.  Democrats tried in vain to force his hand as the Obama backing MSM flooded the evening news night after night with each road side bomb image they could find.  Very little attention was paid to the success we were having, only the carnage.  This unwavering stance against a timed withdrawal was significant because he did not want give the emboldened insurgency a window in which to “wait it out”, and to prevent these politicians from micromanaging commanders in the field.  True, there was pressures to change strategies in order to combat this issue, and the administration did just that; they initiated the “surge”.  And guess what, it worked!  Now Mr. Obama on the other hand has shown about as much bipartisanship as Iran has shown cooperation with the UN….Uh that would be none!  The GOP has been completely shut out of the administration, being told to basically shut up and sit down because “we” (the Dems) won.  So much for a new era of cooperation and open government.

What people fail to realize in Iraq, is that not only did we rid the world of a very evil dictator, who’s atrocities are well documented (so in fact there is you weapon of mass destruction), shut down Dr. Germ Rihab Taha (who was identified by UN weapon inspectors specifically), the mission also brought stability to the region as a whole.

If you look back, Moamar Kadafi quickly and quietly ended their rebellious ways and cracked down on terrorists in Libya.  Syria also became much more user friendly, and cooperative.  So there were broader positive effects.

Mr. Obama who was not a Senator when the Congress initially authorized action in Iraq, on the campaign trail he waved the “No More War” flag like the checker flag at the end of a car race.  The election was soundly anti-Bush, and all the rhetoric that goes with that.  ‘When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that’.

Well as you all know, the mission (and I am not complaining about this) remains on target and is, in fact, in a winding down phase.  We have consolidated much of our operations to specific areas in Iraq, handed over control and security operations to the Iraqi Army and Police force in many areas, continue to train and equip those forces so when we do leave, there will be stability and peace inside the borders.  Mr. Obama’s rhetoric got him into the White House, but the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq dictated his actions.  And if the people who were so hell bent on completely ditching the quote “Bush Doctrine” (as Charlie Gibson tried to nail Sarah Palin with) they would have realized that this notion of up and run out of Iraq was not plausible in the least.

President Bush was thrust into a situation that day in September, unbeknown to America or our intelligence agencies.  We went from a 20 plus year time of relative peace and suddenly thrust into war, against an enemy that does not belong to a nation or state, but operates in the shadows among innocent people whom they will sacrifice without any hesitation.  Yes, mistakes were made.  But this nation was kept safe, and still is, by those policies President Bush put into place.

Now we have a floppy fish in the White House.  Yes he was thrust into an economic situation that has not been pretty.  However, Mr. Teleprompter as not shown us anything except he is bent on a socialistic agenda and that he changes his word like we change underwear.

Now Mr. Obama wants to openly (yes there is that word open again) and without preconditions, have talks with these nations that simply hate the United States.  Iran, who is pursuing nuclear weapons and calling for the destruction of Israel,  North Korea, who has nuclear material but can not build a delivery vehicle,  Venezuela, who just yesterday seized American Owned and Operated energy sites and equipment, and Cuba, where money can now flow freely without using a 3rd and 4th party intermediary.  Oh yes lets not forget Mexico.  Yet, another apology from Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton for causing the drug war along the boarder.

Mr. Obama and his economic team have showered the coffers with billions and billions of dollars in order to prop up the economy.  Thus far, nothing.  New jobless filings hover around 600K and overall, 6.5 million people are out of work, and counting.  Now that Chrysler and GM are making significant cuts, that is going to go up more this year. Not only does that effect line workers in the auto plants, but spills out to the suppliers and peripheral businesses that support them.

Mr. Obama, first week in office broke the most basic of his campaign pledges, saying that the practice of earmarks and pork spending would immediately come to and end.  Say what?  The first two things he signs into law are pork laden wasteful bills that did nothing.  The Stimulus package, which failed to stimulate the American people, was shoved through the congress by the new Dem Majority in the middle of the night in which no one was even able to read.  And what was in there (Mr.  Dodd)?  Bonuses for the executives at AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac!!!  Next he signed an Omnibus bill that contained over 9000 earmarks, again pushed through on a Dem freight train in the middle of the night.

Now the administration continues to politicize national security doctrine as the administration stammers on what our evil interrogators did to terror suspects.  This emboldens the enemy, teaches them our techniques so now they can prepare for what little we actually do.   The September 10th mentality of the administration puts us in jeopardy. Many of the policies that Mr. Obama so vehemently touted against remain in effect. The naval prison at Guantanamo Bay was ordered closed yet remains open as Obama plans where to send its inmates; the president has yet to establish a coherent policy on Iran — following in the Bush administration’s footsteps and while American troops are being removed from Iraq, most will stay in place until 2010.

It is important to note that all the enhanced interrogation tactics that we used actually yielded crucially important intelligence that helped keep this country safe,”  with the eight years of safety on the home front since Sept. 11, 2001.  Even though congressional leaders claimed to be left out of the loop on these techniques, it was revealed that the same Dem leaders, who bewitched President Bush, were duly informed of those methods.  But as Dems, true to color, they pretended to take the moral high road, and were thus outed as hypocrites using this issue for political expediency.
Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, wrote an internal memo last week citing the “high value” information about Al Qaeda’s operations yielded by tactics such as water boarding, but its morality has been called into question by human rights monitors and many others both in and out of the Obama administration.

So therein lays the conflict with this administration. Integrity, direction, political expediency, governing by polling data, and letting Nancy Pelosi write its budget a mere 3 Trillion and some change.
So we as Americans have to wonder, where the transparency, openness, and new era of cooperation is.  Yeah, that is right, so sorry, we lost.

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President Barack Obama’s decision not to prosecute CIA operatives who used questionable interrogation practices violates international law, the U.N.’s top torture investigator said Saturday.

Liberal Eurabia once again wants to provide comfort and aid to the enemy, who will stop at nothing to kill westerners, Christians and Israelis. I guess they did not learn anything from the British Anti-Terror operations, Madrid Bombings and India attacks.

On Thursday, Obama absolved CIA officers from prosecution for harsh, painful interrogation of terror suspects under the former Bush administration. The announcement was met with disappointment from human rights groups and former detainees who condemned such methods as torture.

But it is not torture or inhumane treatment that western troops, contractors or reporters receive when they are captured. I guess Daniel Pearl was treated in a humane fashion. I guess Jessica Lynch was treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. This liberal and useless debating society seems to have no real understanding of just how brutal and fanatical these terror cells are. They hold no regard for life. They care only for their cause. So why are we brutalized for harsh interrogation techniques that have utilized results and saved lives.

In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak, an Austrian who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it.

“They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear,” Nowak said when asked to confirm comments contained in an interview he gave Austria’s Der Standard newspaper. “The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility,” he said, adding it could be a mitigating factor.

However (and in a suprise move by the Obama administration), CIA operatives were operating under legal and approved methods.  So where does the UN debating society get off saying they want prosecutions?

Nowak, who said he would soon travel to Washington for meetings with officials, also called for a comprehensive independent investigation into the matter and added it was important to compensate the victims.

OK, so this liberal, let the terrorist off the hook elitist, not only wants to pardon these people, but wants the US to pay compensation. Well when Daniel Perl is compenstated along with the 3000 plus people in the World Trade Center, both flights, the Pentagon Flight and the Pennsylvania flight get compensated by the UN and those countries responsible, maybe we will think about it.

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Russia successfully test-fired a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday as part of checks needed to extend its service life for up to 22 years, Russian media reported.

The Topol was fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, nestled among the forests of northern Russia, and successfully hit the test site on Russia’s Pacific peninsula of Kamchatka, 6,000 km (3,700 miles) to the east.

Russia plans on spending as much, if not more, money on defense, with or without an economic crisis.  The Topol group of missiles has been around since 1985 and are said to be designed to pierce anti-missile defense systems such as the shield being proposed in Poland.

Russia’s missile arsenal, based on their current defense spending, will be 80% new by 2016.

 Meanwhile, our President has cut missile defense in the upcoming defense budget.  Although it appears that the defense budget has increased by 4% it’s not the overall increase, it’s where the cuts took place and on what programs.  Our military supplies for specific integral projects will be cut and we will be behind the times compared to other countries – we will be left in a situation much like Carter and Clinton after they were done cutting defense programs. 

New rockets will by 2016 account for at least 80% of the strategic missile forces in Russia as it replaces its Soviet-era arsenal with new nuclear-capable missiles, the military said Friday.

“Plans for the development of the Russian strategic rocket forces through 2016 foresee a decrease in quantity and a transformation in quality at the same time, ” Nikolai Solovstov, the commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces, told reporters.

“Rocket systems with an extended shelf life will account for roughly 20%, while new rocket systems for at least 80% of the forces,” said Colonel-General Solovtsov, quoted by the Russian news agencies.

In December, he announced that Russia would by 2020 replace its Soviet-era arsenal with new nuclear-capable intercontinental missiles capable of overcoming anti-missile defense measures by enemy states.

The costly overhaul of the missile forces comes as Russia is locked in a bitter dispute with the U.S. over its plans to install anti-missile defense facilities in central Europe.

Russia has urged Barack Obama to drop the plans, which were devised by his predecessor George W. Bush but the new U.S. president has said he would move forward with the missile defense shield.

I thought that Obama was Medved’s new comrade?  Apparently, the fawning media was over exaggerating the success of Obama’s introduction to the international stage – what’s new though right?  Many of us who read into things a little more and search for news all over the place knew that it was nothing near a success. 

I also thought that Obama was going to implement “change” from the Bush era, however, he is doing many similar things that Bush did.  Bush may have had some Intel in regards to Russia, China, etc.?  What do you think?

Solovtsov added it was important for Russia to continue to upgrade its strategic missiles to ensure stability in the world.

“Quality enhancement of the components of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces will be required to maintain the necessary balance of forces in solving the task of nuclear containment,” he said.

Stability and nuclear containment could be code words for trying to become more of a world power and it’s my assumption that Russia has wanted to become a world superpower again, ever since it lost that title a couple decades ago.

In the last few days we have learned that both the Chicoms and Russia have been working overtime to plant hidden malware in the US electrical grid and that they have also been working with Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba (since former and current communist country do have a kindred spirit).

The Russians actually have more than just a small number of intercontinental missiles – many of which have multiple targeted warheads – as well as many nuclear missiles situated on submarines cruising the oceans.

It is still questionable to know at this time, whether or not statements out of Russia or any other country for that matter can be trusted, on what they pronounce to own as weapons. And without having inside information in the missile community of the defense industry, it is difficult to gather whether or not we have advanced enough systems to counter these types of weapons.  I do know that we still outspend our counterparts for missiles and air defense, but as we have seen in cases of war, sometimes the most primitive of weapons and warfare are the toughest to defeat.

We have anti-missile systems, based in Alaska, and other places in the United States,(that obama is now in the process of cutting funding for or in some circumstances just keeping funding flat). These anti-missile systems and counter measures are designed to at best to intercept (there are 3 stages of missile interception) a small handful of missiles that North Korea or Iran might one day possess and choose to launch, or Russia and China who may and probably do, already have these types of weapons.

It’s no wonder why I felt that Sarah Palin, even as a VP, could have out done Obama on foreign policy and national defense.  She is the commander in chief of the only National Guard that is on duty 24/7 and contains our best anti-missile systems.  With recent news of the North Korean rocket launch Sarah Palin has been incredibly outspoken on the issue of missile defense spending and has written letters to Obama which we have also posted on here.

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A United Nations document on “climate change”that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.

Those and other results are blandly discussed in a discretely worded United Nations “information note” on potential consequences of the measures that industrialized countries will likely have to take to implement the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Treaty, after it is negotiated and signed by December 2009. The Obama administration has said it supports the treaty process if, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, it can come up with an “effective framework” for dealing with global warming.

The 16-page note, obtained by FOX News, will be distributed to participants at a mammoth negotiating session that starts on March 29 in Bonn, Germany, the first of three sessions intended to hammer out the actual commitments involved in the new deal.

In the stultifying language that is normal for important U.N. conclaves, the negotiators are known as the “Ad Hoc Working Group On Further Commitments For Annex I Parties Under the Kyoto Protocol.” Yet the consequences of their negotiations, if enacted, would be nothing short of world-changing.

The Note:

Among the tools that are considered are the cap-and-trade system for controlling carbon emissions that has been espoused by the Obama administration; “carbon taxes” on imported fuels and energy-intensive goods and industries, including airline transportation; and lower subsidies for those same goods, as well as new or higher subsidies for goods that are considered “environmentally sound.”

Other tools are referred to only vaguely, including “energy policy reform,” which the report indicates could affect “large-scale transportation infrastructure such as roads, rail and airports.” When it comes to the results of such reform, the note says only that it could have “positive consequences for alternative transportation providers and producers of alternative fuels.”

Get ready to experience something like never before!  Not only do we have a domestic government hell-bent on control and power, we now have the United Nations.  It would almost seem as though we are heading towards a world government.  The phrase One World Government has been passed around, but if said - people think you are part of the “black helicopter crowd” or the “tin-foil hat” brigade.  However, as these policies and ideas continue to unfold – the more I am convinced that there is something bigger at play.

This entire attempt at controlling the environment with the faulty science of global warming (the biggest hoax around) will be used against industrialized nations and will tear down our economy with regulations mentioned above, such as cap-and-trade.  Many people thought it would never be possible – but as these dark things see the light of day – I think we will see this in the next 4 years, unfortunately.

I also have a little summary of the history and economic impact that tariffs have on the economy.

At first the tariff appeared to be a success. According to historian Robert Sobel, “Factory payrolls, construction contracts, and industrial production all increased sharply.” However, larger economic problems loomed in the guise of weak banks. When the Kredit-Anstalt Bank of Austria failed, the global shortcomings of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff reared its head.

U.S. Imports plunged 66% from US$4.4 billion (1929) to US$1.5 billion (1933), and exports fell 61% from US$5.4 billion to US$2.1 billion, both drops far more than the 50% fall in the GDP.

According to government statistics, U.S. imports from Europe declined from a 1929 high of $1,334 million to just $390 million in 1932, while U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934.

There is no universal agreement about the effect of the tariff. According to the U.S. Statistical Abstract, the effective tariff rate was 13.5% in 1929 and 19.8% in 1933 with 63% of all imports being duty-free. From 1821 through 1900 the United States averaged 29.7% effective tariff rates and peaked in 1830 at 57.3% with only 8% of all imports being duty-free, dwarfing the Smoot-Hawley rate. In addition, imports in 1929 were only 4.2% of the United States’ GNP and exports were only 5.0%. Smoot-Hawley’s effect on the entire U.S. economy may have been small, compared to the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve System. By 1937 the effective tariff rate was reduced to 15.6% when the reaction of 1937-1938 occurred, demonstrating no statistical correlation between this economic downturn and tariff levels. Senator Robert L. Owen testified at the hearings on HR 7230, the bill to make the Federal Reserve banks a national property, that; “In 1937, when the Federal Reserve Board called upon the banks to raise their reserves to twice what they had been before, there was a contraction of credit of two billion dollars.

Using panel data estimates of export and import equations for 17 countries, Jakob B. Madsen (2002) estimated the effects of increasing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers on worldwide trade during the period 1929–1932. He concluded that real international trade contracted somewhere around 33% overall. His estimates of the impact of various factors included about 14% because of declining GNP in each country, 8% because of increases in tariff rates, 5% because of deflation-induced tariff increases, and 6% because of the imposition of nontariff barriers.

I’m sure this will all have such a wonderful impact on the economy if it is passed/sarc.

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If you have not seen Team America, please do!  Sense of humor a must!  (This movie even makes fun of the U.N. and how ineffective they are when it comes to dealing with the “evil axis of power”).

At any rate – North Korea may become Obama’s first big international challenge.  I sure hope he doesn’t send a video to Kim Jong Il asking him for forgiveness and apologizing for the past 30 yrs. exclaiming our poor relations with them are the fault of the United States – as he did with Iran.

Here is the latest excerpt from Reuters:

North Korea said on Thursday that if the international community punishes it for next month’s planned missile launch it will restart a nuclear plant that makes weapons grade plutonium.

The secretive state this week put a long-range missile in place for a launch the United States warned would violate U.N. sanctions imposed on Pyongyang for past weapons tests.

The planned launch, seen by some countries as a disguised military exercise, is the first big test for U.S. President Barack Obama in dealing with the prickly North, whose efforts to build a nuclear arsenal have long plagued ties with Washington.

North Korea warned that any action by the U.N. Security Council to punish it would be a “hostile act.”

” … All the processes for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula … will be brought back to what used to be before their start and necessary strong measures will be taken,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said in comments carried by the official KCNA news agency.

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has since made a statement in regards to the instigation by the North Koreans:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday warned North Korea that firing a missile for any purpose would be a “provocative act” that would have consequences.

North Korea is loading a rocket on a launch pad in anticipation of the launch of a communications satellite between April 4 and 8, U.S. counterproliferation and intelligence officials said. North Korea announced its intention to launch the satellite in February, but regional powers worry the claim is a cover for the launch of a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska.

Clinton told reporters during a visit to Mexico City that the U.S. believes the North Korean plan to fire a missile for any purpose would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution barring the country from ballistic activity. She linked a missile launch to the future of talks between the U.S., North Korea and four other nations aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

“We have made it very clear that the North Koreans pursue this pathway at a cost and with consequences to the six-party talks, which we would like to see revived,” Clinton said.

“We intend to raise this violation of the Security Council resolution, if it goes forward, in the U.N.,” she said. “This provocative action in violation of the U.N. mandate will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences.”

I’m sure the U.N. will be most effective as stated above… They will most likely write a strongly worded letter to Mr. Il and ask for him to disarm – being scared of those strong words and the assertively typed letters, Mr. Il will have no choice but to stand down!

In the meantime, the United States has at least deployed two warships:

The US has deployed two warships with anti-missile capabilities in the waters off Japan as tensions mount over North Korea’s plans to test-fire a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking Alaska.

You know what’s sick, and in the back of my mind?  I’m sure that there are some liberals out there, so incredibly hateful, they would love nothing more than to see a missile attack on Alaskan soil… for obvious reasons – I can see the comments on the articles now – Society is so sick these days!

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