Back to Basics

PHOTOS.COM

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke

Do you feel safer knowing President Barack Obama’s Secret Police — whoops, I mean his National Security Agency (NSA) — are monitoring your communications and everything you read on the Internet, including these very words? Certainly, you are supposed to feel safer. Just ask almost anyone in the mainstream media, as well as most Democrats and even Republicans in Congress (the very members we trust to protect our liberties). They are busy acquiescing to Obama’s tyranny all in the name of national security.

It seems the Obama-media and members of Congress have not read a word of history. They seem to have never heard of a democratically elected leader who enslaved Europe and started a war that killed 60 million people while his government, police and justice system turned a blind eye to every excess. All they have to do is a Google search for “Adolf Hitler.” Maybe they don’t do that because it would be a record of subversive inquiries.

James Bamford writes in The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America: “There is now the capacity to make tyranny total in America.”
Yet hardly anybody seems to care, other than Libertarians like former Congressman Ron Paul, who said the NSA revelations are “a predictable result of a government that continues to erode our liberties while promising some glimmering hope of security.”

I was naïve enough to believe that others, like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), would be outraged by the Obama Administration’s attack on the 1st and 4th Amendments. Graham says he is not sure who is entitled to 1st Amendment rights. It could be that Personal Liberty Digest™ and the people who comment on the columns and stories don’t have guaranteed protection.

“Who is a journalist is a question we need to ask ourselves,” Graham said. “Is any blogger out there saying anything — do they deserve 1st Amendment protection? These are the issues of our times.”

The French Trusted Hitler

Graham said last week he is unconcerned that the Obama Administration has his Verizon phone records because he’s not “talking to terrorists.”
Graham told FOX News: “I am glad the NSA is trying to find out what terrorists are up to overseas and inside the country.”

The host said he was a Verizon subscriber and was, therefore, being tracked by the federal government. Graham weighed:

“I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States,” he said.

“I don’t think you’re talking to terrorists, I know you’re not, I know I’m not, so we don’t have anything to worry about,” Graham said. “I’m glad the activity’s going on, but it is limited to tracking people who are suspected to be terrorists and who they may be talking to.”

Graham also admitted that it wasn’t until the news broke about the NSA the day before that he knew anything about what the top secret agency was doing. I am glad Graham is sure they aren’t doing anything bad.

UPI

“Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation…” -Barack Obama

Who is President Barack Obama and what does he want? That he is an enigma is indisputable.

The ultra-Left continues to see him as a transformative figure that will remake America. His critics agree that Obama wants to change America, but not for the better. I decided to find out by reading half a dozen books and taking notes over the past few months.

The three books that are most compelling in their explanations of Obama are:

• Richard Minter, Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide For Him.

• Edward Klein, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House.

• Bob Woodward, Obama Wars.

Minter’s credits include writing for The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and even the left-leaning Newsweek. Klein was a former editor for Newsweek. And the venerable Woodward was a key player that revealed Watergate when he was famously reporting for The Washington Post and has been considered to be the political assassin of President Richard Nixon.

These books contend Obama is a loner with few or no friends, has a messiah complex and an unequalled ego. They state that beyond his troika – wife and First Lady Michelle Obama, Senior Advisor to the President Valarie Jarrett and Attorney General Eric H. Holder – Obama listens to nobody. More damning is both Minter and Klein contend that the President and his gang of three are sympatico; that their African-American heritage has made them and all blacks victims of the white establishment and that they must change the United States with the redistribution of wealth, the Constitution be damned.

In Leading From Behind, Minter writes:

(In college Obama had) a passion for civil rights, social justice, and radical politics… (He) was developing a radical resume. He audited a class at Columbia University taught by famed writer and Palestinian activist Edward Said, spoke at protests at Harvard Law School, attended a church where the radical Israel sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright echoed off the walls.

Is Obama a Muslim in Christian Clothing?

No one can forget the Reverend Wright and his “Goddamn the United States!” outburst from the pulpit. But according to Klein, it wasn’t Wright who corrupted young Obama. It was Obama who used Wright by cultivating a relationship for his own political gain, namely to cover his Islamic beliefs.

I can already see a wave of hate comments from of our liberal readers so I am going to fully cite my reference from his book where Klein interviewed almost 200 people that have personally known the President, including Rev. Wright.*

Below and verbatim is from page 40 of The Amateur. It is Klein’s interview with Wright, the man Obama once said was, “like my father”:

“After Barack and I got to know each other, it got to the point where we would just drop by my church to talk,” Wright said. “And the talk gradually moved away from his community-organizing concerns — street cleaning, housing, child care, and those kinds of needs — to larger things, more personal things. Like trying to make sense of the world. Like trying to make sense out of the diverse racial and religious background from which he came.

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY PETE SOUZA

President Barack Obama visited Costa Rica and Mexico recently.

When President Barack Obama left for Mexico and Costa Rica last week, I felt a sense of relief, the feeling you get when the crazy uncle no longer shows up for Thanksgiving dinner.

The official line from the White House was that the President went to reinforce the deep cultural, familial and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America.

I do not doubt for one moment that Obama has a lot in common with those Latin dictators who have bled their countries dry through overspending.

And there is always that lingering hope that you get when you buy a Super Lotto ticket: Obama may like it so well that he will set up another dictatorship south of our border. Either that or — like Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who recently moved back to the Vatican — our President will leave the Oval Office, become President emeritus and move into the basement of the White House.

You may think it’s an impossible dream. But the President recently joked he should “just pack up and go home” if Congress is going to continue resisting his policies. My reaction is: “Congress, keep up the good work.”

If I sound bitter, it is because I am. In my own defense I’ve been married for 33 years, and even my wife doesn’t think I am any more bitter than the average guy. I respect the office of the Presidency. While I haven’t liked some Presidents, I did not hold them in disdain. But I’ve been writing about Barack Hussein Obama for more than four years, and it has been like covering a train wreck — something I know about because when I was in my 20s, I was one of the first reporters at the Hinton, Alberta, train collision that killed 23 people. Not only is a train wreck something you can’t look away from; but when your job is to cover it, you damn well have to look at it.

I see no difference in my responsibility three decades later, because I believe that it is my job as a writer for Personal Liberty Digest™ to report on the Obama train wreck that has methodically been killing our liberties.

Below I have listed the top four reasons why I loathe Obama.

4. Obama is an elitist.

In case you haven’t been reminded enough, Obama not only graduated Harvard Law School, but he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review and was a student at Columbia University. If any American were to ever doubt Obama’s intelligence, all his supporters have to do his point out his college pedigree.

The President’s own words only make it worse.

PHOTOS.COM

It appears that aging Hollywood movie star Robert Redford did not see the movie “Argo,” which was awarded Best Picture at the 2013 Academy Awards.

Had Redford seen it, he might have noticed that in 1979 Muslim radicals under Ayatollah Khomeini took Americans hostage. The only country to offer assistance was Canada.

Such history seems lost on Redford, an ultra-rich liberal active environmentalist. (His net worth is estimated at $170 million.) Redford is vehemently against the United States’ importing oil sands from Canada. His criticism reached a crescendo in the wake of the Exxon Mobil Corp. pipeline spill in Mayflower, Ark., on March 29.

It is estimated that 36,000 barrels of crude oil leaked from a pipeline, which forced the evacuation of more than 20 families from their homes.

In the aftermath, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel is asking Exxon Mobil to pay $4 million to help pay for an investigation as to why the pipeline leaked.

The oil spill is only 1,000 miles from Redford’s mansion in Sundance, Utah. (The good news for the actor is that he also has residences further west.)

A post on ecorazzi.com stated:

Actor and environmentalist Robert Redford has been an outspoken opponent of the Keystone XL Pipeline since the beginning. Now that a pipeline in Arkansas has ruptured leaving a residential community with thousands of gallons of tar sands crude right in their yards, Redford is hoping the government will wake up to the dangers of building any new pipeline.

Blogging for Huffington Post, Redford wrote:

(W)hen it comes to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline… the Pegasus rupture in Arkansas is another red flag. We’ve had a lot of these red flags lately that show us what a raw deal tar sands is and we ignore them at our peril.

…

How many red flags do we need before we realize that the solution is to stop tar sands expansion and say no to tar sands pipelines? I think we’ve seen enough.

Redford wants Americans to contact their Congressmen and demand that they pressure President Barack Obama to pull the plug on the pipeline, a decision the President is expected to make this summer.

Redford and his Green advocates are making a mistake regarding Keystone and oil imported from Canada. This is why:

1. The Keystone project is expected to create 10,000 new U.S. jobs at a time when the Nation is still in a recession.
2. America must import more than 10 million barrels of oil per day (mb/d). Currently, Canada delivers the United States almost one-third of that total. Saudi Arabia sells the United States 1.2 mb/d. Imports from both countries have come down as U.S. domestic crude production has increased. However, America is going to be dependent on vast amounts of imported crude for the next decade and beyond unless newly found domestic reserves are quickly developed and/or renewable energies can begin to play a significant role in providing power.
3. Crude provided from the Mideast, South America and Africa is transported in oil supertankers. In 1980, the Exxon Valdez spilled 750,000 barrels of oil on the shores of Prince William Sound, Alaska, making that spill more than 20 times larger than last month’s pipeline leak in Arkansas. (The U.S.

UPI FILE

New Yorkers were not happy that Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted to ban “large sugary drinks.”

New York City is asking an appeals court judge to reinstate a ban on the sale of “large sugary drinks.” Attorneys are making the argument that the law is crucial to prevent a “serious health crisis.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks Coca-Cola venders should be treated like cocaine dealers.

Fortunately, on March 11, the day before the new law was set to take effect, State Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling declared that the new regulation could not pass — not because it was an infringement on a basic freedoms, but because the new law was beset with loopholes. According to Tingling, the soda ban would have still allowed, God forbid, State-regulated convenience stores to sell “large” sodas.

Tingling deserves a modicum of credit: He said Bloomberg and the city’s Board of Health had overstepped their authority by not putting the ban to a vote in the New York City Council.

Attorneys who want to stop Bloomberg and his bureaucrats believe that the City has exceeded its authority.

“It was never about obesity; it was never about soda,” said Matthew Greller last week. He represents plaintiff National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State. “It was always about power. The question, fundamentally, is what is the power of a city agency.”

Gabriel Taussig, the head of the city’s administrative law division, agreed with the plaintiff lawyers, admitting: “There’s a lot at stake in this case beyond the sugary drinks issue.”

Sermons From The Mount

How large a soda people in New York can legally buy is just the tip of the iceberg. The real behemoth below the waterline has been built by President Barack Obama and the first lady.

The President has more power, but one can’t help but believe that he takes his cues from his wife, whose pet peeve is how Americans eat and exercise.

Parents in California are opposed to public schools giving yoga lessons to their children. That didn’t bother Michelle Obama, who announced that the White House determined to keep up the practice of its “Yoga Garden” as a part of its traditional Easter Egg Roll festivities.

More than 30,000 people visited the South Lawn of the White House for the 135^th annual Easter Egg Roll celebrations.

Part of the first lady’s efforts to promote health and wellness, “Be Healthy, Be Active, Be You!” was the theme of the Easter Egg Roll. “Come enjoy a session of yoga from professional instructors,” read the announcement regarding the “Yoga Garden.”

This may generate some ill will because yoga is the rage today. I tried yoga when I was young and fit. It certainly wasn’t “me.” And, frankly, it is not an effective exercise.

As some have pointed out, my photo reflects that I am 30 years and 60 pounds past my prime. However, I was once a competitive athlete (albeit not a very good one). But I was coached by and coached with people who were at the top of their profession. My eyes still work fine, and I frequently read about exercise and human physiology.

UPI FILE

It has been four years since President Barack Obama promised to close down the military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

Once more, Barack Obama has shown himself to be a pathetic President. The latest disgrace of the vaulted liberal leader is his failure to stand by his conviction to shut down Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo).

It has been four years since Obama promised to close down the military prison. Now, he wants to provide $196 million in renovations and new construction as requested by his new Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. Obama has decided keeping enemies of the United States comfortable is more important than meting out justice.

General John F. Kelly, the chief of the U.S. Southern Command, testified before Congress last week that repairs and upgrades are needed at Gitmo, including two new barracks and a new mess hall.

It is ironic that up to 100 “detainees” are on a hunger strike.

Rolling Stone reported: “Eight of the hunger strikers are being force-fed through a tube, a process the United Nations has previously classified as torture. Two hunger strikers have been hospitalized for dehydration.”

I am a libertarian through and through. I say if they want to starve themselves to death, let them — especially if these individuals want to inflict terror against Americans.

What does our President want? He wants to spend money America cannot afford to keep “detainees,” doublespeak for prisoners of war, more comfortable.

Regarding Gitmo, the Obama Administration is dead wrong. It is a classic case of Obama’s wanting his cake and eating it, too.

Obama should either:

• Choose a speedy trial, a basic right to defendants which would also give closure to the victims of those atrocities.
• Or deal decisively with Gitmo prisoners if they remain a clear and present danger to the United States.

Last month, The Daily Beast summed up America’s blundering President regarding Gitmo:

The Obama administration insists it’s doing everything possible to fulfill the president’s pledge. “We are absolutely still committed to closing Gitmo,” National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said in an interview. He put the blame elsewhere, saying, “The unfortunate reality is that Congress has gone out of its way to prevent us from doing so, but we still believe closing the facility is in our national security interest.”

Yet experts say the chances of Gitmo closing, at least before Obama’s out of office in 2016, are exceptionally slim.

“Guantanamo is not going to close any time soon,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a right-leaning think tank. “There are too many problems to solve. There are still Yemenis who can’t be repatriated to their home country, there are detainees too dangerous to transfer anywhere and quite a few prisoners who the administration says they cannot try in an open court.”

There is another irony about the President. Last Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it will begin closing 149 air traffic control towers starting on April 7. The Transportation Security Administration also claimed sequester-caused airport security delays are on the horizon. That means more time at the airport and compromises safe travel.

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY CHUCK KENNEDY

President Barack Obama touted his energy plan at Argonne National Laboratory.

“The only way to break this cycle of spiking gas prices — the only way to break that cycle for good — is to shift our cars entirely, our cars and trucks, off oil.” — President Barack Obama, speaking at the Argonne National Laboratory on March 15

President Barack Obama has finally brought Congress together with one common goal: to oppose his ruinous energy policies. Perhaps he can unite grass-roots Americans the way no one has since King George III.

On Thursday, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate that would give Congress the sole power to approve TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline project. It is essential to America’s national security in that it channels Canada’s vast oil sands to refineries and ports in Texas.

Senators John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced the measure, which proposes to ensure the construction of the 800,000-barrels-per-day pipeline.

It is no surprise that the President is fighting back. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters last week that since the pipeline will cross international borders, the decision for its approval belongs with the State Department. This is the latest example of how the President usurps the democratic process and seizes extraordinary powers, all for the good of the environmental movement.

The $5.3 billion Keystone pipeline has become the battleground for Canada’s oil sands. The combatants are the Greens and the realists. The latter understand that for the foreseeable future America needs secure supplies of petroleum and not the fantasy of windmills and electric cars.

The Greens continue to resist and insist the pipeline will expand the oil sands projects in Western Canada, leaving a dangerous carbon footprint upon the world.

The Problem with Pelosi

Not only would the Keystone pipeline greatly decrease America’s dependency on Mideast oil, but it would also create tens of thousands of new jobs at a time when unemployment lingers close to 8 percent.

Not so, said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and environmental activist who continues to argue that the Keystone pipeline will not deliver many jobs.

“It just is amazing to me that they can say [Keystone would create] ‘tens of thousands of jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil,’” said Pelosi at a press briefing on Capitol Hill last week to oppose the bipartisanship in the Senate. “The oil is for export and the jobs are nowhere near that.”

The Keystone pipeline may not employ as many people as Pelosi does for her hairdos, clothes and facelifts; but at least it is a start. Contradictions from Pelosi abound. If she visited Saudi Arabia as opposed to any Western democracy like Canada (America’s most reliable ally and energy source), the women’s rights advocate would have to cover her face with a scarf and she couldn’t drive around in her gas-guzzling Chevy Suburban.*

Pelosi, Obama and green advocates continue to recklessly tie the Nation’s future to Islamic oil producers like Saudi Arabia, home to most of the 9/11 hijackers.

The chart below gives you an indication of Canada’s oil wealth. It doesn’t even include Canada’s oil sands reserves.

UPI FILE

“If I am your president, the first thing I would put into motion is that 10 years from the day I take office, no new car made in America is run on the internal combustion engine.” — George Clooney as Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Morris, in the 2011 movie “The Ides of March”

Many of the biggest names in Hollywood were out in full force Sunday at the Academy Awards. Many adopt highfalutin causes the way Madonna and Angelina Jolie adopt children. An important cause among the rich and famous is saving the Earth. Movie moguls’ and stars’ favorite tools for saving the Earth are electric cars, such as those that were on display at Global Green USA’s annual pre-Oscar party.

Lots of B-list stars were on hand at this year’s event, including Ed Begley Jr. from the early 1980s TV show “St. Elsewhere.” Begley arrived in his black Chevy Volt.

Greencarreports.com reported: “Stars and green cars are nothing new–several have admitted to owning Toyota Prius in the past, while others have been spotted in Tesla Roadsters or Fisker Karmas.”

Excuse me, but I don’t like to be lectured how I should live my life from multimillionaires whose abuse of sex and drugs would prohibit their entrance into the gates of Sodom or Gomorrah. Besides, it is much more interesting to learn the opinion of one of the largest car manufacturers, Toyota, than it is to hear drivel from people whose basic job is to look good while pretending to be someone they are not.

Last fall, Toyota cancelled mass production plans of a soon-to-be launched eQ, which was to be a pure-electric variant of the Scion iQ.

“There are many difficulties,” Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota’s vice chairman, told Reuters in September, breaking ranks with other car companies that, for mostly public relations reasons, feel compelled to build and sell electric vehicles, also known as lemons.

Uchiyamada said, “The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society’s needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge.”

Want a second opinion? Read this story published on Feb. 22 in the National Post under the headline “Electric Vehicles ‘20 To 30 Years’ From Mainstream Use.”

The Post interviewed Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, which outlines future trends for automobile manufacturers.

Rather than just focusing on the fact that batteries still have not come up with a reliable way to move people over any reasonable distance, DesRosiers criticized the lack of infrastructure to recharge electric vehicles while they are on the road.

“It isn’t getting the charging station out there, and it doesn’t matter how sophisticated the charging station infrastructure is,” he told the National Post. “You don’t have the battery technology developed enough to be able to quick-charge in a matter of five or 10 minutes.

UPI

President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address on Feb. 12.

“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” — Martin Luther King Jr., at the conclusion of his march on Washington, D.C., Aug. 28, 1963

President Barack Obama has a dream, and he made it clear to the Nation a week ago during his State of the Union address. In it, he laid out how it will be manifested in his last term. Obama has four more years to be free at last, four years to dictate his economic and energy visions to the United States.

We are at the cusp of a revolutionary period — a time for Obama to right a ship that he, with his Ivy League idealism, never believed was properly upright. The President will use these years to cement what he believes is his rightful place in history.

But these next four years will reap an economic crisis, planted by the President and from which the only harvest can be the destruction of the U.S. dollar.

Obama’s audacious plans for America’s future were laid out plainly during his State of the Union speech last week.

“Deficit reduction alone is not an economic plan,” he said.

I know the President said this because I was watching Obama’s address with my wife. I asked, “Did he just say what I think he said?” She looked as surprised as me and gave me an affirmative nod.

With the power of the Internet, I understood that evening that indeed neither of us had been dreaming. Instead, the President had been on television sharing his dream for America’s future.

Then, this past weekend, the President gave his weekly radio and Internet address to reaffirm his position that deficits do not matter.

According to Obama, no American who works full-time should live in poverty. He was asking Americans to support his proposals to raise the minimum wage, pass comprehensive immigration reform and incentivize companies to create jobs in the United States. The President clearly believes that the long-term solution to America’s economic problems is more short-term debt. What Obama doesn’t realize is that we are already late in the game.

When I started out writing about the Federal government more than 30 years ago, the Federal debt was just more than $900 billion. I remember my father, who was my publisher at the time, fretting about what $1 trillion in Federal debt would mean for the economy. As it turned out, it meant very little. We blew past that total, then many other milestone numbers. The biggest debt accumulator of all time is Obama.

Continued deficit spending is part of Obama’s dream; but it is a dream I very much doubt that King would endorse, given the increase in poverty to American minorities.

Earlier this month, The Washington Informer stated:

There is nothing wrong with Blacks “having Obama’s back” if we were all enjoying high levels of economic success, but continuing to applaud ineptness is dishonest. Suppose you spend more money this month than your income. To keep going you borrow.

UPI FILE

President Barack Obama invited Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the man who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, to join him and Vice President Joe Biden for a “Beer Summit” at the White House.

The State of the Union address last night revealed in Barack Obama a President who has tried and failed to be a healing leader. When first elected, he swore to oversee America’s social reconstruction. He failed. Instead, he has brought about a deterioration of race relations and greater social strain than we have ever witnessed in two generations.

Throw away the accolades, the awards or the vast number of schools and bridges that will doubtlessly be named after him; Obama’s term in office is stirring racial resentments.

Good Leaders Unite People

I disagree with the politics of the Kennedy brothers and the myth of Camelot that is embedded in President John F. Kennedy’s Administration. Yet I believe that Robert F. Kennedy did his utmost to heal a nation during one of the most troubled times in our history.

The best evidence of this is the speech RFK delivered to a mostly black crowd gathered to hear him in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968. RFK had just learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.:

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

… For those of you who are black — considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge…

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another…

Robert Kennedy was beloved by millions, perhaps because he did not live long enough to meet or to disappoint grand expectations.

You would think Obama would emulate RFK. Both were young Senators in the Democratic Party who campaigned hard for the Presidency. Yet unlike Robert Kennedy, Obama has refused to ease racial tensions and has at times inflamed them.

Obama’s Handy Race Card

In contrast to RFK’s message are two occasions when Obama poured gasoline on already simmering racial fires.

The first was in July 2009 when Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass., by police investigating a possible break-in.

Gates found that the door to his residence was jammed and forced his way through the door, according to The Associated Press.