Ryan S. Walters

Obamania. The Obamessiah.  The One.  Barack America!  Such has been the praise and adulation bestowed upon Barack Obama in recent weeks.  The Media swoons, commentators have funny feelings running up their legs, and reporters follow him around like a bunch of groupies.  Fans faint in his presence.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently called him “a leader that God has blessed us with at this time.”

As Rush Limbaugh says, quite truthfully, Obama does not have supporters, but followers.

In a recent poll, however, 48 percent responded that they were tired of hearing about Obama.  But the leftwing-dominated media continues to heap mounds of praise upon him and dares not criticize.  The tilt toward Obama is so blatantly obvious that it can scarcely be believed.

Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center recently studied the matter and produced a special report entitled “Obama’s Margin of Victory:  The Media,” available on its website (www.mediaresearch.org).  The report concludes that Obama could not have won the Democratic nomination over Hillary Clinton without the help of ABC, NBC, and CBS.  It details some startling statistics.  For instance, these three networks ran 462 positive stories on Obama, compared to just 70 that were critical.  The ratio for NBC Nightly News was 179 to 17 and ABC was 156 to 21.  His gaffes and misstatements were downplayed, as well as his controversial relationships with Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and William Ayers, but positive events like his major speech on race in Philadelphia drew far more positive coverage.

Such a discrepancy is also evidenced in print media as well, as Time has Obama on the cover this week, the seventh such instance this year alone.  McCain has graced the cover just twice.

But no, the Left screams, there’s no such thing as media bias!

But who is this man, Barack Hussein Obama?  Since the news media has failed to do its job, causing Sean Hannity to rightly wonder if 2008 is the year journalism died, its up to the so-called “alternative media” to flesh out the truth about the Illinois Senator.  An anti-Obama press is now running at full speed ahead. 

Several new books have emerged that take a critical (and more truthful) look at Barack Obama – Jerome Corsi’s The Obama Nation:  Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality; David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama:  The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate; and the soon-to-be-published book by Brad O’Leary, The Audacity of Deceit:  Barack Obama’s War on American Values.  In addition, Dick Morris’s newest book, Fleeced, includes an entire chapter analyzing a possible Obama presidency and what it would mean for the country.

These important books, as well as an upcoming documentary, should help erode the carefully crafted public persona that Barack Obama and his campaign team has sold to a large portion of the American public, attempting to pass him off as our savior, the only one who can fix what is wrong with America. 

During his televised speech on the night of the last primary, when he was assured of enough delegates for the nomination, Obama made some eye-opening statements, which tell you a lot about his arrogant mindset. 

“We will be able to look back and tell our children,” he said, “that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless.”  I guess nobody even thought to do any of that until Barack Obama arrived!

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”  Yes, the savior will personally stop the rise of the oceans and heal the planet.  Wow!

The Democratic nominee then traveled to Germany soon after and reminded his foreign admirers, in Berlin, that he was also their savior.  Identifying himself as a “citizen of the world,” Obama spoke of the need to pull down the walls that separate nations.  He wants us all to be citizens of the world and have no allegiance to our nation.  “People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time,” he continued.  “Our moment” and “our time” to heal the planet, to feed the poor, to share the wealth, to give hope to those left behind, and to rid the world of nuclear weapons, he told them. 

This is the basic liberal mantra we’ve heard all our lives but now expanded on a global scale.  And don’t forget Obama’s Global Poverty Act, his plan to greatly increase our foreign aid payments to the rest of the world, more than $800 billion over the next decade.

Many Americans had a chance to see Barack Obama on the national stage recently at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Forum, answering some tough questions on morals and values.  But his answers were sorely lacking and somewhat awkward.  The reason for Obama’s strange answers at Saddleback is very simple:  he’s trying to mask who he really is.  Barack Obama does not want you to know who he truly is and what he really believes, for if he did, his defeat would be assured.

One important issue raised at the forum was abortion, lying almost dormant in the last few election cycles, which has now risen to the forefront.  But make no mistake, despite his efforts to dodge and weave on the abortion question, Senator “above my pay grade” Obama is an abortion extremist, with one of the most radical records ever recorded, even more so than Barbara Boxer it would seem, if that’s possible. 

Obama, despite his statements to the contrary, has never voted or supported any legislation that would limit abortion, even partial birth abortion.  He also opposed a bill in the Illinois legislature that would have protected infants who were born alive due to botched abortions, the only senator to do so.  Obama did not support the proposed law, which would have prevented babies from being allowed to die on the table!  This is infanticide, pure and simple!  However, since he has gained the nomination, Obama’s new position is that he would have supported it, if it had been like the federal law.  But now we have discovered that it was, in fact, identical to a law passed by Congress.  So Obama lied to hide his extreme position on abortion.

Obama also has many questionable ties to some shady characters, like Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and William Ayers. 

Tony Rezko is now a convicted felon facing serious prison time for bribery and corruption charges, yet Obama has known the man for decades and has provided $14 million in Illinois funds to Rezko and his slum business while serving in the state senate.  Rezko was a strong supporter of Obama and raised a lot of money for his campaigns.  But why did Obama continue to remain his friend, knowing full well he was a corrupt slum lord bilking taxpayers for millions?

Jeremiah Wright was Obama’s pastor for more than 20 years in Chicago.  Yet instead of using his church to promote the teachings of Jesus, which you might expect in a Church of Christ, Wright promoted a radical ideology known as Black Liberation Theology that would be as vile as any racist teachings, if whites were conducting it.  Can you imagine White Liberation Theology?  Wright continually trashes the United States, the “US of KKKA,” as he has referred to it, screaming “God D— America” in his sermons.  This man claims the U.S. government created the Aids virus to exterminate blacks and is the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world.  But he also married Obama and his wife Michelle, as well as baptized his two daughters.  So why would Obama continue to reside in this church for more than two decades, leaving only when the political heat became too much?

William Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, a radical anti-American group who carried out bombings of the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and a New York City police station in the 1960s.  He was arrested but a mistake by the prosecutors office allowed him to go free.  Ayers has never been punished for his crimes and to this day he is unrepentant, writing on September 11, 2001 that he did not believe he had done enough!  Barack Obama continues to maintain his friendship with Ayers, serving on boards with him and giving speeches.  Would any decent citizen remain friends with a unforgiving terrorist?

These are questions for which we may never know the true answer.  And all we have gotten from Obama about these strange relationships is a standard answer:  that’s not the man I knew!  It’s not too much of a stretch to believe that John McCain or any Republican would never get off so easily!

Never has a presidential candidate for any major party had this much baggage.  And no self-respecting American citizen would ever associate with such a cast of characters.  So why does Barack Obama?  Do we really want a president who is good friends with someone serving serious prison time for corruption, an unrepentant terrorist, and a radical preacher who hates the United States?

But the bottom line for me is this:  the possible election of Barack Obama to the presidency will mean more than simply having a liberal Democrat in the White House; it will tell me far more about the state of the nation.  Should a majority of our people, or even a strong plurality, cast a vote for this man, with a razor-thin resume, an extreme leftist voting record, and a cast of friends that decent people would not be caught dead with, then our nation is in far worse shape than simply having to endure wrong-headed policies for the next four years.  If a majority of our people can vote Obama for president, then stick a fork in the United States of America, we are done!

Have you ever considered the journey of a dollar as it runs the gauntlet that is the tax system in this country?  Studies have been done on how much the government actually ends up with by the time a dollar, or your yearly salary, emerges on the other side and it is staggering.  In some cases the government, on every level, can take more than 80 percent.

Let’s say you have worked all your life to better your situation.  You went to school, maybe taking night classes, all the while working a job or two.  But you eventually move up the social latter, now earning six figures.  Maybe you have your own business or have achieved a high position with a top company.  You buy a house, some land, maybe even a little farm in the country.  Because of your hard work, your children enjoy a better life than you had at their age.  They can attend college full-time and can enroll at a better school than you could afford.  This can be very satisfying, to leave your children and grandchildren with a better life.  Isn’t that the goal of every decent American?

Now consider the high taxes you must tolerate to do this.  On the federal level, the top rate can run anywhere from 35 to 40 percent, depending on who is in office.  You must also pay Medicare and Social Security taxes, which can be high, especially if you are self-employed.  State governments may also have an income tax of varying degrees, but let’s just say an extra 10 percent.  Most states also impose sales taxes on every thing you buy, even food.  Local governments levy property taxes, which can be down-right crippling, and can also tack on a few percentages to the sales tax, generally to promote “tourism.”  Additional federal excises are imposed on things like tires, health care, phone bills, and gasoline.  This is why a six-figure salary, in some parts of the United States, may very well be considered poverty, as there’s scarcely little to actually live on when the taxes are paid.  And though they’ve taken it away from you and your family, much of it goes to others, less fortunate they say, but those who won’t work at any rate, while still more is thrown away on stupid projects like “bridges to nowhere.”

Yet all of this does not take into account what you have to do if you own a business of your own, the taxes and regulations that border on the ridiculous. 

But after all this hassle, with the little dab you have left, you manage to put something extra away for retirement.  Maybe you scrimp and save, working extra jobs, to invest in an IRA, more land, and the like.  After a lifetime of work, you manage to create an estate valued at more than a million dollars, or more, all the while hordes of government bureaucrats hang all over you.  But even though Uncle Sam has his greedy, outstretched hand right there beside you, he never once lifted it to help you during your 60-hour work weeks.

So at the end of your life, when you’ve done all that could be expected of any honest citizen, the Lord finally calls you home.  You’ve worked hard, paid an enormous amount of taxes to support the government, but more importantly you’ve given your children and grandchildren a brighter future.  You pass away peacefully one morning.  But the tax man cometh still.  After your spouse receives a nice Social Security benefit of less than $300, the government takes 55 percent of your estate!  Even in death, thieves continue to take.  In many cases, children end up selling the family estate to pay the bill. 

After considering all this legalized theft, stop to consider what is the biggest obstacle to achieving the American Dream?  No it’s not racism, or sexism, or any of the many other “isms” we have crafted in this age of liberalism!  It’s government, on all levels!  Oh what people in the country could achieve if we had a government that stayed out of our hair!

This is not what the Founders of this nation intended.  They envisioned a place where men could live free and pursue happiness, whatever that happiness may be.  But we have taken that wonderful gift, purchased with their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,” and are on the verge of completely destroying it.

So contemplate on these things and ask yourself which candidate will best protect and restore what the Founders bestowed on all of us and which nominee will make the nightmare one in which we will never wake up!  The answer should be obvious!

The new political battleground is shaping up to be an all-out fight between Democrats and Republicans over the increasing Hispanic vote, which could be a key to the future of the United States.  In fact, Barack Obama told the National Council of La Raza, on July 13, that the “Latino community holds the election in your hands.”  But with John McCain as the GOP nominee, Republicans are more than ready to step up to the plate. 

According to Dick Morris, in his new book Fleeced, Latinos might comprise 20 percent of the total population by 2020.  If they vote 90 percent for Democrats, as blacks do, the Republican Party might be forever out of power.  This is a major reason why the late Sam Francis was fond of calling the GOP the “Stupid Party.” 

But instead of taking a patriotic position and seek restrictions on immigration, particularly the flux of illegal aliens, Republicans seem bent on trying to woo Latinos to their side.  Success will be futile, as there are no better sugar daddies than Democrats.

The modern-day Democratic Party has maintained a tradition from the corrupt political machines of the late nineteenth century, based in most Northern cities – get ‘em off the boat and into the booth as fast as possible.  Southern politics after the War Between the States never operated this way, with the exception of Huey Long’s Louisiana, but was devoted solely to the preservation of  white supremacy.  This crooked Northern system is accurately portrayed in the films Gangs of New York and Far and Away.

The most infamous political machine in American history was Tammany Hall in New York City.  Bosses, like William Tweed, were notoriously corrupt.  In fact, Tweed was finally convicted after stealing more than $100 million from taxpayers (that’s $100 million in 19th century dollars!).  He died in prison in 1878.

The old process worked like so.  New immigrants, many from Ireland, arrived on ships which docked at New York harbor.  Once off the boat, they were generally met by a “ward boss” or his representatives.  They were promised jobs and even housing, all provided by the machine.  However, part of every workers’ wages kicked back to support the machine, which provided funds for “get out the vote” drives.  These workers were expected to get out and vote “Tammany” in every election and many of them voted “early and often.”  To not support the machine risked losing job, lodging, and all. 

With its candidates firmly entrenched in office, the machine could then award contracts to its supporters for various government jobs and construction programs.  These contracts, as you might guess, were many times what was needed to complete the project.  But, as with the wages, part of the government funds kicked back to the machine.  The process then started over again.

One major example of the Tweed Ring in action was the construction of a courthouse in New York City, a building still in use today.  The original budget was $250,000, in 1858 just before the War, but by the time it was completed the city had spent $14 million, much of it in the pockets of Tammany bosses.  Roy Morris, in his book Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876, tells of one electrician who submitted a contract to install fire alarms in the new courthouse, for the sum of $60,000, a high bid to be sure.  Boss Tweed responded to his request by asking, “If we get you a contract for $450,000, will you give us $225,000?”  Who could have said no?  And it was taxpayers who were left with the bill.

Democratic politics are not nearly so corrupt today but use a similar method.  Whereas the old political machines used graft and corruption in the form of stealing public funds and shaking down immigrant workers, today’s Democrats use legalized theft in the form of inflationary paper money, high taxes, and government handouts to maintain a permanent voting base.  The more people on the dole, the more likely they are to vote Democrat.  This is a primary motivation behind nationalized health care.

As for Hispanics, Democrats have been in the lead in the race with Republicans to out-promise each other.  Latinos, legal or not, are promised free health care, access to primary and secondary education, tuition breaks to colleges and universities that taxpayers don’t get, Social Security benefits, jobs, and quick citizenship and voting rights.  Step across the border with a pregnant wife due any minute, have the child in a U.S. hospital thereby making it an American citizen, and the authorities can’t send you back, even though this is a major distortion of the original intent of the 14th Amendment.

But Democrats are also not above out-right fraud.  During the 1996 presidential campaign, Democrats hurried the naturalization of more than a million Hispanic voters so they would be eligible to cast ballots that November.  It was known as Citizenship USA, a project initiated by Vice President Al Gore with the full knowledge and backing of President Clinton.  In fact Gore even admitted that the scheme was a “pro-Democrat voter mill.”

From August 1995 to September 1996, according to records from congressional investigations, 1,049,867 aliens received citizenship under the program.  Many of the laws governing naturalization were ignored, like background checks and fingerprinting.  About 180,000 immigrants were never fingerprinted at all.  Another 80,000 who were checked had criminal records, but were naturalized despite those restrictions.  According to David Schippers, a Democrat who headed the congressional investigation against the Clinton administration, one alien was even naturalized while still in jail!

Citizenship USA put politics ahead of the safety of the American people, as well as the laws of the nation.  It’s a prime example of how far Democrats are willing to go to maintain power and win over Hispanics.

Republicans are not nearly so brazen and seem to want a more moderate position that will appeal to enough Hispanics to remain competitive.  But this strategy is destined to fail.  Either the Republicans stand on principle and do what is right for America or fold up their tent and go home.  The war is over.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis remarked during the War for Southern Independence that “If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone:  Died of a Theory.”  President Davis was referring to States’ Rights and how it was undermining the war effort, as state governments were constantly resisting repeated calls for cooperation with Richmond. 

Should America fall our tombstone should read:  Died of Politics.

Our culture has become so political that it is becoming more and more difficult to get much-needed reforms enacted.  And we walk around on eggshells, so as not to offend anyone.  I’ve often thought we should consider calling ourselves the United States of the Offended.

Political correctness has run amok.  Things that no one paid any attention to just a few short years ago are now is a source of contention. 

Consider two recent stories from the Deep South, the last holdout from the ravages of political correctness.  In Atlanta, Georgia all signs reading “Men at Work” are being replaced, so women will not be offended.  New signs will read “Workers Present.” 

In Dallas, Texas a black county commissioner became angry and demanded an apology after a county office was referred to as a “black hole” by a white commissioner, who only meant that paperwork seemed to get lost within that particular department.  But because of our hyper-sensitivity to all things pertaining to race open and honest dialogue is impossible.

Such an atmosphere invariably leads to lying rather than being straight with the people on the problems that plague our nation.

This has also crept into our foreign policy, particularly war tactics.  To keep from looking bad, we enact policies that put our troops in greater danger.  During the Second World War, by contrast, we did what we needed to do in order to achieve victory, even fire-bombing whole cities.  Imagine that today!  Do you realize that we have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than it took to defeat the Axis powers – Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy – on two fronts I might add?

Environmentalism is another major area where politics is plaguing progress.  We are now on the brink of a major energy crisis.  But even though we have more than enough energy here at home, more so than the Middle East, we are not allowed to tap into it in order to end our dependence on foreign sources.  We import 70 percent of our oil each year but additional drilling in known domestic reserves, such as ANWR, is forbidden because of environmental extremist groups that have cowed Congress into putting birds, rats, and worms ahead of humans.  And don’t forget the precious caribou, which are thriving in Alaska since the pipeline that was supposed to wipe them out.

One of the biggest problems facing the United States, which no presidential candidate is even mentioning, is the huge unfunded mandates in the Social Security and Medicare systems.  These shortfalls total nearly $60 trillion.  But since these programs are considered the “third rail” of American politics, and therefore untouchable, nothing ever seems get done. 

We can’t even discuss reform proposals.  President Bush attempted a partial privatization of Social Security, only to have the Left drag out its oft-repeated demagoguery and sufficiently frighten enough Americans to kill the proposal.  Even though a privatization would be a huge benefit to future retirees, it was killed by politics.

The South American nation of Chile put politics aside in 1981 and switched its government-run system, modeled after the United States and also in bankruptcy, into a privatized version where its citizens can invest in individual retirement accounts in the private sector.  The result has been one of the fastest, most robust economies in Latin America, and Chileans will have a much greater return on their money. 

L. Jacobo Rodríguez of the Cato Institute testified before Senate on the results of the Chilean reform:  “Since the Chilean system was implemented, labor force participation, pension fund assets, and benefits have all grown. Today, more than 95 percent of Chilean workers have joined the system; the pension funds have accumulated $36 billion in assets; and the average real rate of return has been 10.9 percent per year.”  Compare this with our Social Security system, where you are lucky to get 3 percent per year!  A Social Security check of $1,000 would be nearly $4,000 under that system.

“Since 1993,” Rodriguez continued, “eight other Latin American nations have implemented pension reforms modeled after Chile’s. In March of 1999 Poland became the first country in Eastern Europe to implement a partial privatization reform based on the Chilean model.”

Our politicians, however, allow politics to get in the way of such progress, which seems to be par for the course with our current Congress.

Nations in Eastern Europe are in the process of studying Reaganomics and beginning to implement flat tax systems, fiscal policies that work.  Estonia, Slovakia, Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, and Russia (Yes, Russia!) have all dumped the complicated tax systems, similar to ours, in favor of the flat tax.  Other nations are considering doing likewise, even China.  The results have been staggering!  Revenues have greatly increased, as well as economic growth, while tax evasion and the underground economy have become almost non-existent, according to the Hoover Institute.  At least 25 nations around the world have revolutionized its tax code with this simple system.

A flat tax or the fair tax would be a boon to our economy.  It would simplify the code and free up billions of dollars not spent on accountants and lawyers that could be invested in the private sector.  Imagine filling out your taxes on a single index-sized card and mailing your check into the IRS, with no taxes on savings or your estate after you die. 

Even corporations would come under this plan.  That’s billions that can be invested back into the company for higher wages, better benefits, and more innovation. 

In short, the flat tax system has worked miracles everywhere it has been implemented.

But here in the United States, the beacon of freedom for the rest of the world, a nation that was born from a tax revolt, cannot get similar reforms enacted.  Why?  Because of politics!  Democrats consistently demagogue the issue, using their oft-repeated class warfare rhetoric.  Their cry of “a tax cut for the rich” is heard at every turn and it is getting very old. 

Consider a simple flat tax proposal with a rate of 17 percent enacted in the United States.  Plans vary but let’s keep it simple.  Within the plan each adult would be given an exemption of $15,000 and every child $5,000.  So a middle-class family of four would receive $40,000 in exemptions.  If that family made $50,000, then they would pay a 17 percent rate on the remaining $10,000, a tax of $1,700.  Now what if a wealthy family of four living across town made $1 million per year?  They would receive the same $40,000 in exemptions and pay a 17 percent rate on the remaining $960,000.  Their tax would be $163,200.  So much for the class warfare argument.

I find it quite embarrassing that instead of leading the world on many of these important issues, we find ourselves, because of politics, having to learn lessons from Chile and Bulgaria. 

The United States, once the leading nation on earth in terms of innovation and progress, is now regressing.  Other nations of the world follow the America of old; we seem to want Barack Obama!  They move toward freedom; we towards tyranny!  And should we decide to follow this path, we do so at our peril.

In reading Walter Borneman’s new biography of President James K. Polk this week, I was struck by the fact that such a presidential candidate as Polk is exactly what America, and the Conservative Movement, needs in this election year.

Polk’s presidency was extremely successful, probably more so than any other, and academic historians, though not in philosophical agreement with “Young Hickory” or his slaveholding, generally recognize his accomplishments, ranking him in the top ten or near-great category.

What made Polk successful? 

First, he had an overwhelming amount of experience, which dispels the often-used title given him of “dark horse.”  After a brief period in the Tennessee state legislature, he served 14 years in the U.S. House, with two terms as Speaker and chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee.  After leaving, he won the governorship of Tennessee, giving him a wealth of executive experience.  Though experience is not always an indicator of success, in Polk’s case it was.

Second, Polk did not try to do too much.  He pledged to serve just one term, even before he was elected.  Though critics of this strategy might argue that he was immediately lame-ducked, Borneman rightly concludes that this allowed Polk to “spend his political capital freely and he did so aggressively.”  He simply did not have to worry about a second term. 

For his campaign platform Polk did not overwhelm the voters, like modern politicians do with lengthy campaign books on every conceivable policy issue, but simply listed four goals he wanted to achieve:

1) Lower the tariff
2) Establish an independent treasury system (as opposed to a national bank)
3) Purchase of California
4) Acquire the Oregon Territory

He achieved all of his objectives, something no other president can rightly claim.

And third, Polk was a fiercely determined man who held passionately to his political ideals.  After his first term as governor, he lost the next two elections for a second term.  Most politicians would be dead politically.  But Polk did not quit, making a remarkable comeback.  As president, he stayed the course until his campaign promises were fulfilled.  The idea of flip-flopping for political gain would have horrified him.

What if we had such a candidate today?  A strong conservative who could articulate the ideals of the Right.  Perhaps someone running as an independent who pledged to serve one term and, without any need to seek a historic legacy, worked with a list of five specific goals:

1) Energy Independence – This could very well be the biggest issue of 2008.  America has blindly and stupidly followed the advice of environmental extremists who are bent on dismantling our economy to protect the planet from a catastrophe that many scientists believe does not exist.  We don’t need a new Manhattan Project or Apollo Program, as some Democrats have suggested, to find a new alternative energy source, because we have all the energy we need right here at home.  When you take into account the fact that the United States has several hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas, a supply of coal that can last centuries, 1 to 2 trillion barrels of oil shale, and tens of billions of barrels of crude that we know about, why do we need to import anything?  Not only do we possess more than the entire Middle East, some experts claim we have more energy than the rest of the world combined!  We should use these resources, while investing in new technologies and new sources of energy in a comprehensive energy plan.  There is no reason the American people should be paying $5 a gallon for gasoline with no end in sight. 

2) A New Foreign Policy – America must get off this idea that we are the policeman of the world and that we must be engaged in every hot corner of the globe.  The situation in Iraq has to be stabilized soon, to the point that we can begin a safe withdrawal.  We simply cannot continue to fund overseas wars at the rate we are spending.  Furthermore, American troops are stationed in more than 130 countries around the world, with new bases planned as we speak.  The American taxpayer funds the defense of many of our allies.  These forces should be brought home where they belong, to defend our homeland and our borders.  This will save us hundreds of billions of dollars a year and will, perhaps, ease some of the resentment other nations feel toward us.  Ask yourself this question:  How would we feel if Russian, German, or Saudi troops were stationed in the United States?  A more traditional foreign policy as envisioned by our Founders, to stay out of the quarrels of other nations, would serve us well in the future.  It’s time to concentration on our mounting problems here at home.

3) Budget/Entitlement Reform – By the time George W. Bush leaves office, the national debt will have almost doubled during his eight years, rising to nearly $10 trillion.  It’s time to cut up the credit cards and return to fiscal responsibility and fiscal sanity.  We must balance the budget and seriously reform our bloating entitlement programs, to begin paying off the national debt.  According to the former Comptroller General of the United States, David Walker, the United States is facing an enormous fiscal crisis if we don’t correct the problem now.  Social Security and Medicare have unfunded mandates of over $54 trillion!  And that’s a conservative estimate!  This number expands $2 trillion to $3 trillion per year without doing anything.  Inaction will eventually cause the implementation of huge tax increases or massive benefit cuts, but quite possibly both!  Federal spending should be brought back under control, within its constitutional bounds, allowing the inevitable onset of crushing taxation to be eased.  But as long as politicians continue to hide from this 800 pound gorilla in the room, and kick the ball down the field to the next administration or the next generation, it will not get fixed until it crashes.  Neither major political party candidate has even so much as mentioned these issues.  And the idea that we can afford nationalized health care is simply ridiculous.

4) Fair Trade – The United States has seen its trade deficit skyrocket in the last decade and a half, with the expansion of free trade.  With increasing imports, our industrial base has been devastated in recent years, with more than 3 million manufacturing jobs lost under Bush.  Even Alan Greenspan, before he left office as chairman of the Federal Reserve, spoke out against what he called our “unsustainable” trade imbalance.  And who suffers most?  The American working man.  The Conservative Movement, whether centered in the GOP or elsewhere, must craft programs to aid America’s workers, by protecting jobs and increasing wages, or else face years out of power.  As of now the Republican Party seems beholden to Big Business and this image must be destroyed.  We should work to rebuild our industrial base, the great “arsenal of democracy,” both for economic strength and national security.

5) Immigration – The flood of illegal immigration across our Southern border with Mexico must be ended without delay.  The problem of mass immigration has three basic implications.  First, at a time when terrorists are determined to strike the U.S. homeland it makes no sense to have an unsecured border.  It is in our national security interest to seal our borders, even with troops if necessary.  Second, as more and more immigrants pour in, there are less and less resources for them.  As our economy sputters, does it make any sense to allow millions of potential workers in to compete for jobs when the economy is not producing enough new ones for the workers we already have?  And, as the law of supply and demand teach us, a flood of labor will drive down wages, as it is already doing.  Third, as Pat Buchanan has written, a flood of immigrants are a threat to American culture.  We need to be able to assimilate those already here, into the American Melting Pot, before allowing any more in.  And then we should only allow those immigrants who possess skills and talents that we need.  Failing to control our borders may one day destroy our country.

An independent conservative candidate would do well by subscribing to James K. Polk’s political tactics and adopting simple campaign platform on issues that most affect the American people.  It could also help revive a sick and depressed Conservative Movement.  For if we sit idly by and let the political pendulum continue its swing to the Left without a fight, it may never come back!

“We may rest assured,” wrote John C. Calhoun, “that those who play false to get power, will play false to retain it.”

Such was the advice of a great, but often maligned, Southern statesman that we should be very leery of politicians who will say anything to get elected.  We see this in every election it seems but never take the advice.  And what do we usually get?  Nothing we were promised.

Last week we saw yet another example of Democrats embellishing their credentials to strengthen their campaigns for the White House.  Barack Obama sought to exploit a family member who served during World War II.

“I had an uncle who was one of the, part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps,” Obama said in speech in New Mexico. “And the story in our family was, is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic, and he didn’t leave the house for six months.”

Yet we quickly learned that Obama does not have an uncle (it was actually his great uncle) and, for anyone who knows even the basics of history, American forces did not liberate Auschwitz, a camp located in Poland.  That horror of horrors was liberated by Soviet troops.  American military units never set foot in Poland, or in any Eastern European nation for that matter.  Obama’s fib would only be true if his uncle served in the Red Army.

But why would he do this?  To make himself look better, to make his family look more patriotic.  His great uncle did serve in the U.S. Army and help liberate a camp that was part of the Buchenwald system in central Germany.  This is a great story in itself and need not have been embellished.  But Auschwitz just sounded better. 

Another reason is that Obama has a bit of a problem with Jewish voters.  Recent polling indicates that he’s besting McCain in that category but not by as much as recent Democratic nominees.  For instance, Kerry beat out Bush with Jewish voters by a margin of 3 to 1, while Obama outranks McCain by just 2 to 1, a significant difference.

The Obama campaign came out quickly the day after the speech, as the lie was caught by talk radio and other conservative media outlets, stating that the candidate “mistakenly” referred to the wrong concentration camp.  But in a 2002 anti-war speech, Obama made a similar reference to Auschwitz and another family member.  “My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.” 

Unless his grandfather was talking about the great uncle, he could not have spoken to any American troops who entered Auschwitz.  Or maybe he knew some soldiers in the Red Army!  But we have also learned that his grandfather did not sign up to fight the day after Pearl Harbor but some six months later.  Again, this story did not have to be embellished. 

You might expect someone with a degree from Columbia and Harvard to know the basics of history!  And I’m willing to bet he does; he just simply lied.

It might be argued by Obama’s supporters that these are just little mistakes or even “white lies,” but where I was raised, a lie is a lie.  It is still not the truth.

Soon after his Auschwitz remark, Obama made a rather strange statement.  “Now obviously, something had really affected him deeply, but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain. That’s why this idea of making sure that every single #veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post-traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need – that’s why it’s so important.” 

Is this what he got out of the horrors of Nazi Germany?  That we need better mental health facilities?  There are lessons to be learned from the Holocaust, namely that government, when it grows to powerful and oppressive, can create hell on earth.  But Obama wants government to run the lives of its citizens, and he seeks more and more control for Washington.  If he has his way, the feds will be telling you how to live from the time you are born until after you die, when they seize 55 percent of your estate!

Like Hillary’s sniper episode, incidents such as this should tell us a lot about a candidate’s character.  If they are so willing to lie about family, friends, and their campaign for power, can we honestly say they wouldn’t lie in office?  If we are that naïve, then we deserve what we get!