Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts

Friday, December 30, 2016

8 Years and Time for Him to Hit the Road



Dan Youra is one of the outstanding conservative cartoonists in the trade today who follows in the footsteps of the great political cartoon masters, whose quotes inspire a new generation of followers.
"Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will." ~ Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist.
"Too many of today's artists regard editorial cartooning as a trade instead of a profession. They try not to be too offensive. The hell with that. We need more stirrer-uppers." ~ Bill Mauldin.
Youra was one of the first recipients of a Fulbright Scholarship and worked in Latin America. He served as an editor of Current Thought on Peace and War at the United Nations in New York.

"As long as there are politicians who continue to try and fool the voters, there is no chance of ever running out of material to work with because they create it themselves and about themselves," says Dan Youra.
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Dan is the small business owner and operator of the Youra Studios located in the State of Washington. Visit the Youra Studios at Utoons.com
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Friday News Follies with Trade Martin


Courtesy of Trade Martin Music "On Top of the News"
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One Angry Duck




Okay, I’m hyperventilating. Tony combines beautiful drawings with biting politically incorrect wit and laugh out loud humor.” – Larry Elder – TV and Radio personality at at Fox News and KRLM AM 870

Lighten things up! Political discussions and debates don’t always have to be deep and long-winded arguments with points and counter points. Sometimes we just need to take a step back from it all and have a good laugh.

With so many discouraging things happening in our country lately, that’s the only thing we can do to keep from crying.

Conservative artist Antonio Branco is a master at encapsulating deep and complex issues in a simple comic.

He has written his first book in a series and takes on a wide array of issues, from food stamps to global warming to foreign policy, Antonio isn’t afraid to say what he thinks.

Presented in a coffee table book style, this is the perfect conversation starter with friends and family that pick it up and start glancing through it’s pages.

Who knows, that liberal aunt of yours just might come over to the right side because of this book!

This 80 pages, hardcover comic measures 8″ x 10".


Read more from A.F. (Tony) Branco at this link.

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Friday, March 27, 2015

End of the American presidency

From the files of JB Williams at Patriots Union.org

Meet Senator Ted Cruz
Following the War of Independence separating America from Great Britain and establishing a new free sovereign nation, our Founders set a course to establish a Constitutional Representative Republican form of self-governance, of, by and for the people of the newly formed United States with the passage of the U.S. Constitution.

Ever since, political powers here and abroad have sought to undermine, dismantle and destroy the United States and eliminate it as the world’s most free, prosperous and powerful nation on earth.

Two hundred years later, trapped in a growing global shift towards a One World system of global governance based on communist principles of social justice, the United States would soon find itself in a silent battle for its sovereignty and security emanating from within…

Fast forward to 2004 – when a totally obscure new Illinois State Senator was paraded on to the national stage by none other than Sen. Ted Kennedy, (who had very close ties with Vladimir Putin, then head of the Russian KGB) – strangely upstaging the intended star of the show, Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry. Four years later, the man with no verifiable past would become the first truly anti-American occupant of the Oval Office under color of fraud.

His name is Barack Hussein Obama and Barry Soetoro and Barack Hussein Obama Soebarkah. He was born to a Kenyan Father and a young American mother, in Hawaii as the story goes, and grew up an Indonesian citizen for a time. He has more than twenty Social Security numbers attached to his name[s] – and six years later, all records sealed, not one American citizen can tell you for sure who or what this person really is…

But we have watched him destroy our country at light speed for six years – stirring up racial divides, seizing more and more dictatorial executive powers, taking over entire private economic sectors, importing illegal aliens and illegal Islamic “refugees” at a record pace, driving our nation to nearly $20 trillion in debt, setting records in Military KIA and WIA under suicidal ROE, losing Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Pakistan and numerous others, undermining every constitutional concept, installing Muslim Brotherhood members throughout federal offices and national security agencies, as well as in numerous Middle Eastern nations by directly interfering in their elections, and swapping old U.S. allies for old U.S. enemies and placing our oldest Middle Eastern ally on the chopping block, Israel.

If the goal is to destroy the United States, no one has ever done it better than Barack Hussein Obama.

Our Founders made it possible for us to prevent such events, by placing very narrow and specific requirements for the Oval Office in Article II of the Constitution… all the American people had to do to prevent this disaster was enforce the Constitution.

The Founders kept it very simple… to be eligible for the Oval Office, President or Vice President; one has to meet the following conditions -
1. One must be a natural born Citizen of the United States, a True Citizen
2. One must be at least 35 years of age
3. One must have held U.S. residency for at least 14 years prior
That’s all, three very simple requirements established to prevent someone like Barack Hussein Obama from ever entering the Oval Office, someone with unknown, foreign, dual or divided national loyalties. Barack Obama has demonstrated for six years now that he is loyal to global interests, not U.S. interests.

Barack Obama met condition number two and three, but he did not and cannot meet condition number one, the natural born Citizen requirement. That is the condition that should have prevented him from ever stepping foot in the people’s Oval Office six years ago. It didn’t stop him, because the people failed to enforce Article II of the U.S. Constitution, or even hold their representatives accountable for sitting silent as it happened.

Many Americans, millions, wanted the constitutional crisis addressed and resolved over the past six years, filing law suits, FOIA requests seeking information on who Barack Obama really is and where he really came from, calling for impeachment, both for the fraud that allowed him to seize the White House and the many treasonous acts he has committed while in that office.

But the political will of the masses was just not there. Million’s more would be focused only upon removing him from fraudulent power via the election booth, without realizing that he was now in control of everything, including elections and was rapidly turning the nation on its head.

Back in 2012, a new young up and coming hot shot Republican was emerging in the great once very conservative state of Texas. He was, like Obama, a Harvard trained lawyer, except he actually had more on his résumé than communist community organizing.

In a campaign interview during his freshman senate race, a GOP Texas State Committee member sat down with the young candidate to ask a few poignant vetting questions, and here are the questions and answers from that interview… (Redacted information is to protect the witness at this moment, but the witness is willing to offer sworn testimony)
Interviewer: “Hello Mr. Cruz, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is (redacted). I am a (redacted) County GOP Precinct Chair and you have my support and vote. I have one question for you if I may?”

Cruz: “Sure, go ahead.”

Interviewer: “What is your understanding of how one becomes a natural born Citizen?”

Cruz: “Two citizen parents and born on the soil.”

Interviewer: “Not exactly, but as I don't have enough time to fully explain how one does become an natural born Citizen, based on your understanding, would you agree that Barack Obama is ineligible to be POTUS?”

Cruz: “I would agree.”

Interviewer: “So when we get you elected, will you expose him for the usurping fraud he is?”

Cruz: “No, my main focus will be on repealing Obamacare.”

Interviewer: “But Mr. Cruz, if he is exposed as the usurping fraud he is, everything he has done will become null and void. Everything!” At that point, Cruz reiterated his main concern, so it was obvious the conversation was over as far as Cruz was concerned. I thanked him for his time and wished him success in the runoff.”
That senate race was highly unusual. Redistricting had caused setbacks delaying the elections and election results. Cruz was running to replace Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison who had just retired and vacated her seat. At the originally scheduled time for the primary, Republican Cruz opponent Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst was well ahead in the polls.

But by the time the election took place, Cruz had had enough time to slip ahead with more name recognition, in the end defeating his opponent and going on the defeat Democrat Paul Sadler in the general election, becoming only one of three Latino’s in the U.S. Senate.

Read More ....
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Sunday, March 8, 2015

Obama's rampage: Party time for the bad guys

From the Weblog Files at Colonel Allen B. West.com

Meet Colonel Allen B. West
Some of you may find this hard to comprehend or stomach, but if there were a choice between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, — I’d choose the fella from Hope, Arkansas. Now having been in the military at the time of the Clinton administration, I can certainly find plenty of policy issues for disagreement there.

However, one thing about Bill Clinton, he knew how to pivot and be an adept politician. Who can forget how, after his midterm election debacle in 1994, in his ensuing State of the Union address he announced “the era of big government has ended.”

And that was said with Al Gore and Newt Gingrich sitting behind him. At that point we saw bipartisanship — perhaps reluctantly so — but the result was balanced budgets, creation of surpluses, cuts to federal government agency growth, and welfare reform. Who would have thought it possible?

It was all because President Clinton, who had previously started out with big government liberal progressive aspirations, heard the American people and realized his “agenda” had been rebuked.

Now, compare that to Barack Obama who, on the Wednesday after the Tuesday November 4, 2014 midterm election defeat, stood in the White House and confirmed his savant status by saying he’d heard the voices of the two-thirds of Americans who hadn’t voted — huh?

We’ve seen how he continues doubling down after that midterm election — including a very dangerous executive order on immigration, which by his own declaration — between 22 and 25 times — was unconstitutional. And we clearly heard Mr. Obama using the bully pulpit of the State of the Union address to boisterously admonish a new GOP majority House and Senate about his veto power.

So against that backdrop, the New York Post had a very interesting piece entitled “Obama is on a Rampage” saying, “He can’t bring himself to call Islamic terrorists what they are, but President Obama finally said something with which we can all agree. Speaking of his remaining time in office, he said: “Two years is a long time.” He can say that again — and did, attaching a scary promise about his plans for the twilight of his tenure.

“Two years is also the time in which we’re going to be setting the stage for the next presidential election and the next 10 years of American policy,” he told wealthy donors in San Francisco. “So I intend to run through the tape and work really hard, and squeeze every last little bit of change.”

It’s funny, the liberal progressive media is all up in arms about what former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani said about President Obama at a fundraising event — but we haven’t heard too much about these comments, have we?

So will anyone be asking the White House press secretary or even the president what he means by setting the stage for the next ten years of American policy? I would think this a far more important issue than whether or not Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker believes President Obama is a Christian, don’t you?

What does it mean to “squeeze every last little bit of change?” Sounds painful. I suppose the “fundamental transformation” of America isn’t quite done.

However, here is the contrast. President Clinton realized his agenda had been rejected and in turn responded, and look at the good created by a Democrat president and a Republican House and Senate. It was a good that benefitted the American people. Yep, there were some things that didn’t go too well, mostly in the area of national security and foreign policy, but as James Carville stated, “it’s the economy stupid.”

And to this day, everyone credits Clinton — not a GOP majority House and Senate who governed as conservatives. Now, we have President Obama who articulated that his policies were on the ballot last November — you can see that here — and Americans responded by rejecting those policies. His response to the American people? I did not hear you as a matter of fact, I don’t care. Elections only seem to have consequences when Obama wins — not otherwise.

And so America, the democratic electoral process means little or nothing for President Barack Obama. We already know the Constitution means little, based on his defiant violations of Article I, Section 8, Clauses 4 and 11.

So, here is a simple, almost rhetorical question. If you love America, should you not abide by its rule of law and democratic process? Just a question that teeters on the understanding of the difference between an elected leader and the potential for tyrannical dictatorship.

Here’s the assessment from New York Post writer Michael Goodwin, ” Instead of cleaning up the messes he’s created, Obama is hell-bent on making more of them. The word that comes to mind is “rogue.”

As in, the president is going rogue. Like an elephant on a rampage, he’s breaking free of all constraints. That makes the next two years extremely dangerous. Not just for Americans, but also for people around the world who count on us for their security and well-being.

It is party time for the bad guys. Imagine you are the head of Islamic State or al-Qaida. Or you are Vladimir Putin, the head of China or the ayatollah of Iran. You know Obama has spent six years shrinking America’s footprint and abandoning allies, leaving behind the vacuums you are filling. It’s already a bonanza, and his vow to double down over the next two years means you will never get a better opportunity to make more hay.”

“The potential danger is this, “the Putins, the mullahs and the terrorists will match Obama’s sprint to the finish with their own. The violence, chaos, millions of refugees and breakdown of sovereign states already under way could be just a preview of the coming dystopian future. From Eastern Europe to Asia to Africa to the Mideast, no populated spot anywhere would be immune from potential upheaval and collapse.”

Now for those of you who feel angered because I ask these questions and bring up these points — is your anger focused where it should be? If the American people reject national policies in an election, should one continue down that path of dismissive belligerence towards the electorate?

If the House and Senate composition is not considered representative of the voice of the people, are we still living in a Constitutional Republic? President George W. Bush accepted the results of the 2006 midterm elections and of course there was an increase in spending those final two years.

And yes, he stood against the congressional onslaught and did the right thing in Iraq with the “surge” — only to be followed by someone who considered campaign promises more important than strategic security decisions — and whose prediction has come to fruition in Iraq?

Elections should have consequences. As we’ve seen in the history of our nation, be they Republican or Democrat, presidents have heeded the voice of the people. There is something very different with President Barack Obama — a malignant narcissism perhaps? Regardless, these two years will indeed be long since no one will seek impeachment of Obama, even if he meets with those who have affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The final words of the New York Post piece are quite disconcerting, “As those scenarios suggest, Obama’s promise “to squeeze every last little bit of change” out of the next two years could wreak havoc with the presidential hopes of Hillary Clinton and a platoon of Republicans. If they are wise, the candidates will draft their plans in erasable ink. With the Master of Disaster on the prowl, the worst is yet to come.”

Remember within the first seven months of George W. Bush’s first presidential term, the world changed on September, 11, 2001. That event was set in motion during the preceding Clinton administration. America, we’re gonna need a Churchill to follow this political agenda-driven Chamberlain.
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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

General Vallely: Their actions are treasonous

Former General: Obama security team’s actions are ‘treasonous’ with Chris Salcedo at the Blaze

Meet Major General Paul E. Vallely
Resident Obama’s light footprint/lead-from-behind foreign policy is beginning to yield predictably destructive fruit: Iran continues its march toward a nuclear weapon.

The Islamic State holds territory the size of Indiana and is expanding. Militants identifying themselves as Islamic State affiliates just killed 21 Christians in a mass beheading.

U.S. allies in Middle East find themselves surrounded by Iran or Iranian clients. The U.S.-backed government in Yemen has been overthrown by Iranian-backed Houthis.

To make matters worse in Yemen, as our Marines abandoned yet another Middle Eastern embassy, they were instructed to destroy their weapons in a war zone, an order that reportedly enraged U.S. Central Command.

The confluence of events ushered in by Obama’s leadership, or lack thereof, has caused a great deal of concern among pro-American retired military leaders. Major Gen. Paul Vallely is one such leader.

In our interview, not only does he articulate a huge problem with the practical and symbolic ramifications of an American government commanding its troops to disarm in the face of Iranian terror, but he takes direct aim at the Obama security team, calling their actions “treasonous.”

Fallout continues to rage over Obama’s prayer breakfast insanity and Brian William’s struggle with the truth. We covered those during the Chris Salcedo Show, the show that is the antidote to the Brian Williams press.

See the complete interview on video at the Blaze.
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The worst U.S. President ever

The Worst U.S. President Ever from the Warning Signs of Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Know Caruba's Warning Signs

I won’t be around to see it, but I have little doubt that future historians and others will conclude that President Barack Hussein Obama was the worst President ever to serve in that office.

The reason is simple enough. His decisions on domestic and foreign affairs have already demonstrated his astonishing incompetence. His major contribution may in fact be to ensure that the voters elect conservatives in the next two or more elections to come. If he is remembered for anything it well may be the emergence of the Tea Party movement whose influence has been seen over the course of two midterm elections.

Read Facts-not-Fantasy
One cannot help but think of such things as President’s Day which may remind us of Washington and Lincoln, both of whom were born during this month. For most it is just a day on which there are a variety of sales pegged to it.

For all of us, however, it acknowledges the two Presidents without whom there would not be a United States of America.

Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt are routinely ranked at the top of the lists of those judged to have been of greatest service to the nation and, not incidentally, all three presided over wars that led to and maintained America’s sovereignty.

When I have read about Washington’s life, I am always impressed by the man and, not surprisingly, so were his contemporaries, the men he commanded over the long course of the Revolutionary War. The Americans of his time had the highest regard for him.

It was Washington who set the pattern of only serving two terms. When the American artist, Benjamin West, told England’s King George III of Washington’s decision, the king said, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

In his 1796 farewell address, Washington said, “Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.

The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.”

Imagine a modern politician talking of religion and morality as the basis of political prosperity—least of all Obama who has disparaged Christianity and protects Islam.

America was particularly blessed and fortunate in its earliest years to have a succession of men who demonstrated extraordinary intelligence, courage, and moral integrity. Following Washington there was John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. Few nations have been so blessed as ours.

One can only examine Lincoln’s life with a sense of wonder as he rose from humble beginnings to the role of keeping the Union intact in the face of the secession of southern states and the horrendous war that followed. Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865 and on April 14 Lincoln was assassinated by an actor, John Wilkes Booth.

His death was the occasion of the first American national funeral as cities and towns did their best to out-do one another to honor him. It took his death for people to realize the magnitude of what he had achieved.

The advice Lincoln offered in his time is just as important, if not more so, in ours:
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and, earlier, Theodore Roosevelt, are also highly ranked among the Presidents. Both men shared a zest for the job, enjoying it. Teddy regretted announcing that he would not run for a third term (which he did with the Bull Moose Party) and FDR ran and won four times! He did so during the Great Depression and World War II.

Two other families played a role in the presidency, the Adams and, in the modern era, George H.W. Bush was the 41st President and George W. Bush was the 43rd. It is popular to disparage both men, but history may come to another judgment.

President Obama has brought nothing to the presidency except his Marxist theology. He was the least prepared in terms of experience in the workplace and his elections have been more about the manipulation of public opinion and his two terms have been an endless succession of lies.

His signature legislation, ObamaCare, has undermined the nation’s healthcare system. His solution to the Great Recession added more debt in his six years in office than the combined debt of every previous President up to Clinton and did not stimulate the economy as promised.

His ignorance of history and of current events is vast. Google "what does Obama know?" and you will find many articles that document this.

He has been protected by a liberal mainstream media, but the voters have seen through that and have turned political power in Congress over to the Republican Party.

One thing is for sure. On future President’s Days, Obama will barely be noticed when Americans look back on those who did much to address the great issues and challenges of their times.
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Thursday, January 22, 2015

Congressman says Obama blackmailing Petraeus

Congressman Confirms Obama Is Blackmailing Petraeus for Sickening Reason

Meet Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
It was recently revealed that the contemptible Attorney General Eric Holder, who is somehow still in office months after announcing his resignation, has directed the Department of Justice to review a potential prosecution of retired General David Petraeus.

Petraeus was forced to resign in disgrace from his position as head of the CIA after allegations of an affair with his biographer, in which he may have shared classified information with her.

But many people suspect that Petraeus was forced out by the Obama administration and is being blackmailed into staying silent on what he knows about the Benghazi terrorist attacks.

One of those persons is Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who believes that General Petraeus is being targeted and bullied by the Obama administration.

Gohmert stated on the House floor that he believes Petraeus knows information about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack that “would destroy any credibility that this administration might still have nationally and internationally.”

He said that the Obama administration has been holding the threat of prosecution over the General’s head for the past year and a half in order to force him to stay silent.

This threat of potential prosecution is also damaging to Petraeus’ credibility, something the Obama administration is counting on as well to compel his silence.

Gohmert finished up by comparing the abuses of the Obama administration to the Nixon administration, noting how President Obama has done things that Nixon could have only dreamed of actually doing, like weaponizing the IRS to go after political enemies.

A variation of this story appeared at the Conservative Tribune.
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Monday, December 1, 2014

Protesting their protectors

Protesting Their Protectors from Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Know Caruba's Warning Signs at Facts-not-Fantasy
When you get right down to it, the protests said to be about the shooting of Michael Brown are really about how differently the black and white communities view the police. Blacks may want and need protection, but they don’t have the level of confidence in the police that whites express.

That protection occasionally includes having to shoot those who threaten the lives of police officers. If the Ferguson and other city protests are against that they are as irrational as the burning down of the Brown family’s church.

What we are witnessing is a rejection of the rule of law and those who put their lives on the line to protect society.

The President got involved, predictably urging that violence be avoided, but also saying that the protesters should “stay the course.”

Here is an excerpt from The New York Times:
“Some of the national leaders met with President Obama on Nov. 5 for a gathering that included a conversation about Ferguson.

According to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has appeared frequently in St. Louis with the Brown family and delivered a speech at Mr. Brown’s funeral, Mr. Obama “was concerned about Ferguson staying on course in terms of pursuing what it was that he knew we were advocating. He said he hopes that we’re doing all we can to keep peace.”

Protest leaders said wholesale change was ultimately what they were demanding, though not all agreed on what that meant. Some called for the removal of the Ferguson police chief or the entire department. Others said they want the police to wear cameras; civilian review boards for all police shootings; or a requirement that ethnic and racial makeup of police departments match the communities they serve.

“It must be changing how police and citizens relate to one another,” said Michael T. McPhearson, the co-chairman of the Don’t Shoot Coalition. “We’re calling for police accountability, police transparency, changing how the police do their work. If there’s an indictment or if there’s not an indictment, we still have that work to do.”
As reported by the Times, according to the black community leaders the problem was the police, not the community. In an appalling lack of judgment and prudence, The New York Times published the name of the street on which Officer Wilson lives! A Twitter user published what he claimed was the address and a photo of his home.

As far as the media was concerned the story was about police officer Wilson, not Michael Brown or the protesters, except insofar as they provided dramatic video. The story became a repeat of charges against police of “racial profiling” and other actions resulting from just doing their job.

As we know, lots of the violence took the form of looting and destruction of Ferguson businesses occurring before and since the grand jury decision. What has surprised many observers was the way neither the Missouri National Guard, called out by the Governor, nor other police authorities engaged the “protester’s” criminal behavior, arresting few while concentrating on protecting the court house and police headquarters. One of the dramatic forms of protest was to burn police cars.

I recall an event involving President Obama and a police officer when, on July 16, 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., an African-American, was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by a local police officer responding to a 911 caller’s report that men were breaking into and entering the residence.

As the facts came out, professor Gates had returned home from a trip to China and found the front door jammed shut. With the help of his driver, they tried to force it open. When the police officer, James Crowley, showed up responding that what well could be a crime in progress, Gates was less than cooperative and charged with disorderly conduct.

The charges were dropped, but the event invoked a national debate about “racial profiling” by police. On July 22, President Obama commented on the incident, criticizing the arrest and Officer Crowley’s actions. The national response was a massive rejection of the President’s comment and, two days later, a photo op was staged at the White House where both Officer Crowley and professor Gates were seen with the President enjoying a beer together.

Indeed, it became known as the “Beer Summit”; all because of Obama’s assumption that racial profiling, not the actual facts of the event, was the reason Gates was charged.

Who doesn’t like the police? People who tend to get questioned by them and who get arrested by them. Many of those people are black because a significant amount of crime in America is perpetrated by blacks and a significant percentage of those incarcerated in our prisons are black. Who have been their victims? As often as not, other blacks.

As John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, noted in a Daily Caller.com commentary, “The average black person is 6.5 times more likely to be murdered than the average white person. Over nine out of every ten black people who were murdered were murdered by other black people.” And many were young men like Michael Brown. The slaughter in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis is commonplace and appalling.

As the facts of the Brown shooting came out most whites concluded that Brown was a thug and, indeed, a large one at six feet, four inches and weighing in at over 300 pounds. The “gentle giant” was caught on video threatening a store employee after stealing some cigarillos. Even though he was “unarmed”, a fact repeated in every story, the grand jury concluded that he had attacked Officer Wilson who then had acted in self-defense.

I do not want to appear to condemn “all” blacks because to do so would be idiotic. The criticism here is directed at cultural values that are well established and documented, but that does not mean that “all” blacks share them. Many have achieved success since the days of the civil rights movement and one can only hope that many more blacks will join them, be lifted out of poverty and freed from poorly performing schools. One can hope the same for others as well.

In cities and towns where blacks are a significant part of the population they are likely to need more police protection than whites. And many of the police who provide that protection are white.

I guarantee you that the next time a black person feels threatened and calls the police they are not going to ask what race the officer is.
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Thursday, November 27, 2014

Thanks But . . .

Thanks, But . . . from Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Be Aware of the Caruba's Warning Signs

I know that Thanksgiving is the day we are all supposed to review a list of all the things for which we should be thankful and surely each of us has a list, usually family and friends, and, patriotically, for being Americans.

What makes this Thanksgiving different from those that have proceeded it is the reminder from President Obama that, in his opinion, America is not exceptional and, presumably, that means neither are we. I don’t think this nation has ever celebrated Thanksgiving when its President did not like America. We’ve had six Thanksgivings with Obama and each one has given us less for which to be thankful in terms of the economy and our national security.

Consider the vast unemployment that exists nationwide thanks to his failure to bring an end to the Great Recession. Forty million will use food stamps to put food on the table. Nearly half of all Americans are receiving government benefits that are paid for by those thankful to have a job. Thanks to ObamaCare millions lost their healthcare plans and millions more will in 2015. There is nothing “affordable” in the Affordable Care Act including the billion dollars spent on its website.

I think this Thanksgiving Day will have a different mood for the many Americans, especially who did not vote for President Obama or the Democratic Party. It is astounding to me that somewhere around 47% of those who presumably voted for him say they approve of his performance in office.

After election results that rejected him and his party, Obama has told them that he is more interested in what the two-thirds of voters in the last election who stayed home had to say. He “heard” them, too. He apparently did not hear what those who voted to give power in the Senate to the GOP while adding more Republicans in the House had to say.

Anyone paying any attention for the past six years knows that he doesn’t much care what any of us say and never has.

He believes his job is to “transform” a nation that did not need any transforming. America was and is a beacon of freedom to the world. That beacon, however, has grown dim for our allies whose leaders can no longer trust him. It has become clear to our enemies that they can do what they want without paying a price.

To drive home that message, he has been reducing our military to pre-World War II levels. Reluctantly he has increased our military presence in Iraq and will maintain troops in Afghanistan after making it clear that abandoning both of those nations to the Islamists was a major element of his foreign policy; if indeed he can be said to have a foreign policy other than retreat and isolation.

Instead of addressing the growing threat of Islamic fascism, Obama is talking about “climate change” as the great threat when, except for the idiots that believe anything he says anymore, people with any intelligence knows that there is nothing anyone can do regarding the climate. The only people who believe there’s any global warming haven’t been paying any attention for the last nineteen years in which the Earth has been in a predictable, natural cooling cycle, just like the Sun.

Closer to home, the White House just released plans for 3,415 regulations, the worst of which are from the Environmental Protection Agency that is destroying our nation’s ability to generate electricity, the one energy on which we all depend. At the same time, the President has just returned from China having signed an agreement to reduce “gashouse emissions” when such a reduction has no basis in science or logic, but translates into higher costs for electricity.

A national holiday should celebrate the ideals of our founding, but this year’s Thanksgiving occurs as the federal government grows ever larger and the amount of regulation of every aspect of our lives and the economy grows with it. This is the exact opposition of what the Founding Fathers intended.

Those Founding Fathers came together to wage a revolution against England’s King George III, a monarch whose commands they did not want to obey any more. This year’s Thanksgiving occurs as Congress is being challenged by a President who wants to ignore the separation of powers in the Constitution and the limits on executive powers. His intention to alter the current immigration laws is totally unconstitutional and must be stopped by every legal means available.

This Thanksgiving America is a less free nation in which a tsunami of regulations and laws continues to reduce our fundamental freedoms. This Thanksgiving, America is a nation that is losing the respect of other nations. This Thanksgiving, we face two more years of a lawless President who threatens the Constitution.

We have two more Thanksgiving Days before we turn America around and restore it to the great nation it was.
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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Not Wanted Poster Released Today

The Latest "Not Wanted Poster was Released Today from the political art studios of Dan Youra at UtoonS.com

Get Your Daily Dose of Humor from Youra's Political Toon Studios at UtoonS.com

Dan Youra is one of the outstanding conservative cartoonists in the trade today who follows in the footsteps of the great political cartoon masters, whose quotes inspire a new generation of followers.
"Outside of basic intelligence, there is nothing more important to a good political cartoonist than ill will." ~ Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist.
"Too many of today's artists regard editorial cartooning as a trade instead of a profession. They try not to be too offensive. The hell with that. We need more stirrer-uppers." ~ Bill Mauldin.
Youra was one of the first recipients of a Fulbright Scholarship and worked in Latin America. He served as an editor of Current Thought on Peace and War at the United Nations in New York.

"As long as there are politicians who continue to try and fool the voters, there is no chance of ever running out of material to work with because they create it themselves and about themselves," says Dan Youra.

Dan is the small business owner and operator of the Youra Studios located in the State of Washington.

Visit the Youra Studios at Utoons.com.
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Wednesday, October 22, 2014

The malaise has returned

The "Malaise" Has Returned featured on Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Take Caruba's Warning Signs Seriously
The joke is that Jimmy Carter is happy that Barack Obama has replaced him as the worst President of the modern era.

It is a supreme irony that Obama’s campaign theme was “Hope and Change” when Americans have lost a great deal of hope about their personal futures and the only change they want is to see Obama gone from office.

Elected by a narrow margin in 1976, Carter managed in his one term to see his approval ratings fall to twenty-five percent by June 1979. The lesson Americans have to learn over and over again is that liberal policies and programs don’t work.

In six years, the kind of dependence on the government to take care of people from cradle to grave has left the nation with 92 million unemployed or who have stopped looking for a job, entitled 45 million to food stamps, and there is still talk of a “minimum wage” in the interest of “fairness” that simply kills jobs, especially those that used to be filled by young people just entering the workplace.

The worst part of Obama’s presidency is the lies he tells in the belief, apparently, that most Americans are so stupid they won’t see through them.

On July 15, 1979, in an effort to encourage a greater sense of confidence, Jimmy Carter delivered a speech that became known as the “malaise” speech, but which did not include that word. What it did, however, is double down on all the bad policies Carter had pursued and blamed Americans for not accepting them.

By then the economy was in decline, gasoline prices and interest rates had climbed to record levels, and the voters were understandably pessimistic. Iranians had taken U.S. diplomats hostage and they would not be released until Ronald Reagan took the oath of office.

Carter’s speech began by asking “Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?” Quite literally there was no need then or now for an energy problem because, as recently noted by the Energy Information Administration, the United States has enough coal to last more than 200 years!

With the development of hydraulic fracturing, fracking, we now have access to more oil than exists in Saudi Arabia.

Obama literally came into office saying he intended to wage a war on coal and he has; using the Environmental Protection Agency to institute regulations that have led to the closing a mines and the shutdown of coal-fired plants that used to produce 50% of the nation’s electricity; now down to 40%. He resisted allowing the drilling for oil in the huge reserves on our east and west coasts.

He has refused to permit the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. These policies have led to the loss of thousands of jobs during the time that followed the 2008 financial crisis.

In his speech, Carter said, “The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.” We would do well to remember that we have been through periods like this before and corrected course.

In 1980 Ronald Reagan would be elected to replace Carter and America prospered through his two terms, returning to being a major superpower, economically and militarily. That’s what conservatism produces.

Carter, however, blamed Americans for the problems of his times. “Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.”

One of Obama’s earliest acts was to visit foreign nations and blame America for many of the world’s problems. Militarily he pulled our troops out of Iraq and he intends to do the same in Afghanistan. He has cut the military budget to the bone and has now defined its mission as one to address “climate change”, not the enemies of our nation.

Obama spent his entire first term blaming George W. Bush for every problem that he did nothing to correct. Indeed, Obama has never seen himself as the real problem, finding anyone else to blame.

Those Americans watching Carter deliver his speech must surely have cringed as he announced that he intended to set import quotas on foreign energy resources. He said he wanted Congress to impose a “windfall profits” tax on the very energy firms that he wanted to get us out of the doldrums and dependency that was causing the problem.

He wanted the utility companies to “cut their massive use of oil by fifty percent within a decade.” He wanted them to switch to coal and now we live in a nation whose President doesn’t want our utilities to use coal. Why? Despite massive evidence to the contrary, he has advocated “renewable” energy, wind and solar, neither of which can ever meet the nation’s needs.

“In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard,” said Carter.

In the 1980 election the voter’s voice was heard. Carter was gone and Reagan was our President. With him came his infectious patriotism and optimism. By late 1983 his economic program had ended the recession he inherited from Carter. A similar program would have put an end to what is now routinely called Obama's Great Recession.

We are at a point not dissimilar from the days of Jimmy Carter and with an even greater sense of dissatisfaction and distrust of Barack Obama.

I reach back in our recent history to remind you that on November 4th in our midterm elections and in the 2016 presidential election we can repeat history by ridding the nation of those members of Congress that voted for ObamaCare and have supported President Obama. We must wait to see who the GOP will offer as a presidential candidate, but we have time for that.

We have time to “hope” for a better future and we have the means to make the “change” to achieve it.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Secret deal could kill 160,000 by ISIS

Secret Deal Could Doom 160,000 to ISIS

United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran said to let key border town fall by F. Michael Maloof, staff writer for WND and G2Bulletin, ~ a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
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Click Here to Read the F. Michael Maloof Column at WND

A secret decision apparently has been made by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Iran to let the strategic Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani on the Turkish-Syrian border fall to ISIS fighters, jeopardizing the lives of some 160,000 Syrian Kurds, WND has been told by a well-placed Middle East expert.

In letting Kobani fall to ISIS, the source said, there was agreement “to deal with ISIS later.”

The apparent decision aims to diminish the influence of the Kurds in Syria and weaken the prospect of creating a sovereign Kurdistan, which is sought by the Kurds not only in Syria, but in Turkey, Iran and Iraq..

“It is a real set up behind the backs of everyone,” the well-placed source told WND.

Ankara has brought its tanks up to the Turkish-Syrian border in sight of Kobani but has not committed any troops to stop the ISIS siege of the Kurdish city.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Kurds have been appealing for arms and ammunition in addition to aerial bombing by the U.S.-led coalition of Arab countries on ISIS positions. Sources on the ground, however, say the bombing has become virtually meaningless, since ISIS fighters have blended into the population, requiring more fighters on the ground.

The Syrian Kurds have been fighting ISIS just as their counterparts in Iraq, the Kurdish peshmerga, have been doing to keep ISIS from taking over their territory, which comprises some of the largest oil reserves in Iraq and Syria.

The Turks have resisted assisting the Kurds since Ankara for years has been battling the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, which seeks to carve out a portion of the border countries to create Kurdistan.

For Turkey, the Syrian and Turkish Kurds occupy valuable oil resources sought by the energy-deficient Turks.

In addition, the Kurds have an alliance with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, whom the Turks want to see overthrown in favor of a Sunni-run government.

However, ISIS clearly is the only predominant Sunni group in a position to take over, since it already has grabbed much of northeastern Syria and western and central Iraq to form its caliphate, which it seeks to govern under strict Islamic law, or Shariah.

For Turkey, an ISIS takeover of Kobani would help split up the Iraqi Kurds from the Syrian Kurds, further diminishing the chance for a united Kurdistan.

At the same time, it would give ISIS a northern bridge between Iraq and Syria, which it hasn’t had until now.

Consequently, not only will the Turks refuse to commit combat troops, so will the U.S.

Because of the Kurds’ ties not only with Syrian President Assad but also with Iran, sources say the U.S. doesn’t want to leave the impression it is bolstering Assad and working with Iran by providing further assistance to the Syrian Kurds beyond aerial bombings.

There are questions concerning the extent to which the Iranians went along with the secret deal to let Kobani fall to ISIS.

As WND reported, there have been calls in recent days within Iran for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to assist the Syrian Kurds, prompting demonstrations of support in a number of Iranian cities.

As a signal of Iran’s concern, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in Kobani.

“Iran will soon send humanitarian aid for the residents and refugees in this area through the Syrian government,” Afkham said.

Shiite Iran is a major supporter of the government of Assad, a Shiite-Alawite.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has made it clear that Iran doesn’t want Turkish troops inside Syria. Iran now is in discussions with Turkey to return some 200,000 Kurds who have fled Syria for refuge in Turkey.

At the same time, Amir-Abdollahian made clear Iran “will take any necessary action to help the Kurds in Kobani in line with its support for the Syrian government in its fight against terrorism.”

The WND source said Iran’s interest in wanting to help the Kurds is “just a front,” since Iran, like Turkey, has opposed an independent Kurdistan carved out of western Iran, which, like the Kurdish portions of Turkey, Iraq and Syria, have rich oil deposits.

Although Tehran wants to show support for the Kurds because of their backing of Assad, it nonetheless may be more concerned about the repeated historical efforts by the Kurds to establish their own Kurdish state. There are strong ethnic, linguistic and cultural ties between the Kurds and Iran. However, Tehran doesn’t want to see the Kurds taking over its western oil reserves.

Click here to read more on ISIS.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Our pathetic president

Our Pathetic President from the Warning Sign files of Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Know the Warning Signs
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that Syria and Iraq are now just lines on a map at this point. They don’t exist as national states because the former is locked in a civil war that will replace its dictator one way or the other and the latter’s alleged government is deeply divided between the usual schism of Sunni and Shiite.

More to the point, Iraq’s government is led by men who are the friends and pawns of Iran. In a recent issue of the Iranian newspaper, Eternad, an Iranian analyst commented on the new Iraqi cabinet noting that its new prime minister “enjoys Iran’s support and spend his formative years in Iran, and continued (the operation of the Islamic al-Dawa party) until the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.”

That fall was the result of the war waged against Saddam by President George W. Bush. The Iranian analyst noted that Iraq’s new foreign minister, Dr. Ebrahim Jafari “until recently lived in Tehran in Iran, and enjoyed Iran’s support in spite of his differences with Nouri al-Maleki (the former prime minister). The new Iraqi oil minister, transport minister, and minister of sport and youth were all described as “close to Iran, who either lived in Iran before, fought against the Ba’ath regime with Iran’s help, or constantly traveled to Iran.”

Iraq and Syria came into being when French and British diplomats created them as colonies following the end of World War I, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the Treaty of Versailles.

In his September 10th speech, President Obama uttered the word “war” only once and then only to say “We will not be dragged into another ground war in Iraq.”

The speech, like everything he says, was a lie constructed to undue the truth he inadvertently admitted when he revealed “We have no strategy.” If you do not intend to go to war, you do not need a strategy. Instead, you can pretend to the American public that the war will be fought by Iraqis and Syrians.

So far the Syrian civil war has cost that “nation” 200,000 lives and driven a million Syrians out of the country. As for the Iraqis, their military fled in the face of the ISIS forces, leaving behind the weapons we gave them. Between Iraq and Syria, ISIS now controls a landmass larger than the size of Great Britain.

In the course of the speech, Obama said he had dispatched 475 more troops to Iraq. We have an estimated 1,500 or more troops on the ground. That is barely the size of an infantry regiment, composed of two battalions of between 300 and 1,300 troops each.

Significantly, though, Obama opened the speech by reminding Americans that he had “brought home 140,000 American troops from Iraq, and drawing down our forces in Afghanistan, where our combat mission will end later this year.”

President Obama has announced he intends to send up to 3,000 troops to West Africa to help combat Ebola. He can find troops to put in harm’s way in Africa, but not to combat ISIS.

All he has ever wanted to do is to flee from our declared enemies whether they are al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS or other Islamic holy warriors. Those numbers signal his failure to follow up our sacrifices in those two nations.

Years after World War II and the Korean War, we still have combat troops in Europe, South Korea, and on bases around the world, but he is pulling out troops in the two nations where our interests are currently threatened. He called the enemy “small groups of killers.” He claimed that “America is safer.”

He appears to think the greatest threat of our time, the holy war being waged by fanatical Muslims, can be won with air strikes and measures that do “not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”

Fighting on foreign soil is what American combat troops did throughout the last century and into this one. They helped defeat Germany and the Japanese Empire in World War II. They stopped the communist North Korean attack on the South, but had less success in the long Vietnam War. They were successful in the Gulf wars until Obama was elected.

We have a President who has displayed a lack of leadership, a lack of judgment, ignorance of history, a cowardly approach to the threats we face, and who has demonstrated over and over again that he is a liar. His administration is likely to be judged the most corrupt in the history of the nation, indifferent to the Constitution and our laws.

Proclaiming that he “could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform”, this is a President who has engaged in dramatically reducing the size of our military to pre-World War II levels. After a two-star general, Major General Harold J. Green, was killed in Afghanistan in April not one single member of the White House attended his funeral. Obama was playing golf.

America must survive a man who many have come to believe is “the worst President” in our history. An essential stop toward that will be to defeat as many Democratic Party incumbents and candidates for office in the November 4 midterm elections. Americans—patriots—can do no less at this point.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Obama ain't a brotho to the youth of Ferguson

Obama Ain't a Brotha to the Youth of Ferguson from the files of Armstrong Williams at the Washington Times

Meet Armstrong Williams
By almost any standard, President Obama defies easy classification. He embodies the temperament and often the deliberative air of an ivory tower intellectual, and yet he clearly thrives amid the muddy fray of electoral politics.

He, like many of the youth of Ferguson, Missouri, grew up without his father present. And yet his life experience could not be more distant than that of the typical inner-city teenager growing up in a single-parent household.

Given his obviously otherworldly powers of persuasion, it is rare that one comes face to face with the stark reality that Mr. Obama does not know what it is like to grow up poor and uneducated in America’s toughest slums. After the death of Trayvon Martin, Mr. Obama lamented the teen, saying that if he had a son, he would probably look a lot like Trayvon.

But in almost every category other than sex and pigmentation, Barack Obama and Trayvon Martin share almost nothing in common. And in making the comparison, Mr. Obama was being deliberately misleading about his own identity. In fact, as a successful lawyer, author and father, Mr. Obama has much more in common with the maligned 1 percent than with the youth of America’s slums.

Sure, he worked in inner-city Chicago after college. But his experience in Chicago was more like that of a Peace Corps volunteer off to see the world and make a difference than someone who had deep cultural and family ties to the community. He alluded to as much in his memoir, “Dreams of My Father,” when he stated:
“If the language, the humor, the stories of ordinary people were the stuff out of which families, communities, economies would have to be built, then I couldn’t separate that strength from the hurt and distortions that lingered [t]he stories that I had been hearing from the leadership, all the records of courage and sacrifice and overcoming of great odds, had arisen out of a very particular experience with hate.
That hate hadn’t gone away I had to ask myself whether the bonds of community could be restored without collectively exorcising that ghostly figure that haunted black dreams.
Even though he uses the phrase “our lives,” he is clearly referring to “their” outlook on life. Mr. Obama explicitly and conscientiously rejected inner-city culture as a framework for personal and community growth.

And while he found some strength in the “records of courage and sacrifice” that were being recounted to him by inner-city community leaders, he also found that those histories were too corrupted by hatred (or fear of hatred) to make them a foundation for progress and, ultimately, ascendancy to the pinnacle of power in America.

While Mr. Obama might even empathize with the plight of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown, his response to overcoming was just the opposite of the crowd that gathered nightly in Ferguson and waived their arms in mocking admonition to the riot police.

It would not have been to express indignation by rioting and looting. Mr. Obama’s response would have been to raise his arms in the classroom, making his voice a contribution to the creation of law and public policy in America.

It would have been to become a lawmaker in hopes of one day changing it for the benefit of all Americans.

Friday, September 12, 2014

ISIS is the face of evil

ISIS is the Face of Evil says Alan Caruba at the Warning Signs

You Could Be Next - Beheaded By ISIS
"ISIS is not Islamic", said Barack Obama as he gave yet another vapid speech to say what he will or will not do next about the threat of Islam. What he said is both idiotic and a lie. ISIS calls itself the Islamic State.

Obama used the word "war" only once, but ISIS is all about war---an Islamic holy war that has been waged since 632 AD.

The one person neither named, nor blamed is the so-called prophet, Mohammad, yet everything being done by the jihadists today is being done in his name.

In his memoir, “Dreams from my Father”, Obama, in the preface to its second edition, wrote: “Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day (9/11) and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.” And therein is the problem that he, as President, and we as citizens must address.

Political correctness is so dominant in the Obama White House that no one in the U.S. government dares say anything that might be deemed critical of a so-called “religion” that sanctions beheadings, amputations, stoning, kidnapping hostages, ransoms, polygamy, and slavery. To anyone deemed an infidel or unbeliever or a Muslim who questions anything about Islam, death is the only option other than dhimmitude, a second-class citizenship.

The pure evil of Islam was seen most recently in the two videos of American hostages being beheaded by the Islamic State, but despite decades of attacks on U.S. embassies, the taking of U.S. hostages in Beirut and Tehran, attacks in Bali, Madrid and London, and the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon, Americans have been slow to realize the intensity and size of the threat that the Middle Eastern and North African nations represent along with wherever else a large Muslim population exists.

Click Here
As the U.S. and threatened Middle Eastern nations hurtle toward a military confrontation with the Islamic State, the name it has given to territory it has seized from northern Syria and into Iraq, a new book, Fault Lines: The Layman’s Guide to Understanding America’s Role in the Ever-Changing Middle East, (Boise, Idaho, softcover) provides one of the best, short histories on U.S. involvement and why, at this point, its influence has reached a low point.

Liebich writes of the way the U.S. policy regarding the Middle East changed over the years, particularly in the wake of World War II and the Cold War that followed as the Soviet Union challenged us for the implementation of communism worldwide. Dependent on the flow of oil from the Middle East, much of our strategic interest in the region was based on exercising our influence, often bringing about the removal of leaders whom we regarded as a threat to that necessity. After 9/11 that went into overdrive.

Liebich notes that our concept of nation-building proved costly, not just in the lives of our troops, but which included $50 billion in Iraq “and it didn’t work. Before you can build a nation you have to have a nation and only the citizens of that nation can decide what kind of a country they want to have.” The problem the U.S. encountered was that “In the Middle East, people related much more to the Ummah (the Muslim community) and to their own tribes.”

The problem that George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, encountered was that “The Middle East is a part of the world where many odd alliances appear. One is never sure who is allied with whom and whatever one thinks may all change tomorrow.”

Liebich takes note of the “Arab Awakening” that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq that deposed Saddam Hussein. It began “with so much promise” followed by “its subsequent descent into chaos, has drastically changed the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Liebich says “My definition of a vital national interest is one that deals with an existential threat to the United States, and one for which the U.S. is willing to spill its blood and to spend its treasure in order to accomplish its objectives. By this definition, the U.S. has no vital national interest in events in the Middle East.” Written prior to the emergence of the Islamic State, a new existential threat is facing the U.S.

Liebich says our strategic interests in the Middle East for many years included access to stable supplies of oil at reasonable prices; support for the state of Israel; preventing adversaries or potential adversaries from coming to power or achieving influence in the region; improving life for the people of the region; and preventing terrorist attacks on U.S. territories and citizens.
“The region has become the epicenter for terrorist groups, some of which have ambitions for a global reach.” That alone will require a renewed military involvement by the U.S. as we are the only nation with the capacity to alter the facts on the ground.
It comes at a time when the U.S. is close to having developed its oil reserves to a point where the oil of the Middle East will not determine our policies, but it is that oil which other nations such as those of Europe depend upon. China and India need it as well so its protection by and for the West as well as the developing Asian nations affects our decisions. Even Russia whose economy is dependent on oil and natural gas has cast its support for Syria along with Iran.

Everything, though, depends on understanding the true nature and intent of Islam.

Liebich ends his book with a quote from Winston Churchill who said, “We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”

Right now, the right thing is the destruction of the Islamic State.