By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De Los Santos

OK finds it hard not to feel that we’re in survival mode.  Each day spent under President Barack Hussein Obama’s rule makes it clearer that our right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and property are no longer safe.   We’ve attended TEA Parties, local conservative events, called and written our senators, congressmen and Supreme Court justices.  We’ve supported conservative authors, written dozens of essays – and yet, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives still passed its unconstitutional health care legislation Saturday night (October 7, 2009).

Call it anything you like – the House Health Care Bill, ObamaCare, Pelosi’s Health Plan or Communist Health Care – the bill is another government power grab that will further shrink our freedom and yield more debts and dead.

Pelosi’s 1900-page boondoggle insures that we lose our ability to decide whom we choose for our doctors and the care and treatments we’d like to receive.  With its massive baggage – 111 new government bureaucracies, steep cost, taxes, stiff penalties for those who don’t buy it, death panels, and coverage of illegal aliens – the bill promises more government control over our lives.  It also proves that Joe “You Lie” Wilson and Sarah Palin were right about everything they feared would be included in the bill.

Incredibly, some health care articles report that the bill also offers paybacks to unions and AARP and tax breaks for homosexuals.  And we know that small business owners will be slammed with penalties for not covering their employees.

The Democrats’ plan treads all over the Constitution, which does not give Congress the right to implement such legislation.  The bill also promises an unsustainable federal government.  Yet, it appears this is Obama’s plan – to turn our great country toward socialism.

Obama on Saturday called TEA party and town hall meeting attendees “teabag anti-government people” and “extremists" (The New York Times, November 7, 2009).  His using a slang sexual term for concerned American citizens underscores his penchant for crude Chicago-style bully tactics.  He’s right about being anti-government, though.  We’re anti- the form of government that Obama, his communist-loving czars and greedy Democrat socialist politicians are dishing out.

Obama took an oath to honor the Constitution of the United States of America, but he continues to demonstrate a lack of love for this country and its citizens.  His behavior after being informed of the Ft. Hood massacre – giving a "shout out” to someone in the Tribal Nations Conference audience and speaking in a light-hearted manner before discussing the attack – is as wrong-headed as his stubborn insistence that our nation is clamoring for socialized health care.

The health care bill’s clearing the House moves us ever closer to Communism.  Let’s hope that Senate conservatives stay their course and kill the bill. Otherwise, the most radical health care revision since Medicare will go into effect and clamp a tighter chokehold on our already suffocating American freedoms.

By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De  Los Santos

Pelosi’s Bill: More Sludge in the D.C. Swamp

Yesterday (Oct. 29), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) praised Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) for their help in determining the finances and taxes that will be levied in the new souped-up 1900-page health care bill.  This “Affordable Health Care for America Act” (or H.R .3962) bill has been debated for months. It is a perfect example of liberal lunacy and promises reneged.

Pelosi’s “gargantuan beast of a bill” contains 13 new tax hikes (“Comprehensive List of Taxes in the House Democrat Bill,” atr.org, October 30, 2009). Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) points out, “One thing is clear. Your concerns about a government takeover of health care have been totally ignored by Speaker Pelosi and her allies, who worked behind closed doors to write this bill” (“Government Still Trying to Take Over Health Care,” biggoverment.com, October 30, 2009). Price also notes that Pelosi’s House bill means government-run insurance, higher taxes, a job-killing employer mandate and “countless provisions that set Washington bureaucrats firmly between you and your doctor.”

Oh, and Sarah Palin was right – the provision for death panels or “End-of-Life-Planning” is included in Pelosi’s bill.

She’s Clogging up the Congressional Works – and Rangel Isn’t Helping Things

When she was crowned Queen of the House, Madame Pelosi vowed to drain the D.C. swamp of corruption.  So far, she’s just further clogging up the works. Pelosi also promised, “We Will Create the Most Open and Honest Government in History” in a January 18, 2006¨Press Release (Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, California, 8th District, http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/Jan06/honest.html). Is that why Madame Speaker got Charlie Rangel, one of the most corrupt individuals in Washington D.C. to assist her with fact and figures as the new health care bill was drawn up?

The distinguished Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Rangel has been under investigation since the beginning of this year for multiple incidents involving tax evasion and failure to report income.  We’re not talking a few thousand bucks here (like Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner).  Rangel is in deep you-know-what for hiding serious coin.  Peter Roff reports in U.S. News & World Report that “an ongoing investigation into Rangel’s finances reveals he has not been exactly candid with the IRS or, for the matter, his congressional colleagues about his real estate holding, sales of stock and his reportable income” (www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/09/08/for-the-democrats-sake-charles-rangel-must-go.html, May 12, 2009).

Back in May, further questions arose over the lord of the tax code’s conduct. Rangel’s “amended finance disclosure forms for the years 2002 through 2006, include his failure to report checking accounts at the Congressional Federal Credit Union and Merrill Lynch—each valued at between $250,000 and $500,000, tens of thousands of dollars in earning from stock dividends and mutual funds, and the proceeds from the sale of a townhouse back in his Manhattan-based congressional district” (Roff, www.usnews.com/blogs/peter-roff/2009/09/08/for-the-democrats-sake-charles-rangel-must-go.html, May 12, 2009). Yet this is the upstanding numbers man to whom Queen Pelosi turned in her hour of need.

Well, after all, Rangel is himself a big donor to the Democratic Party.

Maxine Waters – Another Inept Tax Plumber

As if Charlie Rangel weren’t enough, Pelosi also got Maxine Waters, a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, to help draft the new hernia-inducing health care monstrosity.  Waters has her own tax disclosure issues. Michelle Malkin “spotlighted” Waters back in March for she and her husband’s “smelly involvement with minority-owned bank called OneUnited” (michellemalkin.com, October 30, 2009). On Thursday (Oct. 29), the House Ethics Committee announced that it is investigating whether “Waters used her influence to help a bank in which her husband owned stock, and whether the couple benefited as a result” (michellemalkin.com, October 30, 2009). Waters’ husband also sits on the bank’s board. What’s more, OneUnited received $12 million dollars in Stimulus bill monies. Barney Frank (D-MA) helped the bank to secure the funds (Kelly Cunnigham, http://www.sddt.com/Commentary/article.cfm?Commentary_ID=192&SourceCode=20090211tzd, February 11, 2009).

Pelosi+Rangel+Waters = Bad Sewage!

The results of such masterminds concocting a new health care bill are messy.  In fact, even though Pelosi claims the new bill is more streamlined in dollars (if not bulk), it’s potentially more damaging to Americans from the get-go.  If it passes, Americans will start to be taxed immediately in order to pay for it.   Keep in mind that it doesn’t take effect until 2013 (after Obama & Co. have been re-elected – they hope – and there’s nothing to do but suffer the consequences).

Pelosi claims that the $894 Billion dollar bill will insure an additional 36 million Americans.  She also claims that the bill will “cut the deficit by $30 million over 10 years, which means it would meet President Obama's budget requirements. It would also extend coverage to 96 percent of the population. Top Democrats say the numbers are based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, which has yet to formally score the bill” (Jason Plautz, NationalJournal.com, http://healthtopic.nationaljournal.com/2009/10/house-plan-will-cost-894-billi.php, October 30, 2009).

We’re left scratching our heads. What kind of magical numbers-out-of-the hat is Pelosi trying to pull?  Probably the same kind good ol’ Charlie Rangel uses to balance his tax returns.

Need a Plumber? Don’t Call One Named Pelosi!

“Poor Nancy, every time she tries to drain the swamp, she either catches a reflection of herself or she uncovers one of her friends. Drain a little, there's Charley Rangel wallowing in the mud” (chuckthings.blogspot.com, 5/12/09).

It’s all too obvious that Nancy Pelosi meant she was going to strip Republicans – corrupt and otherwise – of power when she boasted she would drain the D.C. swamp.  Liberals need not worry and are encouraged to continue contributing to the muck.

Madame Speaker has proven herself to be a poor sump pump. OK hopes to see major plumbing work – and House cleaning – done in 2010.

The clock is ticking for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel and President Barack Obama’s environmental officer, Van Jones. It’s probably only a matter of time before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yanks Charlie offstage permanently (or as permanently as an exit gets in politics). Then she can toss the hook to Obama and get him to pull Jones off the liberal stage.

Plainly, simply, Obama and Pelosi are in enough of their own – well, muck – right now. They can’t afford to let loose cannons like Rangel and Jones hog the limelight with their massive missteps. Left alone, these two don’t even seem to spot their goofs. In fact, until last night (Sept. 3), when the latter issued an official apology for calling Republicans a**holes at a public meeting and a denial that he was part of a witch hunt charging that President George W. Bush may have known that the September 11 attacks were in the works before they occurred, Green Czar Jones and Rangel didn’t seem to have reverse gears (Jake Tapper, “Controversial Obama Official Denies Being Part of 9/11 ‘Truther’ Movement,” ABC News, September 3, 2009, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/09/controversial-obama-administration-official-denies-being-part-of-911-truther-movement-apologizes-for.html).

But they certainly carry Race Cards. Rangel and Jones have whipped them out and used them for years.  When he learned Barack and Michelle Obama were having a “date night” in New York City, Rangel joked, “Make certain he doesn’t run around East Harlem unidentified” (David Knowles, “NYC Mayor Upset Over Rangel’s Obama Quips,” Politics Daily, June 1, 2009, http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/06/01/new-york-mayor-upset-over-charlie-rangels-obama-quips/). More recently, good ol’ Charlie has done his best to blame the president’s ObamaCare health insurance trouble on racial prejudice. “Some Americans have not gotten over the fact that Obama is president of the United States,” Rangel charged at a health-care information meeting in Washington Heights. “They go to sleep wondering, ‘How did this happen?’” (Carl Campanile, “Charlie ups the race-card ante,” New York Post, September 3, 2009, p. 2).   That would have been plenty, but Rangel seemed determined to take his illogic further. “Why do we have to wait for the right to vote? Why can’t we get what God has given us? That is the right to live as human beings and not negotiate with white southerners and not count the votes. Just do the right thing.”

Jones has a criminal record. He is a self-avowed communist and the founding member of STORM, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement. The group’s goal is to remake America.  

If it were just recent missteps, perhaps Rangel and Jones could survive to pester conservatives and their own liberal party another day – but they have a penchant for behaving anything but ethically. Consider Rangel’s tax problems. And consider his memory lapses: Rangel forgot to report a Congressional Federal Credit Union account worth about $250,000. He forgot about a Merrill Lynch account worth $500,000 (“Sorry Charlie,” The Washington Post, September 3, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090203082_pf.html). That’s just for starters.

Obama and Pelosi need to decide if they can afford to have cannons that are this loose firing off volleys at a time when their presidency and House Speaker positions are damaged and their approval ratings way down. The president has a long road to travel if he’s going to convince anyone but his czars, a handful of leftwing liberals and MSNBC anchors that America needs single-pay healthcare. Does he want the Rangel/Jones migraine?

Of course not. That’s why he needs to tell Jones to step down and why Pelosi needs to call for Rangel’s resignation. The House Speaker should reverse her decision not to make any decision on Rangel before a House ethics committee investigates his tax problems. Any junior law student can see that the inquiry is already compromised, since Rangel contributed to several of the committee members’ last campaign funds! (“Rangel Pays Ethics Investigators Probing Him,” Corruption Chronicles / Judicial Watch, September 3, 2009, http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/sep/rangel-pays-investigators-probing-him)

We need corruptocrats like Rangel and Jones (and Barney Frank and Tim “TurboTax” Geithner and Harry Reid) to go. The alarm clock is blaring – but a part of us suspects that Obama and Pelosi may just hit snooze – AGAIN.

There are three reasons for President Barack Husein Obama’s decision to take a late-summer vacation this week:

1. There’s the damage he did to his popularity by trying – and failing – to convince us that we need ObamaCare (ie, socialized medicine). Obama’s popularity rating has taken a major hit.

2. There’s also the president’s forced revision of the projected 10-year debt America faces as a result of his Porkulus Bill. Obama & Co. tried to convince us our debt would swell no higher than seven trillion dollars, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) knew better and now estimates the debt will be nine trillion. (Karl Rove beat everyone to the punch months ago by predicting similar dire figures.)

3. But the main reason Obama’s vacation is so timely is not to pay a waterlogged visit to ailing Senator Ted Kennedy, but to avoid questions concerning Eric Holder’s decision to proceed with the CIA witch hunt. The Attorney General has appointed prosecutor John H. Durham “to determine whether a full criminal investigation of the conduct of agency employees or contractors was warranted” (Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, “Investigation Is Ordered Into C.I.A. Abuses,” The New York Times, August 25, 2009, A1).

Obama long ago said he was opposed to investigating the CIA’s past practices but he would leave it up to Holder to decide whether or not to do so. That was a mistake. The president could have ordered Holder to move on. He didn’t. Now he’ll have to face myriad questions about the investigation the moment he returns from Martha’s Vineyard.

Consider the horrible timing of such a move. Even as Holder gives the nod to dig into our security procedures, we are fast approaching another September 11 anniversary. What a grim signal to send out to our enemies!

Thanks to the CIA’s interrogations, various al-Qaeda plots have been thwarted (bringing down the Brooklyn Bridge and blowing up the U.S. embassy in Pakistan, for starters) (Charles Hurt, “AG is probing spy bigs over terror grillings,” New York Post, August 25, 2009, p. 9).

OK wonders: when was the last time a terrorist died as a result of having his family threatened (not actually harmed) by a CIA interrogator? As a result of having cigarette and cigar smoke blown into his face? As a result of being waterboarded?

This is the kind of alleged inhumane, over-the-top treatment with which liberals are incensed. Rather than coddle terrorists and read them Miranda rights, we should allow the CIA to interrogate them as they see fit.

Is it any surprise that morale is down in The Company? How can we expect those charged with protecting us to carry out investigations to the fullest if they fear being prosecuted for their actions?

We can thank President Obama and his administration for further watering down our national security with each passing day. As Rich Lowry notes, “The next time CIA officers are told that they have to be more aggressive in protecting their country, they could be forgiven for saying ‘no thanks’” (“Panetta vilified by liberal contempt,” New York Post, August 25, 2009, p. 9).

Here’s an immodest proposal from OK: The GOP and various conservative groups should start the Obamacare Town Hall Kitty.  All Americans concerned about preserving individual liberties and keeping privatized health care should contribute a few bucks and send the Dems – including Obama, Nancy Pelosi and anyone else who wants to ride the Obamacare Town-Hall Bus – anywhere in America that they want to make their pitch. 

Why?  Because Obama & Co’s town hall meetings have become the biggest boost to American conservatism in months.  Rather than bolster their position and convince the American people that our country needs socialized medicine, the president and his liberal lemmings are running into conservative dissenters who oppose such a move. And the dissenters are fighting with the best weapons: informed positions, passion and anger. 

In fact, conservative opposition has been so great that liberals have had to re-write history as their position unravels.  They’re calling conservative protestors “an unruly mob” being fueled by “Right-wing extremists.”  They’re blaming Rush Limbaugh for raising the specter of the Nazi party when in fact it was Nancy Pelosi who first brought the Nazis into association with Obamacare protestors when she said protesters were arriving to town hall meetings bearing swastikas. 

Other libs snatched the strategy of linking conservative town hall attendees with the worst of the worst.  Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) decided to align conservatives with the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacists. He claims that “the last time I had to confront something like this was when I voted for the civil rights bill and my opponent voted against it. At that time, we had a lot of Ku Klux Klan folks and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble” (Jim Geraghty, “Rep. John Dingell: Health Care Opponents Remind Me of the Klan & White Supremacists,” August 11, 2009, National Review, http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjdlZmRiNGRhYjkyMDYyNzQxMGQwZjk5YTE3OGM1ZGE=).

In other words, anyone who opposes any aspect of the various socialized medicine plans Obama and the Dems are pitching is either a Nazi or a racist. What a double standard. Pelosi and Hillary Clinton were pro-dissenters during Bush’s time in office. According to Pelosi, calling George W. Bush a Nazi was okay. When those on the far Left depicted Bush as Hitler and wished him dead, they were just citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.

This is the way the Democrats are trying to re-write history and this is the extent to which they are unraveling as a party. Americans are wisening up. Many see right through the liberal propaganda.  In spite of the spin of the mainstream media; in spite of anything anyone in the Obama camp wants us to swallow without scrutiny, Americans are becoming more hawkish.  The majority of our citizens don’t want Obamacare.  In fact, study after study shows that most Americans are pleased with their coverage:

CNN/Opinion Research: 74% of the polled are happy with their current coverage. (July/August ’09 poll)

Employee Benefits Research Institute: 58% of the polled are happy with their current coverage. (July 2009 poll)

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics: 84% are happy with their current coverage. (July 2009 poll)

Source: Campaign for American Solution, August 18, 2009 (http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/fact-check-americans-are-satisfied-with-their-health-plans-2/)

Proof that Americans are growing more critical lies in the ruckus raised over the House bill’s deathwatch provision. The libs said no such thing was in the bill, but now it’s been taken out.  (How can you scrub something that wasn’t there to begin with?) 

And what about the health care for illegal aliens that’s been carefully folded into the bill? Conservatives have ferreted that beast out too. 

Mark Levin claims that American conservativism is on the rise.  He’s right.  First there were the Tea parties. Now look what’s happening at the at town hall meetings.  A substantial portion of the American public is mad as hell and essentially saying no to further liberal lunacy. 

Oh, and conservatives aren’t behaving like an “unruly mob” but rather, like an informed public who wants its dissenting voice heard.  That’s more than we can say for the thuggish liberals. Democrats are running scared. Some are refusing to physically attend their own town hall meetings and are showing up as ghostly voices emanating from loudspeakers – or on milk cartons under the heading “Missing” (see gatewaypundit.blogspot.com).

OK, so we won’t fund the Dems’ town hall meetings – but let’s hope they keep going a little longer.  We believe that in their own way, they’ve been as effective at drawing conservatives together as some Tea parties.  The town hall events are forcing Obama’s soldiers to confront their constituents and make decisions.  Either they begin to oppose the health-care bill in its various incarnations and perhaps – perhaps – get re-elected, or they vote for Obamacare like lemmings and go over the election cliff, never to be heard from again. If it’s the latter, let’s hope they take this corrupt Democratic administration with them.

By Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge

Even before Sonia Maria Sotoymayor becomes a Supreme Court justice, liberals are canonizing the woman.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate. Sotomayor is being pushed above and beyond saint status. In truth, liberals want to enshrine her as The Virgin Maria Sotomayor!

To do it, National Hispanic Foundation of the Arts Chair Felix Sanchez has concocted a blasphemous image. It’s circulating ‘round the Internet. Given the speed that pictures, video clips and notes go viral on the Web these days, the illustration has probably made its way to Vatican City by now. Maybe it even landed at the remote chalet where Pope Benedict is vacationing.

Maybe – just maybe – the shot of Sotomayor’s face superimposed over the face of La Virgen de Guadalupe is the culprit that made the Pope stumble and break his wrist this morning!

Of course, the loony libs would never think of imposing Sonya Sotomayor’s image on a Caucasian image of the Holy Mother. Only the famous Mexican incarnation of Mary would do for a “wise Latina woman” like Sotoymayor.

This isn’t the first time the left has used religious iconography to draw attention. OK well recalls the image of the Sacred Heart of Elvis that tried to hijack meaning from the famous Christ painting. And last December’s (2008) Mexican Playboy proudly published a nude Virgin Mary on its cover.

How long before we start seeing shots of Saint Michael Jackson? Or are they out there already? (If so, we’ve been blessed enough to miss them.) After all, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has already tried to all but canonize Jackson in The House.

Of course, The Gloved One beat everyone to the punch before he permanently moonwalked offstage: his Neverland bedroom ceiling featured a Sistine Chapel “Last Supper” knockoff with MJ painted as Jesus!

OK learned a long time ago that the Left loves to blur facts with fiction, reality with mythos. Most of the time, liberals will embrace the subjective view over the objective view. Never mind that in Sotoymayor’s case, at stake is the confirmation of a controversial left-wing figure who is certain to continue rendering judgments with the partisan leanings revealed in her track record.

But Sotomayor’s record won’t bother the Left. Liberals don’t regard a memory as an objective account of a past event but rather as a favored scenario constructed to put in the place of whatever really happened. Therefore, they’ll ignore Sotomayor’s less than stellar judgments to date and will confirm her in the coming weeks.

Such confirmation is tantamount to enshrinement. And it’s coming. In spite of the efforts of a few Conservatives who didn’t buckle to pressure and genuflect before Sotomayor, she’s all but already a Supreme Court justice.

And for some, even more than that. Look at the pattern: Chris Matthews, Oprah, “The Daily Show,” Newsweek and countless others in the mainstream media – to say nothing of radicals like Louis Ferrakhan – have crowned Obama “The Messiah” and “The One.”

But even Lord Barack and his apostles (Hillary, Pelosi, Holder, Geithner) weren’t enough. It’s time for the libs to add to their cast of false idols.

Bring on Our Lady of Sotomayor.

By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De Los Santos

The extreme radical-left is now in control of all three branches of government, the mainstream media and most of academia. Partisan “I won” politics have a tight grip on our society. Under Obama, our country is sinking into a pit of debt – but that’s just the start of our worries.

We used to live in the “good ol’” USA. It’s rapidly becoming the USSOA: The United Socialist States of Obama-America.   In total disregard of our Constitution, Obama has seized businesses and banks and is now running them. He has appointed czars to circumvent Senate approval for his socialist agenda and blatant power grabs. He’s telling the average American to buckle down even as he’s spending trillions bankrupting the nation, springing for $300 thousand Air Force One NYC photo ops, flying specialty chefs to make pizza for a White House party, buying $100-a-pound beef to chow down at another soirée, and taking his wife on $24 thousand Manhattan date nights.

Obama thrives on Dear Leader posturing. He also tries to silence private individuals who dare criticize him. That muzzling extends to those whom he has anointed. An OK colleague just interviewed a Judge Sonya Sottomayor relative for a newspaper. Incredibly, the relative – a private citizen – had to receive White House clearance to speak to the OK colleague! The relative was told that certain conservative vs. liberal topics including Roe vs. Wade were forbidden in the interview. To reiterate, this is a private citizen, not Sottomayor herself. If this isn’t censorship, what is?

On the other hand, if you’re slamming The One’s critics, by all means, do so. No blow is too low. Proud lesbian and black comedian Wanda Sykes made racist jokes, accused a private citizen of treason and wished him dead at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (May 9, 2009). Obama, attending celebrities and members of the lamestream media laughed.

(OK guesses it’s too much to expect Obama to display a little class. After all, this is the same president who made a crack about First Lady Nancy Reagan and séances last November; the same president who made a Special Olympics’ joke during his appearance on “The Tonight Show.”)

Those who helped The One steal the last election also get free passes. The Justice Department dropped charges against the New Black Panther Party last week (May 29, 2009). Two of its members were charged with blocking and attempting to intimidate voters during Election Day last November at a Philadelphia polling station. The thugs used racial slurs, swung nightsticks and called white voters “crackers.” Their antics were caught on video. Their guilt is obvious, yet the left seems diffident about such “hate crimes.”

And ACORN’s antics have received widespread coverage but the government has yet to censure the group for its bad behavior. In fact, ACORN seems to have been rewarded for helping register bogus Obama voters. It has already received $31 million from taxpayers and is slated to get $5-8 billion from the Stimulus bill that passed earlier this year. Conveniently, since it’s a private organization, ACORN doesn’t have to show the government its books or account for its expenses.

OK is also appalled by Obama’s shameless disregard of campaign promises that helped win him the presidency (his vows to rid Washington of lobbyist hiring and bill earmarks, for instance). And those promises Obama has kept or is pursuing have hurt our nation and made the new administration look amateurish. Think of The One’s reckless decision to close Gitmo before a procedural plan was ready. Think of the huge Cap and Trade tax The One has vowed to implement to help spread the wealth. (Would someone please silence Al Gore’s cheers and take away his green pom-poms?) Think of Obama’s vow to universalize health care: more socialist government fueled by adding another trillion dollars to the national debt.

How far have we strayed from Democratic America, as we once knew it? Try this on for size: The left has proposed welfare rights and green cards to Guantanamo Bay detainees and illegal aliens. In Inside Gitmo, Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu reveals that the facility’s detainees get more cards and gifts at Christmas than the American soldiers guarding them. (We’ll pause a moment to let you wrestle with the bitter irony imbedded in the last statement.) And we just learned that Gitmo detainees are receiving laptops and computer Web training. That terrorists are being provided Web access makes no sense to OK. But then again, Massachusetts gives welfare recipients automobiles, insurance and AAA coverage. And many welfare recipients across the USSOA are given cellular phones at taxpayers’ expense.

Finally, we have unchecked lying in the current administration: Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Clinton, Burris – the list goes on and includes a record number of tax cheats.

We’ve covered many lowlights, but all isn’t lost. They may seem distant, but the 2010 and 2012 elections will soon be here. In spite of the massive debt and hypocrisy that threaten to choke us; in spite of the once great USA on the brink of becoming the United Socialist States of Obama-America, OK believes we can turn the tide if enough of us take action: work for politicians who oppose Obama & Co.; vote conservative and – painful though it may be – engage liberals in spirited debate. (Who knows, in between snipes at you, a few may listen to what you have to say.)

We saw a great bumper sticker in Connecticut today: “Dump Dodd” (a flip-flopper and Obama lover, if ever such an individual existed). Let’s work to dump the entire current liberal administration and restore America to greatness. We can do it, first by replacing certain members of Capitol Hill, then by electing a conservative patriot as our next president. (Are you ready, Newt?)

By Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge

Obama’s Ongoing 180s

The latest round of the never-ending political battle reminds us of a boxing match.  The Republicans launched a couple of haymakers that struck the Democrats. More accurately, the Dems launched a couple of haymakers, the Republicans ducked and the Dems slugged themselves. They’re staggering, bouncing off the ropes. 

Enough about boxing. Most liberals fight dirty. If we wanted to sustain the physical fight metaphor, we’d be better off switching to street fighting to describe the left’s antics.

So we’ll quit while we’re ahead, but for one caveat: fighting – or the prevention of fighting – is at issue these days in the form of national security.  And OK isn’t too thrilled with the latest behavior in D.C., which can be summed up as too much flip-flopping and too much negligence that’s making the U.S. vulnerable.

Here’s flip-flopping a la President Barack Hussein Obama:

First he wanted the Guantanamo Bay detention center closed. As soon as he took office, he signed an order to do so within a year.  Then he asked for $80 million dollars to close Gitmo.  Astonishingly, Congress – including many Democrats – refused Obama the dough.  So until further notice, the President has decided to continue the trials that the Bush administration implemented.  We think that’s great – but Obama is going on TV on Thursday (May 21), in part to explain the need to keep Gitmo open.

Why does he feel the need to discuss the subject?  To appease the loony left who wants to see the detention center closed. But by kowtowing to the fringe, Obama calls attention to his mistakes as Commander-in-Chief: flip-flopping on his decision to try Bush administration attorneys for the way they handled Gitmo; flip-flopping on the release of Gitmo interrogation photos; and now flip-flopping on whether to close Gitmo.

Every time Obama tries to explain his U-turns, he makes America look increasingly sophomoric in the eyes of the world.  If ever there was a signal that the U.S. is rife for raping and pillaging, Obama is sending it with his ongoing ambivalence on crucial issues. He should have silenced the radical left by listening to bipartisan reason. And it’s strong: On Wednesday, May 20, during a White House press briefing, Secretary Robert Gibbs admitted that the president had made a “hasty decision,” when he decided to close the prison. Gibbs was fielding questions regarding the Senate’s 90-6 vote in favor of keeping Gitmo open (gatewaypundit.blogspot.com, 5/20/09).

And we have more than Obama’s non-stop 180s to worry about. Here’s flip-flopping a la Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:

“I am not a liar.”

Pelosi claimed she wasn’t briefed on Gitmo prisoners being waterboarded.  Later, she admitted that she was briefed on waterboarding, but wasn’t briefed in detail.  Then she claimed not to have been in the room when specific interrogation techniques were discussed. What, pray tell us, is the truth?

Before we figure that out, let’s scrutinize Pelosi’s actions.   First, it’s a crime to lie to Congress, which is apparently what Pelosi has done – her statements don’t match CIA memos or the statements of others who attended the same briefing sessions she attended. However, instead of coming clean and apologizing to the CIA, Congress and the American People, she continues to lie.

“The CIA is lying.”

Pelosi claimed the CIA “deceives members of Congress all the time,” which forced CIA Director Leon Panetta to refute Pelosi’s statement.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is right: Pelosi’s flip-flopping and accusations are going to do nothing to boost confidence in the current administration.  Gingrich weighed in on the situation on ABC News and leveled some of the harshest – and well-deserved – criticism against Pelosi:  “I think this is the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime. She is a trivial politician, viciously using partisanship for the narrowest of purposes.”  Gingrich wants the House of Representatives to open an “inquiry” on Pelosi because he believes “she lied to the House” (“Gingrich: Pelosi ‘Lied,’ ‘Dispicable,’ ‘Dishonest,’ ‘Vicious,’ ‘Trivial’,” ABC News / “The Note,” May 15, 2009, http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/gingrich-pelosi.html). In his essay on the subject, Gingrich was more precise about the specific damage Pelosi is inflicting on our country:  “She's made America less secure by sending a signal to the men and women defending our country that they can't count on their leaders to defend them . . . America is losing ground because of Nancy Pelosi's contempt for those who defend her.”  Gingrich left no doubt about what he thinks must be done about Loose Canon Pelosi:  “Democrats owe it to their country and our national security to replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House” (“Why Speaker Pelosi Should Step Down,” Human Events, May 20, 2009, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31940).

Speaker Gingrich is 100% right.  The current Speaker of the House has to go. The sentiment is spreading. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are disgruntled, as are everyday citizens like the Reaganite Republican Resistance’s webmaster, who points out that “Pelosi is a Machiavellian, no talent hack who’s made a lot of enemies” (http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2009/05/pelosi-knew-in-2002.html, May 8, 2009). What’s more, Pelosi has taken up one of the unspoken and perhaps inadvertent but nevertheless evident goals of the Obama administration: to make America less safe.

Actions Borne of Ignorance or Premeditation Often Yield the Same Results

What to make of Obama and Pelosi’s latest round of reckless behavior? Are they intentionally betraying Americans?  Perhaps not.  Chalk it up to incompetence or idealism if you wish.  Maybe Obama really believes that setting former Gitmo detainees loose on America’s streets is the right thing to do.  Maybe he really believes that he can reason with a kinder, gentler brand of al-Qaeda.  Maybe he really believes he can engage in fruitful dialogue with the likes of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who on Wednesday, May 20, test-fired an advance missile and boasted that his country can easily target and reach Israel with its weapons. (How long before such missiles have nuclear tips?)

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Actions borne of ignorance or premeditation often yield the same results. Until the Obama administration starts thinking – thinking – before it acts or speaks, it’s going to continue flip-flopping and marching us ever closer to Zero Hour.

By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De Los Santos

Obama’s socialist agenda is wreaking our economy and country. Our government is completely out of control. The wasteful pork and spending in the stimulus bill and budget are shameless ploys designed to get politicians reelected. Rather than looking out for us, most in the Beltway crowd are looking out for themselves. In point of fact, they’re taking money from the wallets of taxpayers to serve themselves.

Speaker of the House Queen Pelosi is talking about a second stimulus later this year that she says will be as “fiscally responsible” and “market orientated” as the first stimulus bill – the one we learned will give jobs and money to illegal immigrants (“Pelosi Already Talking About a Second Stimus, Business Insider, 3/10/09).

Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), told Newsmax that Democrat leaders (Obama, Reid and Pelosi) deleted the verification provision that would require workers’ names to be vetted from the stimulus bill. Without verifying workers’ names through E-Verify, the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration, illegal immigrants will obtain some of the stimulus money. “In general construction jobs are reasonably good paying jobs for working class people, and we’re talking about perhaps 300,000 of them going to people who aren’t even supposed to be in the country,” says Camarota. He also asserts that “This was a purposeful decision” (“Stimulus Loophole Gives 300,000 Jobs to Illegals,” 3/09/09, Newsmax.com). Like Camarota, we thought that the stimulus money was supposed to put Americans back to work.  

Hillary Clinton announced on March 10 that we’re giving $1 million to fund scholarships for Palestinian students. This is on top of the $900 million promised to rebuild Gaza – money we know will end up propping up Hamas. Our new secretary of state is giving away American taxpayers dollars needed right here, in our own economically strapped nation.

The average American has cut back on spending to make ends meet. Even necessities are being reassessed and shelved. Many people are foregoing routine doctors’ checkups and medical procedures that aren’t absolutely necessary in order to save money. They’re eating more frugally and perhaps impairing their futures. (McDonald’s reports a major boost in sales.)

At a time when most Americans by necessity are cutting back on pleasure spending and even necessity purchases, it’s time for Washington’s elite to follow suit. We have ten suggestions that if implemented will save the country trillions – yes, trillions – of dollars:

• Speaker Pelosi shouldn’t complain about which military plane is prepared for her weekly cross-country jaunts. In fact, she should request that at all times the most economical ride be provided for her and her entourage.
• President Obama should engage in rigorous pre-vetting interviews with prospective administration hires in order to stop wasting taxpayers’ dollars. How many times have administration members been selected, only to have them undergo costly vetting scrutiny and then step down due to various skeletons in their closet (usually involving taxes)?
• Obama should reverse his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center. It’s going to cost Americans millions more to try the Gitmo thugs domestically.
• The new administration should open up offshore drilling in all unused sectors immediately. Today’s drilling is safe. It would keep the cost of gasoline down. The more we ease up on buying oil from nations who hate us, the more we cripple their economies and bolster our own.
• Stop making nuclear energy seem like Public Enemy #1. It’s cheap and efficient and there’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be building more nuclear plants across America. Last week, Obama’s Secretary of Energy Steven Chu told us that the new administration has killed plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. This, after spending billions of dollars from 1987 through 2009 on studies which show that in spite of sporadic volcanic activity, it’s still one of the safest locations to store nuclear waste.
• Cease with the alarmist business rhetoric, which is only hurting the economy. President Obama, you got your stimulus package passed. Please retire the words “crisis” and “catastrophe” from your speeches, at least until you begin to push for Stimulus II in earnest. Notice that when you eased up on the gloom and doom rhetoric last week, Wall Street started doing better? Remember that.
• Obama & Co. needs to stop condemning businesses for rewarding their loyal customers by holding conventions and parties for them. In the same way that Obama is rewarding followers and lobbying for his next requests by throwing his Wednesday cocktail parties at the White House, big business needs to throw huge blowouts to reward their top employees, loyal customer base and remain big. Besides, canceling these parties hurts more than the businesses that cancelled them for fear of being targeted by the Obama administration and the media. It hurts thousands of other workers: the airlines, hotel management, food preparation crews, maids and maintenance services, car rental agencies, and on and on. Think we’re exaggerating?  Consider that Las Vegas “has lost $131.6 million over the past 90 days” (“Vegas craps out: Tourism plunges $131M,” New York Post, March 12, 2009).
• Stop with the bailouts. Enough is enough. Let’s go back to “survival of the fittest” and see what happens. We already know: Those who can cut it will survive and those who can’t will free space and customers for those who can.
• And while we’re at it, stop sending any but the most essential payout money overseas. This is not the time to be overly generous with our $. How often has American monetary generosity been repaid? Imagine if we called in our chips and asked that every country to which we have bestowed aid over the years help get us out of our financial crisis? We would pay off the debt and have money in reserve (maybe even enough to put a good dent in what we owe China).
• Under no circumstances should a Stimulus II be written by Pelosi, Reid and friends, approved by Congress and signed off on by President Obama.

By Kelly L. Goodridge and Oscar De Los Santos

Welcome to Camp I Won!  It’s summer vacation year-round – if you’re a liberal.  And the ‘kids’ having the most fun?  Liberal politicians in Washington D.C.  Forget us regular citizens.  There’s no more room on the camp bus for us to join the party.  Besides, this vacation is strictly for the counselors.  They’re having buckets of fun – money buckets, that is – and at our expense.

The Democratic Party has grown increasing bold as evidenced in the greedy Democratic-run Congress.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s private jet comes to mind.  Several sources confirm that it costs taxpayers $22 thousand an hour, $480 thousand a month and $5.7 million a year so she can fly back and forth to California nonstop three days a week. Why not live in D.C. or fly on commercial airlines like the rest of us?  Why should taxpayers pay for a 12-seat jet with a crew of five for one member of our government to be shuttled about?  Doesn’t Pelosi serve the people?  This is the same Madame Pelosi who wants the rest of us to drive smaller cars so we can leave a smaller carbon footprint.  The same Madame Pelosi who is an advocate of global warming.  It appears that camp counselor (and ‘stimulus bill’ writer) Pelosi has embraced a ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ philosophy.

Further “audacity” is witnessed in President Obama’s “hope”-less and illicit campaign contributions, his violating Constitutional law (moving the 2010 U.S. Census responsibility to the White House) and his welcoming lobbyists into his cabinet after he said he wouldn’t do so.  This is what we get from a politician who ran on a platform of “change.”  As taxpayers try to grapple with the pork slathered on the bogus ‘stimulus bill’ that passed the House of Representatives (without a single Republican vote or the votes of 11 brave Democrats), Obama and his Camp I Won staff are treating themselves to pricey perks – at our expense.  Even as he is arguing that we need a trillion-dollar ‘stimulus bill,’ Obama and company are enjoying $100 steak dinners, cocktail and Super Bowl parties (attended by Senator Arlen Specter, one of only three Republican senators who broke rank and voted for the stimulus bill) and resort stays. 

In fact, Obama’s first trip aboard Air Force One was to a House Democrats luxury retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia (Feb. 5).  He jetted off to push his economic ‘rescue plan’ through Congress.  As The Obama File points out, the resort is a two-hour drive from Washington (152 miles) and a thirty-minute ride aboard Marine One (theobamafile.com).  We suppose a limo or chopper shuttle just wouldn’t do for the head counselor.

Oh, and the cost of Obama’s little field trip?  $68,000 to use Air Force One and thousands more for the 20-mile Marine One flight to get to Air Force One (theobamafile.com). 

Once again, we detect a ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ mindset.  (Maybe that’s the name of the Demo-counselors’ other summer camp?)  Obama and Congress have been vocally shaming corporate executives for such extravagances – Obama even capped their salaries – but members of Congress are rewarding themselves with excess spending during tough economic times.  Obama and Pelosi aren’t the only politicians using private jets and limousines to get to posh resorts.

And they are posh:  The Democrats have their annual three-day retreat at the Kingsmill Resort & Spa in Williamsburg.  In the past, it’s cost as much as $1 million to put up the brood – and that price tag doesn’t include travel and room costs for each attendee (theobamafile.com). 

Why not hold this meeting in Washington and save taxpayers a couple million?   As Meredith McGehee from the government ethics watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, observes, “They don’t get that these are tough economic times, that Americans are struggling and they need to do their part” (“Inside Washington: Congress retreats, luxuriously.”  Kellman, Washington AP, 2-6-09).

Michelle Malkin asks, “is the White House exempt from ‘shared sacrifice,’ Mr. President?”   Apparently so.

Instead, the Camp I Won crowd is trying to distract and intimidate.  Crisis exploitation is evident in White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanual’s recent statement to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.  According to Emanual, the country’s current financial woes and stimulus bill provide an opportunity for the Democrats “to do things that Americans have pushed off for years.”

The Obama camp has an agenda for our country.  Every new administration does – but this is the most clueless ‘make it up as you go’ pastiche we’ve seen in years.  Obama and crew are bypassing traditional rules and violating laws.  Worse, they are resorting to fear mongering to get their way.  “The time for talk is over,” Obama recently declared.  Pass the stimulus bill now or “we may never recover,” he warned.

Right.  Tell us another spooky campfire story, Mr. Camp Counselor.  Oh, and don’t forget to remind us that you and your fellow Democrats didn’t create all the trouble we’re in – that you found the Big Bad Recession Monster gift-wrapped in the Oval Office your first day on the job.

Camp I Won is a strange place, full of folks who spend lavishly while those of us who didn’t go there wonder how we’ll pull together enough bucks to cover next month’s bills.  Well, at least the counselors are having fun.  They probably deserve it, really, these fine citizens.  And there’s always a day of reckoning, right?  April 15 is around the corner and—

Oh, wait.  These upstanding lawmakers also believe themselves exempt from paying taxes – even the ones who prod us to pay ours!