We're Losing Our Country – But What Can We Do?

(Compiler's note: A must read article.)

by Joan Swirsky

From the moment Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20th, the leftists who control Congress have – at his behest – gone on a drunken binge of runaway spending vis-à-vis an $850-bilion faux "stimulus" program that rewards failure and punishes success. It is already clear that The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act should be renamed The American Relapse-And-Needs-Resuscitation Act, as is evidenced by both the simultaneous plunge of the Dow and the president's polling numbers, as well as an epidemic case of buyer's remorse.

As Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn has written, "the stimulus is a step toward a Soviet America."

Or, as Lenin said, "The way to crush the bourgeoisie [the middle class] is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation."

Or, as Winston Churchill so presciently pronounced: "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

Writer Randall Hoven has elaboratedupon what the president has "accomplished" in his first weeks in office. This is the short list:

• Rewarded abortionists by freeing federal funds to pay for abortions both here and overseas.
• Rewarded terrorists by not interrogating them too roughly.
• Rewarded terrorists by closing Gitmo.
• Punished the U.S. military by halting commissions until Gitmo is "reviewed."
• Rewarded the domestically-held terrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri by "reviewing" his case.
• Rewarded Gitmo detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, an al Qaeda suspect in USS Cole in 200, that killed 17 US sailors, by dropping charges against him.
• Rewarded terrorists from Hamas by granting them up to $20.3 million for the "conflict victims in Gaza."
• Rewarded terrorists by establishing a redress process if those suspected of wrongdoing are delayed or prohibited from boarding a flight.
• Rewarded female career "victims" by signing the "Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act" so women can wage equal-pay lawsuits, not for up to 180 days but for decades in the past.
• Rewarded the American-hating president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, by "reaching out" to him – to which the madman demanded that the U.S. apologize to Iran for its actions for" the past 60 years" and remove all U.S. forces from the Middle East.
• Rewarded labor unions by revoking a former executive order that forced employers to notify employees of their rights.
• Punished faith-based organizations by equating them with "neighborhood partnerships" like Planned Parenthood and ACORN – treating them "like a house of God, in the eyes of the federal government."
• Punished fair-hiring employers by requiring federal executives to hire union-only members.
• Punished the American people by issuing numerous draconian environmental dictates that insure zero energy independence for decades to come, if ever.

In other words, Hoven says, it was all "pay back Democratic special interests…spend really, really huge amounts of other people's money, [and] make terrorism a law-enforcement issue instead of a national-defense issue and watch terrorists and nuclear proliferators be released, from Pakistan to Yemen to Gitmo."

I haven't even mentioned how much Obama has also:

• Punished Americans by appointing chronic tax cheats and craven lobbyists to his cabinet and as advisors.
• Punished Americans by reversing every promise he made about transparency, bipartisanship, and having an economic-growth bill with no pork.
• Rewarded terrorists by authorizing $20.3 million to aid Palestinian refugees from Gaza – read Hamas – to "migrate." But as journalist Judi McLeod and intelligence analyst Michael Travis have asked, "Is Obama opening the floodgates to Hamas" and "What security measures are in place to keep Hamas terrorists from gaining free access into the U.S.?"
• Punished Americans by not firing – or even sanctioning – Attorney General Eric Holder, who called America a "nation of cowards."
• Punished Americans by moving the once-objective census process into the White House's to be overseen by the Chicago-machine flunkie, Rahm Emanuel.
• And then there was the cringe-producing embarrassment he caused by granting his first interview to the Arab media, Dubai-based al Arabiya TV, where he proceeded to apologize for America's "mistakes."

VOX CLAMATO EN DESERTO

On the eve of the "stimulus" bill vote, which took place on February 14th, Fox News' Greta Van Susteren asked Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin what the president should do.

"He should veto it!" Palin exclaimed. "He should send it back to the lawmakers so they have time to actually read it and understand its impact." Hers was a lonely voice of opposition, but it resonated with millions of Americans who also wondered how their (overwhelmingly Democrat) elected officials had the gall to vote for a 1,100-page bill they hadn't read when recent spending packages of significantly less heft had failed so thunderously:

• $180 billion stimulus program in the spring of 2008: Failed.
• $345 billion housing bailout from the summer of 2008: Failed.
• $700 billion Wall Street bailout from the fall of 2008: Failed.
• Grand total: $1.2 trillion in spending: Failed.

Just a few days later, on February 17th, Louisiana's Governor Bobby Jindal suggested that he might not be interested in taking the $4 billion allotted to his state in the "stimulus" package before reviewing each program and determining "what are the strings" attached to it were. And on February 18th, according to the Associated Press, a number of other Republican governors said they were considering turning down at least some of the money, questioning if it would help the economy at all.

Of course, it was a Democrat, South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, who sneaked tucked into the package a proviso that allows state legislatures to override a governor's decision. It was also Clyburn who said that the refusal of governors to accept the funds was "a slap in the face of African-Americans." To which Kevin Martin, a member of Project 21 – a leading voice of the African-American community since 1992 – replied: "Liberals such as Congressman Clyburn have always employed tactics such as the race card to shame critics into accepting their heavy-handed demands…to use race as a means of cramming it down these governors' throats is reprehensible, and people should take notice as to how far these people are willing to go to get their way."

Indeed. Americans should be celebrating those governors who have questioned the ability of the bloated, pork-laden, special-interest-favoring bill to create jobs or "save" the economy At this point, their numbers may be small, but their potential for influence is huge.

Let them know what you think of their efforts.

Gov. Mark Sanford (SC): Tel: 1-803-734-2100; Fax: 1-803-734-5167; E-mail.

Gov. Bobby Jindal (LA): E-mail.

Governor Haley Barbour (MISS): Tel: 1-877-405-0733 or1- 601-359-3150.

Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter (ID): Tel: 1-208-334-2100.

Governor Sarah Palin (AK): Tel: 1-907- 465-3500; Fax: 1-907- 465-3532; E-mail.

Governor Mitch Daniels (IN): Tel: 1-317-232-4567; E-mail.

Keep this Contact Your Governor Guide handy.

DON'T TREAD ON ME

Afraid that the Obama agenda includes trampling on states' rights, 22 states are declaring sovereignty or planning to. Sovereignty is not the same as secession, in which a state or states threaten to leave the union. Sovereignty is granted under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights. In short, it says that: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right…"

The states now seeking sovereignty are expressing the fear that a new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted to the government and that states will lose their autonomy. In stark contrast are those who believe that Congress can enact – at the will or whim of the president – just about anything that strikes their socialist fancies.

The states seeking sovereignty believe that if enough states get on board, they could press their claims together and prevail. The federal government, they say, has no physical existence, except for the machinery that runs it, but that the states are the country!

As one blogger stated, "Whether they're using a stick or a club, the states are drawing a line in the sand and placing the Federal Government on notice."

To date, the states that are already sovereign, having passed 10th Amendment resolutions in their legislatures, include:

California (CA): Click here for more info.
Texas (TX): Click here.

States claiming sovereignty include:

Arizona (AZ): Click here.
Georgia (GA): Click here.
Michigan (MI): Click here.
Missouri (MO): Click here and Click here.
Montana (MT): Click here.
New Hampshire (NH): Click here.
Oklahoma (OK): Click here.
South Carolina (SC): Click here.
Washington (WA): Click here.

Hawaii (HI) is actually aiming for total sovereignty, as it claims the state was never really a state of the U.S.A. Click HERE and HERE.

States that are planning motions toward claiming sovereignty include the following:

Alabama (AL), Alaska (AK), Arkansas (AR), Colorado (CO, Idaho (ID), Indiana (IN), Kansas (KS), Maine (ME), Nevada (NV), Pennsylvania (PA), and Tennessee (TN).

Click here for Source # 1 for the "pending / planning" states and Source # 2 for the "pending / planning" states.

That is almost half our country, as you can see by this map:

And more states are joining the Don't Tread On Me juggernaut, including Georgia, Oklahoma, and Ohio.

But there is a rub here. A Resolution carries no weight and only sends a "sense of the state legislature" to the federal government. But a Bill can become a Law. So when you're contacting your state officials, let them know what you think.

According to writer Dave Nalle, it now looks "like at least 22 states have Bills in some stage of development. About half are in the process of being drafted, several are in committee or out for debate, and the pack is being led by Arizona, Oklahoma, and New Hampshire, where the bills have strong support and will likely be voted on within a matter of weeks. As yet, none have passed into law, but we may see that happen in some of the most active states fairly quickly."

Most of the Resolutions, Nalle says, "are originating from inside legislatures and from established state politicians, specifically in response to concerns about unfunded mandates and excessive burdens placed on the states by the federal government. The expense and partisan character of many of the elements of the stimulus bill is of increasing concern and helping to motivate legislators to pass these state resolutions…while the 10th Amendment is central to their argument, legislators are more concerned about retaining power they see being gradually eroded by the federal government…"

YES, YOUR HONOR!

It is not only governors and state legislatures waking up to the shock of dealing with a far-left-cum-socialist-cum-Marxist president and a far-left Congress that echoes his contempt for free-market capitalism and the U.S. Constitution. It is also organizations like Patriots for America as well as individual activists.

A minister, Christ Otto, started the Red Envelope Project that has already resulted in over 100,000 red envelopes being sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (zip: 20500), which are marked on the back with the simple sentence: "This envelope represents one child who died in abortion…it is empty because that child was unable to offer anything to the world."

Stephen Pidgeon, a lawyer who has waged one of more than a dozen Supreme Court lawsuits (Broe v. Reed) in an attempt to prove that President Obama is Constitutionally ineligible to hold his office, has launched an effort to empanel a National Grand Jury "to serve as ombudsmen for the citizens of the country in respect to constitutional rights and privileges…and to conduct criminal investigations of members of the federal government, and, if the evidence is sufficient, issue criminal indictments."

The National Grand Jury, Pidgeon says, "is an entirely independent body. Judges of the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeal, and the District Courts of the United States, United States Attorneys, and Congress of the United States may act only as advisors. They cannot prevent National Grand Jury action unless that action violates the duly enacted laws as originally created in the United States."

He says that a National Grand Jury is empowered to:

• Inquire into the condition and management of branches of the federal government and its agencies.
• Investigate and report on the operations, accounts and records of federal officers, departments, and functions.
• Inquire into the willful or corrupt misconduct in office of public officers.
• Submit a final report of its findings and recommendations, no later than the end of its term, to the Presiding Juror of the National Grand Jury.

To become a Grand Juror, go to this website: www.DecaLogosIntl.org.

So to all people who wonder "What can I do?" to reclaim the America they knew and loved before Obama, I suggest that you join these efforts and also start protests of your own, be they e-mail campaigns, signatures on petitions, letters-to-editors, street demonstrations, and endless petitions to your elected representatives. If they don't respond to your liking, kick the bums out of office in 2010!