Obama's Banana Republic

I never thought I would live in a Banana Republic. Sure, they have their advantages. There is little crime, because everyone is terrified of the government. And if you're buddies with the dictator you can live the high life while the peons stand in line for bread. But those "advantages" pale when you realize that freedom is only a memory, and that "Big Brother" is truly in control of every aspect of your life.

Last week, after Obama had been in the Oval Office just two weeks, the internationally respected Financial Times headline asked, "Is the Obama Presidency Over?" My response was to utter the well-know Jewish saying, "From your mouth to God's ear." The answer, unfortunately, is "No." We still have three years, eleven months, five days and four hours to go.

But of course the Times was not talking about time. They referred to the can of worms we opened as a nation the day we elected Barrack Hussein Obama. (Don't worry, it's OK to use his middle name again. After almost a year of PC terrorism during which we were not allowed to utter his Arab/Muslim middle name, Barrack himself made it OK again when he was sworn in using his full name.)

The can of worms is the hidden agenda of the new president. I hesitate to use the term, because his agenda is very clear to me. His political history, the causes he supports, the people with whom he associates and whom he appoints, and his own eloquent words make it crystal clear that we have elected the most liberal, tax-and-spend, radically Socialist president the nation has ever been asked to endure, one who has promised to be the bosom buddy of the multi-billion dollar abortion lobby and of all forms of homosexual deviancy. Unfortunately, as clear as his goals seem to other conservatives and to me, his agenda stills seem to be hidden from most Americans.

From turning the US Census into his personal political tool, to hiding details of his Trillion Dollar spending bill until after it was passed, to breaking dozens of campaign promises in his first month in office - Obama is proving to have better dictator potential than Hugo Chavez, strong man of the Banana Republic of Venezuela. Chavez is beating Obama in one area, though. Chavez has expended great effort trying to become Dictator for Life of his nation. But give Obama time. He's only been in office a few weeks. Look for Obama to try to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution (which limits presidents to two elected terms) before he leaves the White House.

A banana republic is defined as a country that is ruled by a small, wealthy, corrupt clique of political elites. Let's see: Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid and the House-Page-loving Barney Frank now rule our nation. Yeah, I think we qualify. In less than a month our once-proud nation has been reduced to the status of many nations to the south of us by Obama's unconscionable power grabs.

Don't get me wrong. Presidents are supposed to have power. The President of the United States is literally the most powerful man in the world. But that's not enough for Obama. He seems compelled by dark forces to accrue even more power to himself. His tools are charm, lies and political trickery.

Let's start with his plan to hijack the US Census Bureau. Obama nominated Judd Gregg to be the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, whose most important function is the oversight of the US Census. By design the Commerce Department has always been the least political of government institutions, and with good reason. It literally has the power to decide elections. Senator Gregg withdrew his name from consideration when he learned of Obama's plan to remove the apolitical Bureau of the Census from the Commerce Department and have it report directly to the White House for the first time in history.

If Obama has his way, the Census will be run by one of the most partisan political hacks in the Democrat party, Obama's Chief of Staff and Chief Enforcer Rahm Emanuel. Now, I wouldn't want to see the Census controlled by any political operator, including Karl Rove. But the idea of Rahm Emanuel having that kind of control is terrifying to any American who loves this nation, regardless of their political affiliation. Emanuel ran the Democrat program that resulted in Democrats gaining control of both Houses of Congress two years ago. He and Obama look at the Census as just another political tool.

Here, in his own words, is how Emanuel looks at the Census. In a 2006 USA Today interview about the upcoming Census, he said "if you think redistricting is always partisan and political, which it is, it's going to be on steroids this time." Is it any wonder that he wants to control this process? If Obama succeeds in stealing the Census from the American people, his actions will effect national elections for generations to come.

While the Census does not directly effect elections, the results of the Census are used in determining:

1) The makeup of the Electoral College, which directly elects the President and the Vice President. Yes, I know you thought you voted for McCain or Obama. But you actually voted for Electors, who in many cases are not bound to vote the way the voters direct them. These powerful people hold the fate of our nation in their hands every four years. The Census plays a huge role in how many Electors there will be, and whether they will be Democrats or Republicans.

2) The number of Representatives each state send to Congress. Every state is allotted two Senators by the Constitution, but states with small populations can have as little as one Representative. The number of Representatives is determined by population, and the Census is the final arbiter of that number. So, just for example, if a highly partisan Democrat were to control the Census outcomes and he were to "accidentally" shortchange traditionally Republican states and add population to traditionally Democrat states, he could single-handedly "elect" extra Democrats to Congress. Please don't be so naïve as to believe that modern technology makes this scenario impossible. If anything, the person who controls the passwords to the computer programs can perpetrate far greater fraud on the public than in the old days when everything was done on paper. Back then you had to depend on a large number of people to lie and cover up your fraud. Today you can depend of the computer to keep its mouth shut; you just need to erase the evidence of your crime.

3) Where Billions of dollars in federal pork ends up.  Pork is like heaven to politicians. Pork lets them give taxpayer money to people so they will vote for them. What a concept! Passing out pork is so much easier than raising money for a campaign. And it gives a huge (and unfair) advantage to incumbent politicians. Well, guess what the Census does? It determines the population of each state, which in turn determines how much pork each politician gets to pass out to his or her state or district. Can you think of a better reason for Obama and Rahm Emanuel to try to hijack the Census Bureau?

4) The boundaries of Congressional Districts. The "redistricting" Rahm Emanuel referred to above is also called "gerrymandering." Definitions: "Redistricting, a form of redistribution, is the process of changing of political borders in the United States. This often means changing electoral district and constituency boundaries in response to periodic census results." "Gerrymandering is a form of redistribution in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are deliberately modified for electoral advantage. Gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder particular constituents, such as members of a political, racial, linguistic, religious or class group." In plain words, crooks can change the makeup of Congressional Districts to make sure their party members get elected.

(Not coincidentally, Gerrymandering got its name from a former Governor of the very liberal state of Massachusetts. In 1812 the word Gerrymandering was coined when the Massachusetts legislature redrew the boundaries of state legislative districts in order to favor Governor Elbridge Gerry's party. The Governor's strategy was to encompass most of the state's Federalists, allowing them to win in that district while his party, the Democratic-Republicans, took control of all the other districts in the state.)

Representatives Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Patrick McHenry (R-NC) have written that this restructuring of authority regarding the Census "is a naked political power grab and transparently partisan" and that it "undermines a constitutionally-obligated process that speaks to the very heart of our democracy."

Why does Obama think he can get away with such an obvious power grab, one which violates not just the Constitution, but the very concept of the Separation of Powers (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) which has protected our nation so well for so long? He believes he can pull this off for two reasons. First, his charm and speech-making abilities have convinced many seemingly intelligent Americans that he cares about them, and that he is an honest man. For now, they think he can do no wrong.

Second, Obama has had great political training from the likes of Governor Rod Blagojevich and the many other corrupt politicians of the not-so-great State of Illinois. It should come as no surprise that over half (five out of nine) of the most recent governors of Illinois have faced criminal corruption charges. And the crooked Daily political machine which has run the Democratic Party and the State of Illinois for decades invented "dead voting," which the Democrats have used to rig local, state and national elections. So it doesn't surprise me, given his political background and upbringing that he is skilled in all the techniques of political corruption. You might say he comes by his dishonesty honestly.

Let's turn to the largest spending bill ever passed in the history of this nation, and also the most secret. "Secret?" you say. "What are you talking, about, Tom. This bill has been all over the news for weeks. Yes, but how much do you know about what it says and what it means.

Obama campaigned on a platform of openness and transparency. The way he has handled this bill proves that he is as open as a bank vault at midnight, and as transparent as Mount Rushmore. Although every member of the House of Representatives, Democrat and Republican, voted to require a minimum of 48 hours for both the public and the people who would be voting on the bill to examine it, Obama said "NO!!" It was too important to pass the bill right away, according to our new ruler. Lawmakers were only allowed 24 hours to read the 1,100 page bill, a virtual impossibility. Even if they stayed up all night, they couldn't even skim such a huge bill.

And the taxpayers who will pay for his spending (and whose children and grandchildren will be paying for it for generations) were not even allowed a peek at it. Obama said America can see it on a website - AFTER it had been passed.

What was so secret that Mr. Transparent didn't want lawmakers to understand it before they voted on it? What was so damning that he didn't want the people who were foolish enough to put him in office to have a clue where their hard-earned dollars would be going? We don't know yet. First, because it will take a while to absorb 1,100 pages of information. Second, because it was written in deliberately convoluted lawyer-speak. Most non-lawyer Senators and Congressmen wouldn't have been able to understand the bill even if Obama had given them time to read it. (And please don't say this is way things have to be. Read some bills from earlier, more honest times in our country. Regular people used to be able to understand them.) Finally, because Obama and his flunkeys continue to lie about the provisions of the bill and obscure their real intent.

This huge, bloated spending bill, which Obama continues to insist is in the area of $700 Billion will cost us over a $1 Trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It is expensive that every man, woman and child in the nation would have to donate $3,000 to pay it off. And this bill is just the tip of the iceberg. Obama has already said that he will be coming back for lots more money to "stimulate" the campaign coffers of his Democrat sycophants.

By the way, I was wrong last week in my estimate of a $4 Trillion combined cost for TARP, the various bailouts (many of which you haven't heard about yet) and Obama's latest bill. According to Bloomberg, when the interest that CBO says will have to be paid on these bills is included, the actual cost is $9.7 Trillion.

My little girl asked me how much $1 Trillion was. I had to start by giving her some sort of concept of what a Million was (a difficult task in itself). Then I had to give her the bad news that a Billion is 1,000 Million. And finally I had to burden her with the inescapable fact that a Trillion is 1,000 Billion.

To put this staggering number into perspective, consider that $9.7 Trillion is enough money to send a check for $1,430 to every man, woman and child on the planet! It is thirteen times the cost of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars!! It is enough money to pay off 90% of the mortgages in the United States!!! (Remember the mortgages? Weren't they the cause of the whole mess we're in now? Wouldn't it be a better use of this money to pay off the root cause of the problem?) And finally, $9.7 Trillion could put $32,333 in the pocket of every person in America!!!!

Whoa! Talk about stimulus! A family of four would get almost $130,000. That would pay off a lot of mortgages, and give families money to spend on things that would actually stimulate the economy. Buying "stuff" would get factories producing and create jobs. Instead, Obama wants to spend money that WE DON'T HAVE to export abortion all over the world, and pay for seminars to teach homosexuals how to flirt.

Please don't misunderstand me. It is not a legitimate role of government to put our nation into debt for generations to come by printing money that has no backing, in order to spend this worthless money on ANY of the plans and programs mentioned above.

But if big government is bound and determined to borrow money from future generations, the economy would benefit far more from Americans paying off personal debt and putting the rest of the money into the economy, than the hair-brained make-work schemes that the Obama bill mandates. These schemes have been tried by previous liberal presidents. They failed dismally in the past. So why does Obama think they will work now?

The Republicans advanced a sound plan that would have helped Americans pay off mortgages responsibly. It would have cost half as much as Obama's plan, and it would have created twice as many jobs. Most important, the jobs would have been long-term, private sector jobs, not government make-work jobs that are temporary by their very nature. (The New Deal was a Bad Deal for America. Obama's plan is New Deal, the Sequel.) The Republican plan made sense, which is why the Democrats wouldn't even consider it. The only jobs this "Stimulus bill" guarantees are those of the 35,000 DC lobbyists who will make millions helping Congress spend Trillions of dollars of our money.

Gov. Mike Huckabee said tonight that Obama rushed his spending bill through Congress so quickly that there wasn't time to name it properly. So the good Governor, in a spirit of bipartisanship, helpfully offered the following name: The Congressional Relief Action Program (which can be abbreviated as C.R.A.P.). He also had a suggestion. When the bill fails to produce the advertised results, Americans should kick the C.R.A.P. out of Washington by electing men and women who pledge not to spend our children's inheritances on C.R.A.P.

The last thing we need to discuss is Obama's broken campaign promises. I know everyone says we should expect this, that this is the way things have always been and the way they will always be. I refuse to accept that. We should hold all politicians to the promises they make. But we should especially hold THIS politician's feet to the fire, because he made such a bill deal about CHANGE, BIPARTISANSHIP and OPENNESS IN GOVERNMENT during his campaign. Remember those flowery speeches. Remember the big smile and the sincerity with which his words were delivered?

(Overheard in an Obama strategy session: "Sincerity is everything. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.")

Change? Obama has loaded down his cabinet with Clinton retreads, tax criminals, and cruel political operatives like Rahm Emanuel, who will crush anyone who gets in their way. And smile while they are crushing.

Bipartisanship? Did you wonder why NOT ONE Republican, even the liberal ones, voted for Obama's Spendulus bill? No real Conservative would have voted for it, but normally a few RINOs will jump ship on big bills. Not this time. Republicans had NO INPUT into the bill. They were completely shut out of the process. And when the conference was held to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill, Republicans were not allowed to participate. It was a little different on the Senate side, because Democrats needed a few Republican votes to avoid a filibuster. But even there Republicans were reminded of Obama's words: "We won, we run things."

Openness? We already discussed how Obama kept details of the bill secret until it was too late to stop it. Did you hear Nancy Pelosi stumbling all over herself trying to explain why the Democrats had secret all-night meetings over the bill, meetings at which Republicans were not allowed? Her excuses included explanations of Congressional procedures that were so complicated that it was clear that SHE didn't comprehend them.

Today a friend asked me if, now that the big bill has passed, Obama will start to advance the liberal agenda he campaigned on. I said, no. Obama didn't wait. He has already started pushing his unholy agenda forward in the bill itself. It includes a huge push toward socialized medicine. It makes it easier for illegal aliens to take scarce jobs from tax-paying Americans. It makes citizens and states far more dependent on the federal government than at any time in our history. It gives the government (and Obama) powers that exceed those of the King of England when we were forced to break his power by the use of violence.

The one thing you won't find in the bill is the tax cut for 95% of Americans that he promised in hundreds of speeches and news conferences. (You will NEVER see this.) The one thing that has always worked in stimulating our economy has been tax breaks. But Obama's ideological zealotry will not allow him to cut taxes. His very core cries out for higher taxes, because he really believes that more money in the hands of big government can solve all the ills of humankind. As my daughter would say, "Silly Obama."

Sure, there's something that LOOKS LIKE a tax break in the bill. It only applies to those making less than $75,000, although Obama famously promised a break to everyone making less than $250,000. But it is only temporary. And it only amounts to $13 a week. (Starting next year, that drops to $8.) What can you but with $13? This isn't a tax break. It's a joke. A temporary joke.

I get emails from people (including people who call themselves Conservatives), asking, "Why don't you give Obama a chance?" A chance to do what? Ruin our country without patriots opening their mouths? Put Socialist programs in place that will be impossible to remove when we have a sane president? Appoint Supreme Court justices who don't respect or believe in our Constitution?

Let me ask this. If a convicted pedophile moved into your neighborhood, would you "give him a chance" by letting him baby sit your kids?

Obama has told us clearly who he is. He has said he will redistribute our wealth. He has promised socialized medicine. He has vowed to advance the radical homosexual agenda. One of his first acts was to mandate that US tax dollars be used to pay for abortions for foreigners.

We don't need to "give him a chance" if that means waiting to see what he will do. He has already told us what he plans to do to America, and he is already doing it.

We need to make every effort to make sure this man is evicted from the White House as soon as possible. We need to work hard to elect Conservatives to the House and Senate in two years so that Obama does not become America's first dictator. We need to give AMERICA a chance.