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Monday

20Jul2009

Applied Intelligence

Monday, July 20, 2009 at 04:00AM

by Lance Thompson

“It is the nature of an intelligence service that it must receive encouragement and support from the government of the day; if the government lacks interest in or expert understanding for its intelligence service, not even the best service will succeed in overcoming external prejudices against it.” These are the words of Reinhard Gehlen, chief of the German federal intelligence service , the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst), in 1971, in his excellent memoir, “The Service.” (English edition: World Publishing, New York, 1972). Gehlen brought invaluable intelligence assets to the United States regarding Russia after

World War II, and founded the BND which continues its important work to this day.

Gehlen’s wisdom is alarmingly relevant today, as the American foreign intelligence service, the CIA, is battered by politically motivated attacks by Democrats and the Obama administration. The CIA, whose mission is to inform our leaders about the capabilities and intentions of our adversaries and allies, has always been a favorite target of liberals. But in recent weeks, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of deceiving her when she was caught lying about briefings she received concerning interrogation techniques. When Pelosi’s false claims were exposed, she chose to denigrate the CIA rather than admit her deliberate deception.

Now, we learn that the House Intelligence Committee is investigating Democrat charges that former Vice President Cheney ordered the CIA not to inform Congress of a secret CIA plan to target al Qaeda terrorist leaders. This charge, of course, ignores the fact that the CIA reports directly to the President, is not under the command of the Vice President, and that both houses of Congress have independent intelligence committees who oversee the CIA.

Since the charge involves actions that took place years ago, under an administration that is no longer in power, it is evident that this is not a matter of urgency. Thus, it is obvious that this issue was chosen for other reasons–primarily to embarrass the previous administration. For such an exposure to be effective, the previous administration must be shown to have done something wrong.

The CIA is an intelligence agency, and many of its activities are effective only if kept secret. Therefore, the secrecy of the plans in question is not in itself questionable. Whether the vice president wanted greater secrecy or not is irrelevant–he did not have the authority or ability to demand what information the CIA revealed to congressional intelligence committees.

Therefore, the Democrats who want so badly to bring this investigation to light must believe that the plan itself–killing al Qaeda terrorist leaders–is wrong. They must believe that if Americans knew that the previous administration was studying ways of destroying our enemies who murdered thousands of Americans and were devising ways to murder thousands more, then it would bring shame and opprobrium upon that administration.

The Obama administration seeks closer ties to terrorist-sponsoring governments in Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. They seek to extend the Constitutional rights of American citizens to terrorists who will sacrifice themselves in our destruction. The Obama state department won’t even call the war on terror the war on terror, or even call terrorists terrorists. So it is quite possible that Democrats believe that a plan to kill terrorists is not only contrary to current policy, but legally and morally wrong. So wrong, in fact, that if the American people discovered that the previous administration was planning such acts, that they would be filled with indignation and revulsion.

The Democrats, then, must believe that the oaths sworn by their president and congressmen to defend the United States are not only non-binding, but that any action or decision made to augment that defense is a transgression. Thus, the Bush administration, with its war on terror, its detention and prosecution of terrorists, and its covert efforts to expose and prevent further terrorists attacks, has been caught doing something that the American people won’t stand for. The Democrats believe that standing against the war on terror is the morally superior position, and using the CIA as a scapegoat is a politically smart strategy.

With this view, the majority party has succeeded in undercutting our efforts to counter the terrorist threat. In the few short months of the Obama administration, America has gone from the great arsenal of democracy to the great apologist for terrorism and the great enabler of tyranny. The Democrats believe this is what Americans want. Whether you agree or disagree, there is one place to let your voice be heard–the ballot box next year.

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Wednesday

04Mar2009

The Good, the Bad and the Stupid

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 05:00AM

by Rose Pedenko and Tanya Simon

The words “subversive” and “subversion” once were used only to describe enemy combatants at the time of military conflict. Today those same words have been labeled inflammatory – not behind an iron curtain but right here in the United States of America.

In the third month of the year 2009 A.D., the time has finally come to call a spade a spade. For those on the left who inflame discourse by automatically reading malevolent racist meanings into that phrase, STOP NOW! America-loving Americans have finally been pushed over the edge, and frankly no longer care anymore what you – the ultra-liberals and the two-timing RINOs amongst you -- consider is bigoted. Are you listening, Eric Holder?

You have pushed us over the edge … by political correctness (which, in and of itself, is an insult to the American free spirit), by taxation and more taxation to come, and by our Constitutional rights and freedoms being mangled and distorted in order to fit the liberal agenda.

The “Sleeping Giant” awoke when Pearl Harbor was bombed -- and again after our country was attacked on September 11, 2001. The same giant, this time in the form of conservatives and clear-thinking Democrats, is rising up to confront and revolt against the subversions of our federal government.

For clarification, when we say “clear-thinking Democrats” we do not include the ultra-liberal waterbearers who soaked Barack Hussein Obama with unadulterated praise and elected him on their tidal wave of adulation. We’re talking about American citizens who joined the Democratic Party believing it would make a difference in creating a better, safer, stronger U.S.A., but discovered they’ve been shanghaied to pre-Stalinist Russia.

Book after best-selling book (albeit by conservative authors) have been clarifying with facts and figures (Kryptonite to the left) what has been unraveling in this country. We have the Right (the “Good”) stripping away the camouflage of the Left (the “Bad”), and endeavoring to educate the “Stupid” – a feat now thankfully hampered by the self-inflicted collapse of the once great metropolitan dailies, and the sinking ratings of liberal cable news networks.

And in case you weren’t listening, fiscal conservatives were not happy with President Bush either. He lost his base of support because of his unchecked Democratic-like spending. We did indeed need change, but not in the present form of throwing good money after bad. One need only look to the engagement of the Cloward-Piven Strategy (manufactured by the left), to clearly understand what has occurred in the United States over the last 43 years: Leftist academics have dealt irreparable societal damage.

Adding insult to injury is the fact these academics continue to poison the knowledge wells from which we drink – and they’re being paid to do it, courtesy of the American taxpayer.

Explaining how we got here (even with hard facts and indisputable figures) is never enough for the left. They don’t get the truth from the prolific liars in the mainstream media and refuse to entertain exceptions to their point of view. Those that actually take the time to read conservative articles do so by inhabiting right-wing blogs like resident cockroaches, commenting with wild abandon from sheer ignorance. Put simply, those who can, write – and those who can’t, rant.

There have been the decades of liberal out-on-the-street and in-your-face protests, which are as common and tiresome as illegal immigrants banging on our cars demanding work when we drive onto a Home Depot parking lot. The reason you don’t see loud and obnoxious conservative activists in melees with police or who are being thrown out of congressional meetings is they don’t exist. Okay, okay, we concede there are a few, like the wing-nut extremists who protest in front of abortion clinics. Shameful! How dare anyone fight for the life of an unborn human being!

Republicans and conservative-minded Democrats are busy working at our jobs, providing for our families and our communities. We’re building companies that employ people, and we pay the bulk of this country’s taxes and we mind our own business. But those days may be over, because revolution is in the air, and don’t you just love the smell of “rebellion” in the morning?

We are being forced to rebel because Obama has fogged up his followers’ senses – with endless campaign rhetoric, and it has now seeped into the fabric of this country like radioactive waste leeching into our drinking wells. The White House and the U.S. Congress have become hangouts for the ham-fisted and the desperate, where they’re all banging into each other like billiard balls on an uneven surface. And this administration’s pathological hunger for absolute power only serves to repudiate Obama’s hollow promises of hope and change.

Neither Obama nor the Democrat-controlled Congress has even once mentioned the phrases “family unity” or “American honor.” By ignoring the nucleus conventions on which our country was built, they have proven that none of them possesses any sense of responsibility for the offices they hold.

Obama thinks he has things under control (the way Neville Chamberlain thought he had Hitler under control). He gave back to England the bust of Winston Churchill (which had been given to the White House as a gesture of solidarity after 9/11) and in so doing, revealed an arrogance that threatens to cut all ties with one of our most trusted allies in favor of dialogue with the enemy.

Americans of every stripe are saying “Enough is enough,” and we will rise up, including all of you who voted that Democrat to the presidency. It will happen, and it will be launched on the words of Patrick Henry’s American Revolution fervor of “Give me liberty or give me death.”

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Tuesday

03Mar2009

Supporting the President

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 05:00AM

by Lance Thompson

A recent controversy the media have embraced, rather than examining the wisdom of spending more money than America has ever had, was sparked by commentator Rush Limbaugh when he dared to say that he hoped that President Obama failed to remake the economy and the government. Liberals gasped at this, likening it to high treason.

Some Republicans on the Sunday shows have been quick to disavow Limbaugh’s statement as well. House Republican Whip Eric Cantor said “no one wants this president to fail.” Congressman Mike Pence echoed the sentiment. Congressional Republicans participated in Obama’s Fiscal Summit on 23 February, engaging in “break-out sessions” and reporting their “findings.” They acted as if the responsible Republican “no” votes on the stimulus package were in need of an apology, and that nothing would be worse than being labeled “partisan.”

For all those Republicans whose convictions lead them to go along to get along, I have a solution. And it is certain to be respected by the Left, because the Left came up with it.

While the outcome of the war in Iraq was still in doubt, the Democrats did everything they could to bring about defeat for the United States. Democrats in Congress called the war criminal, immoral, and unwinnable. Democrats introduced various resolutions to end the war, pull out the troops, and cut off funding. Of course, Democrats were smart enough to know that these actions, while solidifying their support among liberals, was not going over well with the families of our troops. Thus, they came up with a bumper sticker to plaster over their shameful actions: “We support the troops, but not the war.” This, they thought, allowed them to have it both ways.

This solution can easily be adopted by Republicans who can’t bring themselves openly to defy the president. All they have to say is, “I support the president, but not his policies.” Painless, isn’t it? Let’s all try it, shall we?

I support the president, but not his Politburo of a cabinet. I don’t support the collection of tax cheats, terrorist sympathizers, baby killers (if Governor Sebelius is confirmed as HHS Secretary) that the president has appointed to his administration to carry out his socialist agenda.

I support the president, but not his spendaholic stimulus bills, bailout bills, redistribution of income and tax hikes on anyone who actually works for a living. I don’t support his plunging the nation into a bottomless pit of debt and sticking responsible Americans with the tab.

I support the president, but not his Secretary of State’s nuzzling of Red China, subsidies for Hamas to rebuild Gaza into a terrorist base, and abandoning former Soviet Republics to the increasingly belligerent Russia.

I support the president, but not his outsourcing of executive policy to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, so they can rush legislation through Congress without letting most members of the legislative branch even read it.

I support the president, but not his plan to nationalize health care and give a bureaucrat authority over my own medical needs.

Wasn’t that easy? Republicans who still want to be invited to interviews on the MSM, chic Washington parties, and The View, can embrace this two-faced construction. They can gush over Obama’s diction, his wife’s taste in clothing, his lavish entertaining. But they can still oppose the policies that are remaking the nation in the socialist image.

Speaking for myself, I don’t support the president or his policies, and I doubt that any future conservative leaders do either. Those who like to play both sides will not earn, nor do they deserve, the support of conservative voters. Our future leaders will be those who are not afraid to state their principles and live by them.

Of course, if the president decides to reverse course, cut taxes, beef up the military, get rid of the criminals in his own administration, reduce spending, and stop giving the money of working people to non-working people, I’ll gladly support him and his policies. But I’m not holding my breath.

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Tuesday

24Feb2009

The Enemy's Agenda

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 04:00AM

by Lance Thompson

This nation has enemies of all kinds. But imagine a generic enemy of the United States–any state, agency, organization or individual who would benefit from this country’s failure. Then imagine what such an enemy would want for the United States.

The enemy would want our borders to be porous so that illegal entry into this country would be comparatively easy. Further, the enemy would want the consequent flood of illegal aliens to drain our welfare, education and health systems; increase crime rates, clog the justice system and fill our prisons to overflowing; and to create a separate nation within our nation that has its own language, customs and identity separate from that of American citizens. Finally, he would want this illegal group to gain the rights of citizens and cast their votes against the legitimate interests of this country.

The enemy would want to subvert the very democracy that our nation is the symbol and champion of. He would hope that our electoral process could be invalidated by disenfranchisement, fraud and corruption. He would hope that Americans would lose faith in the democratic system, and, in the face of the repeated thwarting of popular will, to cease participation in the franchise entirely.

The enemy would like to see the checks and balances of the American government sabotaged. He would like to see our Congress crafting laws in secret and concealing their excesses from scrutiny. He would like to see the president fill his administration with officers tainted by unlawful acts and compromised by unsavory histories. He would like to see our judicial branch filled with judges who legislate from the bench and who thwart the will of the people with arbitrary decrees. He would additionally wish that oversight of these branches of government would be reduced or eliminated so their abuses could continue without interference. The enemy would know that this, too, would destroy the faith of Americans in their government and leaders.

The enemy would like to see this nation’s defenses dismantled. He would like to see more and more laws that protect those who would destroy this country, and greater restrictions on those who defend it. He would like to see this nation abandon its allies, withdraw from its strategic positions, and unilaterally surrender the initiative in the high ground of space to our foes.

The enemy would like to see the powerful market economy of this nation destroyed.

He would like to see the value of our stocks, retirement accounts and real estate tumble. He would like our financial institutions to collapse. He would like the mighty economic engine that is America hobbled by burdensome regulations and taxes, pseudo-scientific environmental restrictions, and adversarial government policy. He would like to see private industry and public employers consumed by the cancer of ever more powerful unions. And he would want to so increase the debt of the United States with irresponsible spending, out-of-control entitlements and incomprehensible monetary policy that our country would lose its place as the world’s most economically powerful nation.

All of these conditions are being created by the Democrats in the White House and Congress. Democrats are the champions of illegal immigration. Barack Obama’s campaign, as well as that of Al Franken and other Democrats, benefited from the aid of ACORN, a vote-manufacturing community group that was under criminal investigation in five states during the presidential campaign, and is now slated to get a multi-million dollar chunk of the stimulus bill.

The stimulus bill itself was crafted in secret, defended by lies, and rushed through the process without being shown to many Democrats, let alone any Republicans. As Byron York recently pointed out, it contains provisions for a board that can terminate investigations by inspectors general into the executive branch. And in almost a trillion dollars of new spending, the only significant cutbacks in the bill were in the areas of defense appropriations.

Liberal judges have released terrorists, murderers and child molesters and reversed the democratic will of the people by striking down initiatives from prohibitions on gay marriage to calls for English only ballots. The new administration has appointed a terrorist sympathizer as attorney general, sprinkled tax evaders throughout the cabinet, and created the “culture of corruption” which was a phrase the Democrats themselves invented, and have now perfected. Finally, the financial meltdown was caused by Democrats coercing banks to offer loans to those unable to repay them and Democrats blocking oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Moderates on both sides are eager to grant the opposition the benefit of the doubt, and concede that those across the aisle have the best interests of the country at heart, even if their methods differ. But when one party’s policies consistently support and achieve the aims of the enemy, then intentions are immaterial. Only the results matter, and in the issues above, where Democrats have had their way, the results are always detrimental to the interests of the United States.

If we cannot use the term “enemy” for the leaders whose policies serve the needs and interests of the enemy, then perhaps we need a new term. “Unenlightened co-conspirator” has a nice ring. “New double-Dealer” has a retro flair. We could save “disloyal opposition” for a more favorable balance in Congress.

But maybe we already have a term for politicians who abuse our system of government to deceive its citizens, drain its treasury, strip its defenses and undermine its foundations. It starts with a “D’ and ends in “rat.”

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Monday

09Feb2009

Stimulating Times

Monday, February 9, 2009 at 05:00AM

by Lance Thompson

As the stimulus bill staggers through committee, its egregious profligacy more obvious with each passing hour, President Obama remains its steadfast defender. If Obama had made no other decisions during his first three weeks as president, this suicidal spending package would be enough to reveal his incompetence. But he did not stop there.

After his Air Force One joy ride to the Democrat conference in Williamsburg, Obama whined to sympathetic pols that he’d inherited a massive debt by the previous administration, “wrapped in a big bow and waiting for me.” Yet Obama’s response to this burden is to quadruple that debt and leave that much more insidious legacy to the next few presidents. Obama came to office saddled with a heavy credit card balance. His answer is not only to ask Congress for a drastically higher credit limit but also allow them to spend every dime of it immediately.

The President has focused a great deal of energy and political capital on a bill that he had little or no hand in shaping. In fact, this bill, consisting of 647 plus pages before amendments, could not possibly have been written in the short time Obama has been in office. This stimulus bill, purportedly the last best hope of our nation for fiscal health, is not the work of economists grappling with a financial crisis. That would have taken weeks or months. No, this massive piece of legislation could only have been compiled so quickly by the cut and paste magic of word processing. Every liberal chestnut on the Democrat wish list was double-clicked into this “emergency” stimulus bill, under the supervision of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. This was their chance to get it all in one go, with the nation evidently willing to try anything, and the newly-elected president content to cheerlead from the White House.

But the stimulus bill is not Obama’s only foray into executive action. He also has made many presidential appointments to cabinet and other positions. Judging from the unsavory nature of many of his picks–Daschle, Geithner, Richardson, Killefer, Holder, Lynn--this seems to be Obama’s jobs program for at-risk Democrats. He lures them away from lives of tax evasion and influence peddling with character-building jobs in the new administration. Some, like Ricahrdson, Daschle and Killefer, withdrew in the face of mounting outrage over their above-the-law behavior, went back to their day jobs, which suggests a high recidivism rate for this particular effort.

Not content to cripple the American economy, Obama has also been active in foreign policy. In an al-Arabiyah interview, he apologized for America’s tendency to “dictate” to the people of the Middle East. He doesn’t seem to understand that freedom, of the kind our military provided for the people of Iraq, is a precious gift. It is the oppression Iraqis and Kuwaitis suffered under Saddam Hussein that had to be dictated and brutally enforced. Obama’s statements were a slur on every American serving in uniform and especially upon those who fought for the freedom of Muslims in the Balkans, in the first Gulf War, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama’s backpedaling on placing American missile defense systems in Eastern Europe has already emboldened Russian president Mevedev and puppetmaster Putin to threaten the fragile freedom of the former Soviet republics still living in the shadow of the Russian bear. Under Russian pressure, the independent state of Kyrgyzstan closed its Manas air base to US supply flights to Afghanistan. The Kremlin has also announced it will aid the Iranian terrorist-sponsoring regime of Mahmoud Achmadinejad to bolster its nuclear program, which Achmadinejad has vowed to pursue at all costs.

The president recently vowed to unilaterally keep space free of American weaponry. He must believe that the accelerated space programs of Russia, Red China, North Korea and now Iran are all being undertaken for humanitarian purposes. Our nation has many implacable enemies. They have already taken the measure of our president and found in his equivocal manner an opportunity to advance their antagonistic designs.

On the home front, neither Barack Obama nor his exceedingly inarticulate spokesman, Robert Gibbs, likes to answer substantive questions. Obama treats any press inquiry about a matter of policy as a breach of manners, and is likely to scold the reporter. I am more forgiving of Gibbs. If I had to explain the mind-numbing incompetency of Obama policy, I would perspire, stammer and obfuscate as well.

Obama’s first three weeks in office have antagonized and united domestic opponents, confused and frustrated Democrat allies, and left foreign leaders–both friendly and otherwise–unimpressed. What we needed at this moment of crisis was a leader with courage, experience and resolve. What we got was a paper-hatted trainee who each day gives us a new reason to hope for change.

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