Well, I certainly hope that all those stupid, stupid people who helped to reelect Obama are pleased with themselves and that they don’t have the collossal moxi to complain when the fruits of their applied mulletheadedness come back around to bite them where the moon doesn’t shine.

Let’s see, now, where to begin.

How about here?

A Las Vegas business owner with 114 employees fired 22 workers today, apparently as a direct result of President Obama’s re-election.

“David” (he asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) told Host Kevin Wall on 100.5 KXNT that “elections have consequences” and that “at the end of the day, I need to survive.”

Here’s an excerpt from the interview. Click the audio tab below to hear even more from this compelling conversation:

“I’ve done my share of educating my employees. I never tell them which way to vote. I believe in the free system we have, I believe in the right to choose who they want to be president, but I did explain as a business owner that I have always put my employees first. I always made sure that when I went without a paycheck that [I] made sure they were paid. And I explained that I always put them first and unfortunately I’m at a point where I’m being forced to have to worry about me and my family now and a business that I built from just me to 114 employees.

“I explained to them a month ago that if Obama gets in office that the regulations for Obamacare are gonna hurt our business, and I’m gonna have to make provisions to make sure I have enough money to cover the payroll taxes, the additional health care I’m gonna have to do, and I explained that to them and I said you do what you feel like in your heart you need to do, but I’m just letting you know as a warning this is things I have to think of as a business owner.

“Well unfortunately, and most of my employees are Hispanic — I’m not gonna go into what kind of company I have, but I have mostly Hispanic employees — well unfortunately we know what happened and I can’t wait around anymore, I have to be proactive. I had to lay off 22 people today to make sure that my business is gonna thrive and I’m gonna be around for years to come. I have to build up that nest egg now for the taxes and regulations that are coming my way. Elections do have consequences, but so do choices. A choice you make every day has consequences and you know what, I’ve always put my employees first, but unfortunately today I have to put me and my family first, and you watch what’s gonna happen. I’m just one guy with 114 employees — well was 114 employees — watch what happens in the next six months. The Dow alone lost 314 points today. There’s a tsunami coming and if you didn’t think this election had consequences, just wait.”

As the employer says, his is just one small company…

And from Michelle Malkin

President Obama promises to move the country forward with his recycled pledge of five million green jobs. But in the real world, small businesses are struggling to stay afloat as they deal with the fiscal wreckage of this administration’s disastrous venture socialism. Here’s the tale of just one Colorado company victimized by the Obama Department of Energy (DOE).

Colorado Distribution Group is a privately held storage and shipping company based in Denver. Thanks to hope-a-nomics, its warehouse is saddled with nearly 7,000 pallets of federally subsidized solar panels (one-third of which are completely spoiled and unsalable), along with related detritus such as broken glass and stray module parts.

While $22,000/month in storage costs go unpaid, the panels consume up to a third of the company’s warehouse space. Legal costs have forced CDG to slash payroll and lay off at least three employees. A source with knowledge of CDG’s woes told me this week the company is facing pressure by the Department of Energy to drop its petition to recoup those costs. The feds want CDG to swallow a $1.4 million tab to dispose of the bum solar panels.

In July, according to Dow Jones, CDG asked a Delaware bankruptcy court “for permission either to sell or collect rent on the property Abound Solar Inc. has at its facility, saying the situation is threatening its ability to stay in business.” Like many private enterprises in the Age of Obama’s Brass-Knuckled Politics of Revenge, fear of retribution holds back many from coming forward publicly about such attempted shakedowns.

CDG serves industries ranging from automotive to food and beverage, electronic, medical, furniture, clothing, sporting goods and telecommunications. Founded in 2005, CDG handles distribution, fulfillment, transportation, logistics and inventory management using a high-tech data system. For the past three years, the company warehoused solar panels manufactured by Fort Collins-based Abound Solar.

Yes, Abound Solar. Also known as: Colorado’s own Solyndra.

In June, less than a year after fellow Obama green boondoggle Solyndra went belly up, Abound filed for bankruptcy. As I reported in March, the financial outlook of the $400 million DOE loan guarantee recipient was based on false hope and imaginary change. Obama’s envirocrats ignored bright red flags from Fitch Ratings about Abound’s substandard technology and failures to meet basic efficiency targets.

Abound borrowed $70 million against its $400 million Obama DOE loan guarantee; taxpayers will lose up to $60 million on the loan after the bankruptcy proceedings are complete. Nearly 125 Abound Solar employees lost their jobs. Screwed-over companies like CDG that did business with Abound are not alone. At least one other warehouse in Colorado is storing the costly panels. And an untold number of related contractors and businesses have been stiffed. “I did a lot of machining for Abound,” one business owner told me this summer, “and they went under owing me a fair amount.”

Recently released internal documents show that customers demanded replacements for the panels after experiencing “low performance,” “under performance” and “catastrophic failures.” Credit and technical advisers at DOE complained about having “major issues” with the Abound Solar deal and expressed concern over the “transaction pressure under which we are all now operating.” The documents fly in the face of Obama’s denial — just days before Election Day — that his White House played any role in this fiscal disaster.

The investigative work of Colorado’s Todd Shepherd at CompleteColorado.com, Amy Oliver at the Independence Institute and Michael Sandoval now of the Heritage Foundation exposed Abound’s crony ties to the Obama administration. Like Solyndra, Abound had a deep-pocketed bundler with ties to the White House. Progressive activist and billionaire heiress Pat Stryker, a repeat visitor to the Obama White House, owns an investment firm that invested considerably in Abound and donated nearly $500 million to the Democrats between 2008 and 2012.

Criminal and civil probes into Abound Solar’s alleged malfeasance — there are reports that the firm knowingly sold faulty goods — have been launched in both Colorado and on Capitol Hill. The stench of pay-for-play abounds. While Obama giddily promises his cronies and sycophants that “the best is yet to come,” small-business owners are fighting for their lives. Where’s their “fair share”?

And in the tax arena…

The Congressional Budget Office officially reported on Wednesday that the federal budget deficit in fiscal 2012 (which ended on Sept. 30) topped a trillion dollars for the fourth straight year even though federal taxes paid by individuals increased by 4 percent during the year and federal income taxes paid by corporation increased by about 34 percent.

The increase in corporate federal income tax payments was largely due to changes in the tax rules that corporations were required to follow.

“The federal government incurred a budget deficit of $1.1 trillion in fiscal year 2012, the fourth consecutive year with a deficit above $1.0 trillion,” said the CBO.

“Revenues from all major sources increased in 2012,” CBO reported. “Corporate income taxes accounted for about 40 percent of the increase in total revenues, rising by $61 billion (or 34 percent) and increasing from 1.2 percent to 1.6 percent of GDP. The growth in corporate receipts resulted largely from changes in tax rules in recent years, particularly those that dictate how quickly firms may deduct the cost of their investments in equipment.”

Individuals also paid more taxes in 2012, according to CBO. “Receipts from individual income taxes grew by $41 billion (or 4 percent), and remained at 7.3 percent of GDP in 2012. More than half of the increase came from withheld taxes, which rose by $27 billion (or3 percent).”

At the same time, defense spending declined in 2012. “Defense outlays fell by $19 billion (or 3 percent) in 2012 after rising at an average annual rate of 6 percent over the past five years. Most ($17 billion) of that decline was attributable to the reduction in the number of U.S. Army personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq. Defense spending was 4.2 percent of GDP, down from 4.5 percent in 2011.”

At the same time corporate income taxes were increasing by about 34 percent, economic growth was lagging. In the fourth quarter of 2011, real GDP grew at 4.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But in the first three quarters of 2012, it grew by 2.0 percent, 1.3 percent and 2.0 percent.

The national unemployment rate in October was 7.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2009, when President Barack Obama was inaugurated to his first term, it was 7.8 percent.

When calculated as a share of GDP, the last four fiscal years have seen the four highest deficits since the end of World War II in fiscal 1946. (Prior to 1974, federal fiscal years ran from July 1 to June 30.)

“As a share of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the deficit declined—from

8.7 percent in 2011 to 7.0 percent in 2012—but it was still the fourth highest as a share of GDP since 1946,” said CBO.

And…AHEM!…On the Second Amendment front…

The United Nations Small Arms Treaty passed in its second session. The Media was silent over its passage.
According to the UN’s press release,

Concluding its two-week session today, the second United Nations conference to review the 2001 Programme of Action on trafficking in small arms and light weapons adopted a consensus outcome document that highlighted the international community’s renewed commitment to preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade.

The document’s adoption represented a major achievement for delegations, who had failed to agree on a final outcome at the first review conference, held in 2006. “We accomplished something great today,” said U. Joy Ogwu ( Nigeria), President of the Conference, formally known as the United Nations Conference to Review Progress Made in the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.

According to the text, Member States renewed their pledge to rid the world of the scourge brought upon it by the illicit manufacture, transfer and circulation of small arms and light weapons, and their excessive accumulation and uncontrolled spread in many parts of the world. They also committed to mobilizing the necessary political will and resources to implement the Programme of Action and the International Tracing Instrument, with the aim of achieving clear and tangible results over the next six years, through 2018.

Further by the text, States emphasized that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons continued to sustain conflicts, exacerbate armed violence, undermine respect for international humanitarian law and international human rights law, aid terrorism and illegal armed groups, and facilitate increasing levels of transnational organized crime, as well as trafficking in humans, drugs and certain natural resources.

Ahhh yes, the cries of terrorism and drugs and boogey men for the passage of the treaty. This comes from member nations who knowingly promote these kinds of things. Even the United States is now in the midst of a scandal involving gunwalking, known as Fast and Furious, and at least one man arrested has come forward and said that Fast and Furious was all about arming drug cartels in Mexico, never about tracking them.

All countries signed the declaration and further documentation can be found here.

Read the entire article and, if you cherish the rights given us by the Second Amendment, understand that what is happening in the U.N. Smallarms Treaty talks is the Obama Administration conspiring — yeah, that’s exactly the right word, conspiring — with that incompetent, blundering, corrupt international agency… to allow them to reach into our homes and gun cabinets and take away our right to keep and bear what they find in them.

The language used purports to be concerned solely with criminals and terrorists, but the reality is that once they’ve got us on this “slippery slope”, the abounding interpretations will favor the far left, those people who would prefer that the government holds all weapons, effectively controlling the rest of us. Every liberal agenda begins with this same kind of language and ends with extremities we certainly wouldn’t have countenanced had we known where it all was really heading.

Thanks again to all the anti-America, politically ignorant/reality challenged and all others who have now given Obama a “mandate” to continue bringing this great country down the road to ruin…

Yes, Obama has another four years as Saboteur President of the United States.

Knowing that the Democrats have a track record for monkeying around with elections, everything from registering their dogs and dead relatives to vote to pushing for illegal aliens’ voting rights (just don’t make it mandatory for the people manning the polls to check ID, etc), there will always be those stories about the rigged voting booths where Romney-Ryan votes somehow came out marking the Obama-Biden column, and stories like this one.

Forest Park is a city of about 19,000 residents in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio, in Hamilton County. In 2008, Hamilton County voted for Barack Obama while most of the surrounding counties in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana voted Republican.

With so many eyes on Ohio in yesterday’s election, it was no surprise to see this news story on the local news.

A couple from Forest Park showed up yesterday at the polls to vote just like they have ever since they turned 18. When it was their turn, they were both told that they had already voted via absentee ballot. The couple said that they have never voted absentee and wanted to know how this could happen.

Precinct officials told them that they could fill out a provisional ballot, which they did.

Before long, a number of other voters in the same precinct were told the same thing, that they had already voted via absentee ballots and that they also needed to fill out a provisional ballot. Eventually, voting officials said that the mistake was due to ‘human error’ and that anyone else in the same situation would likewise have to cast a provisional ballot. In Ohio, provisional ballots are not counted until 10 days after the election.

Be that as it may, of course, there won’t be any further investigation of such events as any kind of official matter, there never is when the Democrats profit from anything.

That said, there was an article in today’s inbox that is pretty on-point where discussing the future of our country is concerned based on a historical observation, and that is here.

We’ve reached the tipping point, folks. This election was the last hope for the American republic. We are now brazenly running toward Greece. How that will manifest in the coming years remains to be seen. We will certainly see our healthcare quality crumble, while costs soar–which has already begun; we will see spending continue to skyrocket; we will see entitlement programs expand, and we will see our country fall.

This reminds me of something Professor Alexander Tyler wrote in 1787. Tyler was a Scottish lawyer and writer. He came up with what I refer to as The Seven Steps of Democracy. Each step follows a sequence that begins with bondage and ultimately ends right back where it started.

Frightening, but applicable:

1. From Bondage to spiritual faith: The English colonists of the United States felt they were being oppressed, and began to inspire a spiritual and political awakening.

2. From spiritual faith to great courage: The religiously and politically oppressed colonists finally decided to rebel against England and take their independence.

3. From courage to liberty: The courage to start a rebellion led to a revolution against England, and ultimately a victory.

4. From liberty to abundance: After victory, we grew as a nation. We experienced an industrial revolution, and soon our country sat in abundance.

5. From abundance to complacency: As a country, we became complacent in our wealth and comfort.

6. From complacency to apathy: Following that, we began to lose our ability to care about what happened in the country, particularly in politics. We began to accept larger government in our lives, without much thought as to how it would later effect us.

7. From apathy to dependence: As the government grew, we began to rely on the government to take care of us and provide for us. We began to rely on social security, welfare, food-stamps, and other programs.

8. From dependence back into bondage: Out of this growing dependency, we will fall farther and farther down the rabbit hole, and find ourselves in Greece. Financial collapse, riots, social decline, and ultimately bondage. Then we are back where we started.

Right back where we started from?

Not!

More like this!

Unfortunately, with the dialogue of communist style totalitarianism having been introduced into the mix and seemingly riding like a pilot fish alongside today’s Democrats as the remora does beside the shark, what we considered unacceptable on the part of the British back in colonial times might just be a drop in the bucket compared to what could well lay in store for us.

A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

Now THAT sounds like an Obama style future, and should we reach that juncture, we can rightfully blame every last ignorant soul that voted to reelect this president even after they had four years’ worth of opportunity to see the lies, the disregard for the Constitution and the contempt for everything else American.

I mean, I mean, are we going to have to go through something like this to get things right again?

I say “gone” because “come a long way” depicts a positive, and where the Democrats have gone is anything but positive from any viewpoint invoking love of country, honesty or, for that matter, honor.

The corruption within the ranks of the Democrats can probably be laid at the feet of the liberals who bought out their party in the last two decades or so, but still, the deeds that can be attributable to these people are anything but acceptable in America, where we’re supposed to be a nation of laws.

“Sure,” some will argue, there are crooked Republicans, but for every one of those there seem to be fifty bent Democrats.

New York, a Democrat run state, is teeming with corrupt politicians, but other states wherein Democrats are prominent have their own share of criminal Democrats as well.

From JP Attitude:

On Monday, Trenton Mayor Tony Mack was arrested by the FBI for corruption. Tony Mack represents the blight that has destroyed the great cities of America, the blight of crooked Democrat mayors who have systematically raped and pillaged the cities they were elected to lead.

If you don’t live in a major urban area, you don’t know how bad it is. Travel across America and you will find city after city with the same feature: a rotten core of disintegrating infrastructure, dysfunctional schools, and violent crime. Detroit looks worse than Kabul or Baghdad, recent war zones. East St. Louis sends kids to school in buildings where sewage is backed up in the hallways. Vast areas of Los Angeles are run by gangs playacting like feudal lords from the Middle Ages. Chicago had 52 shootings over Memorial Day weekend, ten of them fatal – you’re safer walking around Baghdad with a big silver cross than walking around in Chicago.

What do all of those cities have in common? Decades of Democrat mayors.

If you think Tony Mack is an exception, maybe I should list other examples. What do you think? Can I list ten examples of corrupt Democrat mayors since the year 2000?

Read on…

What about honesty in elections, wherein eligible American citizens get to choose our leaders?

From Godfather Politics:

As we draw closer to the elections in November, we are learning there are numerous ways to win an election other than by the ballots cast by legal registered voters.

In several state primaries, it was discovered that dead people and non-U.S. citizens had voted. In some states, there are still thousands of dead people and non-citizens on the voter registration rolls. Why, we’ve even read where a guy’s dog that had been dead for two years received a voter registration card in the mail.

And through it all, the Democrats have fought tooth and nail to prevent states from cleaning up their voter registration records and removing dead people and non-citizens. They have also fought long and hard to prevent states from enacting voter ID laws and in some instances the DOJ has declared such laws discriminatory and illegal.

I always have to laugh at the hypocrisy of the Democrats on claiming the voter ID is discriminatory and will prevent poor black people from voting. Those same poor black people have to have some form of ID in order to receive all of the government aid and handouts they get, so what makes a voter ID any different? Besides, thousands of Americans have sacrificed their lives and limbs to secure and maintain the right to vote, but not to secure and maintain government entitlements.

Snip!

Chicago, where Obama started his political career has a long history of corrupt elections. The cities motto for years was if you can win an election legally, steal it any way you can.

In 2008, Obama won Virginia by seven points. At the moment, the polls show the race between Obama and Romney to be much closer. That means that Obama is going to need the vote of every dead person, non-citizen, pet and convicted felon, along with the voter intimidation of New Black Panther members if he wants to secure his victory in November.

Yes, the Democrats of today could sure give the likes of their like-minded soulmates, this one for example, a run for their money….

Y’know, it’s truly becoming tiresome that virtually every single day when one reads of news and current events someplace (other, of course, than the liberal media), there is unfailingly at least one item about something else the administration of Barack Hussein Obama is doing or saying that goes against the Constitution or is otherwise a threat of some kind to the U.S. economy, our national sovereignty, our country’s morality, our national security, sound foreign policy or something… always something, every day…

This time, it’s back to an issue best left to dry up and blow away.

Morning Bell: The Danger of Article 82 and Obama’s Latest Treaty

Back in 1982, President Ronald Reagan decided not to sign a treaty known as “Law of the Sea” (LOST), a United Nations convention that would raid America’s treasury for billions of dollars, then redistribute that wealth to the rest of the world by an international bureaucracy headquartered in Kingston, Jamaica. But today, the Obama Administration has revived that treaty, and tomorrow Senator John Kerry (D-MA) will hold hearings designed to illustrate its supposed benefits and generate support for its ratification. Without a doubt, Reagan’s decision should stand, and LOST should remain relegated to the trash bin of history.

The rationale for LOST is that it supposedly brings order to the world’s oceans, defines the rights and responsibilities of nations as they navigate and conduct business across the seas, protects the marine environment, and allows for the development of natural resources of the deep seabed. On the surface, these all sound like worthwhile goals. The thing is, the United States doesn’t need to join another United Nations treaty to make it happen.

For more than 200 years before LOST was adopted in 1982 and for 30 years since then, the U.S. Navy has successfully protected America’s maritime interests regardless of the fact that the United States has not signed on to the treaty. The United States’ navigational rights and freedoms have been secure, and they are best guaranteed by a strong Navy.

But of course, for some reason fathomable only to the left, America’s sovereignty is low on any priority lists and treasure rightly belonging to us needs to be divided with every tinpot dictatorship and all others the United nations sees fit to distribute the hard earned dollars of the U.S. taxpayer among.

They also seem to believe that it is in our best interests to allow other countries to come in and tell us how to conduct the business of the United States of America.

We need none of that.

LOST is not without consequences, either. One of the more nefarious and insidious of its provisions is Article 82, which requires the United States to forfeit royalties generated from oil and gas development on the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles – an area known as the “extended continental shelf.” That money, which one estimate says could be worth many billions, if not trillions of dollars, would go to the International Seabed Authority, a new international bureaucracy created by the treaty and based in Jamaica. Heritage’s Steven Groves explains that from there, America’s money could be shipped to the Middle East, Africa, China, and even state sponsors of terror:

LOST directs that the revenue be distributed to “developing States” (such as Somalia, Burma … you get the picture) and “peoples who have not attained full independence” (such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization … hey, don’t they sponsor terrorism?). The assembly – the “supreme organ” of the International Seabed Authority in which the United States has a single vote to cast – has the final say regarding the distribution of America’s transmogrified “international” royalties.

The assembly may vote to distribute royalties to undemocratic, despotic or brutal governments in Belarus, China or Zimbabwe – all members of LOST. Perhaps those dollars will go to regimes that are merely corrupt; 13 of the world’s 20 most corrupt nations, according to Transparency International, are parties to LOST. Even Cuba and Sudan, both considered state sponsors of terrorism, could receive dollars fresh from the U.S. Treasury.

Continuing:

In addition to shipping America’s money overseas to unsavory recipients, LOST could have other negative consequences, as well, by exposing U.S. industry and manufacturing to baseless international lawsuits. In fact, environmental activists and international legal academics are actively exploring the potential of using international litigation against the United States to advance their agendas. And for those who say LOST is a tool for mediating international disputes, take a look at the Philippines, which signed on to the treaty and yet today is finding itself browbeaten by China and its claims in the South China Sea.

If America truly wants to preserve its rights on the sea, then it needs to bolster the one tool that has guaranteed those rights throughout history — a strong U.S. Navy. Unfortunately, under President Obama’s watch, the United States is seeing its fleet diminished in size and ability. A lone piece of paper will not defend America’s interests on the sea, and neither will transferring billions of dollars to an international authority in Jamaica for redistribution the world over. LOST should not be ratified and signed, and instead Washington should turn its attention to ensuring that the U.S. Navy has the resources it needs to protect America’s interests on the high seas.

Why would anyone empowered with governing this country want to even consider the “Law of the Sea” for even fifteen seconds!?

Given that these are supposedly intelligent men and women, we have to conclude that they know what they’re doing and, as such, intentionally want to subscribe America to destructive programs of this caliber.

Shame on them…

From Patriot Update:

Americans for Limited Government opens their new viral hit with a simple line, “If I wanted America to fail …”

From there, the video recounts a number of disastrous energy policies currently being pursued by our government which are stifling growth and hampering the economy.

From smothering entrepreneurship under pages of red tape, to throwing good money after bad on unproven green energy companies, it’s clear this Administration’s energy policies have failed and, as the video above suggests, are working against America’s best interests.

This is an excellent video, a little over 4 1/2 minutes and surprise, surprise, “if I wanted America to fail” bears a striking resemblance, in every respect, to the policies of a certain (ah hem!) incumbent president…

The Video.

From the front end of (this last) New Year’s weekend, Oliver North in Town Hall…

…This week, as we prepare to ring out 2011 and welcome 2012, President Barack Obama asked for Congress to authorize yet another increase in our national debt — the third such rise in less than 15 months. Housing prices continue to slide; more than 13 million Americans are unemployed; government spending continues unabated; and America’s credit rating is at risk of another downgrade. In January, barring action by Congress and the White House, U.S. defense spending cuts totaling $1.1 trillion over the next four years will begin to take effect. Such an outcome in the midst of these perilous times ought to be unthinkable.

Instead of putting tens of thousands of Americans to work building new ships, submarines, aircraft and a missile shield to protect the American people from nuclear attack, the Obama administration wants the federal government to create temporary jobs repaving highways, painting bridges and re-roofing public schools. Rather than have unemployed construction workers build a petroleum pipeline from Canada (and improve U.S. energy security), the Obama White House wastes billions on phony “green jobs.” The administration has to hope we all will forget the word “Solyndra.”

Ollie North looks like better presidential material than anyone running in the current field.

In a burst of year-end euphoria, progressive politicians, pundits and government economists are predicting that the worst of the “Bush-era recession” is behind us and that good times are just ahead. They pin their economic hopes for 2012 less on American entrepreneurs than they do on German taxpayers.

The experts are praying Berlin will continue to bail out European PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) and prevent an Old World financial collapse that would drag down the sale of U.S. goods and services on the Continent. Expect to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel feted at a White House state dinner early in the new year. A million or so American jobs could well depend on whether she likes the soup.

{In the Truth Hurts Department} OUCH!

Jobs — the word used most often by politicians running for office in 2012. Regardless of party, whether challenger or incumbent, every office seeker tells us he or she has a way of “creating,” “protecting,” “saving” or “improving” jobs for American workers. What few of our elected officials ever mention is how vulnerable these “well-paying” and “secure” jobs are to factors far more threatening than the European debt crisis. Here are the top three issues that should concern those who purport to care about our economic well-being in the year ahead:

1) An Iranian nuke. Just before Christmas, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told us Iran could have a workable nuclear weapon in 2012. He also knows — but didn’t say — that the theocrats in Tehran already have the means of delivering it. Tel Aviv, Israel, is target No. 1. American civilians are No. 2 on the ayatollahs’ hit parade. To Israelis, the expression “Never Again” isn’t a political slogan. It’s a way of life. They are not going to wait to be incinerated.

The Obama administration could stop the Iranians from building atomic weapons and perhaps even bring about regime change by forbidding any company doing any business in Iran from doing any business in the U.S. But unless the O-Team takes such a step, the Israelis will have to act pre-emptively to prevent annihilation. If you think the “2008-11 global recession” hurt, you don’t want to contemplate what the world economy would be like after an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons sites.

2) The jihad. The “Arab Spring” — once so proudly proclaimed to have been instigated by Obama’s soaring rhetoric — has become a nightmare for democratic aspirations in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Moammar Gadhafi and Anwar al-Awlaki are dead, but the jihad being waged by radical Islamists is stronger than ever. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Sudan are headed for Shariah rather than secular governance in 2012. Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Nigeria and even Saudi Arabia could follow suit soon. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom forecasts that Christianity could be eradicated in these countries. The economic impact of such an upheaval is potentially catastrophic.

3) The collapse of Russian democracy. Vladimir Putin is presiding over a dying country — and he knows it. Though Russian energy exports to Europe and China currently fill the coffers of Moscow’s kleptocracy and help rebuild Soviet-era nuclear weapons, the future for the land of the czars is bleak. Russia’s population — now 141.7 million — drops by nearly 1 million per year. With an average male life span of just 59 years, look for 2012 to be the year Putin and his cronies do all they can to line their pockets — at our expense.

You have to wonder what all those people we presently pay to think about these things and govern accordingly have been doing with their time, you know? Are they so busy working on getting reelected, lining their pockets via insider trading and figuring out new perks and benefits to give themselves that they haven’t got any time for America, their employer whose shareholders are the taxpayers?

Note to all running for office in 2012: The word “entitlement” does not appear in the Constitution. The words “provide for the common defence” do. Happy new year.

Yes, to all, Happy New Year.

Perhaps I am seeing a situation where one doesn’t exist, but then again, perhaps I’m not.

What I mentioned in my last post and what was accurately brought up in the comment section by Gray Monk, whose comment easily applies to the United States as well as Britain, causes me some amount of worry.

The politicians who run this nation seem to be doing what everyone else in a position to do so is doing; Grabbing everything they can for themselves while they are able, as though they expect an “every man for himself” environment to arise in the foreseeable future that applies to them as well as to the rest of us.

Performing what amount to criminal acts (acting on information they possess about how they are going to vote on issues to make personal investments), sweetening the pot in the area of their own compensation, at the taxpayers’ expense, in total violation of the Constitution…

And there was mention, last year, of National Guard troops returning from overseas combat and entering “urban unrest” training. What for?

Surely not because someone in the administration expected “Occupy Wall Street” on steroids!

NO, more likely because our politicians, who do indeed have access to information that may well tell them things they prefer not to share with we, the people, fully expect some conditions created by they themselves and their stewardship of our government to cause a significant amount of “urban unrest” among “we, the people”, significant enough that it will require well trained military units to put it down.

I hope I am overreacting, but I fear I am not…

…at least if one were a member of the party on the left side of the aisle, would have to be “Ouch!”

“We the people” are the familiar opening words of the Constitution of the United States– the framework for a self-governing people, free from the arbitrary edicts of rulers. It was the blueprint for America, and the success of America made that blueprint something that other nations sought to follow.

At the time when it was written, however, the Constitution was a radical departure from the autocratic governments of the 18th century. Since it was something so new and different, the reasons for the Constitution’s provisions were spelled out in “The Federalist,” a book written by three of the writers of the Constitution, as a sort of instruction guide to a new product.

The Constitution was not only a challenge to the despotic governments of its time, it has been a continuing challenge– to this day– to all those who think that ordinary people should be ruled by their betters, whether an elite of blood, or of books or of whatever else gives people a puffed-up sense of importance.

While the kings of old have faded into the mists of history, the principle of the divine rights of kings to impose whatever they wish on the masses lives on today in the rampaging presumptions of those who consider themselves anointed to impose their notions on others.

The Constitution of the United States is the biggest single obstacle to the carrying out of such rampaging presumptions, so it is not surprising that those with such presumptions have led the way in denigrating, undermining and evading the Constitution.

As is always the case with Thomas Sowell, very well put.

To truncate a bit…

It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?

To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of “czars” wielding greater power than Cabinet members, without having to be exposed to pubic scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members.

Now there is leaked news of plans to change the immigration laws by administrative fiat, rather than Congressional legislation, presumably because Congress might be unduly influenced by those pesky voters– with their Constitutional rights– who have shown clearly that they do not want amnesty and open borders, despite however much our betters do. If the Obama administration gets away with this, and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean reelection, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.

Infuriating, at least to those of us who love America and embrace both the wisdom and the freedom guaranteed us by the Constitution, but true.

Read the entire spot-on column.

…What have we here?

On November 8, 2006, Nancy Pelosi, on the precipice of becoming the third most important public official in our government, uttered the now infamous words that will prove to define her tenure as Speaker of the House:

“The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history…”

When you read that today knowing what’s happened in the last three years, you might not know whether to laugh or feel appalled. You have your garden variety scandals at the hands of Eric Massa, Charlie Rangel & Maxine Waters, but what’s more, the complete disregard for the voters’ voices by the very people who promised to lead an honest and transparent Congress: Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Congressional Democrats’ actions have been devastating to our economy, healthcare, and most important, the civil discourse in the United States. You thought you couldn’t take anymore head-scratching, face-palming comments from the very people whose salaries you pay? You are sadly mistaken.

Read on.

Meanwhile, Rep. John Shadegg is once again trying to persuade his fellow representatives to do the right thing.

A Republican congressman says all bills introduced in Congress should include a statement setting forth the specific constitutional authority under which a law is being enacted.

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) says his Enumerated Powers Act will force Congress to re-examine the role of the national government and curb its “ever-expanding reach.”

“For too long, the federal government has operated without Constitutional restraint, creating ineffective and costly programs and massive deficits year after year,” Shadegg writes on AmericaSpeakingOut, a Republican Web site that seeks ideas from the American people.

Shadegg says the trend of Congress overstepping its role has gotten “alarmingly worse” in the past 18 months.

As CNSNews.com has reported, some lawmakers apparently do not consider the Constitution in writing legislation.

In the debate over health care, for example, CNSNews.com asked various members of Congress — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — “Where does the Constitution authorize Congress to force individuals buy health insurance?”

Pelosi’s response — “Are you serious? Are you serious?” — was one of many nonplussed answers CNSNews.com received.

Indeed, who would expect today’s Democrats, especially under the perverse, corrupt and treasonous leadership of Komrade Pelosi, to even consider applying the appropriate Constitutional authority to any bill? If the party presently holding the majority in Congress were held to Constitutional requirements, all we’d hear from that side of the aisle would be crickets chirping.

The question is, when the GOP regains its majority or at least wins enough seats for more even voting power this November, will they be willing to adopt Shadegg’s proposal as a requisite to voting on all bills in Congress?

It was their lackluster performance that lost them the majority in the 2006 elections, so…

Time, as they say, will tell. Time, however, is something our beloved republic, as we know it, seems to have developed a paucity of.

Liberals always accuse conservatives of “playing politics” when we point out the unconstitutionality of so much of their legislation.

Does this mean that if John Q. Citizen breaks the law and a cop arrests him for it, he can accuse the cop of “playing politics”?

Same difference.

…coming down to can be well summed up in this column by Arnold Ahlert.

I hope the people of California have learned their lesson. All this silly voting stuff is “so Twentieth Century” Voting? We don’t need no stinkin’ voting. All we need is the “enlightened wisdom” of the judiciary. A solid majority voting in favor of keeping marriage between a man and a woman–for the second time? For the second time since 2000, the judiciary has invalidated the will of the people.

Like their counterparts in Arizona, the people of California are discovering that law, the will of the electorate, or even the Constitution is nothing more than a temporary impediment–a speed-bump if you will–to the eventual imposition of the liberal worldview. The American left’s accomplices, hacks in black robes who have sold their collective souls to the idea that “social justice trumps all,” are apparently immune to the idea that majority of Americans hold them in utter contempt.

Unfortunately that contempt is completely irrelevant to those who consider themselves intellectually and morally superior to the unwashed masses of ordinary Americans. In California, the expressed wishes of seven million people at the ballot box were tossed aside to placate radical homosexuals. In Arizona, the surveyed wishes of seventy percent of that state’s people were ignored to placate illegal aliens and their enablers. Only the Supreme Court–also tainted by people for whom the Constitution is nothing more than a point of departure for “discovering” one’s personal biases–can thwart America’s headlong march towards liberal fascism.

Make no mistake: fascism is a perfectly acceptable form of governance for the American left. As long as they control the levers of power, tyranny–a form of government where the people’s wishes are completely subservient to the ruling class–is a fine thing. And nothing abets that tyranny more than an in-the-tank judiciary, without which liberalism would already be sitting on the ash heap of history.

Truncating here.

… the lesser of two evils is still less evil. The Senate is about to put another radical leftist on the Supreme Court, a women with a demonstrated contempt for the law as written. That she is replacing another liberal jurist is scant comfort. If president Obama, who lamented that “the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society,” and that they “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution” gets to put a third judge on the Supreme Court, America as we know it may be over.

We are literally one Supreme Court Justice away from the imposition of a liberal fascist state.
And there is only one genuine antidote: the capture of the Senate–which has the final say on nominees–by Republicans. An ultimate panacea? Not even close. Perhaps little more than tourniquet to stanch the bleeding. But America is indeed bleeding. It has been deeply wounded by leftist ideology, which can only prosper if Americans continue to allow the judicial branch to run roughshod over the will of the people. Will Republicans allow that to happen? It’s certainly possible. Will Democrats allow that to happen?

Absolutely, one hundred percent yes.

Those are the real stakes of the 2010 election. By 2012, it may no longer matter. Do I take comfort in imploring you to vote for a Republican party with a track record nearly as tattered as the Democrats? Nope. But it beats the hell out of tyranny. What has happened in California and Arizona is the tip of the iceberg. If liberals had a clue they’d also be concerned: judicially-imposed tyranny may be breaking your way at present, but nothing is forever.

Tyranny is an equal-opportunity oppressor.

Now, this is the first column I recall reading by Arnold Ahlert, but I guarantee it won’t be the last as long as he keeps writing. The man has defined the current state of affairs and their inescapable cost to the America most of us grew up in and the America we love.

I’ve posted in the past about my concerns about “progressive” elitists legislating from the bench, in effect spitting on the will of the American people and therefore on the Constitution itself, and about the support they receive from the traitors in journalists’ clothing who belong to today’s mainstream media — traitors not because they believe in socialism and other issues that are alien to the Constitution and to rule of the nation by the people, upon which the United States was founded, but because they employ spin and disinformation, violating the trust invested in them by the public, in order to lend their support to those who would see America fail.

An enemy within — sorry to sound melodramatic, but there’s simply no other way to put it with comparable accuracy — has been using our own system to lead us down the road to our eventual demise as the free country we have been for over 230 years.

We are, quite literally, running out of time and if we don’t deal with this by giving the House and Senate a complete overhaul this November and in November 2012, we probably may as well hang it up.