US Congress:  Shut Off The Money To Pakistan 

Stop Supporting US Enemies!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

With the US Congress searching so diligently “in the round about” for ways to cut spending, we’d like to suggest the obvious:  Stop sending US money to Pakistan.  I am tired of US money propping up that rogue nation.

I have thought, for sometime now, that we are fighting terrorism in the wrong country.  The US military is in Afghanistan while all the terrorists are in Pakistan! 

There is absolutely no way Pakistan will ever convince the outside world (that is the non-Islamic world) that they did not know Bin Laden was living in a mansion some 35 miles from their capital city and roughly a half mile from their national Military College and Training Center.  They can pound their chests in mock masculinity, and feigned outrage all they wish.  Their ridiculous posturing only reinforces the belief in the west, and in the non-Islamic world, that they are flat-out lying!

The only way Bin Laden could have lived, as he did in Pakistan, is with a huge “support system” within the country of … Pakistan.  They KNEW he was there -- and they lied to us about it. That is reason enough for them to forfeit the billions of dollars of American money -- and British money, as well.

It was predictable that the demonstrations all over the Islamic world would begin upon the killing of Bin Laden.  He was their HERO!  Where else on earth is a mass murder proclaimed as a HERO …  so far as I am able to tell, only within the Islamic sphere of influence. 

So, out into the streets pour the bedraggled masses of “America haters” burning and desecrating the American flag, drawing more anger from the west upon themselves -- and their religion – “the religion of peace.”

Yes, the attack on Bin Laden was cold-blooded and deliberate.  That is what our elite Special Forces do.  And, may I note, the same will happen to Gaddafi, in Libya, when the US Special Forces are given HIM as their target.

Look, if you are fool enough, idiotic enough, to strike at America, you had better wrap your mind around the fact that sooner or later, your life will be required of you.  When you feel the safest, you will be most the vulnerable to the US military’s elite warriors. That goes for terrorists and for nations.  (See World War Two – Japan.)

Look.  All the billions we are spending on nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq will have the effect of pouring a teaspoon of salt water into the ocean.  It won’t be noticeable once US forces leave.  Iraq will almost instantly align itself with Iran out of fear and panic -- and who knows how much cash passed under the table to some fat cat national leaders.

Afghanistan will almost certainly fall right back into the hands of the Taliban or some other wild-eyed, quasi-religious, terrorist organization.  Hey, all they want to do is grow and sell … DOPE!

Winning the hearts and minds of a backwards people, still living in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, is some sort of left-wing babble that actually means, simply:  bribing a few of their national leaders to get their approval to build a new school, a new hospital, pave some roads, provide them a power plant for electricity, wells for clean water, etc, etc. And they HATE us for it!

The world, it seems, has forgotten that America can be your best friend – or your worst enemy.  I think that is mostly the fault of America’s recent leadership -- especially the leadership from the left.  Intent on having the world love America, they have forgotten the advantages of having the world FEAR America. 

What the world just witnessed is the awesome power of the US military – when it is allowed to do its job.   Unfortunately, we have had too many national leaders, over the past few decades, that have been intent on making the US Military into a branch of the “Peace Corp.”   Had they been allowed to ply their trade, as the world’s greatest warriors, those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been over in weeks, if not days, with a heck of a lot less killed and wounded American troops.

Back to Pakistan for a moment:  If Pakistan is determined to hold onto our downed Blackhawk helo, then they should prepare for another raid aimed at retrieving our property and possibly changing the current Pakistani regime for a government a bit friendlier to America. It’s just a thought.  Yeah, that’s all it is.

In the meantime, as the diplomatic wrangling continues, the US Congress should immediately cut off all taxpayer money to Pakistan, forthwith. It is pure bribery.  Nothing more.  Frankly, it is embarrassing to Americans who are infuriated at a people, a nation, that gave sanctuary to the man who murdered thousands of Americans a decade ago, and who, today, is praised as a hero and a martyr by those who so eagerly produce their oily palms to grasp American dollars with which to line their pockets and fill numbered bank accounts in Europe and the islands of the Caribbean. 

The whole thing reminds one of “Ali Babba and the Forty Thieves.”  Only THE STORY was fiction.

J. D. Longstreet

Obama Treats Americans As “Sheeple!”

Obama Treats Americans As “Sheeple!”

Congress Provided With “FAKE” Photo?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Obama, the leader of the Marxist division of the US government, just does not believe the American people can handle seeing a photograph of the dead Osama Bin Laden.  He apparently believes we are too simple minded, too sensitive, too easily frightened of and by violence, too easily traumatized by war to be allowed to view the photos of a dead Bin Laden. 

HE IS DEAD WRONG!  Heck, I’d like to stand over the body, which is supposedly now fish food in the Arabian Sea.  Believe me when I say, I would have preferred to have Bin Laden’s body on public display at Ground Zero in New York than given a proper funeral and buried at sea. 

The man was a monster who took the lives of thousands of Americans with that attack on American soil, and is responsible for many, many, more American deaths all around the globe.

Darn right, I want to see the photograph!   Rest assured, we WILL see it soon.  There is no way the government can keep it locked away. It will pop-up soon on the Internet.

Look, when Saddam Hussein was hanged, and the video published to the web, I watched that video three or four times.

What REALLY irks me about Obama’s withholding the Osama photo, is the way, we, the American people are being treated by him (Obama), and his elite, snobbish, limp-wristed bunch of socialist-marxist effete posers who seem to believe they know better what is best for the American people than the American people, themselves, do.  But that is how Socialism-Marxism works. (Get rid of Obama in 2012 – or get used to it.  It will only get worse.) 

What we have here is a prime example of just exactly how the left views the American citizen.  It is obvious they see us as child-like, unable to think for ourselves and totally dependent upon them, our betters, to shepherd us as though we were, indeed, sheep, one of the dumbest animals on God’s green earth!

Remember, these are the people who ban the playing of “Tag” and “Dodge Ball” on the playground of our children’s schools while they teach them Marxist principles within the classrooms. 

We have warned for years that America has been rearing a generation of wussies! Now, we know that not only did we raise them, heck, we placed them in the White House and the “West Wing” executive offices of the Obama Administration! (I wonder if anyone fainted in the Situation Room, as they watched live coverage of the Bin Laden take down?)

I can’t wait for the 2012 election.  I am primed to vote for a candidate with some backbone. Frankly, I want a male in the Oval Office, an Alpha male, who will reassert America’s masculinity.  I am more than a little tired of the Democrats feminine approach to governing. America needs a LEADER.  In fact, we need a military man as President of the US during this time of war – a war that has no perceptible end.

It is painfully obvious to anyone, not of the political left, that America does not have a real leader in Obama.  What we DO have is a narcissistic, self centered, socialist-Marxist, who views himself as a member of the political elite upper class deserving of all the worship and praise HE THINKS HE SHOULD HAVE and all the perks America can provide for his reigning queen.  It is embarrassing to the average American. 

The death of Bin Laden is a victory for the American people.  It is a victory for the brave men of the US Special Forces and we demand to see the evidence that will, once and for all, close the books on the hellish evil of the man responsible for the deaths of so many of our fellow Americans.

We all know that, eventually, the “death photo” of Bin Laden will appear, most likely on the Internet, having been leaked by someone (most likely) in the government.  Already, one international news service is presenting photos of other terrorists killed in the Obama raid, which were reportedly sold to them by a Pakistani official.  You have to believe that money is being offered, even as we write, to anyone who can slip a copy of that banned photo to the various branches of the media.  It will be published – count on it.

This effort on the part of Obama’s handlers to gain political points in the polls for their ceaselessly campaigning President WILL back fire.  Indeed, it already has.

Seems to me a “grown-up” President would have announced that American forces located and dispatched Osama Bin Laden and that his body had been disposed of in an undisclosed location.  Period.  By going farther, in hopes of gaining temporary up spikes in the polls, the door was kicked open to everything happening today.  This bespeaks the amateurism in the White House.

Yes, I am troubled by Obama not allowing Americans to see the photo, but I am far more troubled by this demonstration of just how little regard he has for the people he is supposed to serve.

J. D. Longstreet

The left is at it again, demonizing business for fun and profit

Commentary by James H. Shott

With the current brouhaha over the national debt and projected trillion dollar budget deficits, one side wants to cut spending to solve the problem, the other wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and on businesses. The tax raisers talk about cutting spending, and make a token effort to cut a little bit, but mostly they’re just talking. They don’t do spending cuts; they only want to raise taxes.

Like many liberal solutions this one sounds good in the abstract. After all, when you want money, where better to get it than from those that have it? The notorious bank robber Willie Sutton apparently understood this. When asked why he robbed banks he is rumored to have answered, “Because that’s where the money is!” But he found there was a downside to going where the money was, spending about half of his adult life in prison.

And like many liberal solutions to problems there is also a downside to going after wealthy Americans and businesses to satisfy the government’s obsessive spending, and we hear a lot less about the downsides to these solutions than we hear about the wonders they supposedly will produce.

All jobs in the US are the result of activity in the private sector. Even government workers owe their jobs to American businesses, because without them there would be no one to tax to get the money to pay government employees.

Every dollar taken from the private sector by government through taxation is a dollar that can’t be used to buy stuff. The more money people have the more goods and services they will buy. The more goods and services people want to buy, the more of them that have to be produced, and that is where jobs come from. Over-taxing the wealthy and businesses is in effect biting the hand that feeds you.

The left is fond of finding someone or something it can portray as evil and greedy, and get people all riled up about it. One of the most popular of those is the oil industry.

Conventional wisdom holds that the oil industry is one of the most profitable industries in the country, raking in billions of dollars each year, and it’s the greedy oil companies that control gasoline prices that are punishing Americans today. And since our leaders have spent us into a deep hole and want to spend even more, oil companies are a juicy target for additional tax revenue, and no one will complain if taxes are raised on oil companies.

But the oil industry is in the bottom half of industries on the profit list, as reported by the American Petroleum Institute (API) with nine industry groups that make higher profit margins than “Big Oil,” while seven have lower profit margins. The upper group includes chemicals, pharmaceuticals and medicines, computer and peripheral equipment, apparel and leather products, machinery, electrical equipment and related items, aerospace products and parts, and a category called “all manufacturing.”

The highest earning industry group, beverage and tobacco products, makes more than three times the profit margin (21.7 percent) of oil companies (5.7 percent). For every dollar of an oil company’s sales, after all expenses are paid the oil company has 5.7 cents left as profit. By no reasonable measure can that be called excessive profit.

The oil industry makes tens of billions in profits because it spends hundreds of billions doing business. The oil industry spent well in excess of $250 billion just on capital projects in the U.S. in 2010, and more than $58 billion on new low-and-zero emissions technologies for carbon mitigation, which is 44 percent of all expenditures for that purpose.

And on the subject of taxes, API reports that U.S. oil and natural gas companies pay considerably more in taxes than the average manufacturing company. In 2010 income tax expenses (as a share of net income before income taxes) averaged 41.1 percent, compared to 26.5 percent for other S&P Industrial companies.”

Market forces and government policies are responsible for raising gasoline prices, and higher gasoline prices only increase industry profits.

People believe taxing oil profits punishes greedy oil companies. They’re wrong. API explains: “If you’re wondering who owns ‘Big Oil,’ chances are good the answer is ‘you do.’ If you have a mutual fund account, and 55 million U.S. households do, there’s a good chance it invests in oil and natural gas stocks. If you have an IRA or personal retirement account, and 45 million U.S. households do, there’s a good chance it invests in energy stocks.” And, API says, only 1.5 percent of oil industry stock is owned by corporate management. “The rest is owned by tens of millions of Americans, many of them middle class, such as teachers, police and firefighters.”

While President Barack Obama and other liberal big spenders like to get folks all fired up about greedy “Big Oil” as a source for tax revenue, what he’s not telling you is that raising taxes on oil companies is raising taxes on you.

Cross-posted from Observations

America Gets A Boost With The Killing Of Bin Laden

America Gets A Boost With The Killing Of Bin Laden

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

I doubt we will ever know who pulled the trigger on Bin Laden.   It would be more than stupid to release the name of the Seal trigger man, or any of the American troops participating in the raid that took down America’s most wanted criminal. It would, of course, lay them and their families open to retribution from terrorists for the remainder of their days.

Having said that, we urge the President to award ALL those troops with the highest decoration he possibly can -- in secret.

The assassination of Bin Laden gave Americans a sorely needed morale boost.  It was a reminder that even though America is undergoing one of the greatest financial and political trials of its history, we STILL have the capability of fighting three overt wars and one covert war -- simultaneously.  No other country on earth can do that. In other words, it sends a clear message to our enemies and detractors.  Don’t mess with America. If you do, you had better be prepared to pay an awful price.

American Special Forces are, indeed, special.  I am only about an hour’s drive from one of their training facilities and let me tell you, they are held in very high regard here.

I had the privilege of being acquainted with a couple of Special Forces men and both were exemplary young men -- both family men and both religious men who took their faith seriously. 

The US military is still the best on earth.  Those rough men allow us to sleep peacefully in our beds at night.

I must tell you that I am worried that the change up at the Defense Department and the CIA may weaken the US Armed Forces and our intelligence community.

I am not a great admirer of General Petraeus.  I have felt for sometime that he is more politician than military man -- and that suspicion seems to have been borne out.  So far as Leon Panetta goes, I fear that he is being placed as Secretary of Defense with orders from Obama to downsize the US military.  That would be, in my estimation,,  a dire mistake.  If anything,  we need to enlarge our standing military -- across the board.

Look, we are at war!  No matter that some in our national government donned their rose-colored glasses, way back in the 60’s, and continue to wear them today skewing their view of reality, there IS a War on Terror.  It is a ,war that will not stop at the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  If anything, it may very well intensify.  We have had an army in the field for over ten years now.  We are nowhere near victory. Nor shall we be in ten more years.  This is a war that has no perceptible end, at all.

Americans have to understand that as politically incorrect as it may be -- America is involved in a RELIGIOUS WAR.  It is, simply put: the Judeo/Christian religion - vs - the Islamic religion. I understand it is distasteful to even say it, but hey … there it is!

On a slightly different tack … will the killing of Bin Laden frighten Qaddafi enough that he will use what little reasoning capability he has left to remove himself from Libya, at the earliest possible moment, and go off to live a quiet life swearing off the practice of terrorism?  Will he stay and die, or go away -- and die?  I expect NATO is watching intently to see if Qaddafi is affected in any way by the events of May 1^st.

America must abandon its policy of attempting to win the hearts and minds of our Islamic enemy.  It isn’t going to happen.

Peggy Noonan in an article in the Wall Street Journal recently said:  “Our republic is now in a historical adventure period – that is not what is needed.  We are, or should be, in a self-strengthening one.  Our focus should not be on outward involvement but inner repair.  Bad people are gunning for us, it is true.  We should find them, dispatch them, and harden the target.  (That would be, still New York, through Washington, too.)  We should not occupy their lands or run their governments.  We think in Afghanistan we’re buying their love, but I have been there.  We’re not even renting it.

Our long wars have cost much in blood and treasure, and our military is overstretched.  We’re asking soldiers to be social workers, as Bing West notes in his book on Afghanistan, “The Wrong War.”

Ms. Noonan is correct.  Time spent building schools, roads, and hospitals, dulls the edge of the US military sword.  In the end it will cost the lives of many US troops.  That should never happen. The destruction of an enemy’s country should be a part of the price they must pay for attacking America. It should be viewed as a deterrent  -- not urban renewal!

Meanwhile, the war goes on -- with no end in sight.

J. D. Longstreet

At This Rate Obama Wins By Forfeit!

At This Rate Obama Wins By Forfeit!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

The first GOP Presidential debate is coming up and the GOP still hasn’t fielded a candidate capable of winning against Obama.   If a Republican candidate (with at least a chance of winning) doesn’t soon toss his or her hat into the ring, Obama wins by forfeit… of a sort.

Honestly, it is becoming depressing!  The candidates, I personally could support, all seem to be sitting 2012 out and waiting on 2016.  The problem with that strategy is – there may not be a country to be President of by 2016!

My southern experience tells me, southerners enjoy the show Mr. Trump is providing, but we don’t take him seriously as an honest to goodness candidate – even if he decides to run. 

Mr. Romney cannot carry the southern states. Why?  A couple of things:  RomnyCare is one reason.  It is considered a form of Obamacare.  It has been referred to as ObamaCare Lite.  The second reason… well, let me put it this way:  Do you really expect Southern Baptists to vote for a Mormon?  Hey, it is an honest question based on my experience. I was reared in a Southern Baptist home.  I became Lutheran in my mid-twenties and today I am considered a “recovering Baptist.”

Look, I could tick them all off, but suffice it to say, as a southerner, I am not enthused about any of them and I do not see, hear, or feel, any excitement amongst my fellow southern Americans for any candidate, or would-be candidate, in the current field.

Over the weekend, the New York Times suggested “Republicans Are Pursuing a Wider Field for 2012 Race.” (Read the article HERE.)  I beg to disagree with that.  Well, sort of.  It is not a wider field we are looking for.  It is a winning candidate.  We are tired of the same old faces, the same old, “It’s my turn” plea, and the same old ambivalent promises.  We yearn for a fresh face with a strong character, leadership skills, and someone who will cut through the smoke and haze and “tell it like it is!”

With the first GOP debate coming up later this week -- we STILL don’t know who will be on the panel of candidates! This is no way to inspire confidence in neither GOP supporters nor fear in the democrats.  It is a sign of weakness right from the git-go. And THAT is depressing!

Telling it like it is in plain, simple language, even though some of his language is, uh, shall we say, “colorful,” is the reason why Donald Triumph has made such headway in the polls. 

 I could add:  “Moderates and RINOS Need Not Apply.” Not this time, anyway.  There is a grassroots movement of conservatives just waiting to throw their considerable support behind a hardcore conservative Republican candidate and the sooner the better.  But where is he/she?  Where?

I really think it is a mistake for qualified GOP candidates to sit out 2012.  The country is in serious trouble.  It will only get worse if Obama is not sent packing and a general house cleaning of the various agencies such as the EPA, the FCC, …  well, heck, ALL of them by a new conservative President with the assistance of a GOP Congress is undertaken on day one of the new presidency.

Another thing:  There is not as much money out here in the hinterlands as there has been in campaign cycles past.  Sure, the money will begin flowing -- AFTER the candidates are announced and the field is set. 

We know the Obama people have the money and they have home field advantage with his incumbency. We are at half time.  The GOP took the first half but they can’t win the game if they only win the first half! Not in the game of politics.

Conservatives are waiting for a candidate they can rally around.  So far that candidate has not stepped forward.  So, we are still waiting, keeping our powder dry, just waiting, and waiting. 

The longer conservatives wait the more certain it becomes that some will simply turn away in disgust and sit out the election in 2012. 

May Providence forgive America for what we did to this country in 2006 and 2008.  We can at least TRY to redeem ourselves in 2012… but … NOT THIS WAY!

J. D. Longstreet

6 Million Dead!

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

Today is the day we remember and mourn those who were murdered by the Nazis and their allies.

We have to remember it wasn't just Germans who worked in the camps, but volunteers from EVERY country the Nazis conquered.  These volunteers were often more impassioned with their horrid task, bringing an enthusiasm to the job that often the regular SS didn't share.

We can safely assume that the men and women who worked in the Concentration Camps were defective in their moral fiber.  Whether from birth, disease or upbringing, this defect of character added to the horror those interned there faced on a daily basis.

If there were no proof of the horror caused by these defective people then I would be at fault. I submit the following as partial proof of the horror they caused.

None of the horror would have been possible if the people of Germany first, then the occupied nations would have stood up and screamed NO!  Instead they were silent, or worse they collaborated with the murderers.  After all these were only Jews. And their church taught them to hate the Jews from birth.

Those who did not speak up, or try to save one life are as guilty of the murder of 6 million Jews as those who worked and ran the Camps.  An thought to remember on this Yom HaShoah.

NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!