Omega Dispatch

A Betrayal of Public Trust … J. D. Longstreet

Posted: October 30, 2012 in Uncategorized

A Betrayal of Public Trust
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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In all my 70 plus years I have never seen an election in which the Mainstream Media has endorsed and contributed to the campaign of a presidential candidate. During the presidential campaign of 2008 and the current presidential campaign they MsM was — and is — indisputably in the tank, all the way, for Obama.

The national media, yea, the WESTERN media, has thrown in with the Democratic Party — and especially with Obama.

Back in 2010 I referred to the MSM this way: “As the doe-eyed, salivating, press corp, falls all over itself trying to hoist their failing socialist President and their liberal-socialist Congress up in the eyes of the public (whose intelligence they have so grossly underestimated) they create a comical picture, yet, one laced through and through with pathos. They are a pitiful sight.” SOURCE: http://faultlineusa.blogspot.com/2010/10/mainstream-media-puffing-obamademocrats.html

My feelings have changed, considerably, since. I no longer see them as pitiful. I see the MsM today as threatening … threatening to the freedom and liberty of America and, as such, they have firmly cast themselves as enemies of the country I love — America.

Here we are, a week away from the most important election in the history of the United States, and the Media is deliberately covering-up one of the most important events to take place during the Obama Presidency. I refer, of course, to the cover-up of the major screw-up at the US “mission” in Benghazi, Libya.

As the days go by, it becomes even more clear that the President’s team really, I mean, REALLY, screwed-up in Benghazi costing the lives of four Americans including the US Ambassador to Libya. BUT — reporting on this story, especially reporting the TRUTH on this story would reflect badly o the President. Therefore, the MSM is, in my opinion, deliberately choosing NOT to tell the American people what happened.

Look. That is information Americans need, especially on the eve of a presidential election. It is information that will will most certainly raise questions about the competence of the Obama Team — and it should!

The media has cast its lot with Obama and they are refusing to do their job and make the information available to the American public.

It STINKS!

What? Do they think we re so dumb we wouldn’t notice? Or, is it just the Obama supporters they believe are that dumb?

The whole thing smacks of a betrayal of public trust by the news media.

And the MsM does not understand why we have stopped buying their newspapers and turned our TV dials away from the broadcast networks to a news network that actually tries to present news in a “fair and balanced” manner. NOW who’s dumb?

It’s almost funny to watch them berate and laugh at “citizen journalists” on Internet blogs. They can laugh, and criticize all they want, but at the end of the day, those citizen journalists are doing the job the MsM used to do, only better! When they laugh, it is the same as whistling past the graveyard.

Since 2008, and the election of Obama, I have gone to off-shore news sources just to get news from America. I can’t trust the American media anymore. And after this presidential campaign, I don’t trust them at all — and I never will again.

Senator Marco Rubio recently said: “Never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today.” The Senator was spot-on!

Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh recently said: “The mainstream media today has the biggest disconnect with its audience that it’s ever, ever had. And as the disconnect grows and as more and more people distrust them, then the media digs in more and more and says you don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t know how we do our jobs, you don’t know what’s important.” Again, Rush is right!

The American Thinker reported the following: “Discussing Benghazi, Pat Caddell says the press has “been in the tank on this in a way I’ve never seen… I am appalled right now. This White House, this President, this Vice President, this Secretary of State, all of them, are willing apparently to dishonor themselves and this country for the cheap prospect of getting reelected…willing to cover up and lie. The worst thing is the very people who are supposed to protect the American people with the truth – the leading mainstream media…they have become a threat, a fundamental threat to American democracy and the enemies of the American people… these people have no honor… cover-up is too nice of a word…” SOURCE: http://www.americanthinker.com/video/2012/10/angry_democrat_pat_caddell_condemns_no_honor_media_and_obama.html#ixzz2AhVINBGk

For those who do not know, Pat Caddell is a fellow “Sandlapper” born just 25 miles, or so, from the birthplace and hometown of this scribe in South Carolina. He has worked for Democratic presidential candidates George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Gary Hart in 1984, Joe Biden in 1988, and Jerry Brown in 1992. He also worked for Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff in 2010. I point this out so it is clear that Pat and I do not necessarily share the same political philosophy even though Pat did leave the Democratic Party in 1988.

What Caddell and I DO share is the belief that the MsM is now a threat to the country. As history records, South Carolinians have never been afraid to go against the tide when they believe the tide is going in the wrong direction. THIS is one of those times.

I applaud my brother from the great Palmetto State for standing, like a man, against what is clearly wrong with the Mainstream Media’s censoring of the news and dissemination of propaganda for the Obama campaign. Someone had to call them on it — and Pat just did! Good on him!

I fear that as a result of the MsM’s efforts, much of the electorate will go to the polls as the worst informed voters in decades, or longer.

Well, at least the facade is gone now. Now anyone not willfully blind can see the leftist bias of the MsM in America. It is also clear the news print media is now an anachronism of a by-gone era — and — even though they are desperately hanging-on they are inexorably slipping away en route to the great dustbin of history. And not a moment too soon.

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Benghazigate: What Are They Covering-Up? … J. D. Longstreet

Posted: October 29, 2012 in Uncategorized

Benghazigate: What Are They Covering-Up?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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(Editor’s note: YES! I am adding the suffix “- gate” to the word Benghazi. If Obama was a Republican, this incident would have been referred to as “Benghazigate” weeks ago! Now, it is! … JDL)

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Four Americans are dead and the American people are being lied to as to how and why they got that way.

Either the President is lying – and needs to be impeached, or he’s NOT lying — and needs to be impeached — because he DIDN’T know what was happening!

Repeat: Four Americans are DEAD. And as much as it pains me to say it — it doesn’t look as if our government made a genuine effort to save them.

I have watched, listened, and read as much as we have been allowed to know — plus — information gleaned by non-mainstream media sources, and I have concluded there is a major cover-up at the top levels of the US government over the incident in Benghazi.

Now, let me be clear: I am not an investigative reporter. That is not what I do. I am a commentator — an opinion writer … nothing more. I have deliberately “hung back” on any in-depth comments on the Benghazi affair simply because there always seemed to me to be more THERE there. In other words, it was obvious, at least to me, that we were only getting drips and drabs of what really happened and, I felt (and still do) that we have been told nothing of WHY it happened. But, dear reader, even Helen Keller could see there is a major cover-up surrounding the incident in Benghazi!

That CIA “safe-house” has troubled me from the very beginning of this horrible story. What was the CIA doing there? There was no embassy in Benghazi. In fact, the building attacked was not even a consulate. If anything, it was a “mission.” Had it been an embassy, I’d not question a CIA presence. They are practically a part of the furniture in any US Embassy. But, as I said, this was NOT an embassy.

Remember too, the last person our ambassador met with the evening of the attack was a Turkish diplomat. What was a Turkish diplomat doing in Benghazi, Libya, meeting with Ambassador Stevens at an unprotected site. Why not meet in the embassy in Tripoli?

It now seems that the ex-SEALS were not attached to the consulate, but were assigned to the CIA “safe-house.” They (laudably) went against orders and made a rescue attempt of the US officials and staff at the consulate — and lost their lives in the attempt.

There is now a fog of misinformation spewed up and out by the Obama Administration in what — in my opinion — is an attempt to cover-up an on-going scheme/operation to smuggle weapons into Syria through Turkey.

A few weeks ago, there was a report that Libyan militia members had been ordered to turn-in the weapons that had been supplied them in their struggle to overthrow Qaddafi. That report confirmed that many of those weapons had been turned in. Where did those weapons go? Perhaps, to the Syrian rebels?

It has been suspected for some time now that the US has been supplying small arms to the rebels in Syria for a while — even though the Obama Administration denies it.

It is the kind of operation the CIA would be up-to-their-necks in and it would explain their presence on the ground in Libya in a safe-house a mile away from the consulate/mission.

For the sake of argument, suppose the guns gathered from the Libyan militia were being covertly sent to Turkey and then smuggled across the Turkey/Syrian border to the Syrian rebels.

I continue to cycle back to the question — why was the Ambassador THERE , alone, without a security detail, at that particular time, meeting with a high Turkish diplomat. Remember, this was on September 11th. If there was going to be an attack by terrorists — September 11th would be the day for it.

Now, I’m just hypothesizing here. I have no idea, at this point, what was really going on. But, I have confidence in my opinion that there was a covert operation underway — one so black that sacrificing the lives of four Americans was deemed “worth it” by our leaders in Washington.

For whatever reason, the Obama Administration has chosen to tell the world a bald-faced lie about what happened in Benghazi.

So politicians lie, right? Yeah, they do. But this time — four Americans are dead and the country wants to know why that happened and why the Obama Administration chose to lie to us about it.

It is clear now, that all the warnings from the political right about the penchant of this President and his administration for lies was absolutely correct. If they are lying about the “Incident in Benghazi,” WHAT ELSE ARE THEY LYING TO US ABOUT?

Americans have a week to decide if they trust Obama enough to vote for him to lead the country for another four years. It is clear the Mainstream Media is NOT going to cover this story. They are NOT going to investigate what happened for fear that it will drive down support for Obama at the polls. They seem to have taken the attitude: the truth, the welfare of the country, be damned. Getting their man, Obama, reelected is the most important thing, bar none.

Look. THE COVER-UP OF “BENGHAZIGATE” IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN WATERGATE EVER WAS!

We need a “Congressional Investigation” of the incident at Benghazi and we need it post haste! I understand there is no way that is possible before election day, but — if ever an incident deserved investigating by the Congress, this horrible event in Benghazi is it. It is looking more and more as if grounds for impeachment proceedings are present.

Yes, if only Obama was a Republican, there would be no need for commentators to beg the Congress to investigate — or — for commentators to opine at the reluctance of the MsM to investigate.

It is what it is. The Mainstream Media in America is an organ of the political left — as is President Obama. There is simply no way we are going to get anything approaching impartial reporting or a REAL investigation of Benghazigate from the MsM.

It behooves every voter to weigh what little we know about Benghazigate and decide if we want to have Obama continue to lead this country after January 20th, 2013.

For me, it is not just a matter of trust, it is a matter of honor — NATIONAL HONOR.

America deserves better than we have gotten, or, are likely to get from Obama.

As you enter the voting booth ask yourself, what else has Obama lied to you about. What else is Obama lying to you about today? Then for the sake of our country — do what’s right.

J. D. Longstreet

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VISIT J. D. Longstreet’s “INSIGHT on Freedom” Face Book Page!!: (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)
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Hurricane Sandy’s Message to America … Alan Caruba

Posted: October 28, 2012 in Uncategorized

Hurricane Sandy’s Message to America

By Alan Caruba

When Mother Nature demonstrates her extraordinary power, I always hope that people will draw a lesson from it, but they never seem to. Hurricane Sandy is just the latest example of the futility and foolishness of thinking that humans can do anything about a hurricane or similar demonstration of who is really in charge. It is the planet. Not us.
This suspension of common sense is worsened when our President goes on television, as he did last Friday on MTV, to say “I believe the scientists, who say that we are putting too much carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and it is heating the planet and it is going to have a severe effect.” This is literally junk science, long since debunked by legions of scientists who know that carbon dioxide has nothing to do with the Earth’s temperature. The planet has been in a cooling cycle since 1998.
I keep hoping, too, that lacking the vital lifeblood of our nation–electricity—millions of people sitting around in the dark will ask themselves where it comes from, what generates it, how does it get to their home, and perhaps even why its cost keeps increasing even though the U.S. sits atop enough coal and natural gas to provide affordable power for two hundred years at current consumption rates.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in March of this year electricity from coal has fallen from 50% production to less than 40% by the end of 2011. Other sources include natural gas at 26%, nuclear at 22%, hydroelectric at 7% and “other” was said to be 6%. It should be noted that oil is a transportation fuel and not used to generate electricity. I believe that the amount that solar and wind produces is more likely closer to three percent. It is unreliable and uncompetitive and requires a traditional plant as backup when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun is obscured by clouds and, of course, at night.
Not surprisingly, the environmental organizations such as Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club are already beating the drums about “climate change”, asserting “unpredictable, extreme weather.” The planet is always in a state of climate change if for no other reason that it is subject to the seasons. Blaming extreme weather on “climate change” is just a code for keeping the “global warming” hoax alive. The only reason President Obama talks about climate change is his hope that a carbon tax can be imposed to raise more money for the government to waste.
Electricity is not magic. Some form of energy must be burned to generate it and then it must be transmitted by a huge, very old grid to consumers.
In January of this year, The North American Electric Reliability Corporation warned that the reliability of the grid was in jeopardy. Thanks to the Obama administration’s (i.e. EPA) relentless attack on coal, the NERC noted that beyond the 38 gigawatts of electricity capacity that has already been announced to retire, it estimated that another 35 to 59 gigawatts will come off-line by 2018 depending on the “scope and timing” of EPA regulations. If you think the downed lines that Hurricane Sandy will produce are a problem, consider a future in which the electricity they are supposed to distribute will be significantly reduced.
What most Americans don’t know is that coal is the fuel of choice to generate electricity in many other nations of the world. Just five years ago it produced fifty percent of our electricity, but today it is less than forty percent, the lowest share since data began to be collected in 1949. For example, China’s coal consumption grew 9.7% between 2010 and 2011. Last year China consumed 49% of the world’s coal supply. India’s coal consumption increased 9.2%
While the President blathers on MTV about CO2 emissions, my friend Dr. Jay Lehr, the Science Director of The Heartland Institute, dispatches that nonsense noting that “A simple volcanic eruption will cancel a decade of effort” to reduce emissions.
“Today,” says Dr. Lehr, “it is our government that is attempting to thwart our energy independence by blocking nearly every effort to develop our resources through completely unreasonable restrictions placed on us by the EPA and the Department of the Interior, and horrible policies of the Department of Energy which choose to throw unconscionable sums of money at renewable energy projects…”
Ultimately, while millions of Americans light candles in the dark or hope their flashlight batteries hold out, we have to ask WHY the Obama administration has waged a war on the provision of electricity.
This is a deliberate policy to weaken the nation’s capacity to function at every level and yet we are days away from an election where millions of Americans will vote to reelect Obama and send his Democratic Party minions to Congress.
It is in line with the Obama administration’s deliberate policy of reducing our military capacity on land, sea and air.
The only silver lining in the distress and disruption of Hurricane Sandy may be the awakening of voters to the critical need for more, not less, production of electricity, for improvements to the national grid, for more oil production for our transportation needs, and concurrent with this, the hundreds of thousands of jobs that such efforts would produce and billions it would generate to begin to reduce the national debt, now in excess of $16 trillion.
Long ago, the cartoon character, Pogo, famously said, “We have met the enemy and it is us.”
The enemy, I would suggest, is President Barack Hussein Obama, his many shadowy, unaccountable “czars” influencing energy policies, his Cabinet Secretaries of Energy and the Interior, and the rogue Environmental Protection Agency that is set to unleash regulations that will destroy the economy, aided and abetted by the nation’s environmental organizations.
That’s Hurricane Sandy’s message to America.
© Alan Caruba, 2012
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Alan Caruba’s commentaries are posted daily at “Warning Signs” and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 1.7 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

American Voters Will Politically Hang Obama for Benghazi … JB WILLIAMS

Posted: October 28, 2012 in Uncategorized

American Voters Will Politically Hang Obama for Benghazi

By JB Williams

jb.uspu@gmail.com

Yes, Obamanomics are horrific! — No, its not just the economy this time stupid. What the Obama administration have done to intentionally destroy the U.S. economy is cause enough for a political hanging of everyone in the Obama administration. The people responsible for driving our nations debt up more than 60% in less than four years, while decimating jobs and forcing a record number of Americans onto federal assistance, demands a short rope swinging from the political tree.

· Unemployment still in double digits and worsening

· 80% of college grads cannot find work in chosen profession

· Over 40% of Americans now on federal assistance (an all-time high)

· National debt UP 60% since taking office (over $16 trillion)

· An 84% failure rate on green taxpayer investments that most taxpayers opposed

· Average American income DOWN over $4000 per year

· Home values still DOWN more than 30% nationally

· Businesses are closing and investors are leaving America

· Obama has sent more jobs overseas than all of the last five presidents combined

· Cost of gas UP 137%

· Cost of potatoes UP 306%

· Cost of butter and coffee UP more than 150%

· Beef, milk and flour UP more than 100%

· Eggs and rice UP over 70%

And that is the good news. The economic terrorism waged on the American people by the Obama administration is nothing when compared to the national security threat this administration represents.

Benghazi is important not only because we lost four Americans there, an Ambassador, his aide and two SEALS, all of whom died needlessly. It is important because Benghazi is a microcosm into the broader Obama-Clinton foreign policy.

The Obama-Clinton policy of toppling foreign governments in the jihad torn hotbed of the Middle East, arming known terrorists including Al Qaeda, leaving our foreign installations like sitting ducks — standing down as those so-called freedom fighters murder Americans with American weapons, is unconscionable and unforgivable. Someone must pay and American blood is on the hands of many in the Obama administration.

In addition to the fact that Americans cant economically afford four more months of Obamanomics, they cannot survive four more minutes of Obama foreign policy aimed at advancing Radical Islam at the expense of American lives.

Even assuming that Romney and Ryan can somehow overcome the most massive Democrat voter fraud in election history to win November 6th, we still have to make it from then until January 20, 2013 as the Obama administration will continue to decimate the nation from all angles, or worse.

If Americans needed more proof that Barack Hussein Obama is a radical Muslim Marxist terrorist operating from the peoples Oval Office, they now have it in the Benghazi story.

What we now know about September 11th events in Benghazi Libya is far from what the Obama administration has been telling us about the events of that day for the last several weeks.

· The Obama administration said they had no prior warning of the attacks on Benghazi LIE

· They said the attacks were due to a protest LIE

· They said the protest was a reaction to a totally obscure YouTube video LIE

· They said that they did not know what happened for more than 17 days after LIE

· They said that they had nothing to do with that YouTube video LIE

· They said they were confused by a fog of war LIE

· They said it was not a terrorist attack LIE

· They said it had nothing to do with Obama foreign policy LIE

· They said they had bad intelligence LIE

· They said they didnt have the funds for more security LIE

· They said they didnt know who killed our Americans LIE

· They said Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood were not involved LIE

· They said that Obama was not directly involved LIE

· They said that concerned people were politicizing Benghazi LIE

· They said that they didnt arm the people who killed four Americans LIE

· They said they did all they could do LIE

The original unclassified Benghazi cables covering more than twelve months leading up to Benghazi prove that the Obama administration is full of bold faced liars, at a minimum. Our Executive Brief covers the period leading up to the events of 9-11-12.

The House Committee on Oversight of Government Reform is asking questions that they already know the answers to and in case you are wondering why nobody is taking any serious action on the Obama massacre in Benghazi, its because many Washington DC politicians have American blood on their hands.

Since we covered the Benghazi tragedy and unclassified cables long before information was reported by FOX News and ignored by every other mainstream press room busy campaigning for Barack Obama, much more damning information has emerged.

The facts are starting to support a theory that the Obama administration might have been much worse than inept. The facts are adding up to blatant treason by the Obama administration in Benghazi, possibly setting up Benghazi for death and destruction as a campaign stunt to win re-election.

An ABC affiliate in Denver tried to extract a straight forward answer out of Obama at a campaign stop on Friday.

After being asked about possible denials of requests for aid, and whether its fair to tell Americans that what happened is under investigation and wont be released until after the election, the president said, the election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened. These are folks who served under me who I had sent to some very dangerous places. Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do.

The Obama administration has such a long string of lies already in the air on Benghazi that Obama is scared to utter a word on the matter until after the election. They are trapped in their own web of lies and administration rats are looking for cover, exposing Obama to campaign problems if they cant shut down this story until after the election. At least a local ABC affiliate was willing to ask the questions that no other lame stream press room is asking, other than FOX.

But a caller to the Rush Limbaugh Show describes standard protocol and standing security operations for events like Benghazi and his description is right on the mark. There is no way that Benghazi was an accident. What happened in Benghazi was a direct result of decisions made by numerous members of the Obama administration, including Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The list of Obama administration officials who should be facing charges of treason today is long and distinguished. But the buck stops with Barack Hussein Obama. The Commander-in-Chief was the only administration official with the authority and duty to issue a final order to deploy a defense (or) stand down on Benghazi. Unclassified cables will neither confirm nor refute this fact. But the classified documents that Hillary keeps hinting to would.

CIA officials have publicly stated that it was no one in the CIA who issued any order to stand down. Hillary says that she didnt issue any order to stand down. DoD chief Panetta is also refusing to accept responsibility for standing down in Benghazi that leaves Obama, the Commander-in-Chief.

Less than two weeks before the 2012 election, with people in DC running cover for each other and the so-called news media so focused on campaigning for Obama that they too deserve to swing from a tall tree, only the American people can hold any of these criminals accountable.

The American people will get only ONE chance to politically hang them all on November 6, 2012.

If they have the courage and honor to remove these criminals from power on November 6th, they should demand treason charges be filed against a laundry list of Obama officials on the morning of November 7th.

Yes, Americans need to throw Obama out of office over his economic tyranny. However, if the American people lack the intellect, honor or courage to hold Obama fully accountable for Benghazi, they will NEVER get their country back.

What happened in Benghazi was in Barack Obamas hands. But what happens next is in the hands of the American people. God help us if they fail.

JB Williams
Co-Founder
http://www.PatriotsUnion.org
http://www.VeteranDefenders.org
http://www.ThePatriotsNews.com
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VISIT J. D. Longstreet’s “INSIGHT on Freedom” Face Book Page!!: (Just click on the link for more conservative commentary by J. D. Longstreet and other popular conservative writers!)

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Perverse Environmentalist Oil Sands Ethics … Paul Driessen

Posted: October 28, 2012 in Uncategorized

Perverse Environmentalist Oil Sands Ethics

Opposition to the Canadian oil sands and Keystone Pipeline reflects debased moral code

By: Paul Driessen

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The duplicity and hypocrisy of environmental pressure groups seem to be matched only by their consummate skill at manipulating public opinion, amassing political power, securing taxpayer-funded government grants, and persuading people to send them money and invest in “ethical” stock funds.

In the annals of “green” campaigns, those against biotechnology, DDT and Alar are especially prominent. To those we should now add the well-orchestrated campaigns against Canadian oil sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Oil has been seeping out of Northern Alberta soils and river banks for millennia. Native Americans used the bitumen to waterproof canoes, early explorers smelled and wrote about it, and “entrepreneurs” used it in “mineral waters” and “medicinal elixirs.”

Today, increasingly high-tech operations are extracting the precious hydrocarbons to fuel modern living standards in Canada and the United States. Enormous excavator/loading shovels and trucks used in open pits during the early years are giving way to drilling rigs, steam injection, electric heaters, pipes and other technologies to penetrate, liquefy and extract the petroleum.

The new techniques impact far less land surface, use and recycle brackish water, and emit fewer air pollutants and (plant-fertilizing) carbon dioxide every year. Water use for Alberta oil extraction is a tiny fraction of what’s needed to grow corn and convert it into ethanol that gets a third less mileage per gallon than gasoline. Affected lands are returned to forest and native grasslands at a surprising pace. And the operations are removing oil that would otherwise end up in local air and water.

Instead of requiring perpetual subsidies, á la the “renewable” technologies that President Obama intends to redouble if he is reelected, the oil sands generate vast sums in royalties and taxes: an anticipated $690 billion into federal and provincial coffers all across Canada over the life of the project. That’s on top of tens of thousands of jobs of every description, including nearly 2,000 Native Canadians (Aboriginals), whose communities have enjoyed soaring living standards since the operations were launched. In fact, the oil sands project will ultimately generate 11,219,000 person-years of high-paying employment from Alberta to British Columbia, Ontario and the Maritime Provinces, say government sources.

This North American oil is displacing millions of barrels of annual US oil imports from some of the least savory countries on Earth, while adding billions of barrels a year to planetary petroleum production, and thereby keeping world oil prices lower than they would otherwise be.

These are huge benefits. The oil sands project is hardly perfect. It causes environmental impacts, just as all human enterprises do, especially those that provide energy. Indeed, even fantasy fuel projects – wind, solar and biofuel boondoggles that provide comparatively minuscule amounts of energy, but require billions in taxpayer subsidies – have enormous ecological impacts.Here’s the most important point:

Canada’s oil sands (and the Keystone Pipeline that will bring their petroleum to the United States) must be evaluated on environmental and ethical grounds that compare them to real world alternatives to them – not to some utopian energy resource that exists only in the minds of idealists, ideologues and special interest environmental pressure groups.

These critics viciously attack Alberta and the oil sands industry – accusing them of “blood oil,” environmental devastation and unethical practices. In reality, oil sands petroleum is among the most ethical and ecological on Earth, especially when compared to real-world alternatives like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Sudan, Russia, Ecuador and Venezuela, whose human rights violations, terrorism sponsorship and reckless environmental records are legendary. And yet oil sands critics give them a free pass, while heaping opprobrium on Canada.

Whole Foods says oil sands fuel “does not fit our values.” Perhaps the grocer and its “ethical” colleagues prefer values espoused in alternative oil-supplying nations on rights of women, children, gays and foreign housekeepers; stoning, lashing and lopping off hands and heads; treatment of civilians during wars in Chechnya and Darfur; massacres and environmental degradation in the Nigerian delta region; rigged elections and Swiss bank accounts for oil proceeds; or treatment of aboriginals, minorities and Christians.

Perhaps Whole Foods, Sierra Club, NRDC, Obama’s EPA and allied critics prefer to look toward China, which provides 95% of the rare earth metals that are essential for wind turbines and solar panels. Those operations have brought unprecedented air and water pollution, cropland and wildlife habitat wastelands, widespread radiation contamination, and cancer and lung disease in workers and local residents.

28% of Canadian oil industry jobs held by women is “not enough,” intones Kairos, a left-leaning coalition of churches. Compared to what? Women’s jobs in Saudi Arabia or Iran? The 3.5 million more American women who have ended up on poverty rolls since President Obama took office?

Some 1,600 ducks died after landing in an oil sands waste pit several years ago. A repeat of this isolated incident is increasingly unlikely as open pit mining and oil-water separation pits are replaced by in situ drilling and steam. Nevertheless, using analytical methods that only IPCC climate alarmists would appreciate, the “respected” Pembina Institute conjured up the fantastical “calculation” that “more than 160 million birds would die from oil sands development” over the coming decades.

The claim is not merely wild fear-mongering. It ignores the growing impact of wind turbines on raptors, and attempts by industrial wind developers to get US Fish & Wildlife Service “programmatic take” permits: 007 Licenses to Kill thousands of eagles, hawks, whooping cranes and other protected birds every year without fear of prosecution.

Greenpeace routinely pillories oil sands companies as “climate criminals,” while the US Environmental Protection Agency uses their oil sands CO2 emissions to justify denying Keystone Pipeline permits. (Greenpeace lost its Canadian tax-exempt status, but still manages to con contributors out of vast sums, to retain its status as a $340-million-per-year pressure group. EPA conducts illegal experiments on humans, to justify regulations that are killing thousands of coal mining and utility jobs.)

These positions reflect adherence to the shaky hypothesis of catastrophic man-made global warming and unsupportable claims that the oil sands contribute disproportionately to a looming climate Armageddon. However, Alberta environment office show that “greenhouse gas” emissions from oil sands plummeted 38% between 1990 and 2009, and are now 5% of Canada’s total GHG emissions – and equal to or lower than CO2/GHG emissions from petroleum operations in Nigeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

So-called “ethical funds” likewise excoriate oil sands developers like Total, Syncrude and Imperial Oil, while promising investors that their money will purchase shares in “responsible” companies that don’t produce fossil fuels, do nuclear power or contribute to climate change. Co-operative Bank’s is one of those modern day snake oil “entrepreneurs.” Its über-ethical Sustainable Leaders Trust (don’t you love that name?) makes that pitch – and then invests client cash in Third World coal mines … and oil sands!

The rogues’ gallery of oil sands critics and their shady dealings is so vast that someone could write a book about them. In fact, Ezra Levant did exactly that. His Ethical Oil is an eye-opening companion to my own Eco-Imperialism, which chronicles the often lethal misdeeds of other self-righteous pressure groups.

Their misrepresentations, double standards, questionable practices and perverse ethics would get them brought up on fraud charges, if they were oil companies or non-“ethical” investment “trusts.”

It’s time to apply the same legal, ethical and credibility standards to these “socially responsible” outfits that they insist on applying to the corporations they denounce. Keep that in mind the next time you see EPA, Greenpeace, Co-operative Bank or anyone else taking pot shots at oil sands or Keystone.

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Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author or Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death.

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Coming soon — A Hollow US Military … J. D. Longstreet

Posted: October 27, 2012 in Uncategorized

Coming soon — A Hollow US Military … J. D. Longstreet

(This commentary was first published in January 2012.)

A Hollow US Military
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

If the President and the Congress are able to realize their plans for the US military, it will leave American with, as the title to this piece suggests, a hollow force. It will also place America in a great deal of danger because our military will be a great deal smaller in numbers of troops.

Think about that for a moment. Not only will our military lose so much of its war fighting materiel, it will lose many thousands of troops. That’s bad enough but there is something else — and no one seems concerned about it.

You see, when the military cutbacks come, we will lose the experience of troops who have actually been on the battlefield, who have actually looked the enemy in the eye, who have dealt with the pain of taking another human being’s life, and the deep abiding pain of losing a friend or companion in battle, who have fought the fight and lived to tell about it. BUT – they will not be available to train the raw recruits that will always be necessary to keep the much smaller fighting force flush with young, robust, well-trained fighting men.

Everything, these days, seems to have a price in dollars and cents. Not experience. The value of experienced combat soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines is inestimable. It also holds true, not just for enlistees, but for officers as well — mustangs and academy graduates, alike. Experienced officers are a must for a military to even consider executing a victorious military campaign. Book knowledge is absolutely necessary but it can’t hold a candle to experience on the battlefield.

We are looking at the creation of a hollow force IF congress does not apply the brakes, one way, or the other, to stop what will amount to decimation of the US military.

You may recall that “decimation” is a word derived from the Latin word “decimatio.” It means, literally: “removal of a tenth.” You see, the Romans would punish troops for cowardice by placing them in formation and then executing every tenth man. Of course, the practice of decimation did not last long before some Roman commanders began to notice their troop strength was suffering badly from their own actions as well as that of the enemy.

In my opinion, the word “decimation” is applicable to what our government is about to do to our military.

Those who have been paying attention to the encroaching chaos in the world, especially in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, are extremely concerned that only a spark is needed to bring on a global conflict far worse than we experienced in the 1930’s and 1940’s. We are, of course, referencing multiple tactical and strategic use(s) of nuclear weapons. Everyone on the face of our planet will be involved, one-way, or the other.

If the US were blessed with forward-thinking leaders, we would be building up our armed forces in preparation for the coming conflagration, which, experts seem to agree, is expected in the very near future. Unfortunately, we are NOT blessed with leaders who understand that history did not begin on the day they were born.

Rather than cutting the US military, the US “standing Army” should be doubled. Our Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corp also need to be doubled in strength… and as quickly as possible. When the next war comes, it won’t be fought from 15,000 feet with smart bombs, as we did in the Balkans. It will be a slugfest in the air, on the sea, and on the land. It will not be contained in a particular geographical region. There is a strong likelihood that the continental US will be hit. It is fairly easy for missiles launched from ships, lying off shore in international waters, to burst through our radar defenses and strike targets before we can react to stop them. That is an uneasy reality.

Unfortunately for what we used to call “the free world,” Mr. Obama’s penchant for leading from behind, simply opened the door for any and all mischief makers, anywhere on the globe, to come out and play. Many have — and many more will.

It seems to this scribe, the US needs a crash program, right now; to build our military might to that state of readiness that we reached in the midst of the Second World War. It is unrealistic today (with nuclear armed rogue nations) to allow one of them to get in the first punch. No nation can absorb many nuclear first strikes — not even the US.

It is more than a little worrisome that the Congress and the President do not seem to share the concern of our military that we will not be prepared when the next attack on the US comes.

If history has taught us anything it is that when the world becomes so stressed-out, especially over the imminent collapse of the global financial system, war is next to inevitable. Yet, the current leadership in Washington is seriously preparing to reduce our military, substantially.

This is no time for a hollow military. Reliance on super electronic weapons is no longer a guarantee of victory. A single electro-magnetic pulse weapons can make them all totally useless in the blink of an eye and pull the teeth of the tiger instantaneously. But those powerful EMP weapons cannot stop the ultimate weapon – a determined American military man. And THAT is the very weapon of which we will be in dire need when the first shots are fired in a future war.

We have seen the US military gutted many times in the past only to find we have to pay for that mistake in the blood of our under-trained and under-equipped soldiers in the first stages of the very next war. Understand: there will always be a “next war.”

The US government has done some dumb things. But decimating our military, with the world in the mess it is today, ranks among the dumbest.

J. D. Longstreet
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Poverty Nation … Alan Caruba

Posted: October 27, 2012 in Uncategorized

Poverty Nation

By Alan Caruba

Lyndon B. Johnson, President from 1963 to 1969, is probably unknown to the generations since then except for having escalated the Vietnam War. A memorial in Washington, D.C., is a sad reminder of the more than 58,000 young lives sacrificed. As time went along, it became so unpopular LBJ decided not to run again for a second full term. He is likely recalled less for his “War on Poverty”, a classic, liberal government program that to this day has not eliminated poverty in America.

The syndicated columnist and John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Walter Williams, recently wrote about “Poverty Nonsense”, saying, “There’s nothing intellectually challenging or unusual about poverty. For most of mankind’s existence, his most optimistic scenario was to be able to eke out enough to subsist for another day. Poverty has been mankind’s standard fare and remains so for most of mankind.”

One need only read the Old and New Testaments to realize that poverty in ancient times was a concern. “Tzedek, tzedek you shall pursue” — justice justice you shall pursue (Deut. 16:20). There’s a basic human responsibility to reach out to others. Giving of your time and your money is a statement that “I will do whatever I can to help.” This reflects the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world. In Matthew 26:11, Jesus says “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.”

It is a liberal fantasy that a society can eliminate poverty, but that does not mean a society does not have an obligation to help the less fortunate. It is the tension between these two views that separates conservatives and liberals, but every time a liberal president has held office, it has become a budget-busting calamity.

The most recent example has been the soaring spending on welfare since Obama has been president. The financial crisis did require some effort to provide “a safety net” for those laid off from their jobs and some argument could be made to help homeowners, although many of their mortgages were granted by banks under pressure from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with the full knowledge they were bad loans. They would become known as “toxic assets” that dragged down banks, requiring a massive government bailout to avoid a collapse of the entire system.

A recent article by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, based on an October report of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, spells out the current state of government welfare spending. “Roughly 100 million people—one-third of the U.S. population—receive aid from at least one means-tested welfare program each month.”

“ Average benefits come to around $9,000 per recipient. If converted to cash, means-tested welfare spending is more than five times the amount needed to eliminate all poverty in the United States.”

Federal: At $746 billion, federal means-tested spending exceeded spending on Medicare ($480 billion) , Social Security ($725 billion), or the defense budget ($540 billion).

State: In 2011, state contributions into federal welfare programs came to $201 billion, and independent state programs contributed around $9 billion.

Combined: Overall means-tested welfare spending from federal and state sources reach from all sources totaled $956 billion.

This is money from taxpayers whose personal budgets are squeezed by the rising cost of everything or which has to be borrowed by the federal government.

Rector said “Obama’s big spending plans will result in ruinous and unsustainable budget deficits.”

Why federal welfare requires eighty separate programs is testimony to the slow creep of government growth over the years since LBJ’s War on Poverty. That war was lost before it began, but it reflects the way such programs buy the votes of those dependent on them. It is a bad way to run a nation. It is bad politics. It is bad economics. And it will lead to an inevitable collapse in an economy that has shown virtually no growth in the past four years, an anemic 1.7 percent in the gross domestic product.

Voters disillusioned by the failure of Obama’s “stimulus” or Biden’s promise of a “recovery summer” in 2010 have the opportunity to end this cycle of national impoverishment in November. It may be our last chance.

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Alan Caruba’s commentaries are posted daily at “Warning Signs” and shared on dozens of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 1.7 million page views. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go! You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

Now I’m A TV Critic … J. D. Longstreet

Posted: October 26, 2012 in Uncategorized

Now I’m A TV Critic
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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OK. Go ahead and say it. Ole Longstreet is a stuffed-shirt know-it-all.

I’ll respond by saying: “I’m not a stuffed-shirt!”

So, now I’m a TV critic, right? Well, yeah, I suppose so. But the plain truth is — I am sick and tired of campaign politics! So, I’m turning my attention elsewhere for a time, for a break, if you will.

If you have watched any TV since the new fall season got underway, then you know — there is a lot to be critical of.

I tried watching a little TV over the weekend and I was BORED.

The regular season shows all seem to have been written for the the American intellect’s lowest common denominator. Dramas and “whodunits” were figured-out within the first five to ten minutes. The writers remind me of children who know a secret but cannot wait to tell you — so they relate the story in such a way that it is literally child’s play to dissect the plot and identify the bad guy within minutes. Pitiful!

The news channels are, frankly, not much better. We have the liberal news channels and the conservative news channel. The one channel that CLAIMS the middle ground comes in consistently in last place in the ratings. My opinion on why, exactly, they seem to own last place is — because they are sailing under false colors. They are, in fact, a LIBERAL/LEFTIST news channel.

Now we come to the so-called comedy shows. OH BOY! What an embarrassment! Puerile doesn’t begin to describe those truly awful shows. They give new meaning to the “vast wasteland” speech made by Newton Minow a former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

In a speech given to the National Association of Broadcasters convention on May 9, 1961, Minow was extremely critical of television broadcasters for not doing more, in Minow’s view, to serve the public interest. His phrase, “vast wasteland”, is remembered years after the speech after he said: “When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.” SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_N._Minow

It has been over fifty years since Minow made that statement/criticism of TV and, so help me — TV programming has actually gotten worse!

Fifty years ago, TV was a family entertainment medium. No longer. My dad once remarked to me , “You know son, now I get to see on TV– for free — what I used to have to pay 25 cents to see in the hoochie-coochie shows at the fairgrounds!” Funny, or not, it was — and IS — true.

Since my father said that to me, decades ago, it has only gotten worse — much worse.

So much of the drama and action shows as well as the so-called comedy shows are driven by the liberal/leftist agenda that, at times it just becomes nauseating.

And every cast MUST be politically correct. No matter the show, you are going to see, white, black, Asian, cast members, at the very least. Some will be male. Some will be female. Some will be lesbians. Some will be homosexuals (Gays). Some will be transgender, or whatever the heck they call themselves today.

The leftist agenda is the sub-story, if you will, throughout. Today the sub-plot is homosexuality is NORMAL. Come on, dear reader! If Adam and Eve had been Adam and Steve they would have been the first and LAST humans!

No matter. The indoctrination of our young is the target and with current TV saturated with homosexuality the left is definitely making inroads into the minds of our youth. And THAT is the goal.

So. To sum up my critique of current TV programming allow me to simply say: IT SUCKS! (I realize that is a highly technical term, but I offer it for those of you with delicate sensibilities.)

Former FCC Chairman Minow, now in his mid-eighties, must feel vindicated and sad. To see a medium that held so much promise be so badly used, and even abused, is certainly no comfort to him. But — he DID warn broadcasters about the quality of their product in 1961. The onus has been on the broadcasting community ever since — and it has failed miserably.

What a waste! What a “vast wasteland.”

J. D. Longstreet

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Obama To Seize Control Of The Internet? … J. D. Longstreet

Posted: October 25, 2012 in Uncategorized

Obama To Seize Control Of The Internet?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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Our own domestic tin-pot dictator, Obama, is about to make a move on the Internet.

There have been consistent reports for months now that a Presidential Executive Order is being prepared for signing by the President — after Obama is reelected — that would grant the President and the government powers over the Internet. (Notice the deliberate distant I placed between “the President” and “the Government.” Obama has clearly set himself apart and ABOVE the government of the United States.)

Once again, he will be going against the will of the people of the US. But what the hey, the man seems to think he has the divine right of kings granted by, well … Allah, perhaps?

It is no secret that the Congress has been desperately trying to get a grasp on the Internet and each time they have made a move their constituents raise such hell that they have been forced to back off.

Consider this: “When Congress attempted to pass laws earlier in the year — the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA), the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP) — to gain more government control over the Internet, public outcry quashed the initiatives. More talk from the Department of Defense about Internet security means that the President may soon pass a similar measure with no way for the public to stop it.” SOURCE: http://personalliberty.com/2012/10/23/internet-freedom-is-in-danger/?post_id=100003902307631_318644311575919#_=_

Please pay particular attention to the last phrase of the last sentence in the insert above: ” … with no way for the public to stop it.” I submit — there IS a way to stop it. That is to vote Obama out of office on November 6th!

It is very clear that after the huge role the conservative side of the Internet, the conservative blogosphere especially, has played in this presidential campaign, punitive action is planned and will be enforced by Obama and his Praetorian Guard. Do not for one moment think those of us who raised so much Cain and revealed so much truth about the lies and distortions of the Obama campaign will escape Scot free.

Ain’t gonna happen.

I fully expect a newly elected Obama to come after conservative commentators and bloggers — with a vengeance — soon after the election. Once elected — whose to stop him?

It has become clear that they will declare a threat to the national security of the United States exists by way of the Internet — and — that in the name of national security, the Internet must be brought to heel under the auspices of the US government. A Presidential Executive Order will be signed, over and above the protests of the people of America, and THAT, dear reader, will be THAT! (Uncle Joe Stalin would be so very PROUD of Obama!)

You may have noticed the racheting-up recently of stories concerning all sorts of cyberattacks, including cyberspying, in the Mainstream Media. As the MsM has now proven itself an organ of the Democratic Party, one must view anything they report through the prism of leftist bias in favor of President Obama.

What I am saying is simply — we cannot know how much of what they are telling us about the silent cyberwar going on on the Internet is true — or — if they are simply following orders and laying the ground work for Obama’s move to clamp down on the Internet and, ultimately, control it.

Look. There was never any question about the government (or governments) coming after the Internet. As soon as they became aware of the latent power of the web and the immense power to influence others the Internet provided those not in the ranks of government, the unspeakable power the Internet placed in the hands of the great unwashed, the proletariat of the world, the dye was cast.

The Internet has become an adversary of government, and enemy to dictators, rogue governments, and over-reaching, power-hungry, democracies the world over.

After the role the Internet played in the so-called “Arab Spring” uprisings, there was absolutely no doubt that the Internet would be muzzled by world governments including the government of the United States — and the Rogue’s Gallery at the United Nations.

We here in America can forestall it a while longer by insuring that Obama does not get a chance to sign that executive order after January 20th, 2013. We can vote him out of office November 6th.

J. D. Longstreet

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