“We’re on a mission from God,” declared Elwood Blues in the 1980 cult classic “The Blues Brothers.” It’s the story of off-kilter brothers who are convinced the Lord had spoken to them. The audience knows that because God doesn’t talk to musicians. But what if American presidents say they have had personal conversations with the Almighty? Who can say?
It’s just a theory, but it could be the crux of Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush’s problem when he is repeatedly asked if he would have invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. Perhaps he wonders: “What if God told me I had to do it, just the way he told George?”
President George W. Bush was unequivocal on the subject. In his 2004 book, “Plan of Attack,” Bob Woodward wrote about asking President Bush if he asked his father (former President George H.W. Bush [Editor's Note: "Read my lips: no new taxes"]) for advice about going to war against Iraq. George W. Bush’s ([Editor's Note: Read W's lips: Iraq has WMD]) answer was that he had not asked his father for advice because: “He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice, the wrong father to go to, to appeal to, in terms of strength. There’s a higher father that I appeal to.”
Maybe Jeb Bush believes that despite the past dozen years, America needs the patience of Job to eventually see George Bush was correct: It was God’s plan to bring democracy to Iraq ([Editor's Note: no new nation-building]) and, by coincidence, affordable oil to the United States.
God and weapons of mass delusion
Jeb Bush certainly wouldn’t be alone in believing that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was necessary. A phone poll taken at the end of last year by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s research center, PublicMind, reported that 42 percent of Americans believed that it was “definitely” or “probably” true that American forces found an active weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq. Even though key people in the Bush II administration admit that intelligent “mistakes” were made with regard to WMD, the poll showed that more than half of Republicans believe so. [Editor's Note: if the "world" must stop or contain violence in Iraq, then let the ENTIRE WORLD contribute armed forces with alternating leadership and equal funding. Saddam initiated it, but the U.S. response should not have advanced beyond "no fly zones".]
I do not understand. If you are a self-respecting neocon and former Vice President Dick Cheney declares there were no WMD in Iraq, wouldn’t you take him at his word?
Yet multitudes of Americans love a good war. Truth is, millions like a bad war. I am shocked at the comments I get from readers who are angry about my anti-war stance and maintain that Vietnam was a good war and should have been won, if not for the politicians. I guess they don’t remember that many of those same politicians got America into that war.
To the extent that North Vietnam was a distinguishable enemy that would at least meet for peace talks, it was a good war. That it eventually ended and that God wasn’t brought into it also made it a good war. ([Editor's Note: maybe god wouldn't have let that "domino" fall. US' first attempt at nation-building the already aware nation.]) Today’s wars seem endless. True believers, fed by neocons, proclaim we are at the edge of victory in the Middle East. ([Editor's Note: more bullsh*t! U.S. intervention/interference caused this "neo-internationalist" disaster.])
As for committed conservatives, still reading such words are poison; and I will again be labeled an ultra-liberal. For the record, on March 4, 2010, I wrote a column for Personal Liberty Digest™ titled “Afghan Folly: Why we should have dropped the bomb.” I argued that a tactical nuclear strike against Osama bin Laden in the days or weeks following 9/11 would have saved TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TREASURE along with thousands of American lives. In it I quoted Douglas MacArthur, who said, “It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”
I now believe there is zero will to win in the Middle East, but there is endless will to continue it(also). And who are the winners in all this? They are the military contractors, Big Oil and our elected politicians, whom they recruit. As to who our representatives serve, I do not know. But I do not believe they serve the American people. ([Editor's Note: they serve campaign contributors!])
It’s troubling to be the devil’s advocate, but it worries me that the only time American leaders invoke God’s word is with regard to America’s global strategic goals. I cannot recall presidents calling it God’s will for any domestic legislation.
The religious right loves it. And that plays right into the hands of our neocon masters, who exert a tremendous amount of influence on the Republican and Democratic parties.
I will let you decide the veracity of this quote reported by The Guardian October 7, 2005:
President Bush said to all of us: “I am driven with a mission from God.” God would tell me, “George, go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did. And then God would tell me, “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.” And I did.
I’ll put satire aside by saying I believe George W. Bush or any other person on the planet should have the personal freedom to worship their God. If the members in the Church of Scientology believe that 75 million years ago Xenu brought billions of people to Earth in spacecraft resembling Douglas DC-8 airliners, I say knock yourself out. Where I have the problem is if you tell me that Xenu told the president that America must go to war.
Barack Obama works for the same bosses that George W. Bush did. Obama has a great public relations team that earned him his Nobel Peace Prize. Truth is Obama has been one of the worst war-mongering presidents in two generations. Which president has authorized military strikes against seven Muslim nations? Obama.
The neocons’ hit list
George W. Bush’s and Obama’s legacies were predetermined by the neocons and their bagmen. In a March 2007 interview, retired four-star Gen. Wesley Clark relayed this conversation he had with a Pentagon general a few weeks after 9/11:
[W]e were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the secretary of defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
Weapons of Mass Bullsh*t (WMB)
Deny it if you want, but that means a four-star-general was lying. ([Editor's Note: Why not, W's former Secretary of State (SS) Colin Luther Powell told the UN Security Council that Iraq has WMDs. He was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before SS. Did he lie?])
I predict the next president of the United States will engage Iran in the next “big” war. The propaganda machine is already spinning. Expect a mind-numbing number of retired U.S. military officers to explain why Iran is the greatest threat to civilization. I guarantee the next president will use words about how God’s will will be done. It should bother us that the people who everyone can agree are really crazy — the Islamists — will be dying to prove that Allah’s will will be done. In conclusion, I’ll share something my Middle East contact told me:
Peoples of the Middle East hold no value of life. They drive 110 mph down the wrong way of the road because God is looking out for them and if it is their time to go, then so be it. ([Editor's Note: don't forget the 70 virgins]) The last country in the world I would want to go to war with is Iran.
Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers
[Editor's Note: what I have dubbed the "Legislative-Executive-Judicial Cabal" which the American People have caused by ignoring the generational transition from our Constitutional Republic to what now is, in effect, an "elected" dictatorship. Never mind who is elected. Never mind which bogus party is in power. The superficial, theatrically staged, choreographed appearance of debate, disagreement, and stalled legislation always resolves into more government and less FREEDOM. We the People still lose more freedom after every "emergency" or unnoticeably when CON-gress passes another general, open-ended law that enables the Executive (dictator) and its unaccountable agencies to formulate more freedom-restricting regulations (200 pages a day get posted to the Federal Register). The "Dictator's" agencies (police force) continue to pile-up more weapons to squelch uprising(s) when the People finally realize and understand their tyrannical government.
A Constitutional Convention is necessary to amend the Constitution for Congressional Term Limits to twelve (12) years and restrict time in DC to only six (6) months per year. Such an Amendment is only a FIRST step in restoring America to its Constitutional roots. Back in the day when the People still feared kings, the president's term was limited by Constitutional Amendment.
Currently, CONgress is just a group of socialists, progressives, and faux-conservatives (career politicians) that, on a daily basis, ignores the Constitution, many of their own past statutes, and cedes their responsibilities to the president ("elected" dictator). A comparison to the history of Rome becomes more and more credible with the Executive and its "featherbedded" lackeys gaining more power while CONgress sits back all fat-dumb-and-happy.
CONgress has made recent efforts to expose State Dept. failures in Benghazi (inept political leader), Fast-and-Furious gun-running (criminal AG), IRS 1st amendment violations, gov't union Veterans Administration fraud, and whining about Obama(Reid)-killer-Care, but these efforts are mostly politics as usual. Most "citizens" will forget about these infringements from our unaccountable, uncontrollable Executive branch with its tyrannical agencies staffed by socialist unions that extort "juicy" contracts from the "elected" dictatorship.
Most positions in the federal government whether elected, appointed, or hired are nominal, make-work jobs (confidentially) designed merely to grow government, bilk money from private businesses and citizens, and eventually fully transform America into a totalitarian state. When this happens, CONgress will have destroyed the economy and the country by their negligence and counter-liberty policies, and it will be almost impossible to Restore America. The 'Restore America' list is only a beginning too.]
Anyone who believes this country is free is an idiot!
Those who seek out positions of power tend to be paranoid, hypocritical wimps. Consider the issue of firearms. Politicians have many thousands of mercenaries (soldiers and "law enforcers") wielding all sort of deadly weapons--guns, tanks, missiles, drones, etc. Yet those same politicians pee themselves at the thought of the rabble owning semi-automatic rifles. From their twisted, elitist perspective, it's perfectly fine for them to swipe many billions of dollars from their subjects to spend on all manner of armaments, but if YOU want to possess a rifle, they think you should have to ask their permission, and register it, and make sure they always know what you own.
They also expect to be allowed to do things in secret, while claiming the right to spy on you and everyone else. As far as they are concerned, it's none of your business what they do, or what weapons they have, but it is their business to know everything that you do and everything that you have. Of course, they will pretend that their goal is to protect you from the "criminal element," but you'd have to be pretty dense to actually believe that. Why do you suppose they mostly whine about civilians having weapons that:
are used in only a tiny percentage of actual crime, and;
are the most effective types of weapon for resisting "government"
aggression?
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. People who gravitate towards political office think they have the right to rule you. That's the job they applied for. And, of course, extorting you and bossing you around could be rather more difficult if you are better armed than their enforcers. So they hand out machine guns to their mindless thugs, but have tantrums about you having a 30-round magazine.
A new Congress has been seated, and it brings the prospect of perhaps, maybe, potentially, in a possible way doing something about the runaway federal deficits. And in other news, several New York area bridges are for sale, which you can acquire at a bargain price.
Excessive Spending Destroys!
Feds Have a Spending Problem — DO NOT RAISE THE CEILING!
Feds Have a Sewage Problem!
Becky Gerritson: "...government is out of control!" and "...our representative government has failed us."
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the IRS to detail under oath how some of former agency official Lois Lerner’s emails went missing, as well as any potential methods for recovering them.
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in Washington gave the Internal Revenue Service exactly a month — until Aug. 10 — to file a report, which he demanded as part of a lawsuit from a conservative watchdog, Judicial Watch, against the agency.
Judicial Watch is seeking a wide range of documents from the IRS, including Lerner’s emails, as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. It has complained that the IRS didn’t tell it that the agency couldn’t recover all of Lerner’s emails from 2009 to 2011.
Sullivan cast his ruling as a compromise, and a potential way for Judicial Watch to get answers without the court wading any deeper into the matter. Judicial Watch had asked the court to potentially compel IRS officials to testify about the lost emails, through a process called limited discovery.
The FairTax is a consumption tax unilaterally applied to all Americans at the same rate. For businesses, payroll taxes would no longer exist. Our exports would include a heavy tax for overseas buyers purchasing our products, while our imports would be cheaper for us to purchase. I'm not sure how this would affect GDP, as more information is necessary.
According to the FairTax website, "Under the FairTax, every person living in the United States pays a sales tax on purchases of new goods and services, excluding necessities due to the prebate." The prebate gives every legal resident household an "advance refund" at the beginning of each month so that purchases made up to the poverty level are tax-free.
So a family of four making something like $50,000/year should not have to pay taxes, thus preventing an unfair burden on low-income families. Since the FairTax eliminates both federal and payroll taxes, you get to keep your gross pay amount of each paycheck earned.
John Adams said, “Without [term limits] every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey”. That being said, here are some of the reasons we believe our country needs Term Limits.
Term Limits can help break the cycle of corruption in Congress. Case studies show that the longer an individual stays in office, the more likely they are to stop serving the public and begin serving their own interests.
Term Limits will encourage regular citizens to run for office. Presently, there is a 94% re-election rate in the House and 83% in the Senate. Because of name recognition, and usually the advantage of money, it can be easy to stay in office. Without legitimate competition, what is the incentive for a member of Congress to serve the public? Furthermore, it is almost a lost cause for the average citizen to try to campaign against current members of Congress.
Term Limits will break the power special interest groups have in Congress.
Term Limits will force politicians to think about the impact of their legislation because they will be returning to their communities shortly to live under the laws they enacted.
Term Limits will bring diversity of people and fresh ideas to Congress.
[Editor's Note: If you want to get rich, i.e. advance from a low paying government bureaucrat job on the local or state level, THEN GET ELECTED TO THE US CONGRESS (House or Senate). Once you're elected, it's easy to steal from your campaign contributions or the Congressional budget allocated to your seat and staff. You can go on a government-funded junket with 'lavishly' paid expenses. The list of ways to steal from the government while in office is inexhaustible. There are only a few Congressmen who left Congress just wealthy instead of a multi-millionaire. Of course, there are several who arrived in Congress as multi-millionaires and don't need to steal from the government.]
