Napolitano Takes Credit for Alleged Improvements in Border Security

When a radical Muslim jihadist, trying to blow up a plane over U.S. territory on a recent Christmas Day, failed to properly detonate his bomb, Janet Napolitano told us that government efforts to provide homeland security had been successful at preventing this terrorist attack. In point of fact, a number of red flags were raised to the government’s attention, predicting that this young jihadist would commit a terrorist act, but were ignored and the urgency and importance of the information available was not communicated effectively with the various U.S. intelligence units. Government failed in every way in regard to this terrorist attack. It was dumb luck and the courage of a few passengers on board that particular Christmas Day flight that prevented the tragedy that al-Qaeda had planned for America on that day.

In regard to illegal immigration, Janet Napolitano informs us that, due to her Homeland Security efforts under the Obama Administration over the past two years, illegal border crossings are currently at the lowest levels since the 1970s, and seizures of illegal drugs from illegals crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S. and of cash and weapons from illegals crossing from the U.S. back into Mexico have increased. The Obama Administration would have the American people believe that all of their hard work on border security has paid off with favorable statistics confirming the government’s successes in this area. But as it has been said before: In order of magnitude, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

A slightly deeper look at these numbers reveals the spin that the Obama Administration is using to claim credit for what is being sold as improvement in border security. When the U.S. economy was growing and unemployment was at an all-time low, most illegal immigrants who crossed the southern border from Mexico into the U.S. came here to work; most found jobs that helped them earn money to provide for their families.

Because jobs for illegals were plentiful, there was a dramatic surge in the numbers of illegals entering the U.S. illegally during this period. During most of the G. W. Bush presidency, most illegals who found work in the U.S. had their families follow them to America, while those who were unable to find sustainable work returned home.

Towards the end of the Bush final term and during the past two years of the Obama presidency, our economy tanked due to the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, Fannie and Freddie and other Bankster (think mobster) failed fraudulent, high-risk ventures and abuses at the expense of the American people. These high-rollers made trillions of dollars over the last decade by creating and manipulating their extreme-risk investments (think casino gambling) and secured huge profits and bonuses and for their CEOs, staff and shareholders.

When the bubble burst and all the Ponzi schemes disintegrated, the housing market collapsed and all the financial institutions were found to be insolvent. Even after an infusion of trillions of dollars from the Federal Reserve and billions of dollars from the pockets of those who were abused in the process of the financial bubble creation, the American taxpayers, these financial institutions continue to distribute huge bonuses to their management and staff and continue to remain insolvent despite unprecedented and unwarranted public bailouts.

These corrupt financial institutions were permitted by our government to privatize (and pocket) profits from their extreme-risk ventures while socializing their losses (sticking the bill for their bad behavior to the American taxpayer). In previous times, Wall Street and the monster banks provided investment capital and loans to all types of businesses that led to increased economic productivity and significant economic growth and prosperity.

Currently, these banks are holding onto their cash or cautiously investing in Treasury Bills. Most loans are being made to Wall Street firms or being used for the banks’ own investing, once again, in the same risky, non-productive and dangerous financial instruments. Small businesses, the life-blood of the productive American economy, are being denied the credit they need to innovate, grow, expand and create jobs. These banks have also severely restricted and increased the costs to the American people of consumer credit, leading to a dramatic fall in consumer spending. With demand for consumer goods plummeting, businesses, large and small, across the country slowed or were closed leading to our current, persistent high unemployment.

Enormous infusions of cash from the Federal Reserve to Wall Street banks and excessive government spending on pork-barrel projects, Stimulus, TARP and similar spending bills have temporarily propped up the stock market. However, government spending and the Fed’s “quantitative easing” have only made matters worse for the rest of the U.S. economy and the American people, prolonged the Great Recession with our jobless “recovery”, left millions of homeowners, drowning, underwater in their mortgages or facing foreclosure (the new “homeless”), and produced marked inflation that is currently threatening to collapse the dollar. Our government’s skyrocketing deficits and the Fed’s consistent abuse of the dollar will not only lead to continued devaluation of the dollar, but are likely to precipitate a switch from the dollar to another currency as the international currency of exchange and trade.

This ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy has severely limited the number of jobs available for illegal immigrants, most of who had previously come to the U.S. to work. With a scarcity of jobs in a bad economy, I can believe that many illegals that were here to work, if they had no job and no welfare support, would return to their home countries, and that fewer illegals would be motivated to immigrate to the U.S.

While I don’t believe Janet Napolitano has any idea how many illegal aliens cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. each day, I can accept that the number of illegal crossings may be decreased from the Bush years. If the absolute number of illegals crossing into the U.S. each day has really decreased, such a decrease is likely attributable to those seeking work deciding not to cross into the U.S. illegally, discouraged by the lack of jobs.

On the other hand, U.S. Border States report markedly increased illegal border crossings by criminals peddling illicit drugs, human trafficking, and violence. Such an increase in criminals crossing into the U.S. would naturally increase the odds that border patrol agents would intercept a larger number of these criminals.

Napolitano and Obama want to claim credit for decreased illegal border crossings. However, most of the decrease can be accounted for on the basis of policies put in place during the Bush Administration and the lack of jobs in the U.S. for illegals. When Napolitano boasts of increased border patrol seizures of illicit drugs and weapons from criminal illegals, she is unintentionally admitting to the current tidal wave invasion of illegal alien criminals bringing violence and lawlessness into the Border States with them.

The borders are really more porous than ever with a greater percentage of criminal illegal aliens entering the U.S., all because the Obama Administration is not really serious about border security. If the U.S. were truly serious about border security, we would have a fence the length of our southern border. If we really didn’t want illegals to climb the border fence, we would electrify it. If we really didn’t want illegals to cut electricity to or tear down the fence, we would build interval towers along the fence line with remotely operated sniper rifles to pick off any illegals climbing over, through or seeking to damage the fence.

Do we need to militarize our southern border like they have between North and South Korea with soldiers and artillery and drones? How serious are we about border security? Serious enough to do whatever it takes to stop illegal immigration?

If we ever did get truly serious and put into place such measures, it is doubtful that any would-be illegal alien would ever be harmed; once the word gets out that the border is defended by an electrified fence and sniper towers or soldiers, artillery and drones, few would be foolish enough to test these defenses.

Far-Right Extremists with a Radical Agenda Are Set to Descend on Washington

The devastating recession was caused by Democrats insistence on banks, Fannie & Freddie providing government guaranteed mortgages to people who could not afford them. These "subprime" loans were turned into stock assets whose value was determined not by the belief that the loans would be repaid by the borrowers, but by the value of the federal government guarantee of these mortgages. Predictably, when borrowers began to default on these mortgages in large numbers, the house of cards created by the Democrats collapsed creating the current recession.

The radical Obama/Democrat agenda led to bailing-out Wall Street and the insurance industry, taking over auto manufacturing, spending billions of dollars in “stimulus” money on pork-barrel and political payback projects which have failed to prevent the ongoing loss of millions of jobs. Instead of helping small businesses create jobs and get the economy going again, Obamacrats have created large, expensive bureaucracies in a takeover of healthcare and financial regulations and taxes that hamstring businesses and prevent job creation and growth.

Obamacare, the new financial law, higher taxes and Washington’s anti-business positions have paralyzed American business and prevented any real economic recovery. Those who want to reduce taxes for all and facilitate the business expansion and job creation that are necessary for real economic recovery are condemned and ignored.

The new Democrat financial law not only raises serious obstacles to economic prosperity, but fails to cure the conditions that produced the mortgage banking and Wall Street collapse. Rather than preventing any further collapses, this puts Obama’s policies of bailouts into law. Now Wall Street is assured that if it takes excessive risk in its ventures and is successful, it will pocket the profits. At the same time, if taking excessive risk results in failure, Wall Street can rely on a federal government bailout.

Given this situation, there is little incentive for Wall Street to limit risk-taking that can lead to financial collapse and recession. The new financial law also does nothing to halt Fannie and Freddie from continuing to back up new subprime mortgages with taxpayer money, the original root of the problem that led to the current recession.

Passage of Obamacare was paid for with more than $500 billion dollars stolen from and weakening Medicare. While Medicare is facing insolvency in the near future, the Obamacrats have done nothing to help sustain this program.

Everyone in today’s workforce knows that they cannot depend on Social Security being there for them when they need support in retirement. The main reason for Social Security going bankrupt is that Congress steals all the Social Security funds collected each year and spends them on general projects, leaving the Social Security Trust Fund empty.

Obamacrats fight desperately against any change that would prevent them from robbing this trust fund each year, and anyone that offers a plan that would restrict Congress’ ability to gut this fund is accused of wanting to eliminate Social Security. All attempts to fix Social Security and Medicare so that they will be there for retirees in the future are condemned by the Obamacrats.

Billions of dollars are collected from the states by the federal government and a small portion of this money is returned to the states by the Department of Education in funding that is given, provided that the states adopt federal government criteria, methods, curricula and teacher and student indoctrination.

Programs to deal with the unproven theory of a “Climate Crisis” (or global warming, global cooling, or just plain climate change), many through the Department of Energy, are designed to make insider politicians and favored corporations rich from taxing the American public for energy usage.

Obamacrat initiatives have shut down American fossil fuel industry precipitating the loss of thousands of jobs, while financially supporting foreign oil production (even that of Mexico in the Gulf), and denying Americans energy independence.

Obamacrats claim that they support a woman’s right to the privacy of reproductive choice, or the “Right to Choose”. For those who understand that abortion is the killing of a human being growing inside the mother, this is no less than the “Right to Choose Death”. There never was such a “right” to kill one human being just because it inconveniences another. However, there is the well-established, God-given and Constitution-assured right to life.

Problems in this country due to illegal immigration are largely due to the imbalance between U.S. demand for illegal workers and foreigner’s lack of viable employment in their home countries. The U.S. government should use policy and diplomacy to strengthen neighboring economies so that home countries can provide the needed employment for these displaced workers. In addition, immigration law should be enforced such that businesses no longer hire illegal immigrants as workers. If U.S. business ceases to employ illegal immigrants, especially if there are good jobs in their home countries, they will pack up and go home.

The Obamacrats claim to be the defenders of American rights; however, there are consistent actions by these people to restrict inalienable and constitutional rights. Free speech that opposes the Obamacrat agenda is to be suppressed. Obamacrats want to register and limit the right to keep and bear arms in preparation for eventual arms confiscation planned by the federal government. The freedom to practice one’s religion is to be suppressed if religion in any way differs from the political thought of those currently in power.

The Obamacrat socialist agenda also calls for government controlling what kind of insurance you’ll buy, what kind of car you’ll drive, what kind of food you’ll eat, whether you can add salt to your food, whether you can drink sweet drinks, and how much you are permitted to weigh.

The Obamacrats have moved the Democrat Party so far to the Left, that regular Americans are now labeled “far-right extremists” and dismissed as favoring a “radical” agenda harmful to America.

Regular Americans who care deeply about individual rights and responsibilities, who want to restrain big government and put America back to work, and who care about the Constitution and the survival of our country and our culture of freedom are cast by the Obamacrats as deluded, manipulated and ignorant “Astroturf”. But these Tea Party, regular American patriots have no intention of being so summarily dismissed; they will be heard.

Candidates for office who have a similar vision of America are supported by regular Americans and condemned by the ruling class who see this wave of American will as disrupting their carefully crafted world of privilege and power. The truly radical agenda is that of the Obamacrats and the ruling class, and with any luck, the American people will replace the Washington elite with these new American candidates and the radical Obamacrat agenda will be discarded onto the trash heap of history.

The Emperor's New Clothes

TARP was supposed to rescue our financial system from total collapse by providing capital to failing financial firms; when the firms had stabilized and then paid back the money borrowed plus interest that returned money would be used to pay down the deficit. Contrary to express language in the bill, the Obama Administration bailed-out a number of imprudent financial and insurance firms, not only by the provision of capital, but also by the purchase of stock in these institutions.


TARP funds were also used for the hostile takeover of most of the nation’s automobile industry by stealing the value of the companies from investors and transferring it to the favored unions as part of a grand wealth redistribution scheme. Money returned by the financial firms has not been used to pay down the deficit, instead, it’s become a massive slush fund for Obama to distribute to his favorite special interests, like SEIU and ACORN.


The DISCLOSE Act was forged in dark, smoke-filled back rooms, behind closed doors, with Obamacrats and a gaggle of Most-Favored Lobbyists nose to nose as the special interests wrote in carve-outs for themselves, and the Obamacrats added language that hamstrings the opposition. They claim their legislation increases transparency and provides a more level playing field for more fair campaign financing. In reality, the Act does nothing to increase transparency and skews the playing field in favor of the Democrats by giving them an unfair advantage.


The Act goes on to provide for warrantless, compulsory submission of sensitive, private donor and member lists to the government, exposing vulnerable opposition supporters to government intimidation and persecution. While 2010 pre-election efforts to pass this legislation have been unsuccessful, the ideas behind the proposal have not been abandoned, and similar legislation is planned for the future.


Attempts by the Obamacrats to limit constitutionally guaranteed rights are not restricted to campaign free speech. Laws and executive orders have been promoted to restrict the free practice of religion, to limit other forms of free speech, and to abridge the right to keep and bear arms. In addition, the government takeover of student loans for higher education is being used to promote student indoctrination by providing financial aid only to students attending schools “approved” by the government. Other Obamacrat measures seek to control what kinds and how much energy Americans use, which energy industries will be permitted to survive, what body-mass index (BMI) is acceptable for Americans, and which foods and condiments Americans will consume.


President Obama touts the new financial reform law as ending any further taxpayer bailouts and as a boon to the consumer. In reality, the financial takeover legislation creates more layers of bureaucracy and red tape that dramatically increases cost to any business offering credit or financial services; this increased cost is passed along to the consumer. Millions of small businesses, including doctors, dentists, and local retailers, are no longer able to offer payment plans to their customers. Credit card companies have already raised interest rates and banks are no longer offering free checking in light of the new rules.


Written into the financial reform bill, the President and Secretary of the Treasury, are obligated to bailout, with taxpayer money, any company that they deem, at their sole discretion, to have serious financial difficulties. Favored companies will be propped up and preserved with taxpayer money. Politically unfavored companies, especially those that actively oppose the government’s agenda, will be placed in receivership, assets will be liquidated and sold at bargain-basement prices to favored companies, and favored companies will benefit from the reduced competition.


Two companies that played a big role in the housing and financial collapse that precipitated the Obama Depression, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, received a blank check from Obama as a perpetual, unlimited and continuous bailout using taxpayer funds, permitting these companies to continue to make the same high-risk, sub-prime loans that triggered this financial collapse. Likewise, the highly-leveraged mortgage-backed derivative market continues unchecked, where high-risk vehicles can produce eye-popping gains that are pocketed, or staggering losses that are bailed-out by Uncle Sam.


These companies were not included in the new financial law, and the business plan and practices that led to the failure of Fannie, Freddie, and Wall Street firms have not been corrected. The continuous drain on the treasury to pump life into the failed Fannie, Freddie, and others, along with the promise of bail-out for Wall Street and other large companies as needed, does nothing to restrict excessive risk-taking and adds daily to skyrocketing government spending and deficits.


Businesses and individual taxpayers shoulder the burden of higher taxes needed to help people who can’t afford a home buy one anyway, and to enable Wall Street’s gambling addiction by allowing them to enjoy their winnings without suffering the negative consequences of their actions in terms of losses that are bailed-out by taxpayers.


The financial legislation also gives the Administration unrestrained power to determine at its arbitrary and sole discretion, if a business should be declared insolvent or about to be insolvent, to take over that business, and distribute assets to cronies. This has sent a chill over the business community, as it is forced to think twice before donating to the opposition, when doing so could lead to very real dissolution of the business, in retaliation, by Obama’s lethal financial weapon. All of this contributes to iron-fisted control by the government of the American economy on an apparently unstoppable march to socialism and totalitarianism.


Obama’s Stimulus Bill is credited by the Administration with “saving or creating” millions of jobs, and breathing new life into a severely injured economy. The Stimulus Bill was advertised as principally funding “shovel ready” infrastructure projects. The truth is less than a third of the Stimulus money spent went towards anything that even slightly resembled infrastructure projects. Instead of saving or creating jobs, since the Stimulus Bill was signed into law, there has been a net extinction of millions of jobs, most of which were losses suffered by the private sector, and unemployment lines have never been longer, outside the Great Depression.


Most of the Stimulus money, which was primarily supposed to help the private sector, hardest hit by the Obama Depression, has been squandered. At a time when the average government worker makes over twice the income of non-government workers, the majority of this taxpayer-funded windfall went to government and union jobs and benefits, cementing organized labor support for the Obamacrats. The remainder was wasted on pork-barrel payback to other cronies to further strengthen the political base.


Obama and his minions have stumped the country proclaiming the “Bush Recession” over and prosperity in view, believing, against hope, that if they ritualistically repeat the words often enough, they will magically come true and naïve Americans will accept them at face value. On their way to imaginary prosperity, Obama and the Democrats swallowed whole, Keynesian economic theory: if the government could just spend enough billions, the consumer-driven economy would turn around. In reality, despite over a trillion dollars of stimulus, growth remains at a dismal 1.6% and true jobless figures remain at a devastating 15% plus.


The Obama-led race to spend money we didn’t have led to an astronomical deficit; these huge deficits imperil the financial and national security of the nation. As deficits rise, interest on the debt rises exponentially. The excesses of today will be paid for by the sweat of our grandchildren in the future. This is not the legacy that Main Street Americans want to leave for their posterity. Part of the American dream is that our children should have a better life than we did. How can this American dream come true when our children and grandchildren will be saddled with the monstrous debt that this generation has accumulated over our lives? The Obamacrats continue to insist that our country is still much better off, even despite the massive deficits.


But the Family on Main Street is still out of work, and is trapped, upside-down in a high-interest mortgage, unable to refinance despite record low mortgage rates because appraisal value is significantly less than the balance owed. The Family is behind on payments or fighting foreclosure, owes $10-15 thousand dollars in credit card debt at recently raised exorbitant interest rates (another benefit of the financial bill), has exhausted savings and tapped into retirement accounts for living expenses, and has put off necessary expenditures for major items like a new roof, furnace replacement, auto repair or an expensive, indicated healthcare procedure. Despite active searching, no prospect of employment is apparent, and discouragement sets in.


The Small Business (SB) on Main Street is not doing much better: SB has been through downsizing and belt-tightening, trying to remain profitable in a marketplace where demand has dropped precipitously. The SB has too much debt, at unfavorable rates, production is down and receipts are too little. Money is tight, and the SB no longer has a standing line-of-credit with its bank, which it had used on occasion to cover cash-flow shortfalls. On some paydays, the SB owners do not draw a paycheck in order to make payroll for others in the company. What assets remain available are horded by the SB and spending on supplies or maintaining large inventories is curtailed.


A tidal wave of new regulations coming from Washington (Obamacare, the Financial Bill, the DISCLOSE Act and other legislation, executive orders and regulatory agency rulings), many yet to be written by their respective agencies, are casting a pall of uncertainty on the Main Street SB. Heavy regulation, such as that seen over the last 18 months and including the financial reform bill and Obamacare, dramatically increases the cost of doing business.


Without knowing exactly how these regulations will affect it, the Main Street SB knows it’s going to take a major hit. However, it has no way of determining the magnitude of the damage to be done, or to plan for the anticipated increase in costs, restrictions, reporting requirements and red tape. In this overburdened, uncertain and anti-business climate, the SB is paralyzed. Hunkering down, the SB is cutting personnel and other expenses to the bone, is struggling to get out of debt, is conserving capital and deferring any plans for hiring or expansion. Waiting on the sidelines for months and years for the business climate to improve, hope for the promised economic recovery has begun to fade and the SB contemplates permanently closing its doors.


Obama has promised on multiple occasions, that those with an income of $250,000 or less would not be subject to any tax increases. New Obama initiatives, astronomical government spending and deficits, and refusal to renew the Bush tax cuts have crushed that promise by imposing higher taxes on all Americans at a time when Americans can least afford it.


With Obamacare, the President promised “If you like your health insurance and your doctor, you can keep your health insurance and your doctor”. Obama promised that government would not get between the doctor and patient, and that there would not be rationing of healthcare or any “death panels” deciding who will live and who will die on a cost-benefit basis. Obama promised that public funds would not pay for abortion, that government healthcare spending would be contained, that healthcare and insurance expenses for the consumer would be reduced, and that actual savings from Obamacare would help pay down the deficit.


Estimates of the true cost of Obamacare have recently been dramatically revised upward, and this is now shown to be adding significantly to the deficit instead of reducing it. The cost of healthcare and insurance to the consumer has also increased because of Obamacare. Avoiding congressional and public scrutiny, Obama recess appointed “Dr. Rationing and Death Panel” as the director of CMS, the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid, and this Director, with Obama’s approval, is planning on limiting the healthcare anyone can receive, making healthcare decisions previously made between the physician and patient, and withholding care when the government determines that the value of the individual to society is not worth the cost.


Public funds provided through Obamacare may be used to pay for abortions depending on the individual states. Also, most people will not be able to keep their same doctor or health insurance. During the Obamacare debate, a majority of the people recognized Obama’s dishonesty and fought passage of the bill. A smaller but not insignificant percentage of the people, took Obama at his word, and passively accepted passage of the bill, patiently awaiting Obama’s promises to be fulfilled. It is rapidly becoming apparent, even to this smaller, more passive group of Americans, that Obama was not being truthful and is not to be trusted.


President Obama and his Administration have been braying loud and proud about all of the good things Obama has done for the country, the economy, small business and the little people across the nation. However, this self-congratulatory trumpeting rings hollow on Main Street where the lack of any positive Obama accomplishment is glaringly apparent.


The Emperor’s procession moved slowly down the central road of town, lined with peasants cheering the Emperor. The Emperor’s advisors motioned for the peasants to come close to admire the Emperor’s new suit of clothes, handmade of the finest silk by the most skilled tailors in the land. “Only the most intelligent among us can truly appreciate the excellence of the Emperor’s new clothes”, they said, and the peasants clucked approvingly. As the procession neared the center of town, a small boy on the side of the road tugged at his father’s sleeve, “The Emperor has no clothes” he said. On hearing this, all the peasants looked again at the Emperor, and realized the boy was right, The Emperor Has No Clothes!