By John Whitehead

The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d’etat, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random patdowns and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or quick trip to the shopping mall.

Perhaps you have yet to experience the particular thrill, and I use that word loosely, of being manhandled by government agents, having your personal possessions pawed through, and your activities and associations scrutinized. If so, not to worry. It’s only a matter of time before more and more Americans will experience such a military task force knocking at their door. Only, chances are that it won’t be a knock, and they might not even be at home when government agents decide to “investigate” them. Indeed, as increasing numbers of Americans are discovering, these so-called “soft target” security inspections are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat. Worse, not only is this happening with the blessing of the Obama administration but at its urging.

What I’m describing–something that was once limited to authoritarian regimes–is only possible thanks to an unofficial rewriting of the Fourth Amendment by the courts that essentially does away with any distinctions over what is “reasonable” when it comes to searches and seizures by government agents. The rationale, of course, is that anything is “reasonable” in the war on terrorism. What the powers-that-be understand–and Americans remain oblivious to–is the fact that by constantly pushing the envelope and testing the limits of what Americans will tolerate, the government is thus able to ratchet up the level of intrusiveness that Americans consider reasonable.

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By Robert Agostinelli

The sad tale of profligate spending is clear. With an abandon and reckless disregard for common-sense economics, we have mortgaged our future. This has been the fault of both sides of the political aisle. Seemingly benign acts of largesse and the application of pork-barrel spending have numbed our national sense of responsibility and left us detached from the full implications.

This has been greatly exacerbated by the equally cowardly seduction of “entitlement.” This term embodies the height of all false utopian ideals that socialism has used to seduce its wards.

Long before our current president embarked on his course of ruin, his intellectual compatriots, Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, charted the course of our demise. They were the forerunners who, in the name of good intentions, sowed the seeds of ruin whose harvest we are reaping.

The expectation that the government has a duty and an obligation to provide entitlements is and always has been a flawed proposition. Simply put, it is a grand illusion with a vengeful ending if not corrected.

Enter President Obama, the supreme narcissistic leader of the realm, never one to “let a crisis go to waste.” His is an artful blend of Keynesian voodoo economics, increased imposition of government control, and the largest expansion of the entitlement state in our history.

The financing of Mr. Obama’s spending and expansion of government can only be sustained by way of subterfuge.

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By Rob Natelson

You can sympathize with the humanitarian motives of our Libyan intervention while still doubting its constitutionality.

The Constitution prescribes the rules about how the United States is to enter a war, and the Obama administration has violated those rules.

The administration argues that the hostilities, because limited, do not rise to the level of “war,” as the Constitution uses that word. But that position is almost surely wrong: Founding-Era dictionaries and other sources, both legal and lay, tell us that when the Constitution was approved, “war” consisted of any hostilities initiated by a sovereign over opposition. A very typical dictionary definition was, “the exercise of violence under sovereign command against such as oppose.” (Barlow, 1772-73). I have found no suggestion in any contemporaneous source that operations of the kind the U.S. is conducting were anything but “war.”

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By Ulster Man

13 killed and 30 wounded as a result of the Fort Hood Massacre. Six dead and 14 wounded in Tucson. President Obama reacts with detached attention to one tragedy, while showing deep concern for the other – but why?

A little more than a year ago, the nation dealt with a similar tragedy – at least in scope of lives lost and/or irreparably damaged, to that which took place the past week in Tucson Arizona. The Fort Hood massacre saw Nidal Mialik Hasan, an American-born Muslim serving in the U.S. military, open fire on his fellow soldiers – all the while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. (God is great – the very phrase utilized by the 9/11 terrorists)

President Obama, the nation’s Commander in Chief, did not make an appearance at Fort Hood until November 10th – almost a week after the shootings.

In an interview given to ABC the night prior to the Fort Hood memorial, President Obama refused to use the term terrorist – and even dismissed the attack with the following: “In a country of 300 million people…There are going to instances, uh, in which, uh, an individual cracks.”

Now fast-forward to the president’s almost immediate response to the more recent events in Tucson.

Within an hour of the story breaking, President Obama made his first somber public statement regarding the events. FBI Director Robert Mueller was promptly dispatched to the scene. The following day the president led a national moment of silence for the victims of the tragedy. And as many in the media, Democratic Party, and figures such as Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik blamed the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Limbaugh, Republicans, etc. for helping to somehow instigate the shooting in Tucson, Obama voiced no urging of caution, or made any statement dismissing the shooter as simply one among 300 million who had “lost it.”

What is motivating President Obama to react so differently to such tragic events?

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By Ulster Man

As predicted, the Russians were playing an inept and incompetent Obama administration over the implications inherent within the latest START treaty, intending to leave America less capable of defending itself against nuclear attack.

President Barack Obama, desperate to appear presidential, seemingly at any cost, has pushed and prodded for quick Congressional approval of the latest START treaty between the United States and Russia. Surely a much publicized signing ceremony was sure to follow, attempting to glamorize a sure n steady President Obama as he continues to embark on saving the world from itself.

Ah, but what Obama seemingly forgot – yet again, is that it is now well known he is neither sure nor steady as a statesman. Rather, Obama is a man bereft of experience, confidence, or character, and thus, an easy mark for world leaders with far more cunning and grit than the current and hapless American president.

Enter Russia.

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By Chris Hedges

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

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By John Griffing

What does any would-be tyrant need in order to gain control over the lives of citizens? Three things come to mind: martial law, socialized medicine, and food dependency.

In at least two of these categories, President Obama has already succeeded.

By way of executive proclamation, President Obama has secured for himself the power to declare martial law in the event of a national “emergency,” real or contrived, and without the accountability typically required by the Posse Comitatus Act and the Nation Emergencies Act of 1976.

Whether or not Republicans achieve repeal, a precedent has been set. It is unlikely that the full damage of ObamaCare can be completely undone without Republican control of the White House. The U.S. government can now dictate the coverage and benefits of most Americans — i.e., those on Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP, which together account for thirty percent of the population. In addition, government can punish Americans without insurance with unconstitutional fees and fine employers who refuse to provide every single employee with premium health benefits, making economic recovery unlikely.

The one area where elites have been so far reluctant to venture is food. Food is the stuff of life. Control over food would mean direct control over the political decisions of average Americans. The elites have slipped the slope, passing legislation that will give federal bureaucrats jurisdiction over food “production” — i.e., who produces food, what kinds of food are produced, and in what quantities. However, this is not a debate about food regulation or food inspection. What is taking place is in fact a coup d’état, with dinner tables as the strategic weapons.

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The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest..

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

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By Brian Fitzpatrick

The lame-duck Senate voted 71-26 today to ratify President Obama’s strategic arms reduction treaty with the Russians, which numerous Reagan and Bush administration defense experts say will put America at a strategic disadvantage.

The Obama administration is “intent on putting the United States out of the nuclear weapons business,” said Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and a former acting assistant secretary of defense for security policy.

Gaffney accused Obama of following a policy of “radical denuclearization.”

The Russians have snookered the Obama administration.

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By Gene Healy

What’s surprising about Washington’s ongoing anti-WikiLeaks conniption isn’t what the purloined cables disclose about American foreign policy. Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates admits that, despite a few “awkward” exposures, the consequences for U.S. national security will be “fairly modest.”

No, what’s really telling is how Washington’s political class has reacted to WikiLeaks. As they see it, anyone who threatens to undermine government secrecy is morally equivalent to Osama bin Laden.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says that if existing laws can’t stop WikiLeaks, “we need to change the law,” dammit, because the organization’s founder, international man of mystery Julian Assange, is a “high-tech terrorist.”

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By B.T.

Surviving isn’t so much about the equipment you have or don’t have, it’s going to boil down to the attitude you possess. Not the possessions. Preparedness is an attitude, not an inventory. If we are all to wait until the last moment to make the necessary changes in our lives, we’ll be grossly unprepared. I no longer believe that it’s a matter of if, but when the SHTF.

I don’t believe I’m just going to wake up one day and hear it on the radio, grab my bug-out-bag, my M1A and jump in my fully outfitted, fully fueled and prepped rig with a secured trailer full of equipment, call my survival squad buddies and make some Mad Max convoy run to our distant retreat all fully armed and stocked with the necessities of the apocalypse, fending off the Golden Horde with superior firepower while at the same time hastily planting seeds and sending out missions to establish a perimeter.

I thoroughly believe the beginning of the end will come more like a thief in the night, like some viral disease that cripples you over time.

Being prepared is all fine and dandy, but if you are thinking of it like some apocalyptic insurance policy, that you’ll just activate when the moment is upon us, then the attitude is all wrong. The powers that be have always inflicted the ills of their master plan and fiscal folly upon us over an extended period of time, the frog in the hot water analogy. This will be no different and don’t think it won’t.

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By Dr. Jack Wheeler

Georgetown, Guyana.

You may think you’ve never heard of this place but you have.

The former British Guiana (one of the three Guianas – the other two being former Dutch Guiana, now Surinam, and French Guiana, all on the northeast shoulder of South America) – is these days visited by folks into eco-tourism. This place has one of the most untouched rainforests on earth with an astonishing variety of bird and wildlife.

But Guyana doesn’t ring a bell with you because of harpy eagles and howler monkeys. How about Jim Jones and Jonestown? Yes, that Guyana, where, on November 18, 1978, over 900 Americans committed mass suicide on orders of their cult leader.

It remains one of the most bizarre events of modern times – from which the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” originates, meaning blind unthinking acceptance of a suicidally idiotic set of beliefs.

Yet almost no one knows just what, exactly, were the beliefs of the “Peoples Temple” cult created by Jim Jones. Some sort of weird religion, right?

Nope. Jim Jones calling his Peoples Temple a “church” was a tax-avoidance scam as it was purely secular. He admitted in a taped interview, “I’m an atheist.” He was not a religious leader. He was a Stalin-admiring far left San Francisco Democrat.

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The United States by every measure is hanging on by a thread to its First World status. Saddled by debt, engaged in wars on multiple fronts with a rising police state at home, declining economic productivity, and wild currency fluctuations all threaten America’s future.

The general designations of the ranking system for world status date back to the 1950s, and have included countries at various stages of economic development. Since the Cold War, the definition has come to be synonymous with repressive countries where a wealthy class of ruling elites segment society into the haves and have-nots, many times capitalizing on the conditions that follow an economic crisis or war.

While much of the world is still mired in poverty, the reduced cost of innovative tools such as computing and connectivity ironically puts traditional Third World countries at the forefront of a new lean-and-mean economy that is based on ideas of empowerment for the disenfranchised. For better or worse, the world is leveling due to Globalism. However, America and other over-leveraged countries face this re-balancing of the globe at a time when they have dwindling resources. We can speculate about who and what is to blame for America’s fantastic fall, but for the purposes of this article we shall focus on the obvious signs that the United States is beginning to resemble a Third World country.

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Does he really think our attention spans are THAT short?

Click below to watch video:

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By Alan Keyes

For the moment it appears that officials in the military justice system intend to show no more respect for their sworn duty to the United States Constitution than those in the civilian judiciary have thus far evinced.

The investigating officer in charge of the Article 32 hearing in the case of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin formally refused to consider evidence tending to justify Lt. Col. Lakin’s contention that serious doubt beclouds the claim that Barack Obama satisfies the Constitution’s eligibility requirements for service as Commander-in-Chief. His decision arbitrarily vitiates any effort to substantiate what must be the major premise of Lt. Col. Lakin’s defense against the charges being brought against him, which is the dubious lawfulness of orders issuing from a chain of command that derives its authority from an individual claiming without Constitutional warrant to hold the office of President of the United States.

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Dear Mrs. Pelosi—

From where we stand, and we have stood in the midst of desperate battle for this nation, you are manifestly an enemy of The American People. We have held the hands of our brothers and sisters, dying in war for all of us and in defense of our Constitution. Even to this very day, we can see their blood upon our hands, with the eyes of our hearts.

Therefore, Mrs. Pelosi, if and when we come to Washington, we will never shake hands with the likes of you, Obama and Reid. You have betrayed your oaths to defend our Constitution, made a mockery of the integrity of our legislative processes. By acts that could destroy us economically, you have betrayed the sacred trust of those who have served this country—civilian and military alike—who have worked hard to enjoy the fruits of their labor in old age and now see their pensions threatened, not by a crisis that no one could prevent but by a willful, virtually treasonous form of fiscal irresponsibility.

Lincoln was right. Anyone, we suppose even you, can fool “some of the people all of the time”—and these are perhaps the ones among your constituency who may yet vote for you in November, despite every lie and act of theft and treason perpetrated by you and your cohorts in the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Executive Branch.

From where we have stood in war, we have never seen the Scales of Justice balanced by acts of war. War is the hell to which a nation’s path will surely lead when governments undermine and eventually destroy the foundations of peace.

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There is an unease in the air, a sense that a shift is taking place in the world. The signs are all around us: weapons of mass destruction, continual threats of terrorism, an emerging global police state, and a growing but over-extended military empire that is wreaking havoc on the American economy. All the while, troops are being deployed on American soil, raising the specter of martial law being declared at a moment’s notice.

Profound confusion and fear abound. And as the pervasiveness of the government increases in our lives, freedom is being squelched. The reason, we are told, is to protect us and keep us safe.

Surveillance cameras now monitor virtually every area of our lives. When the government so chooses, it can listen in on our telephone calls and read our e-mails. And government intelligence agencies possess sophisticated computer technology that is capable of sweeping the internet and our website activity to determine what we are thinking and saying. The President can label anyone, including American citizens, “enemy combatants” and hold them indefinitely without access to family or an attorney.

These troubling developments are the outward manifestations of an inner, philosophical shift underway in how the government views not only the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but “we the people,” as well. What this reflects is a move away from a government bound by the rule of law to one that seeks total control through the imposition of its own self-serving laws on the populace.

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By Allen Hunt

In the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that working out for you?” Someone in President Obama’s inner circle of advisors needs to ask the president that question and soon. In the wake of a new immigration policy debacle, and yet another homeland security collapse, how’s that policy of appeasement of Islam working out for you? In Barack Obama, we are witnessing the second coming, not of Christ, but of Neville Chamberlain himself, the embodiment of appeasement.

Unfortunately, Chamberlain’s appeasement policy left England weak and unprepared for war, thereby making Churchill’s task of waging war against Hitler all the more difficult. Crafting foreign policy, combating tyranny, and staring down evil are not for the faint-hearted. Wishing away a problem rarely works; ask any addict. Relying solely on one’s supernatural powers of persuasion usually leads to delusion, failure, or worse, collapse. In fact, this tall task of confronting evil requires a strategy of strength rather than a policy of appeasement. Regrettably, the latter seems to be the bailiwick of Mr. Obama.

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By J. Speer-Williams

Not long ago Obama, a relatively unknown Afro-American, was being sheep-dipped (gaining an identity, to build creditability) as a Constitutional Law professor (when he – by rights – should have been studying our Constitution) at the highly regarded University of Chicago School of Law, while he doubled as an Illinois state legislator.

And even though flextime Professor Obama had produced no original scholarship papers on Constitutional Law, he was offered a tenured position at the lofty Chicago School of Law. But oddly enough, hard working Professor Obama refused tenure, as he must have known he was on a much faster greased track to something much bigger … if … he could only improve his poor teleprompter reading skills of what others wrote for him.

And, Mr. Soetero … er… Mr. Obama applied himself to his trade, which was not statesmanship, but neuro-linquistics. And in time, Obama’s teleprompter reading coaches perfected with their student a slow rhythmic flow of spoken words, broken up with many “uhs,” with the same measured cadence as the words appeared on his teleprompter screens.

Then strangely, in an unprecedented move, the Democratic Party kingmakers gave lowly state Senator Obama a national stage, when allowing him to display his reading cadence at their presidential nominating convention of 2004.

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By Alan Keyes

Socrates famously said that an unexamined life is not worth living. However that may be, there’s new proof everyday that a critically unexamined so-called news report is not worth reading.

A case in point: A slyly derogatory article at foxnews.com purporting to discuss the prospects of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin’s effort to obtain, by means of a military trial, evidence that bears on the question of Barack Obama’s eligibility for the office of President of the United States.

The article sports a headline that applies to Lt. Col Lakin the inaccurate epithet “birther” invented by Obama faction propagandists to distract from the profound question of Constitutional authority that is really at stake.

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