Fight for lower oil prices, SIGN THIS PETITION

I just learned that Brazil started digging for oil under the Atlantic ocean and is now completely independent of foreign dictators for its energy.

Funny thing about this is it's completely illegal in the U.S. to dig under the Atlantic Ocean. Just imagine how cool it would be if the leaders of this great country stop the craziness and allow American Oil companies to dig for oil where they can find it so we too could stop relying on foreign dictators.

Not only would this be great for our economy, it would be great for national security purposes; that would be two birds with one stone. Not only that, but the price of oil would go way down because we would control our own supply.

So why is it we can't dig for oil anyway? Oh, yeah, environmentalist wacko lobbyists have control over lawmakers in Washington.

Let's stop the craziness and dig for our own oil.

That in mind, Newt Gingrich has made us aware that Congress next week is set to debate a bill that would raise the price of gas even more in an effort to fight global warming. This is called the Warner-Lieberman global warming bill.

Newt writes that, "its supporters are as misguided and out-of-touch with the American people as the supporters of last springs immigration amnesty bill - and we all remember how that turned out,"

As part of his American Solutions campaign, he has started a petition with the goal of getting 100,0000 signatures to show Congress what the American people really want, and to hold the Senate "accountable if they fail to allow America the freedom to use its own energy resources instead of relying on foreign dictators."

If you agree with this as much as I do, make sure you link your readers to the petition.

Sign the petition. Click here to sign the petition. Go now.

Iraq is better and yet Obama STILL calls it a loss

The Weekly Standard has an interesting column today by Matthew Continette called "Iraq has changed. Why can't the Democrats?"

It's kind of neat, because what he writes about is similar to what McCain alluded to by his comments on Memorial Day, that Obama continues to stand firm that he wants to pull troops out of Iraq even while things are changing in Iraq for the better. Should he not use some common sense and reconsider?

That article states that in 2007 when Bush announced the surge, democrats had a right to be pessimistic, considering, "Al Qaeda in Iraq held large swaths of territory. Shiite death squads roamed much of Baghdad. The Iraqi political class seemed feckless."

Obama basically said back then that the idea of the surge would be pointless and ineffective. McCain, on the other hand, was an ardent supporter of the surge.

Now, after the surge has proven to be a major success, McCain looks pretty good, and Obama continues to chant, "We will remove troops from Iraq in 11 months... er, I mean 16 months."

However, by November 2007, Patreau reported that, "the numbers of violent incidents, civilian deaths, ethnosectarian killings, and car and suicide bombings had declined dramatically from the previous December. Why? The surge--and the broadening 'Awakening' movement, which began when the sheikhs in Anbar province rebelled against al Qaeda in late 2006 and accelerated when the tribal leaders understood America would not abandon them in 2007."

Obama still preaches the mantra that the war is unjust, and that the troops must come home within 11-16 months after he is elected president.

Since then, things have gotten even better in Iraq. Casualties are down 80%. "Al Qaeda was virtually limited to the northern city of Mosul," writes Continette. "There were more Iraqi Security Forces, and those forces were increasingly capable. The Iraqi government had passed a variety of laws promoting sectarian reconciliation. And the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, was demonstrating that he was a national leader by meeting with Sunnis and launching military operations against Shiite gangs and Iranian-backed "special groups" in the southern port city of Basra."

Let me put it this way: I'm no expert on the Iraq war other than what I read. I have read the opinions of both democrats, liberals, republicans, conservatives, libertarians, independents and the peanut butter ferry. I respect people for saying the war should not have started in the first place.

However, whether you agree with the reason for going there or not, a lot of good has come out of it. A thug dictator is gone, 100,000 Iraqi's are now able to enjoy their God given freedom, and the world is better off in more ways than one. Plus the U.S. has a nice military stronghold right in the middle of the middle east.

Things went horribly wrong in Iraq after this initial War, and they are now back on track. So, when Obama states that he still wants to "surrender," it makes me wonder if he simply wants to lose that war no matter what.

And that's the thought of the day.

McCain to educate Obama? That would be cool

Again, Obama supporters continue to chant that there is nothing bad that can be found about Obama other than things his wife said or his pastor. Well, two days ago I wrote a post of various things that are wrong with Obama's ideas, and various gaffes he's made that have been pretty much overlooked by the media.

On Monday, Memorial Day, he had yet another gaffe. I did not learn about it by the mainstream media. Here is his latest-non-critiqued-by-the-media gaffe.

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in...in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong."

It seems quite "ghostly" that he'd see fallen heroes in the audience.

Or is he referring to living Vets in the audience. If that's the case, perhaps he has Veterans day confused with Memorial Day.

On the same day, John McCain criticized Obama for being stubborn in his views toward the Iraq war. He said,

"Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost... He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time... If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn't had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly... For him to talk about dates for withdrawal, which basically is surrender in Iraq after we're succeeding so well is, I think, really inexcusable."

McCain, who has been to Iraq 8 times, and who was also a Navy prisoner of war in Vietnam, seems to me to be the most qualified person left in the presidential race to manage the military in a time of war.

Despite the turn of events in Iraq, which make it look more and more likely that the U.S. and the general Iraqi public will win that war, Obama is holding firm that he will pull troops out of Iraqi in 11-16 months after he is elected.

However, we here at Freadom Nation knows that this is rhetoric similar to democrats running for seats in Washington in 2006 said they would, if democrats gain control of the House and Senate, pull troops out of Iraq.

If that happened, everything we've accomplished so far in Iraq would be for naught, the Iranians would march in and take over that nation if the Iraqi soldiers were not fully prepared, and chaos would ensue, which may even involve the deaths of millions of Iraqis who supported the U.S. military.

Obama would not want that on his shoulders, and he will not pull out of Iraq. Clinton would not either. He, in my humble opinion, is only saying this stuff to get the support of his base.

McCain noted his new goal for the Iraq War is to start assure that most troops would be coming home by 2013. That too is rhetoric to cater to the majority of Americans who do not approve of the War in Iraq. By saying this he is just trying to show that he has a vision in mind for the end of U.S. presence in Iraq.

Would I like for the troops to come home by 2013? Absolutely. Would I like them to come home within a year? Even better. But we also need to make sure that our pullout won't result in backlash.

On another note, McCain appeared to play the fatherly role with Obama by offering to go on a visit to Iraq with Obama, and "I go back every few months because things are changing in Iraq," he said. "I would also seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way."

Now wouldn't that be cool. That would make McCain look all the more sagacious.

The 1950s-1980: Kennedy's boom to Stagflation

Today I'd like to continue my history of American economics that I started a while ago. I reviewed the road to the roaring 1920s and later the New Deal, and left you off with Harry S. Truman as president.

When it came to the economy, Truman basically rode the wave of the post war boom. But he was actually more concerened with other matters around the world, like receiving the unconditional surrender of Germany, the decision to drop the Atom bomb over Japan, and then the reconstruction of Europe.

At this time in American history, where the economy had nowhere to go but up after the Great Depression and WWII, the economy did continue to improve.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was provided an economy that was on the upswing amid a post-war boom. While the highest taxes rate remained at 90%, Eisenhower refused to cut taxes.

But he didn't need to, as his two terms in office, "produced eight years of growth and relative prosperity," according to PBS.org. "Nearly every indicator of economic health -- GNP, capital investments, personal savings and income -- showed substantial upswings."

Eisenhower was given credit for keeping the world at relative peace nationwide for seven years, as well as providing over a pleasant economy.

Yet, by the time John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, the high tax rates were starting to catch up with the economy, and a brief recession ensued.

John F. Kennedy was educated on the benefits of cutting taxes to create an incentive to save and invest and stimulate the economy.

With that in mind, he, despite many who told him not to do so, including his economic advisor John Kenneth Galbraith (who wanted to raise taxes, run up a debt and increase government spending to improve the economy) Kennedy cut taxes from 91% down to about 70%, which was actually less than his original proposal of 65%.

While the tax cuts were not enacted until after his death in 1964, they resulted in an economic upswing that allowed Lyndon Johnson to preside over a country in economic prosperity.

According to Wikipedia, while Johnson was president "GNP rose 10% in the first year of the tax cut, and economic growth averaged a rate of 4.5% from 1961 to 1968. Disposable personal income rose 15% in 1966 alone. Despite the drop in tax rates, federal revenues increased dramatically from $94 billion in 1961 to $150 billion in 1967.

Thus, the result was an economic boom in the 1960s instead of a deeper recession or even a depression which would have occurred had Galbraith had his way. And we would not be thinking of Kennedy in the same light as we now do. If Kennedy had listened to his advisers, we'd be talking about Kennedy in the same light as we talk about Carter.

Richard Nixon won in a landslide in 1968 and decided he was going to continue to ride the wave of the good Johnson economy (rather, the Kennedy economy) by "playing it safe."

However, due to factors beyond Nixon's control, the economy was sputtering by 1971, Nixon announced a 90-day wage-price freeze, stimulative tax cuts, a temporary 10% tariff, and spending cuts.

The economy recovered enough by 1972 and Nixon won again in a landslide.

But, according to countrystudies.us, "In 1973 the war between Israel, Egypt and Syria prompted Saudi Arabia to impose an embargo on oil shipped to Israel's ally, the United States. Other member nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quadrupled their prices. Americans faced both shortages and rapidly rising prices. Even when the embargo ended the next year, prices remained high. Higher energy prices affected all areas of American economic life: in 1974 inflation reached 12 percent, causing disruptions that led to even higher unemployment rates. This era of recession and inflation ("stagflation") brought an end to the unprecedented economic boom America had enjoyed since 1948."

While Carter complained about inflation being so high when he was elected in 1976, it was even higher when he left office in January 1981.

With the country now mired in a recession, the window was now open for a the first successful trial of supply-side economics, which would end the era of high taxes.

Obama Gaffes not scrutinized by media

Republican presidential candidates of the past have been tarred an feathered by gaffes on the campaign trail. Remember Dan Quayle's misspelling of potato?

Even past democratic candidates have been doomed by gaffes. I'm sure you remember this one: "I voted for the war in Iraq before I voted against it."

While I was listening to Sean Hannity on the radio on my way to pick up my daughter from gymnastics, a liberal called into the show to debate with Sean, and said, "You guys criticize Obama for what his pastor said, you can find nothing wrong with anything he has said."

Do you want to bet.

"But what about Barack Obama?" asked Michelle Malkin in a recent post at National
Review Online. "The guy’s a perpetual gaffe machine. Let us count the ways, large and small, that his tongue has betrayed him throughout the campaign." You can check her list of Obama gaffes by clicking here.

Here's a pithy review of the gaffes Malkin lists that came from the lips of Obama and were not scrutinized by the media:

1. America has 57 states (there are actually 50 states)


2. A tornado in Kansas killed 10,000 people. (Actually 12 were killed)


3. Arkansas is closer to Kentucky than Illinois (Illinois is actually closer)


4. Obama was born as a result of the March on Selma, which happened in 1965. (Obama was born in 1961)


5. Since translators are in Iraq, we can't use them in Afghanistan. (The people of Afghanistan speak a different language as the people of Iraq.)

Malkin describes his biggest gaffe as such: “Iran doesn't pose a serious threat to us — cluelessly arguing that 'tiny countries' with small defense budgets can’t do us harm — and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”

I think we can go beyond the gaffes to find dirt on Obama. Dirt many outlets of the media choose to ignore, supposedly (I'm assuming) because they love Obama and they want the country to love him too.

Hey, how about his gaffe:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

While his gaffes go un-scrutinized by the media, so do other questionable policies Obama states that he will implement.

He has said he wants to talk to Iran "with no pre-conditions." And he implied that"Ronald Reagan talked to the Soviet leaders during the Cold War.

True, but Reagan didn't talk to the Soviets without pre-conditions. He knew what he wanted to get out of the talks and do did the Soviet leader, or Reagan would not have gone.

Obama doesn't understand economics either. While historic economic trends show that the lowering the capital gains is the single best method of stimulating the economy, Obama proposes to raise this tax.

He also doesn't understand how capitalistic societies work. He said this recently:

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times and -- whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country is going to say, okay, you know you guys go ahead and keep on using 25% of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3% of the population, and we'll -- we'll be fine, don't worry about us. That's not leadership."

What's he implying here, that the world has limited resources. That if I get rich there's going to be a bunch of poor people who have no chance of getting out of poverty.

We became the greatest economy in the world because we are a capitalistic nation. It only makes sense that we use 25% of the worlds energy. We have most of the world technology, and most of the worlds economies stand on solid ground because of the U.S.

Thus, if the U.S. economy crashes because a person is in office who doesn't understand how capitalism works, or how the economy works, so will all these other nation's economies crash who depend on the U.S.

Again, Obama is just as prone to making gaffes as anyone, and he is also entitled to his opinions, but if he is not being scrutinized by the mainstream media, we expect McCain to get the same royal treatment.

The unwritten rule

Warning: If you are on the campaign trail, and you are putting yourself in the public spotlight, the media has a right to criticize you. If your wife is campaigning and putting herself in the spotlight, the media has a right to criticize her. If Your friends and even children are doing the same, then the media has a right to criticize them too.

Polls show: dems not proud of America

I've been reading Comeback: Conservatism that can win" by David Frum, and he makes some really good points about democrats and how they see themselves less and less as Americans and more and more as members of the world.

Bill Clinton said it best: "There are a lot of very brilliant people who believe that the nation-state is fast becoming a relic of the past."

While this view may be very prevalent in Europe with the European Union and the United Nations, this view is pretty much divided right along party lines in the U.S.

He writes that "Democrats are consistently less likely than Republicans to describe themselves as "extremely proud" to be Americans. As of January 2005, for example, 71 percent of Republicans described themselves as 'extremely proud,' but only 54 percent of Democrats did."

Is that scary or what? And he goes further: "On the eve of the Iraq war in March 2003, 72 percent of Republican high-school seniors described themselves as 'very' or 'extremely' patriotic, while only 41 percent of Democratic high school seniors did so."

For the most part, I believe the democrats who are going away from the idea of the nation-state are liberal democrats. It is the liberals on the Supreme Court who consistently make rulings based on "institutions of global governance" as opposed to the U.S. Constitution.

They think they are doing the right thing. So, while I wrote a post recently claiming that the California Supreme Court did not follow the U.S. Constitution when it overruled the will of the people who voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage, I was pretty much blowing into a deaf ear as far as those liberal activist judges were concerned.

These judges, as do many other liberals, don't see the U.S. Constitution as a viable piece of paper anymore. They see it as old and outdated, and inferior to what the rest of the world thinks.

How many times have you heard this from conservatives: "Somehow in this U.S. Constitution those activist judges ruling over Rowe -v- Wade found that abortion is legal. I'm telling you, I have never found the word abortion written in the U.S. Constitution."

Conservatives like me don't get it. We have no clue. Those liberal judges don't care about the U.S. Constitution. What they care about is the opinion of the world, and the majority opinion of the "institutions of global governance" believe that abortion is the choice of the woman.

These liberals believe the world court should have jurisdiction over these here United States even though that court would make obsolete many of the rights and protections provided you and me by the U.S. Constitution.

It is these same liberals who don't trust the U.S. government when it comes to making decisions about world affairs and national defense. They believe that a nation-state like the U.S. would be willing to go to war for selfish and arrogant reasons, and that only the U.N. Security Council should have the right to declare war.

The scary thing about that, conservatives contend, is that there are two terrorist Muslim Nations on this security council, the very same people who would love nothing more than to stuff America's arrogance back into its own face.

There are also many nations in the U.N who want nothing more than to see the destruction of Israel, or that hate Israel nonetheless.

Democrats, Frum writes, believe that government is the answer to all our problems, yet they do not trust the "American Government" to solve any problems at all. They are "lacking faith in America and Americans... mistrusting traditional American culture as racist, violent, and generally defective."

Frum writes that this is especially scary, because not only is the will of the people in the U.S. not represented in a "world government," but neither is the will of any of the rest of the world. In fact, he contends, that a world government is not democratic at all.

"Corrode national sovereignty," he writes, "and you corrode democracy. Individual person votes for the U.N. Secretary-General or the European Commissioners. No legislature writes the laws enforced by the International Criminal Court."

Bill Clinton was a lot more conservative than many are willing to believe, just like George W. Bush was more liberal than many want to believe. In fact, those two were so close to one another in their ideas that its ironic to see how distant the two parties are.

Thus, niether Clinton nor Bush would ever in their dreams have given in to the World Court. They have both rejected it on grounds that it would over-rule the will of the people of the U.S.

And while I am confident that John McCain and Hillary Clinton would continue to reject the world order for this reason, I'm not confident at all that Obama would.

That's why it is so important that Conservatives and republicans and Hillary Clinton supporters unite in this coming election -- even if they have to bite their lips when doing so, and vote for John McCain.

Many democrats have already crossed the isle and pledged support for McCain. Many more say they will too, if Hillary doesn't get the nomination. Personally, I would much have a Patriotic Hillary Clinton in office than a man who appears on the surface to be a supporter of a world order.

Wasn't his wife who said, "For the first time in my life I am proud to be an American." After reading Frum's book, I completely understand what she was saying. I also understand what Reverend Wright was saying when he said, "GD America."

And we can understand why Obama refused to wear a lapel pin of the American flag one night.

For Obama to continue to be a viable candidate for president of the U.S., he needs to prove he's patriotic. Again, as I wrote before, this will be a tough task.