Check it out below.

Ron Paul uses his 5 minutes quite well as he declares that sanctions are an act of war and attempts to educate his peers on the unintended consequences of these types of sanctions.

(Thanks to Minnesota Chris for the video, check out his blog)

Decorated Marine, Foreign Service Official resigns

However, the bill also included a provision to cover-up the prisoner abuse crime we told you about last week.

This cover-up provision couldn’t have passed on its own merits. That’s why the Congressional leadership attached it to the completely unrelated DHS funding bill.

We must force Congress to stop combining unrelated legislation into one bill. Protest what they did with the cover-up measure and tell your representatives to introduce and pass DownsizeDC.org’s One Subject At A Time Act (OSTA).

Here’s what I wrote in my personal comments . . .

The Homeland Security Appropriations Act (H.R. 2892) is a perfect example of why we need OSTA. The prisoner abuse cover-up law it contained had absolutely nothing to do with the funding or activities of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security).

Those opposed to the cover-up measure had an ethical responsibility to oppose the bill as a whole. There was no urgency to pass this bill. Congress could have funded the DHS at current levels with a continuing resolution. That’s why I think a vote for H.R. 2892 was really a vote for the prisoner abuse cover-up.

Those who voted for this bill failed in their duty to uphold the law. Those who failed to protest the inclusion of the cover-up bill in unrelated legislation are likewise guilty. But it gets worse . . .

Jameel Jaffer notes that this law also paves the way for my government to hide nearly everything related to military activities during the Bush years.

I also believe this cover-up will put our troops in greater peril than if the photographic evidence of prisoner abuse was revealed. America’s enemies will say that . . .

1. Our politicians are hypocritical when they demand openness from other countries
2. Censoring the photos is evidence that they are more terrible than anyone can imagine
3. Obama wants to cover-up this Bush-era scandal because he’s continuing the same policies

If “protecting the troops” can justify the cover-up of possible war crimes overseas, I fear Congress will next use “national security” as an excuse to hide government wrongdoing at home.

Please uphold the law and do your job as my representative. You can best achieve this by taking two actions . . .

1. Introduce legislation to repeal the prisoner abuse cover-up law
2. Introduce DownsizeDC.org’s One Subject At A Time Act

END OF SAMPLE LETTER

You can send your letter to Congress using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

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* become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/DownsizeDCorg/92777977517
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Jim Babka, President
DownsizeDC.org

P.S. Yesterday, and this morning, Downsize DC President Jim Babka was on air for radio interviews. Not all interviews are, or even can be posted here in these Dispatches. But we will post interviews on the DownsizeDC.org blog, which features an RSS feed, as well as on our Twitter page, DDCDispatch. Please check the blog regularly, or sign up for the RSS feed, or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news.

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In this interview they discuss the U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan, Ron Paul’s new book “End the Fed“, and how the Fed can be audited and eventually abolished.

Watch it in two parts below.

(Thanks to great Minnesota Chris for the videos, check out his blog)

“Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and our wealth are in jeopardy.” – Dr. Ron Paul

Originally published October 16, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/liberty-candidates-2010-the-year-of-hope-1

Ever wonder what happened to that sense of hope and change that most of the voters in the United States were swept up by last fall?

America does need “hope.” America does need “change.”

However, the mainstream Republican and Democratic party machines are both repeating like bad records – “more spending, more taxes, more war, more debt.”

If you flip the record, all you hear is “less liberty, fewer jobs, less prosperity.”

Why doesn’t America consider a sound money and slashing federal spending?

Why doesn’t America consider auditing and cutting back the powers of the ruinous FED?

Why doesn’t America consider destroying the IMMORAL and UNNECESSARY federal income tax?

Why doesn’t America consider a different foreign policy – where there is third choice besides bombing or economic sanctions? Why not replace the blowback our foreign policy has resulted in with a little love and peaceful trade?

Why doesn’t America replace its civil liberties that were stripped during the unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act, which blasphemes the very concept of individual liberty?

Why doesn’t America consider replacing our “crony corporatism” system with a truly free market?

And, above all, WHY DOESN’T AMERICA MAKE ITS POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE TO THEM???

These images are not intended as an anti-Obama ad, but rather as a statement in the power of the individual. The hope for our futures will not come from following any single man!  It is only by thinking for ourselves, and realizing that all hope for change lies inside each of us, and the key to unlock the change rests in each of our minds.

To download the image, please right-click, select “Save Image As…” and save to your desktop and use however you like. We make the suggestion that all Facebook supporters use this image for their profile picture for awhile. Its message is powerful and simple enough to reach many who do not realize that there is something dreadfully wrong with America, and only together can we bring into being a revolution in thought.

Remember, the truth persists and illuminates, even if there is no one to utter it.  Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

The campaign gives its sincere thanks to Erik Gumbrecht for the concept and Ernest Ibarra, Jr. for the graphic design.

Restore the Republic! Re-legalize the Constitution!

Jake Towne, Candidate for US House PA-15  TowneForCongress.com

Dr. Mike Vasovski, Candidate for US House SC-3 VasovskiForCongress.com

Paul Lambert, Candidate for US House AL-6 VoteLambert.org

Jaynee Germond, Candidate for US House OR-4  Germond2010.com

William Kern, Candidate for US House NJ-1, KernForCongress.com

RJ Harris, Candidate for US House OK-4 RJHarris2010.com

Each of the above candidates have the answers to the above questions.

Towne for Congress addresses them with the below links.

• Campaign Principles
• Sound Monetary Policy and the FED
• The Federal Income Tax
• The Wars Abroad
• Corporatism and Bailouts
• Accountability through the novel yet simple Our Open Office plan
• Health Care

Jake Towne for Congress – Hope and Change Ad

“It’s time to end the whole mess!”

When watching it one gets the impression he’s made these same arguments a few too many times. Judging from his demeanor he may be getting sick of replaying the same arguments and not have anyone really listen to him. Well, a few of us are listening, and agreeing.

Watch it below.

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” – James Madison, 1795

Originally published October 14, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/iraq-war-plank-1

Summary: As Congressman, I will drive for a rapid, immediate and orderly withdrawal from Iraq. Under no circumstances will I approve spending to extend this unconstitutional, preemptive war of aggression.

Besides the creating new dollars to debase the currency and spending taxpayer funds to fund war during adverse economic times, my justification for the position is the following:

First and foremost, without a declaration of war, the Iraq War is an unconstitutional and illegal war as it conflicts with the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. In dereliction of their duty and oaths of office, the House voted down by unanimous vote a motion in committee to follow the Constitution and declare war in H.R.J. 114, the bill that authorized Bush II to invade with attack in March 2003. (1) (2)

Second, we must realize that the Iraq War is a grinding, continuous, 19-year long war. While I condemn Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, one must remember that as recently as 1984 the United States backed the regime and funded both Iraq and Iran (the infamous Iran-Contra Affair) during the blood-soaked Iran-Iraq War from 1980-1988, which saw wide use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas and the nerve agent tabun. In 1994, Senator Riegle’s report revealed that America armed Iraq with anthrax, botulinum and many other chemical weapons that were “not attenuated or weakened” and “capable of reproduction.” (3) (4) (5) (6A) (6B) (7)

The Iraq War can be divided into three parts. (8) (photo)

Phase 1: The attack to remove the Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait took place with broad international support and United Nations approval from 1990-1991. Osama bin Laden, our former-ally-turned-terrorist who disapproved of Hussein’s secular (non-religious) rule, even offered to invade with his mujahideen. (9)

Phase 2: From 1992-2002, the Iraqi people suffered under isolating economic sanctions, loss of its airspace to a militarized “no-fly” zone (which never had UN approval and was called “illegal” by the head of the UN), and was repeatedly bombed by the US Air Force. Under Clinton, these instances include the launch of 23 Tomahawk missiles to demolish Intelligence Headquarters in Baghdad in 1993 and a major bombing mission in 1998. Under Bush II and before H.R.J. 114 was even passed, a joint US-UK airstrike involving 100 warplanes was carried out in September 2002 with next-to-no media coverage. Britain’s Ministry of Defense alone reported dropping well over 300,000 pounds of ordnance during 2002. (10) (11) (12) (13) (14)

While the bombs dropped, the harsh economic sanctions led by the United States led to starving among the Iraqi people, as the US State Department demonstrated in their 2002 report. (15)

Phase 3: In March 2003, America and a coalition of nations invaded Iraq in violation of their UN charters and the USConstitution without an acts of aggression committed by Iraq. As of October 2009, 4,348 American servicemen and women have died so far in the occupation. The minimal number of Iraqi civilian deaths lies between 93,000 to 102,000 per Iraq Body Count. Extrapolations from the study by the medical journal Lancet give estimates of 1.2 to 1.3 million civilian deaths from a 2003 population of roughly 25 million. On a percentage basis, this is the rough equivalent of 13 million deaths if the war had took place in America. (16) (17) (18) (19) (20)

The Bush II regime gave the following two excuses for invading Iraq and occupying it from 2003 to present. First, they said that Iraq supported Al-Qaeda. Second, they said Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” These claims were not only false, but were lies.

“We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks.”

- President George Bush to US Congress, September 2003 (21)

“I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true.”

- former Vice President, Halliburton CEO and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, June 2009 (22)

In 2008, a study concluded that the Bush II regime publicly made 935 false claims concerning Al-Qaeda’s ties to Iraq and weapons of mass destruction with Bush II uttering 260 falsehoods, Secretary Colin Powell 254, and Vice President Dick Cheney 48. Furthermore, while Bush II was terrifying the American people of being attacked by Hussein and Bin Laden on a daily basis throughout 2002, in September of 2002 the CIA sheepishly reported that they had not updated the National Intelligence Estimate since 2000 with an assessment of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capacities. (23) (24)

This lack of intelligence did not stop Colin Powell from lying to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 stating he had “solid sources” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that his testimony was “not assertions” but instead “facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” Powell terrorized the UN, falsely claiming that Hussein was still armed with anthrax (which, remember, America exported to Iraq in the 1980s) and was intent on committing acts of terrorism. His chief of staff later testified Powell was not speaking the truth. [Powell also 'whitewashed' the truth about infamous My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War.] (25) (26)

We should not have the temerity to fool ourselves into believing that garrisons and “police actions” in Iraq are helpful in any way. Think about how many Americans would revolt if a foreign nation were to have garrisons in our country! Iraq belongs to the Iraqis, not to us. Instead of more bombs, bullets, and sanctions, America should offer Iraq peace, honest friendship, and peaceful trade. These can best be obtained by a rapid, immediate, and orderly withdrawal from Iraq.

American troops should JUST COME HOME. Even if the annual $1+ trillion military empire was economically sustainable, there is no rational reason to continue America’s style of gunboat diplomacy. WWII and the Korean War ended 60 years ago. Leave Germany to the Germans. Leave Japan to the Japanese. Leave Korea to the Koreans. Congress should immediately bring home the 113,242 troops stationed in these three countries along with all others. (27) (28)

Concerning foreign policy, we must face facts. There has been no real change since Barack Obama took office except for an escalation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan War. Obama will shortly sign in existence the largest war budget in the history of the world, $680 billion dollars. This bill will increase the size of active-duty combat troops by 40,200 next year, inline with Obama’s campaign promise to add 92,000 troops in his first term. (29) (30) (Photo courtesy Leon Kuhn. Used with permission.)

America today faces a time of maximum danger where continued warring will bleed us dry and bankrupt our treasury. The freedoms our founding fathers died protecting are heavily eroded. But the dire threat to liberty comes not from cowards living in caves in Pakistan. The dinosaur career politicians in office today represent the true threat. They are dragging We the People along a path not unlike that of the USSR during the 1980s. The Soviet Union collapsed for two basic reasons an unsustainable economy ruled by central planners and imperial overstretch.

Conceived in liberty, America is yet a wealthy nation in comparison to the rest of the world, but time runs thin. We must restore the constitutional Republic before it is too late. Wars rarely result in more freedoms, and the Revolution of 1776 was one of these few. If we are to have a free and open society, our last & only resort must be to ruthlessly wage peace and love.

Let the peaceful rEVOLution of 2010 begin.

For the Republic!

Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution

Nazareth, Pennsylvania

October 14, 2009

Note: Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense during the Gulf War, was CEO of Halliburton from 1995-2000. While bombs were still dropping on Iraq, Halliburton assisted with putting out the oil fires. The Washington Post reported “Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer.” (31)

Note: Even if a claim that a nation possesses “weapons of mass destruction” is true, this is not grounds enough to invade it. Likewise, by no means is preemptive war excusable on the pretext of a mere possibility of aggression. The only legitimate use of force is in defense of individual rights life, liberty, and justly acquired property against aggression. Many nation-states seek to arm themselves because they wish to defend themselves. Obviously, the United States and most developed nations themselves possess “weapons of mass destruction.”

Source List

1. The Constitution of the United States. 1787-present. http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
2. House Joint Resolution 114, Authorization of Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj107-114
   
3. Iran-Iraq War. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
4. Iran-Contra Affair. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Contra_Affair
5. Senator Riegle’s Report. 1994. “FORWARD DEPLOYMENT OF IRAQI CHEMICAL AGENTS DURING THE PERSIAN GULF WAR.” http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r103:1:./temp/~r103jEfsjZ::
6. Senator Riegle’s Report. 1994. Main page. http://www.gulfweb.org/report/riegle1.html Section with list of chemicals exported to Iraq from America, including anthrax and botulinum. http://www.gulfweb.org/report/r_1_2.html
7. Ali, Javel. 2001. “Chemical Weapons and the Iran-Iraq: A Study in Non-Compliance.” Tabun and mustard gas, page 6/16. http://cns.miis.edu/npr/pdfs/81ali.pdf
8. King, John. Photo of Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary of Defense, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. Late 2003. http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php
9. 9/11 Commission Report. p. 74/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf
10. Iraqi No-Fly Zones. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_no-fly_zones
11. 9/11 Commission Report. p. 115/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf
12. Ibid. p. 137/585. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report.pdf
13. Scahill, Jeremy. 2005. “The Other Bomb Drops.” The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050613/scahill
14. Smith, Michael. 2005. “The War Before the War.” The New Statesman. http://www.newstatesman.com/200505300013
15. US State Department. 2002. “Iraq: A Population Silenced.” p. 12/15. http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/16059.pdf
16. Antiwar.com. USSoldier Deaths Count. http://antiwar.com/casualties/
17. Iraq Body Count. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
18. Lancet. 2006. Mortality in Iraq. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2807%2960062-2/fulltext
19. Thieren, Michel. 2008. “Deaths in Iraq: How Many and Why It Matters.” http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-iraq/iraq_deaths_4011.jsp
20. Just Foreign Policy. Iraq Deaths. http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
21. BBC. 2003. “Bush rejects Saddam 9/11 link.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3118262.stm
22. CNN. 2009. “Cheney: No Link Between Saddam Hussein, 9/11.” http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/01/cheney.speech/
23. CNN. 2008. “Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war.” http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/
24. Schmitt, Eric and Alison Mitchell. 2002. “USLacks Up-to-Date Review of Iraqi Arms.” http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/international/middleeast/11IRAQ.html
25. Towne, Jake. 2008. “My Father’s Vietnam is My Iraq – Disturbing Parallels.” http://www.nolanchart.com/article3436.html
26. Youtube. Wilkerson, Lawrence. 2007. Testimony about Colin Powell’s presentation on Iraq from his former Chief of Staff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwdsm-Oux4o
27. Higgs, Robert.2007. “The Trillion Dollar Defense Budget is Already Here.” http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1941
28. Towne, Jake. 2009. “America’s Military Empire.” http://towneforcongress.com/economy/americas-military-empire
29. House Resolution 2647. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2647
30. Towne, Jake. 2009. “Barack Obama, ElinorOstrom, and the Nobel Prize, Part 1/2.” http://towneforcongress.com/economy/barack-obama-elinor-ostrom-and-the-nobel-prize-part-12
31. Drutman, Lee and Cray, Charlie. 2003. “Cheney, Halliburton, and the Spoils of War.” http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6288

_______________________________________________________________________

Jake Towne is running for U.S. Congress in Pennsylvania’s 15th District in the 2010 election as a citizen unaffiliated with any political parties. Jake also writes at www.LibertyMaven.com and www.CampaignForLiberty.com. A novel campaign website where you can comment on articles and start discussions is available at TowneForCongress.com. [Reach the Author Here!]

_______________________________________________________________________

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

As always, unlike the NFL, the author grants full permission to allow any accounts of, rebroadcasts, retransmissions, repostings of this article to your blog or anywhere else in order to promote the Restoration of our Republic.

Veritas numquam perit. Veritas odit moras. Veritas vincit. Truth never perishes. Truth hates delay. Truth conquers.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.

For those wishing to learn more about a foreign policy of non-intervention to decide for themselves, I heartily recommend Blowback by Chalmers Johnson which was originally written just months before the 9/11 attack in 2001. The Council on Foreign Relations called it a “comic book” prior to 9/11, and unfortunately the research presented by Chalmers is true.

Originally published October 13, 2009, at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/barack-obama-elinor-ostrum-and-the-nobel-prize-part-12

As nominations were submitted before February 1, 2009, much of the world was shocked to find out that freshman President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. To his credit, Obama proclaimed he was “surprised and deeply humbled” and did not feel he deserved “to be in the company” of past Peace Prize winners. I must say that, politically-speaking, the former junior senator from Illinois is to be admired in many respects. To prevent and distract the press from analyzing his worthiness for the Peace Prices, the very next day he announcedthat he would (eventually) end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the military – a crafty move that appeals to his base and Americans who champion and respect civil liberties and individual rights, which includes myself.

Per NobelPeacePrize.org, in 1895 Alfred Nobel signed his will to use most of his fortune to fund the Nobel Prizes. The Peace Prize was dedicated to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Has the President done the “most or best work for fraternity between nations”? I would say not. Four days after becoming President, he ordered the bombing of a village in Pakistan, which is yet another nation the United States has not declared war on.

Has the President worked for “the abolition or reduction of standing armies”? Certainly not that of the United States. In fact, per his website, he was elected on the promise that he would expand America’s standing army by about 100,000 troops.

Has the President done the most or best work for “the holding and promotion of peace congresses”? I would say not. Led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, America has ignored the advice I gave last year and simply proceeded with the typical Bushian “gunboat diplomacy” and the same old options of bombs or sanctions, sanctions or bombs, as can be seen by the relations with Iran, North Korea, and even Somalian pirates.

Now, it appears the Nobel Committee did infer that this award is payment in advance to ‘pressure’ Obama’s future actions. This logic is downright ridiculous. As a former engineering supervisor, every single award I ever gave was well-earned since to do otherwise would encourage lackadaisical behaviour not only in the awardee, but in the rest of the department and company.

Please do not think I am being overly tough on the President – if McCain was receiving the Peace Prize I would be writing the same article. It is a stark truth that America’s foreign policy simply has not changed whatsoever – even if America’s image has been polished by the President’s well-honed oratory skills and charismatic persona.

It is also noteworthy to review those who, in my humble opinion, have earned a Peace Prize. Gandhi, a hero of mine, never received one – although Martin Luther King, Jr. and Aung San Suu Kyi, both people I admire, did. The 1993 award to Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk was also fitting when apartheid broke apart in South Africa. However, some of the Nobel laureates have been quite undeserving.

American President Woodrow Wilson was one of these. After winning his 1916 re-election on the slogan “He Kept Us Out of War,” Wilson promptly plunge us into WWI with the weak justification of the sinking of the British cargo ship Lusitania which was secretly carrying munitions from the USA to England and drowned 128 Americans. WWI would cost America 130,274 dead.

In return for founding the League of Nations (which the USA wisely never joined) and proclaiming to the world that WWI was the “war to end all wars,” Wilson received the award in 1920 after one of the most horrific diplomacy efforts in history – the Treaty of Versailles, which in effect lit a 20-year fuse which exploded into WWII.

One of the lesser known Americans to win the Peace Prize was Elihu Root, our Secretary of War from 110 years ago. Root and his cabal restructured the entire disorganized state militia systeminto the precursor of today’s National Guard, which is very submissive to federal influence and control. Thanks in good part to Root, the National Guard now patrols the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan instead of America’s sieve-like borders.

The Peace Price was awarded to Root in 1912. When WWI broke out several years later, Root, now a former Secretary of State, opposed Wilson’s initial policy of neutrality and helped drive America to war. At the apex of a stellar bureaucratic career, Root became a US Senator and helped pass the infamous “Income Tax” Amendment.

Well, with all the tough words I have for the President, perhaps I should recommend a worthy replacement. Has anyone heard of Malalai Joya, whom I saluted as the Thomas Paine of Afghanistan? Fortunately, she is still alive despite the escalation of the war by the Obama administration this year. You have probably never heard of her – even though she is a Afghan woman who favors peace, justice, democracy and human rights – because she represents her people by being deadset against the American occupation.

Obama stated the award “must be shared” with everyone who strives for “justice and dignity.” However, no one should expect a cut of Obama’s $10,000,000 SEK prize money anytime soon. Perhaps Obama will donate this to help pay off the national debt or as a down payment on the next stimulus plan? Which brings me to two other lesser-known Americans, Elinor Ostrom, a political scientist, and Oliver Williamson, the “economist most cited by noneconomists,” who just won the 2009 Nobel for Economics which I will save for Part 2.

_______________________________________________________________________

Jake Towne is running for U.S. Congress in Pennsylvania’s 15th District in the 2010 election as a citizen unaffiliated with any political parties. Jake also writes at www.LibertyMaven.com andwww.CampaignForLiberty.com. A novel campaign website where you can comment on articles and start discussions is available at TowneForCongress.com. [Reach the Author Here!]

_______________________________________________________________________

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

As always, unlike the NFL, the author grants full permission to allow any accounts of, rebroadcasts, retransmissions, repostings of this article to your blog or anywhere else in order to promote the Restoration of our Republic.

Veritas numquam perit. Veritas odit moras. Veritas vincit. Truth never perishes. Truth hates delay. Truth conquers.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.

A piece by Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com a few weeks ago points out many examples how so much of Obama’s talk of change was just that: talk.

“When it comes to uprooting (’changing’) the Bush/Cheney approach to terrorism and civil liberties — the issue which generated as much opposition to the last presidency as anything else — the Obama administration has proven rather conclusively that tiny and cosmetic adjustments are the most it is willing to do.

“They love announcing new policies that cast the appearance of change but which have no effect whatsoever on presidential powers.

“With great fanfare, they announced the closing of CIA black sites — at a time when none was operating.

“They trumpeted the President’s order that no interrogation tactics outside of the Army Field Manual could be used — at a time when approval for such tactics had been withdrawn.

“They repudiated the most extreme elements of the Bush/Addington/Yoo ‘inherent power’ theories — while maintaining alternative justifications to enable the same exact policies to proceed exactly as is.

“They flamboyantly touted the closing of Guantanamo — while aggressively defending the right to abduct people from around the world and then imprison them with no due process at Bagram.

“Their ‘changes’ exist solely in theory — which isn’t to say that they are all irrelevant, but it is to say that they change nothing in practice:  i.e., in reality.”

Then a week later, Greenwald posted an update, saying:

“Isn’t it so interesting how the phrase ‘Patriot Act’ was the symbol of everything Democrats claimed to find so heinous during the Bush years, but now that there’s a Democratic President, Senate and Congress, it’s absolutely certain that the Patriot Act will continue, and civil libertarians are reduced to hoping that there may be some tiny modifications to it, and even that’s highly unlikely?”

Indeed.

Ron covers many of the same points critics have made already, but he interestingly points out that the anti-war Left is AWOL now that Obama is in office. Projecting a bit into the future I’m curious what will become of these “Tea Partiers”  if another big-government neo-conservative Republican wins the White House in 2012. Will they go AWOL too? I fear they will. Can we please, for the love of liberty, break this vicious cycle?

Partisanship is an evil drug and too many Republicans and Democrats are addicted. The Constitution was not created for convenience or whim. It was once the “supreme law of the land”, but now it really has become “just a god-damned piece of paper” for far too many people.

Louis Armstrong’s famous song “What A Wonderful World” is now officially satire.

Maybe the Nobel Prize Committee was afraid of being called racist?

Or maybe it was just another giant middle finger to former President George W. Bush. Apparently, he is now being blamed for Obama winning the prize by at least one source.

The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.

Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.

Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.

Perhaps Obama winning this award is not surprising after all. The only other two sitting U.S. Presidents to win the award were Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. Hmmm, do I detect a pattern here? Perhaps it should be renamed, “The Nobel Progressive Prize”. It certainly has nothing to do with peace.

What if this obvious political move has the unintended consequence of spreading more resentment for America overseas than less? In effect this would be using the prize as a strategic chess piece for wishes that will never come true.

Here is a quite appropriate reaction from a student in Kabul:

“I don’t think Obama deserves this. I don’t know who’s making all these decisions. The prize should go to someone who has done something for peace and humanity,” said Ahmad Shabir, 18-year-old student in Kabul. “Since he is the president, I don’t see any change in U.S. strategy in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Exactly Ahmad, Exactly.