Smoky Mountains Sunrise
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts

Friday, September 9, 2011

What 9/11 Wrought: The Bush Legacy

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In Cairo in 1943, when the tide had turned in the war on Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, who had embraced Joseph Stalin as an ally and acceded to his every demand, had a premonition.

Conversing with Harold Macmillan, Churchill blurted:

"Cromwell was a great man, wasn't he?"

"Yes, sir, a very great man," Macmillan replied.

"Ah, but he made one terrible mistake," Churchill continued. "Obsessed in his youth by fear of the power of Spain, he failed to observe the rise of France. Will that be said of me?"

Thursday, February 24, 2011

FBI: Bush’s Dallas Home Among Targets of Saudi Student Charged in Bombing Plot

Could that Left-wing hate rhetoric be responsible for this?

FBI agents say the Preston Hollow home of former President George Bush and first lady Laura Bush was among the potential bombing targets listed by a Saudi Arabian citizen arrested Wednesday on charges of attempting use a weapon of mass destruction.
From The Dallas Morning News
By Jason Trahan


A 20-year-old Saudi Arabian national arrested by the FBI in Lubbock for allegedly plotting to carry out terrorist attacks planned to target the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush, documents show.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a Saudi citizen, was arrested late Wednesday and is scheduled to appear before a federal judge in Lubbock on Friday morning.

Special Agent Mark White, a spokesman for the Dallas FBI, whose jurisdiction includes Lubbock, said the terrorism investigation is ongoing, but “the federal complaint contains no allegations that he received direction from or was under the control of a foreign terrorist organization.”

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Bush's Daughter Supports Same-Sex "Marriage"

I never believed it was plausible that all the political figures in this family have positions on abortion and same-sex "marriage" completely at odds with the Bush women.  Certainly, Bush appointees more closely reflected the views of Laura Bush than the official positions of the President and the Republican Platform.  The phony McCain and his family are another example of "playing to the grassroots."  One would like to think Ronald Reagan was an exception and that his views were heartfelt, but in the future it would be prudent to consider what the family members think.

Former President George W. Bush's daughter Barbara has announced her support for gay marriage, breaking with her father on a key social issue but joining her mother and other prominent Republicans who back same-sex unions.

The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization, released a video Tuesday featuring the 29-year old Bush, a New York resident who runs Global Health Corps, a nonprofit public health organization.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Different Presidents, A Different Corps




If a picture's worth a thousand words, what's a video worth?

This says so much...people know when a person genuinely cares about them and it shows dramatically in this video...

It would seem the U.S. Marines know something that many of the civilian population do not.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins"


Bush explained to French Pres. Chirac that the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Mid-East and must be defeated.

From AlterNet
By Clive Hamilton

The revelation this month in GQ Magazine that Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary embellished top-secret wartime memos with quotations from the Bible prompts a question. Why did he believe he could influence President Bush by that means?

The answer may lie in an alarming story about George Bush's Christian millenarian beliefs that has yet to come to light.

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

Read the rest of this entry >>


Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Friday, March 6, 2009

Churchill, Obama and Bush


Perhaps this bust woud be more to the President's liking.

From Townhall
By Diana West

Even before Barack Obama was inaugurated, the question of what to do with the bust of Winston Churchill on display in the Oval Office arose. The valuable bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein had been loaned by the British government to George W. Bush in mid-2001 -- before Sept. 11, contrary to recent reports -- and had gazed with weary wisdom over the Oval Office ever since. Not that Winnie was alone. Busts of Lincoln and Eisenhower rounded out the trio of wartime leaders President Bush had chosen to watch over him at work even when the nation was at peace.

The Lincoln bust remains in the Obama Oval Office. I haven't received definitive word on the fate of the Eisenhower bust, but I strongly suspect it's gone. So, definitely, is the Churchill bust, its unceremonial crating and return to the British Embassy generating a diplomatic flap and many mainly British news stories wondering, whither the "special relationship"?

There is some pathos to this reflexive plaint given that what makes this relationship special of late is the fact that the CIA considers the likeliest source of a terrorist atrocity against the United States to be British citizens traveling on the visa-waiver program -- British citizens of Pakistani descent, that is. Either way, the relationship is necessarily different when some potentially lethal percentage of the British citizenry is no longer what you could call on our side. Or should I say "our" side to denote the postmodern shambles of conceiving of sides, "ours" or "theirs"?


I don't mean to go abstruse on anyone, but there is a muddle here onto which the fate of the Churchill bronze shines a welcome if cauterizing beam. Indeed, packing up and returning Churchill to the British reveals more than the current state of U.S. ties with Britain. When President Obama declined the British offer to extend its loan, when President Obama indicated he wanted the bust out of the Oval Office, indeed, out of the White House, he sent a much more significant message. Namely, he demonstrated how completely our world has turned.

Read the rest of this entry >>



Sunday, January 18, 2009

Bush's Three Last Strikes Before He's Out


At the root of what many conservatives have come to loathe about the current administration, is its utter disregard and contempt for the United States Constitution. The incoming President, with his many references to the Constitution as "an imperfect document," offers little reason for hope.

In an excellent article at OpEdNews, Betsy Ross points out that "the most egregious violations of our U.S. Constitution normally occur by an outgoing Administration in the last 100 days in office." The Bush Administration has not missed the opportunity to take three last whacks at that document. Although little noticed now, the damage will be more enduring than their economic havoc.

Bush's Last 100 Days - What More Damage Can This Administration Do?

By Betsy Ross

It is a well known fact that the most egregious violations of our U.S. Constitution normally occur by an outgoing Administration in the last 100 days in office. Here are three such recent events that occurred in the final days of the Bush Administration which appears will continue well after January 20, 2009. Although at this point it is unclear whether the president elect had any foreknowledge, especially in regard to foreign policy and the War in Iraq it would appear more likely than not. Although these events will affect each and every American on a fundamental level, surprisingly again they got little coverage other than a blurb on the mainstream outlets.

1. The Continuing War in Iraq

During Mr. Bush's recent trip to Iraq on his last official visit, it was briefly announced that President Bush signed an "accord" with the Iraqi government calling for the beginning of troop withdrawals of our forces in Iraq. The agreed-to date of the initiation of such withdrawals/--2011, coincidentally just prior to the next presidential election. Was this war in Iraq clearly for political purposes? It would appear so, since a political date now is even involved in the initiation of troop withdrawals, although the American people have clearly spoken their feelings since the lie of weapons of mass destruction was revealed, and again as far back as 2006 when they elected a primarily Democratic Congress. Will Obama now be able to fulfill his promises of withdrawing troops "responsibly" and at the earliest opportunity. It would appear not, since subsequent Administrations cannot rescind treaties or accords without Congressional approval. In continually refunding this war, it is apparent that although the American people have spoken, Congress continues to uphold the war agenda at each and every opportunity, now even hiding the costs in pork bills and other superfluous legislation.

Mr. Obama himself has now made noise with respect to simply changing the theatres and shuffling troops around to Afghanistan (which we should never have left) and even expanding it to Pakistan, a message a great many Americans apparently missed and simply heard the campaign sell of withdrawal. Did Mr. Obama have foreknowledge or forewarning of this accord? Expect a denial, but don't expect this war will end anytime soon--not in an Obama Administration anyway, especially one in which he has appointed pro-war Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State (no matter how she defended her vote during her run for the presidency.) She has also declared herself an Iranian "first strike" war supporter.

2. The Department of Homeland Security's new VISA Waiver Program

In a little publicized ceremony at the Rose Garden, President Bush announced the expansion of the original 27 country "free pass" VISA Waiver program to be increased now to 34 countries. Wonder where all those deleted sums were for the needed border security and fencing post 9/11? It instead went into enlarging the Atlanta airport at a cost of several billion dollars in order to provide "welcome" videos for the new VISA waiver countries, one of which is Great Britain, home of the shoe bomber. This program can be viewed in detail on the website of the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), and provides for online approval of VISA applications with a mere 48-hour mandated turnaround time and security check. Not only does this program allow for minimal security checks, but appears that eventually the CAFTA countries will also be included in order to bring to U.S. shores all that great heroin from China and Colombia gold (since there is also pending in Congress a new trade deal with Colombia).

In light of the above information on the lack of screening that is to be done with respect to the visitors from these 34 countries, please see below the details on the immigration status of the 19 foreigners involved in 9/11:

Identity and Immigration Status of 9/11 Terrorists

According to authorities, all of the hijackers who committed the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were foreigners. All of them entered the country legally on a temporary visa, mostly tourist visas with entry permits for six months. Although four of them attended flight school in the United States, only one is known to have entered on an appropriate visa for such study, and one entered on an F-1 student visa. Besides the four pilots, all but one of the terrorists entered the United States only once and had been in the country for only three to five months before the attacks.

The four pilots had been in the United States for extended periods, although none was a legal permanent resident. Some had received more than one temporary visa, most of which were currently valid on September 11, but at least three of them had fallen out of status and were, therefore, in the United States illegally.

The terrorists had obtained U.S. identification that was used for boarding flights in the form of Florida, Virginia, California and New Jersey driver's licenses/ID cards. One of the terrorists, Mohamed Atta, was detained in Florida for driving without a license, but subsequently obtained one. Thirteen of the terrorists had Florida driver's licenses or ID cards, seven had Virginia driver's licenses, at least two had California licenses and two had New Jersey driver's licenses. According to the March 28, 2002 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Robert Thibadeau, director of Carnegie Mellon's Internet Security labratory, says that "the 19 terrorists on Sept. 11 were holding 63 state driver's licenses for identification."

All Americans might need to start checking the skies a little more often, or their flight schedules on transcontinental flights, since it appears this program insures not national security at all, but simply a challenge and incentive for the next 9/11 pilot to use Atlanta instead of New York for their next attempt.

3. The steadfast refusal to pardon both Ramos and Compean

If ever there were an action which was meant to scare off and silence border patrol agents, and as an indicator of the North American Union agenda and globalism as the goal of our present members of Congress in Washington and this past administration, other than the Patriot Act itself of course, it would be President Bush's steadfast refusal to pardon these two agents, while his Administration gave immunity and protection to a known Mexican drug dealer in order to facilitate their conviction by the U.S. Department of Injustice. Our appeasement policies with respect to Mexico have now gone so far as to enable foreigners in this country to even use our own courts in order to sue us, since it has been published that this drug dealer, although caught once again smuggling drugs into this country, is now suing the U.S. government for several million for his injuries (he was shot in the buttocks while crossing illegally). Foreigners in this country and without, have now been given federal protection and immunities far greater than natural born U.S. citizens under this Administration, and the Obama Administration is clearly in the globalism and globalist camp, not America and American sovereignty. He even campaigned in Europe. So Americans, Washington has spoken. Foreigners are sovereign subjects and our favored elite, even the terrorist element, we welcome all comers. We need these wars and government contractors to prosper. Commerce, not national security, is the new Rule of Law, and your posterity be damned. We can just replace them with the new generation of immigrants. The Mexicans and South Americans right now are our favored subjects. We'll provide, at taxpayer expense, the finest defense attorneys that money can buy from New York and L.A. We've even provided a federal statute in order to do so, although we may abridge citizen's due process rights through our courts such as in the Ramos and Compean case, we will make sure that foreigners get not only federal due process, but state and federal due process if need, gratis. Or seize that drug money and release it to your U.S. lawyer for your defense. We are a generous nation, generous with the lives, property and freedom of our own citizens who will bear no expense so that you foreigners may have rights that are denied our own. Our hospitality and generousity are legend, and will protect the sovereignty and borders of every other nation in the world, at the expense of our own and the lives and property of our citizens. Just look at Ramos and Compean for an example of the sacrifices we are willing to make for foreigners in this country for this public international precedent.

Be afraid Americans, be very afraid. The wheels are in motion, and at every level, including apparently your state and local governments. Have you heard a word or serious legal challenge from any one of them to this agenda, or continue to uphold the federal precedents and dictate's at the state level without serious question?

With the federal government holding the purse strings, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Council on Foreign Affairs dictating policy who are financially supported by the same international bankers owning the Federal Reserve, who actually is in control of Washington at this time? Bush and soon Obama or the bankers and "corporate" Federal Reserve and CFR members who fund their campaigns and in which they are indebted?

Global and corporate socialism now crosses party lines, as is evident by that one act in September, the historic and precedent-setting 700 billion bailout for Congress' personal bankers and CFR corporate members, in the interest of eventual world government and domination, the future of America and Americans be damned.


Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Pat Buchanan Compares George W. Bush to Harry Truman


There is very little that Pat Buchanan has ever written with which we disagree here at Sunlit Uplands. In summing up the Bush presidency, he seems to us a bit restrained in his criticism; there is so much more that could be said. But we take strong exception to comparing George W. Bush with Harry S Truman as two "unreflective" and failed Presidents. Indeed, we rank Harry Truman among the greatest of Presidents.

Truman had more momentous decisions to make than did any other twentieth century president. His decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan, brought an end to the war and saved an estimated 1 million American military personnel from a deadly invasion of the Japanese mainland. He integrated the armed services. He met the Communist challenge in Greece and Turkey. He authorized the Berlin airlift, broke the communist blockade and secured that city's freedom. He established NATO which secured the West through the Soviet era and is expanding today to guarantee a Europe that is free and whole. Perhaps most monumental of all, his Marshall Plan saved thousands of lives, rebuilt a shattered Europe, and protected those countries from succumbing to internal communist threats. Indeed, Truman was the architect of the world we have occupied in the last half century. The first battles in the war that Ronald Reagan ultimately won, were fought by Harry Truman. He was bold and decisive and was guided by deep faith, Midwestern common sense, and decency. None other than our greatest hero, Sir Winston Churchill, said to Truman: "I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you, more than any other man, have saved Western civilization." And history has vindicated the decisions of Truman and the judgment of Churchill.

Unlike our current President, he had a zealous regard for the Constitution and the limits of Executive and Federal power. He retained an extraordinary humility and humor. When his service was done, he went quietly home. He refused all opportunities to serve on corporate boards and to reap hefty honoraria for speeches, believing that to profit from his Presidency would demean the office he held and be disrespectful to the Constitution he revered.

We love and admire Pat Buchanan at Sunlit Uplands, but let the record show that on this point we respectfully disagree. George W. Bush is no Harry Truman!


Friday, August 15, 2008

The 'Deciderer' -- Undoing the Reagan Legacy One Disaster at a Time

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country." June 16, 2001

George W. Bush


A Georgian man cries next to his brother's dead body in the town of Gori, 50 miles from Tbilisi, August 9, 2008.


Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The President's "Cash for Access" Fundraiser



T
he Sunday Times
(UK) has reported that a Washington lobbyist
who sits on the US Homeland Security Advisory Council and enjoys close ties to the Bush administration has been exposed for selling access to high Bush administration officials in return for six-figure fees for his firm,
Worldwide Strategic Partners, and contributions to the Bush Presidential Library.

Stephen Payne who, according to The Sunday Times has raised more than $1 million for the Republican Party in recent years, was filmed (see above) offering to arrange meetings with Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, "and other senior officials in return for a payment of $250,000 toward the library in Texas" and fees totaling "somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000."

Payne was asked by an undercover investigator to arrange the meetings for an exiled former central Asian president.


Friday, June 27, 2008

Patrick J. Buchanan: Who's Planning Our Next War?

War Buddies: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with President Bush

The scenario presented by Pat Buchanan in the following column is horrifying and all too plausible. Certainly our President has all of the arrogance to carryout such a plan, and that he would confide its details to Ehud Olmert, but not to the American people or their representatives would surprise no one. But should a President, who has the confidence and support of 30% of the American people, at best, be allowed to do anything beyond pardon the White House Thanksgiving turkey and preside over the National Christmas Tree lighting? War on a third front will be even more disastrous than the two underway. Congress needs to ensure this does not happen.


Who's Planning Our Next War?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Of the Axis-of-Evil nations named in his State of the Union in 2002, President Bush has often said, “The United States will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

He failed with North Korea. Will he accept failure in Iran, though there is no hard evidence Iran has an active nuclear weapons program?

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard said Sunday a U.S. attack on Iran after the election is more likely should Barack Obama win. Presumably, Bush would trust John McCain to keep Iran nuclear free. tors

Yet, to start a third war in the Middle East against a nation three times as large as Iraq, and leave it to a new president to fight, would be a daylight hijacking of the congressional war power and a criminally irresponsible act. For Congress alone has the power to authorize war.

Yet Israel is even today pushing Bush into a pre-emptive war with a naked threat to attack Iran itself should Bush refuse the cup.

In April, Israel held a five-day civil defense drill. In June, Israel sent 100 F-15s and F-16s, with refueling tankers and helicopters to pick up downed pilots, toward Greece in a simulated attack, a dress rehearsal for war. The planes flew 1,400 kilometers, the distance to Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Ehud Olmert came home from a June meeting with Bush to tell Israelis: “We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. … I left with a lot less question marks regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American resoluteness. …

“George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term. … The Iranian problem requires urgent attention, and I see no reason to delay this just because there will be a new president in the White House seven and a half months from now.”

If Bush is discussing war on Iran with Ehud Olmert, why is he not discussing it with Congress or the nation?

On June 6, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened, “If Iran continues its nuclear weapons program, we will attack it.” The price of oil shot up 9 percent.

Is Israel bluffing — or planning to attack Iran if America balks?

Previous air strikes on the PLO command in Tunis, on the Osirak reactor in Iraq and on the presumed nuclear reactor site in Syria last September give Israel a high degree of credibility.

Still, attacking Iran would be no piece of cake.

Israel lacks the stealth and cruise-missile capacity to degrade Iran’s air defenses systematically and no longer has the element of surprise. Israeli planes and pilots would likely be lost.

Israel also lacks the ability to stay over the target or conduct follow-up strikes. The U.S. Air Force bombed Iraq for five weeks with hundreds of daily runs in 1991 before Gen. Schwarzkopf moved.

Moreover, if Iran has achieved the capacity to enrich uranium, she has surely moved centrifuges to parts of the country that Israel cannot reach — and can probably replicate anything lost.

Israel would also have to over-fly Turkey, or Syria and U.S.-occupied Iraq, or Saudi Arabia to reach Natanz. Turks, Syrians and Saudis would deny Israel permission and might resist. For the U.S. military to let Israel over-fly Iraq would make us an accomplice. How would that sit with the Europeans who are supporting our sanctions on Iran and want the nuclear issue settled diplomatically?

And who can predict with certitude how Iran would respond?

Would Iran attack Israel with rockets, inviting retaliation with Jericho and cruise missiles from Israeli submarines? Would she close the Gulf with suicide-boat attacks on tankers and U.S. warships?

With oil at $135 a barrel, Israeli air strikes on Iran would seem to ensure a 2,000-point drop in the Dow and a world recession.

What would Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria do? All three are now in indirect negotiations with Israel. U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq could be made by Iran to pay a high price in blood that could force the United States to initiate its own air war in retaliation, and to finish a war Israel had begun. But a U.S. war on Iran is not a decision Bush can outsource to Ehud Olmert.

Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullins left for Israel. CBS News cited U.S. officials as conceding the trip comes “just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran’s nuclear complex.”

Vice President Cheney is said to favor U.S. strikes. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Mullins are said to be opposed.

Moving through Congress, powered by the Israeli lobby, is House Resolution 362, which demands that President Bush impose a U.S. blockade of Iran, an act of war.

Is it not time the American people were consulted on the next war that is being planned for us?


Saturday, June 21, 2008

Sweeping New Erosion of American Freedoms - Barr Cites Bush-McCain Contempt for Fourth Amendment


The House just passed the latest version of the FISA bill and it’s quite possible the bill will go to the Senate next week. It’s no surprise that John McCain supports this bill, which erodes privacy rights and provides telecommunications corporations with legal immunity for violating the Bill of Rights. What has surprised and angered the left is Barack Obama’s support of the bill.

“Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay,” said Obama shortly after the bill passed. “So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program.”

Bob Barr released the following statement today:

The House on Friday passed legislation that greatly expands the power of the government to surreptitiously surveil phone calls and e-mails of American citizens. If, as expected, this legislation is passed by the Senate and the President, as promised, signs it into law, it will represent the greatest expansion of the government’s ability to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans ever.

While the Administration will tout this as a bill to “listen in to phone calls with al Qaeda” and other terrorist organizations (a power the government already possesses), the fact is, under this legislation, every phone call or email that takes place between a US citizen in the United States and any person “reasonably believed to be” overseas, can be surreptitiously surveilled by the government without ever going to a judge. Yes – it is that broad.

It also gives telecommunications companies that previously allowed government agents full access to the private records and calls of their subscribers in violation of the 1978-FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) completely off the hook for such privacy-invasive actions; it grants them prospective immunity as well.

The day before the bill passed in the House by a 293-129 margin, Barr issued the following press release:

Bob Barr Urges Congress: No Surveillance of Americans Without Fourth Amendment Protections

Atlanta, GA -- “In asserting his power to conduct warrantless searches of Americans, President George W. Bush has expressed his clear contempt for the Fourth Amendment. So has Sen. John McCain, despite his reputation as a supposed maverick,” says Bob Barr, the Libertarian Party candidate for president. Now the Democratic-led Congress is preparing to approve a so-called compromise that gives the Bush administration almost everything it wants in order to expand dramatically the power of the federal government to surveil American citizens without court orders. “America desperately needs leaders who will stand up for the Bill of Rights,” observes Barr, “not those who flaunt its vital and time-honored protections.”

The president already has the power to conduct surveillance of foreign terrorists. The 30-year old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides for court oversight, along with the requirement that the government get a warrant. “The court has virtually never rejected a request,” notes Barr. “Changes in technology require updating the law, not gutting it.”

However, the bill being advanced by the Democratic leadership “would allow the government to listen to millions of phone calls by Americans with neither an individualized warrant nor an assessment of probable cause,” he adds. Although the law would offer some protection when a particular American was expressly targeted, even then “the proposed rules fall short of what the Fourth Amendment mandates.”

Moreover, the bill would immunize telephone companies from wrong-doing, protecting them against law suits even when the firms violated the law by helping the government conduct warrantless searches. Past cases would simply be dismissed. “Conservatives once said, ‘you do the crime, you do the time,’ but no longer,” observes Barr. Now virtually the entire Republican Party is prepared to sacrifice the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans in favor of federal government power.

And the Democratic leadership is ready to do the same. Congressional Democrats privately say that they don’t want to take the political risk of opposing the president. “But the individual liberty of Americans is not a political football, something to be tossed about when an election looms,” insists Barr. “It is the constitutional duty of lawmakers of both parties to defend the Constitution, even when they believe doing so might be politically inconvenient.”

Advocates of abandoning the Constitution warn us that we live in dangerous times. But Americans have long lived in dangerous times. “That didn’t stop the nation’s founders from creating a Constitution that secured individual liberty and limited government,” notes Barr. “It shouldn’t stop us from following the Constitution today.”

Barr represented the 7th District of Georgia in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003, where he served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, as Vice-Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and as a member of the Committee on Financial Services. Prior to his congressional career, Barr was appointed by President Reagan to serve as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and also served as an official with the CIA.

Since leaving Congress, Barr has been practicing law and has teamed up with groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to actively advocate every American citizens’ right to privacy and other civil liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Along with this, Bob is committed to helping elect leaders who will strive for smaller government, lower taxes and abundant individual freedom.



Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Sanctuary Ranch Is This Way


No American has done more to facilitate the invasion by millions of illegal aliens from Mexico than has President Bush. His refusal to enforce the law (see post below), his perseverance in attempting to grant amnesty and reward law breakers, and his utter indifference to the rapes, murders and other crimes committed by illegals, along with the costs they pose to local, state and federal taxpayers, clearly mark him as a man of exceptional hospitality.

With this in mind, Sunlit Uplands believes that the First Family will surely want to be the first to offer sanctuary and hospitality to the millions they have invited here. We are therefore publishing a map providing every Mexican directions to the President's Crawford ranch. When you get to Crawford, just stop in at the coffee shop and they will be glad to direct you the rest of the way.


Sanctuary Trail from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, to Bush Family Welcome Center, Crawford, Texas


Starting in NUEVO LAREDO, ** on VENEZUELA go toward CESAR LOPEZ DE LARA

Turn Left on CESAR LOPEZ DE LARA(MEX-85)
Continue to follow MEX-85 - go 1.5 mi

Turn Left on 1ER PUENTE ADUANAL - go 0.1 mi

Continue on CONVENT AVE(I-35-BR) - go 0.4 mi

Turn Right on FARRAGUT ST - go 0.2 mi

Turn Left on SANTA URSULA AVE

Turn Right on MATAMOROS ST(I-35 S)

Turn Left on SAN DARIO AVE(I-35 N) - go 0.1 mi

Continue on SAN DARIO AVE(US-83 N)

Take ramp onto I-35 N - go 293.2 mi

Take exit #293A/KILLEEN (TX-317)/FT HOOD (FM-436) onto S HWY BLVD - go 0.4 mi

Turn Left on TX-317 N - go 36.3 mi

Turn Right on 5TH ST(FM-185)

Arrive at the center of CRAWFORD, TX





Mexico Trumps Missouri for Kansas In-State College Tuition

The myriad costs to US taxpayers, depressed wages, crime, and threats to national security posed by the unchecked invasion of illegal aliens across America's southern border, have their roots in the President's refusal to enforce the law.

In 1996, President Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. This legislation prevents colleges from granting in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the college offers the same rates to all legal Americans. In violation of this law, there are currently ten states that grant in-state rates to illegal aliens, while requiring students from other states to pay higher tuition.

On June 19, the U. S. Supreme Court will consider a challenge to a Kansas law that allows an illegal from Mexico to pay the lower in-state rate, but denies the same rate to a legal American from Missouri.

The preeminent organization fighting for immigration sanity, NumbersUSA, is urging all Americans to write to their Representatives and Senators and ask them to "take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that federal laws are enforced by the Executive Branch." The organization rightly believes that it is a waste for the Supreme Court to hear a case when the Executive Branch could settle the matter by simply doing their duty and enforcing the law.



Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?

From the Wall Street Journal
By Edward J. Markey

Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?

If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right.

Last month, while the American people were becoming the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S. to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions.

Saudi Arabia has poured money into developing its vast reserves of natural gas for domestic electricity production. It continues to invest in a national gas transportation pipeline and stepped-up exploration, building a solid foundation for domestic energy production that could meet its electricity needs for many decades. Nuclear energy, on the other hand, would require enormous investments in new infrastructure by a country with zero expertise in this complex technology.

Have Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush or Saudi leaders looked skyward? The Saudi desert is under almost constant sunshine. If Mr. Bush wanted to help his friends in Riyadh diversify their energy portfolio, he should have offered solar panels, not nuclear plants.

Saudi Arabia's interest in nuclear technology can only be explained by the dangerous politics of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, a champion and kingpin of the Sunni Arab world, is deeply threatened by the rise of Shiite-ruled Iran.

The two countries watch each other warily over the waters of the Persian Gulf, buying arms and waging war by proxy in Lebanon and Iraq. An Iranian nuclear weapon would radically alter the region's balance of power, and could prove to be the match that lights the tinderbox. By signing this agreement with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is warning Iran that two can play the nuclear game.

In 2004, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy." Mr. Cheney got it right about Iran. But a potential Saudi nuclear program is just as suspicious. For a country with so much oil, gas and solar potential, importing expensive and dangerous nuclear power makes no economic sense.

The Bush administration argues that Saudi Arabia can not be compared to Iran, because Riyadh said it won't develop uranium enrichment or spent-fuel reprocessing, the two most dangerous nuclear technologies. At a recent hearing before my Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman shrugged off concerns about potential Saudi misuse of nuclear assistance for a weapons program, saying simply: "I presume that the president has a good deal of confidence in the King and in the leadership of Saudi Arabia."

That's not good enough. We would do well to remember that it was the U.S. who provided the original nuclear assistance to Iran under the Atoms for Peace program, before Iran's monarch was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such an uprising in Saudi Arabia today could be at least as damaging to U.S. security.

We've long known that America's addiction to oil pays for the spread of extremism. If this Bush nuclear deal moves forward, Saudi Arabia's petrodollars could flow to the dangerous expansion of nuclear technologies in the most volatile region of the world.

While the scorching Saudi Arabian sun heats sand dunes instead of powering photovoltaic panels, millions of Americans will fork over $4 a gallon without realizing that their gas tank is fueling a nascent nuclear arms race.

Rep. Markey (D., Mass.) is chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.



Saturday, May 31, 2008

Two Very Different Bush Presidencies

Having served in the administrations of both Presidents Bush, I can assure you that those two administrations could not be more different. Many see the former as a failed presidency because it was rejected after one term. However, on most issues it was guided by solid conservative principle. Many of its most senior appointees were held over from the Reagan administration, and one had confidence that seasoned professionals were in charge. They were, for the most part, ladies and gentlemen who loved America, respected the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, made sacrifices to serve, had a spirit of servant leadership, class, good manners and human decency. In the campaign of 1992, when many of us wished the President would tell the American people what he knew about the personal life of Bill Clinton, a sense of gentlemanly decorum prevented him from doing so.

In the vicious and coordinated attacks on Scott McClellan, we see the stark contrast between the father and the son and their two administrations. In the most senior positions of this administration is a cabal of arrogant and ruthless Texans whose highest value is power. They are not "movement conservatives," as so many in the senior Bush administration had been. They simply use conservative rhetoric to "secure the base." Those of us who actually believed the rhetoric and believed that this White House cares about such things as parental rights and school choice, were quickly disabused of any such notions.

In this Bush White House, the Constitution, law and civility take a back seat to the need to attain and wield power. McClellan's claims that there is a 24/7 campaign mode is absolutely correct. Even the Secretary's Regional Representatives in the U. S. Department of Education were told in 2003 that all of their activities, information gathering and weekly reports were to be done for the benefit of the 2004 presidential campaign.

The question is asked as to why McClellan did not speak up and raise his concerns with more senior White House staff in policy meetings; but this administration is not one that values independent thought. McClellan surely knew that to question in any way would raise questions about his loyalty, put him outside the circle, and on a plane back to Texas.

The bitter experience of this failed administration should be a reminder to conservatives that settling for the lesser of two evils yields evil. If this Administration, which gave lip service to conservative ideals, has presided over the largest growth in government and government spending since the Great Society, has run roughshod over civil liberties, has disregarded the Constitution, the division of federal power and states' rights, and has made preemptive global warfare our foreign policy, what should we expect from a Republican candidate who doesn't even bother to speak as a conservative?

Perhaps, as Pat Buchanan suggests in the following column, the good news is President Bush just doesn't matter any more.


Is Bush Becoming Irrelevant?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

After losing both houses of Congress in the 1994 election, Bill Clinton expostulated: The president of the United States is not irrelevant!

On learning his trusted aide from Texas Scott McClellan has denounced as an “unnecessary war” the same Iraq war McClellan defended from the White House podium, George Bush must feel as Clinton did.

The synchronized savagery of the attacks on McClellan as turncoat suggests he drew blood. For what he has done is offer confirmation to the president’s war critics, from within the White House inner circle, that Bush’s motive in going to war was not a clear and present danger of attack by Iraq with weapons of mass destruction, but to advance a Bush crusade to impose democracy on the Middle East.

Neoconservative ideology, not U.S. national interests, McClellan is saying, motivated Bush to launch one of the longest and most divisive wars in U.S. history.

When loyalists defect and seek to profit from that defection, it is usually a sign of a failing presidency. And, indeed, events suggest that history is passing Bush by.

Despite the administration’s designation of Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, and of Syria and Iran as state sponsors of terror with whom we do not negotiate, America’s clients are ignoring America.

Israel has ignored Bush’s demand that it stop building and expanding settlements on a West Bank that is to be the heartland of a Palestinian state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been secretly negotiating with Syria for the return of the Golan Heights in exchange for peace.

When America refused to play honest broker between Jerusalem and Damascus, Turkey, at Israel’s request, stepped into the role.

The pro-American Lebanese government of Prime Minister Siniora has negotiated a truce and power-sharing arrangement with Hezbollah, giving that militant Shiite movement and party veto power in the Beirut government. Egypt is negotiating with Hamas for a truce in the Israeli-Gaza war and to effect the exchange of a captured Israeli solider held by Hamas for Hamas fighters held in Israel.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard, designated a terrorist organization by the Senate, helped to arrange the ceasefire between government forces and the Mahdi Army in Basra and Sadr City. While the United States has used the roughest of language to denounce Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president has been received as an honored guest by the Iraqi government we support and by the Ayatollah Sistani, who has yet to meet a high-ranking American.

When Bush went to the Middle East to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel as the Zionist he has become, he was criticized by a Palestinian leader who survives on U.S. aid. When he went to Riyadh to plead for an increase in the flow of oil, he got a token concession from the king.

In Pakistan, the new government has been negotiating a truce with the radicalized frontier provinces, which would leave the Taliban with a privileged sanctuary from which to prepare their annual offensives to overthrow the government in Kabul and expel the Americans, as their fathers expelled the Russians.

As Russia and China move closer together to oppose U.S. missile defenses and the U.S. presence, military and economic, in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Latin America seems to be going its own leftward way. The halcyon days of the Alliance for Progress are long gone.

The world seems to be waiting for Bush to depart and for the next American president. For the foreign policy differences between John McCain and Barack Obama are as real and stark as they have been since the Reagan-Carter election of 1980, or the Nixon-McGovern election of 1972.

Looking back on the years since 9-11, it is hard to give the Bush foreign policy passing grades. We pushed NATO eastward and alienated Russia. We have 140,000 Army and Marine Corps troops tied down in Iraq in a war now in its sixth year, from which our NATO allies have all extricated themselves. We have another war going in Afghanistan, where the situation is as grave as it has been since we went in.

The Bush democracy crusade was put on the shelf after producing election triumphs for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And the Bush Doctrine of preventive war, after Iraq, appears to be headed there, as well.

America remains the first economic and military power on earth. But after seven years of Bush, we no longer inspire the awe or hopes we once did. We are no longer the world hegemonic power of the neocons’ depiction. And the reason is that Bush embraced their utopian ideology of democratic empire and listened to their siren’s call to be the Churchill of his age.

Of Bush, it may be said he was a far better politician and candidate than his father, but as a statesman and world leader, he could not carry the old man’s loafers.



Thursday, February 21, 2008

American Liberty Teetering on Edge of Abyss

As an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, Paul Craig Roberts became known as the “Father of Reaganomics.” A distinguished economist, journalist, and nationally syndicated columnist, he is the author of eight books and a recipient of the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.

His recent column in Chronicles, “American Liberty Teetering on Edge of Abyss,” is a “must read” for anyone who cares about liberty and the rule of law under the United States Constitution. In it Roberts summarizes the shocking erosion of power from the people and their representatives to a President “who can do whatever he wants.”

Conservatives may acquiesce to this subverting of the Constitution now, but will a Democrat President be any more respectful of the “separate but equal” legislative branch, or be willing to part with those powers Bush has usurped?