State of the Union Attack on the Supreme Court Extremely Inappropriate

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends:

After watching the State of the Union address tonight, I notice not much has actually changed in a year. Fashion, for instance, remains a foreign concept in Congress. We were back to the standard assemblage of wretchedly dull red and blue ties for men, and uninspiring cliché shades of red and blue suits for women. One elected official sitting next to John McCain even tried to combine the standards by pairing a blue tie with a bright red vest. Unfortunately, the result was so appallingly garish that I cannot even given him token points for creativity. At least the politician uniform makes them easy to spot and avoid on the street. I suppose I should just be happy that the President chose to forgo the imperial purple he often wore during the campaign; it would have made his tone even more alarming.

Mr. Obama’s policies were also remarkably unchanged. As many other sources will discuss, he held firm to his ultra liberal commitments to impose cap and trade legislation, impose massive government intervention into the economy and financial sector, and remain firm in his efforts to impose a radical government takeover of healthcare.

Nonetheless, I must admit that the speech carried an appealingly strong tone of disgust with Washington, political games, backroom deals, and irresponsible spending. I might be more impressed if I were able to forget that Mr. Obama and the Democrats have controlled both the White House and Congress for over a year, now, and even held a super majority in the Senate until last week. If politics in Washington are a bit dodgy, one can hardly blame the Republicans or, after a year’s time, continue to whine about the old policies of Mr. Bush.

Perhaps the most amusing point in the speech came when Mr. Obama asserted that responsible budgeting and economics required that we do not reign in spending until we are actually in recovery, and until then we should pour more money into a stimulus bill, which we will now call a jobs bill. I was pleased to see I was not the only one unable to contain my laughter at this absurdity. The Republicans in the chamber all seemed to erupt into derisive chuckles. As the Republican response pointed out, the way to recovery is not through increasing government interference in the economy—not financial, not energy, and not healthcare. Nor is it to excessively spend or tax the wealthy, or increasingly grant loans which we then forgive after 20 years. Rather, it is to roll back government in general, lower taxes across the board, and allow the economy to function on its own, free of the favors or penalties of government.

Mr. Obama did mention a few positives. He seemed willing to talk about nuclear power and off shore drilling, for instance. However, if he intends to include these things as part of larger cap and trade legislation, then he poisons the well of energy before we even start drilling it. He also talked about granting gays equal treatment in the military. However, as commander in chief, he has the power to do this at the stroke of a pen. Whatever you may think of the idea, do not expect his talks with Congress and the Pentagon to produce any results on this matter. The Democrats love to assure GLBT people that they should be treated as equals while doing absolutely nothing to support that idea beyond giving speeches. His other prior work on ending torture and closing Guantanamo Bay, while laudable, was not mentioned at all. His utter lack of progress on that goal might have been a bit embarrassing, I suppose, as would his incomprehensible failure to understand how to properly balance an interest in basic human rights with the need to secure against terrorist enemy combatants. Treating them all as if they were domestic criminals is so profoundly foolish that I believe he was wise not to raise the subject.

Commentators seem to be overlooking the most disturbing aspect of Mr. Obama’s speech, though. He openly criticized the decision making of the Supreme Court and allowed the chamber to applaud his remarks on that subject. It is one thing to express disagreement with the Court on matters of policy in his role as the Chief Executive. It is another to publicly censure the decision making capabilities and the very competence of a Supreme Court decision during the State of the Union address. This was a direct attack on the credibility of the third branch of government, the branch that depends entirely upon the respect of the public for its authority. It was completely inappropriate for the President to make such remarks, and I cannot recall the last time a President made such an overt assault on the authority of a coequal branch of government. It may indeed have been FDR. I suppose I should not be surprised by yet another frightening similarity between the two. Coupled with his arrogant demand that Congress deliver a jobs bill to his desk, I am increasingly alarmed at the astonishing imperial attitude which seems to exude from Mr. Obama.

The only true change I spotted this evening was in the Republican response. Delivering the response in front of a live audience in the Virginia House of Delegates was a splendid change this year. Despite the fact that much of the speech was still pre written, it did respond to parts of the President’s address, and did a lovely job of contrasting the approach of the two parties to our national economic crisis: Democrats believe more government regulation with targeted tax incentives is the answer; Republicans believe government in general should be scaled back and taxes should be lowered across the board. Voters will decide in November which approach sounds more appealing. I have little doubt as to which option they will favor.

Understand the Financial Crisis: The Lie of Recovery Will Devastate the Unprepared

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends:

At the People’s Press Collective Reeducation camp this past weekend, I was pleased to see so many people gathered to learn how to become more effective advocates for the cause of restraining government, promoting individual liberty, and restoring free markets. Truly, an army of Davids is indeed rising to oppose the Goliath of obscenely bloated government. Those who attended this camp hardly needed to be told that the U.S. government has become the biggest liar in the history of the world; they attended the camp to gain the tools needed to begin correcting that problem. They face an uphill battle, though. I was horrified to hear that at least a few of our government’s lies had penetrated even the PPC camp when one of the attendees claimed that, with the nation now in recovery, it is critical to elect Republicans so as to resist any further bailouts and allow the recovery trend to continue.

Make no mistake: whatever illusion of recovery we have entered into is just that—an illusion. Nothing has been altered in the fundamentals of our economic situation. In fact, we have done substantial damage to the soundness of our currency and the wealth of our people, leaving us in a much weaker position to face the problems quickly rushing toward us. Those who do not prepare themselves and their families now are likely to be ruined in the coming economic storms. The Obama Administration’s assurances that we are in recovery may be one of the most atrocious lies ever told in a long history of deceptions.

I wish I could agree with my honorable friend in thinking that merely electing Republicans will offer a solution to this problem. Yet, many in the Tea Party movement correctly understand that Republicans have been almost indistinguishable from Democrats in their profligate spending practices. Many of them voted in lock step with Democrats as Congress issued one bailout after another, assaulted our civil liberties, dismantled the free market, and shredded the Constitution.

While it is true that no Democrat will ever reform this obscenity, we can no longer afford the Good Old Boy mentality of deal making, back scratching, entitlement, and the politics of pull that has too long infected the GOP. We require men and women of true principle. Merely demanding principled politicians, however, will do nothing unless we understand the nature of the problem ourselves, and can hold our politicians accountable in how they address it. Otherwise, we are simply asking to be lied to once more.

At the PPC Camps, several attendees have asked me where they can obtain concise, reliable, and comprehensive explanations for our economic situations and what each of us can do to prepare ourselves and our families. In answer, I strongly recommend viewing the free "Crash Course" by Mr. Chris Martenson. Even if you have no background in economics, finance, or natural resources, you will find Mr. Martenson’s webinar easy to understand. His advice will leave you in a better position than many who graduate college with Economics majors. After that you may want to move on to "Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Fiat Currency Abuse," a webinar presented by Richard Karn of Emerging Trends Report and hosted by the Bullion Management Group, Inc. While parts of this may be a bit dense, especially at the beginning, I advise you to stick with it. You will have a good grasp of our financial situation by the end.

These two webinars will give you the basic knowledge you need if you want to have any hope of holding our Republican candidates to anything resembling real principles. We cannot afford to get it wrong anymore. We cannot continue to watch our government pervert capitalism in favor of unequal patronage whereby favored insiders profit while all others struggle. We cannot allow our government to burn the savings of our people and spend away the wealth of this nation to leave our children, for the first time in U.S. history, a standard of living which is less than our own. We cannot let our government continue to weaken what should be the greatest nation on earth.

Obama's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009: What You Don't Know May Kill You

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends:

Yesterday, the people of Denver demonstrated that they have far more sense than their Congresswoman does when 700 of them rallied on the State Capitol steps to voice their opposition to President Obama’s health care bill.

The President has been working hard in recent weeks to persuade us that such opposition is unfounded. In his recent prime time press conference, he soothingly told us that this legislation would help reduce the costs of health care. He went on to assure us that we would all be able to keep our current health care plans and would not be forced onto government programs. In conclusion, he promised that health policy would be free from congressional meddling, as it would be overseen by a nonpartisan committee of medical experts whose recommendations would have to be accepted or rejected in their entirety by Congress. He said all of this with a straight face. None of it is true.

As a former Constitutional Law instructor, Mr. Obama knows that Congress’s legislative authority cannot be limited in such a way. Had Mr. Obama actually read the text of the bill, he also would have known that it allows people to keep their own health care plans only so long as they stay with their current plans. If they try to change their plans, they are indeed forced onto the government’s program. He certainly knew, though, that the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, estimated that the bill actually increases costs of health care and enlarges the federal deficit by billions of dollars.

Denver Representative Diana DeGette, apparently a very credulous person and far too busy to read the 1000+ pages of the bill for herself, has taken the President at his word and maintains that there is a need to pass the bill immediately. Unfortunately, the arguments she uses to support the urgent need for legislation are rooted almost entirely in myths about our health care system; myths Dr. Clifford S. Asness easily and entertainingly debunks in his essay, “Health Care Mythology.” Fortunately, the American people are not so easily duped.

Money Morning and Stephen Hyde both point out some of the most egregious financial problems with this bill. As Hyde asserts, “The bill requires virtually all employers to offer minimum health benefit plans that far exceed anything most of them offer today.” This will necessarily increase insurance costs. As Money Morning shows, it also has a more devastating aspect. Under the legislation, any business that cannot afford to provide the extensive coverage the bill requires will be taxed up to 8% of its payroll. This will almost immediately result in severe wage reductions and layoffs as businesses attempt to defray that cost. This hardly seems like the best idea as the nation struggles for economic recovery. Yet, this is not the worst the bill has to offer.

Peter Fleckstein (aka Fleckman), has diligently combed through the legislation and assembled a brief, line-by-line cheat sheet. His full analysis, “The HC Monstrosity-All 1,018 Pages,” can be found at his blog. While somewhat cursory, Mr. Fleckstein successfully highlights some alarming details in the legislation. To list just a few, the bill provides for:

• Nationwide government access to our private healthcare and financial records, as well as our bank accounts.
• Exemption from judicial review of the prices government sets on health care.
• Government wage controls over physicians, as well as limitations on physician ownership of hospitals and other health care providers.
• Mandates for end of life care and consultations without benefit of legal counsel.
• Government interference in marriage counseling and childcare.
• Government appointed standards and rationing for what treatments we may receive.
• No private option if you leave your current insurance carrier.

These are just a few of the many devilish details hidden within Mr. Obama’s Affordable Health Choices Act. It seems unlikely that any sane person, after reading this bill, could support its passage. That may be exactly why Mr. Obama and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate wanted to push it through so quickly.

The American people need to know the horrors contained within this bill. Health care represents 20% of our economy. That economy is now suffering a soft depression. If we truly desire health care reform, we deserve much better than what Mr. Obama is offering. This bill’s financial aspects alone have the potential to drive us into an unbearably hard depression, to say nothing of the damage it does to personal liberties. We cannot afford to make such massive changes to such a large portion of our economy with so little knowledge or time to review. All concerned Americans should contact their congress people and demand an end to this abominable and irresponsible legislation.

The ‘Change’ of Obama’s Foreign Policy: Talk to Enemies; Insult Allies

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends:

I think it is fair to say that when the American people elected President Obama, part of the ‘change’ they sought was in our diplomatic approach. Even I, struggling to find something to be happy about in this last election, told myself that at least Mr. Obama is unlikely to embarrass himself diplomatically as George Bush was so fond of doing. Perhaps, I thought, we would no longer have to suffer through articles about our President trying to massage the shoulders of Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel. That may have been wishful thinking given the recent diplomatic gaffes coming out of the Obama administration.

Take Hillary Clinton’s recent gift to Russia, for instance: a symbolic reset button. It was meant to represent a departure from the Bush administration’s confrontational attitude and effectively begin a new and friendlier relationship with Russia. The button read “Reset,” in English, but in Russian it apparently read, “Overcharge,” much to the embarrassment of Mrs. Clinton. Although I must say, “Overcharge,” seems to be a more accurate representation of what the Obama administration is doing, it is an appalling display of ineptitude on the part of our diplomatic corps. Even if the State Department is, for some inexplicable reason, suffering a shortage of agents literate in Russian, one would think they would at least have the presence of mind to go out and look at a Russian video game console, find the reset button, and copy the word. I dare say one of our adolescent gamers could have done a better job of it. Unfortunately, Mrs. Clinton’s error was quite minor when compared to the miserable display put on by Mr. Obama himself in receiving Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Great Britain.

During the Clinton and Bush (I & II) administrations, a visit from our closest and strongest ally’s head of governments was marked with a joint press conference, a reception at Camp David, and a formal dinner. Not so in the Obama administration, which made no arrangement for any of these things. Unfazed though, Mr. Brown pressed on and presented Mr. Obama with a pen holder made from the wood of the HMS Gannet, a ship used in fighting the slave trade. Its sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood to make just two desks: one belongs to Queen Elizabeth II, the other sits in the Oval Office. In return, Mr. Obama presented the Prime Minister with a set of 25 DVDs of American movies. As if this were not tacky enough, they are American DVDs and do not play in British DVD players. He also returned the bronze bust of Winston Churchill that has been in the Oval Office since Tony Blair presented it to us after the 9/11 attacks. As reported by the New York Daily News, the British People were incensed at the slights.

Not to be outdone, Michelle Obama’s gifts to the Brown children were in equally bad taste. The Times of London reported that Mrs. Brown presented the Obamas’ daughters with, “really nice presents. A bit of thought had clearly gone into choosing them: Top Shop dresses (with matching necklaces) and a selection of books by British authors.” In return, Mrs. Obama gave the Browns’ sons toy models of Marine One, the presidential helicopter. “Short of giving the boys Action Man models of her own husband smiting the evil forces of neoconservatism,” said The Times, “Mrs Obama’s gesture could not have been more solipsistic or more inherently dismissive of Mrs Brown.” The Daily Telegraph’s James Delingpole is now calling Mrs. Obama ‘Lady MacBeth.’

According to The Telegraph, The White House explained that Mr. Obama was simply too exhausted from dealing with the economic crisis to bother with the “diplomatic niceties of the special relationship” with Britain. The Telegraph quoted one American official who noted that, so far, Mr. Obama has failed to "even fake an interest in foreign policy." Most disturbingly the Telegraph cited a State Department official who articulated the new administration’s view of Britain by saying, “There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment.” If this statement true, it is a wretched thing to stay of our strongest and most loyal ally. Glenn Beck may be correct in calling on us to write the British Embassy to apologize for our President’s appalling manners.

However, such an attitude may explain why The Times reports Britain is also finding it “unbelievably difficult” to deal with the Obama administration in planning the G20 summit or get clarity on what Obama wants to do to rescue the world’s economies.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama has announced his plans to reach out diplomatically to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Do recall that the Taliban is a fundamentalist Islamic movement that supports Sharia law and a medieval view of human rights while endorsing Osama bin Laden and jihadist actions against the United States. This is apparently the ‘change’ Obama promised us with respect to foreign policy: hold talks with avowed enemies and insult our greatest allies. If Mr. Obama treats the Taliban leaders in the same way he has treated the Prime Minister of England, I expect they will be issuing a new fatwa against the United States in the very near future.

How to Craft a Stimulus if You Absolutely Must & Why Obama’s Will Fail

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends:

Last night, sounding quite defensive, President Obama gave a press conference to resentfully explain his stimulus package to the nation and insist that it be passed without further delays or questions—or we risk catastrophe. So much for the change we were promised. I have heard this tune before, from Mr. Bush. Pass the Patriot Act immediately for the safety of all Americans; yet we ended up mutilating the Constitution and the Supreme Court is still performing reconstructive surgery. We must invade Iraq or be destroyed by WMDs; but there were no WMDs. We must pass the TARP bailout now or the economy will collapse; and it is still collapsing with no sign of recovery on the horizon. Now our Dear Leader, singing the same song with a new voice, wants us to pass an even bigger ‘stimulus’ package lest the economy collapse . . . further. Whenever a politician asks to be trusted on faith alone and for action to be taken without delay or question, that is the time to settle comfortably into your chair, pull out your spectacles, and peruse the supposedly vital proposal most closely. So far, I have not found much to be pleased with—starting with the pork.

Mr. Obama’s claim that the stimulus bill does not contain pork is laughable. While it does not contain any earmarks inserted by individual lawmakers, it does fund a host of local projects that look identical to traditional earmarks. This might not be so objectionable if the projects stood a chance of building an economic infrastructure that generated more wealth than we are spending. It does not. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of this bill alone will increase our annual budget deficits by $884 billion over the next ten years. It represents approximately one tenth of our GDP. Add to that the $9 trillion we have spent on prior bailouts and federal backstopping and we have devoted almost our entire GDP to deficit spending on bailouts. Thus, the stimulus will hurt us, not help us.

The money for this cannot even be financed with debt any longer. U.S. Treasury bonds are becoming increasingly difficult to sell as the world loses confidence in our ability to handle our massive debt. As such, the U.S. must either raise taxes or print the money. Even the Democrats seem to be leery of raising taxes during such hard times, which means the money must be printed. As Dick Army has stated in The Wall Street Journal, “If the government prints the money, it will increase inflation, which will decrease the value of the dollar. That would, in effect, rob Paul to pay Paul back with devalued currency.

“Taking money out of the private economy -- either through taxes or inflation -- and spending it in a way that doesn't offset the loss of money with real economic gains is worse than doing nothing.”

Doing nothing is exactly what some economists argue would be best right now, given the damage the current stimulus could do. Even those economists who want to see some sort of stimulus are not confident in Mr. Obama’s plan and certainly against taking any overly hasty action to pass it. On the right, Martin Feldstein argues that “The problem with the current stimulus plan is not that it is too big but that it delivers too little extra employment and income for such a large fiscal deficit. It is worth taking the time to get it right.” On the left, former CBO Director Alice Rivlin echoes the need to carefully consider the stimulus and its long and short term goals, warning that acting too quickly on one giant bill could ensure that “money will be wasted because the investment elements were not carefully crafted,” and, “that it will be harder to return to fiscal discipline as the economy recovers if the longer run spending is not offset by reductions or new revenues.”

These economists are correct. Too much is at stake to rush into this massive stimulus package just because Mr. Obama wants his first hundred days to be wildly productive. A good stimulus plan should include a large reduction in taxation so as to free up money for investment. Currently, the tax cuts in Mr. Obama’s package are too small and too brief to have any real effect. Second, a good stimulus should focus heavily on infrastructure and production. Currently, the stimulus bill devotes only about 5% of its spending to true infrastructure. The great bulk goes to social service spending such as unemployment, food stamps, et cetera. While such social service spending may be noble, as Jim Puplava has stated on the “Financial Sense Newshour,” it is like giving people fish instead of teaching them how to fish. Once they have eaten the fish, they will be hungry again.

When Japan experienced its terrible recession of the 90’s, its government quadrupled its debt in an attempt to spend its way to recovery through public works. The effort failed. Only when Japan reinvested in infrastructure, boosted productive capacity, and started selling their products to China did they begin to recover. In short, they had to create a “fishing industry,” rather than just distribute fish. America, too, must create a “fishing industry” if it wants to recover. The current stimulus contains nowhere near enough infrastructure spending and virtually nothing that could boost our productive capacity.

Even if these deficiencies were corrected though, the problem of financing any stimulus with our massive debt remains. The people supervising the process are still the same people who failed to see the problem coming, who failed to manage the first bailouts effectively, and who now fail to properly pay their own taxes. No one in Washington is even attempting to reform the banking and securities laws or the Federal Reserve’s meddling which brought us here. Trust has been lost. Moreover, the U.S. cannot possibly afford the trillions of dollars it would take to counter the contraction in consumer spending. We are entering a depression, characterized by massive deleveraging. The stimulus, as written, is doomed to failure and, at this point, can only add to our woes. Truly, it would be better to do nothing and allow the market to purge itself.

None of this, of course, will stop our government from passing the stimulus package. That will require a great deal of anger on the part of the people. Ben DeGrow of Mount Virtus has issued an appeal to speak out against it and I echo that call. We will not be able to stop it entirely, but we might convince Congress to take the advice of Ms. Rivlin and Mr. Feldstein to continue working on it for a while so that it is not a complete shambles.

Global Warming: Policy Change, Not Climate Change, Is the Real Danger

By Julian Dunraven, J. D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends:

Global warming does indeed seem to be a pervasive problem. Yesterday it plagued me in my morning paper, harangued me from radio and television broadcasts, and even managed to insinuate itself into the conversation of irksome social acquaintances. Although I have become accustomed to bad policy masquerading as good science, and even look forward to reading my Global-Warming-Article-of-the-Day in the paper, yesterday’s news was particularly insufferable.

Todd Hartman of The Rocky Mountain News started it off, trumpeting Dr. Susan Solomon’s new pronouncement that CO2 emissions “will irreversibly change the planet,” for centuries to come no matter what we do. I suppose someone should suggest to Dr. Solomon that, if she has noticed human behavior has little to no impact on climate change, it might be because the whole things is part of the earth’s natural and periodic cycles. However, I was rather hoping her pronouncement might end the climate change squawking; after all, she does not seem to have much hope that there is anything more to be done. Alas, fortune is not so kind.

True believers never lose hope, and so NPR did its best to keep the faith alive by broadcasting proposed solutions. It seems a few members of the scientific community were watching “The Simpsons” and drew a bit too much inspiration from Mr. Burn’s attempt to block the sun by raising a giant metal disk over Springfield. Of course, the earth is a lot bigger than the town of Springfield, and thus there would have to be quite a few of these disks launched into orbit before we could block enough sunlight to begin cooling the earth. The disks would also have to be replaced occasionally as they fell out of orbit. The real sticking point is the cost, which is currently several trillion dollars. It is always unfortunate when mere economics gets in the way of good Simpsons . . . or science rather.

Another absurd proposal NPR and others have deigned to promulgate, involves launching sulfur particles into the atmosphere. This, would be far cheaper than the Mr. Burns plan, and would sufficiently darken the sky to promote global cooling. Unfortunately, it may also severely change weather patterns, increase acid rain, and—oh yes—darken the sky. No one quite knows how many species of animal and plant life would be devastated from a decrease in light sufficient to cool the earth. It might eventually leave the world a barren wasteland, but everyone agrees it would be a cooling barren wasteland.

Fortunately, it is only bureaucrats like those running the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who seem to use middle school science fair projects as the standard for publishable research. The IPCC’s report, which was authored by a mere 52 scientists, was widely touted as representing the final and absolute conviction among the scientific community that Global Warming is the result of human produced CO2 emissions. Instead, the Republican minority of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, led by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), has soundly refuted this in its Minority Report, which cites over 650 scientists, all contesting the IPCC’s claims.

One of the more interesting dissenters is Dr. Don Easterbrook, whose study of the climate indicates normal and alternating periods of warming and cooling stretching back for millennia. Not only does Dr. Easterbrook contest the idea that Global Warming is caused by humans, after looking at the sun’s recent activity and the Pacific Ocean’s decadal oscillation, he has staked his reputation on his theory that we are now entering a period of Global Cooling, and the Warming advocates will soon see their arguments collapse.

Whether or not he turns out to be correct will be largely irrelevant for the next four years. President Barack Obama’s cabinet selections clearly indicate the he accepts the idea of human caused Global Warming absolutely, and intends to write policy with that in mind. In his January 2009 Monthly Review, Richard Loomis of World Energy gives a thorough analysis of “President. Obama’s Energy Picks.”

As. Mr. Loomis explains, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sees Global Warming as a national security threat and, during her campaign, advocated for strong carbon cutting measures. Steven Chu, as Secretary of Energy, has expressed great distaste for oil, dislikes nuclear power for the waste it generates, and refers to coal as, “my worst nightmare.” Solar, wind, and natural gas power and natural gas fuel seem to be his preferences. Carol Browner, the “Energy Czar,” comes to us from the EPA, where she argued that California should be granted a waiver from the Clean Air Act to allow it to more strictly regulate carbon emissions. Lisa Jackson, the EPA Administrator, pushed a moratorium on new coal plants as the EPA head for New Jersey. Then there is Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior who, while not joining the rest in his hatred of coal, is strongly opposed to expanding oil drilling whether on land or off shore.

From this list, Mr. Loomis is correct to fear some sort of cap and trade mechanism being forced on the U.S. by executive order. And herein lies the real danger of Global Warming. In his January 24th broadcast of “the Big Picture,” Jim Puplava warns that the U.S. will have a difficult time convincing the rest of the world to join in such an initiative during this economic crisis. Europe especially will be disinclined to rely more on natural gas when Putin has consistently demonstrated his willingness to use the gas supply as political leverage. Thus, the U.S. will be forced to pursue carbon reduction policy alone. The high energy costs of such a policy would put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage to Europe, China, and our other major trading partners. This is especially worrisome at a time when tax revenues are declining and government spending is increasing, and Mr. Puplava is right to wonder how much more of our debt the world will continue to finance when other nations are beset with their own economic problems.

Then there is peak oil. The recent IEA World Energy Outlook reports a 9.1% annual depletion rate in the world’s oil reserves. All major oil fields are in decline, virtually no new discoveries are being made, and oil demand continues to rise across the world—despite the economic crisis—especially in China, India, and oil producing nations developing their own economies. We are set for an oil supply crisis to hit between 2012-2015. Our own oil reserves are not sufficient to avert this problem, but they can help buy more time for us. However, as developing an oil field takes anywhere from 4-6 years, we would need to start investing today. Instead, low oil prices, and the refusal of the Obama administration to expand drilling while it considers actually raising taxes on oil produces has all but killed capital investment in this vital field.
Natural gas fuel is also a viable stop gap measure while we search for something to more permanently replace oil. However, it is not unlimited, and if we insist on squandering it to supply our electricity, it will not be of much help to us when we face the coming oil supply crisis.

As I have said before, Global Warming is something science is still vigorously debating as it attempts to fully understand the causes of climate change. However, to the Obama administration, the debate is over. In the midst of an economic crisis, it is willing to tax coal and nuclear power into extinction—despite an already overburdened grid. It is willing to put our nation’s entire economy in peril of the worst oil supply crisis ever seen and squander the natural gas resources that could help protect us. And it is willing to do all of this solely on the basis of its faith in human caused Global Warming. Whether climate change is a real problem caused by humans is still up for debate. However, the dangers of policy change based on that premise are very real and imminent.

Barack Obama’s Fashion Faux Pas: Whatever It Was, It Was Not White Tie

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends:

The magical aura of change and hope that seemed to bewitch the nation today was not quite strong enough to ensorcell Wall Street, which continued its consistent, if volatile, fear driven trend downward. But today, I am told, is not about policy or economics; rather it is about fun and fashion. Fair enough. It is rare that I get to talk about etiquette in politics, so I will take advantage of the opportunity. Besides, while I am sure that virtually all fashion editors will be critiquing Michelle Obama’s evening gown, however lovely the rest of us may think it, and ignoring her husband entirely, someone needs to say something about that ghastly conglomeration Barack Obama tried to pass off as white tie attire.

I suppose I need to give him credit for at least attempting white tie, which is the strictest type of formal evening wear, and something few of our overly casual citizenry, including presidents, even try anymore. Because of that unfamiliarity though, few will ever realize how badly he botched his effort and wound up looking more like an inexperienced prom king than a president, an appearance only reinforced by his pathetic attempts at dancing. One would think America’s first couple could be bothered to learn at least a simple waltz before the inaugural balls. Nonetheless, for those gentlemen who perhaps aspire to wear white tie correctly one day, allow me to point out our new President’s faux pas.

White tie, properly speaking, involves a plain fronted, stiff white shirt with French cuffs and a wing-tip collar. Mr. Obama’s collar was full, quite improper for the occasion. The coat for white tie must be black, have tails, and satin peak or shawl lapels. Mr. Obama’s jacket lacked tails entirely, and notched lapels, while barely passable for black tie, are far too similar to the daily business suit to ever be appropriate for the ultra formal white tie style. The pants for white tie must be black with a braid down the sides. Mr. Obama’s trousers had only a satin stripe. Naturally, white tie also requires a white piqué waistcoat and bow tie, and gold and or mother of pearl cuff links and button studs. The President got that much right at least.

In contrast, the less formal black tie tuxedo, used for private entertaining such as weddings rather than public occasions and balls, consists of a white shirt with a pleated front, French cuffs and full fold-down collar. The jacket should not have tails and may have shawl, peak, or notch satin lapels. In the summer, the jacket—and only the jacket—may be white. That is as exciting as is permissible. The black pants must have a satin stripe down the sides. As the name suggests, it requires a black bow tie with a black waistcoat or cummerbund with black and silver cuff links and button studs. Colors are never permitted, no matter what a gentleman’s date is wearing, unless he wishes to look like an organ grinder.

Both white and black tie have daytime equivalents as well. However, I won’t complicate things further with those. It suffices to say that the president managed only a bizarre and awkward amalgamation of the two styles, though I am glad he did not go so far as to include colors or the tacky variation of ties cheap haberdashers so carelessly foist upon us these days. I have only one further suggestion for the well groomed man: visit a barber or stylist before putting on formal evening wear. Sideburns should either be present on both sides of the head or not at all.

If today really was about fun and fashion, and if Wall Street was paying attention, perhaps it explains the decline. How can a gentleman be expected to manage the nation’s economy if he cannot even manage to properly dress himself?

Berg v. Obama Denied Certiorari

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A..

(For earlier posts on this case click here.)

Honorable Friends:

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Berg v. Obama. Despite this denial, there is still a chance it may be heard by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is still pending. Berg reports that his brief is due by 20 January 2009. Ironically, that is inauguration day. Though it saddens me to say so, as this case will not even be heard, much less resolved, by the time Obama is sworn into office, I cannot imagine any court would presume to review the qualifications of a sitting president. Thus, I do not expect that there will be any further developments in this case. As such, the question of Obama’s constitutional qualifications falls to the U.S. Senate. The Senate has accepted Obama as fully qualified for office, and he will thus become the next President of the United States on January 20th.

Recovering from the Election and Preparing the Republican Party for the Future

Recovering from the Election and Preparing the Republican Party for the Future

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends,

This year, as I handed out candy to trick-or-treaters for Samhain/Halloween, I received a terrible cold in exchange. I spent the last few days sniffling and moaning in bed. At some point, I recall watching a somewhat blurry talking head announce that Barack Obama had just won the election. That set off a wave of coughing I thought might kill me. Cursing cold medication induced hallucinations, I promptly poured myself more cough syrup and tried to return to sleep.

The next day, the irritating headlines refused to disappear, even when I refused any medication at all. The morbidly depressed phone calls that began to pour in confirmed that I was not hallucinating, however much I may have wanted to. Stupidity had finally achieved a majority of votes.

I have also heard from the other side, and I am astounded at what they are saying. Consider this email that invaded my inbox this morning:

“As you read the lovely quote below, which speaks volumes, listen to the ‘Yes We Can’ song one more time. Our future is looking brighter everyday and history has been made.
‘It is said that Rosa [Parks] sat so that Martin [Luther King Jr.] could walk. And Martin walked so that Obama could run. And Obama ran so that we could fly. It’s time to take wing.’”

Now, maybe it is because I am ill, but my breakfast was the only thing threatening to take wing after I read that. One had only to see the enraptured expressions of adulation on the faces of the crowd at Obama’s victory speech to know that this woman is not alone in her sentiment, though. They haven’t simply elected a president; a new messiah has risen to save the nation and the world. I, however, will not be among the worshipers of our new god-president.

As a devotee of the Old Religion of Ireland and a student of history, I know of countless examples where a man has claimed power along with semi-divine status. In each case, the new divinity ended up looking just like old-fashioned tyranny. Only once has the title of messiah ever stuck. But in that case, the man who claimed it never seized power or commanded armies. Rather, he presented a simple message of love that rose to preeminence through persuasion—not state power. To my knowledge, many Christians are still pretty happy with him, though it appears that some have found a replacement.

That replacement had best be up to the task. As the storm clouds gather, the silver lining for Republicans is that, with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress and the White House, they will not be able to blame us for anything anymore. Whatever happens from here will be up to them. I have no doubt whatsoever that if they implement even half of the economic plans they have proposed, they will make things much worse. What will happen when their god-president fails?

Republicans need to be taking advantage of this time to regroup. First, though, we must acknowledge that, by abandoning the fiscal responsibility that had been a fundamental principle of the party for decades, the party set itself up for the rise of this false messiah of socialism. The people have every right to doubt Republican commitment to free markets and spending cuts after the hideous displays they have witnessed during the Bush administration.

Expecting the party to reform on its own, however, seems ridiculous. If Republican leaders failed to uphold their principles, we the people also failed to hold them accountable. If we want to take back the Republican Party, reform it, and hope to have any chance of success, we all have to increase our involvement with the party, as well as make our demands very clear. Congress and our Party leaders have shown that they are utterly unprepared for and confused by the massive economic issues that broadsided the campaigns this year. If you find yourself to be just as clueless and confused by these issues as Congress is, though, you cannot hope to help set them on the correct path. So start by educating yourself.

The issues we will be facing are indeed immense. For most people, it has been many years since they last sat in an economics classroom, if they ever did at all. Fortunately, one of my honorable friends managed to find a site that provides a very simple but comprehensive summary of all the issues we face. I invite you to check out Chris Martenson’s free Crash Course in the Economy. His short lessons will leave you in a much better position to understand exactly how we got here and what we are facing. It will also give you a very good idea of what to demand from the Republican candidates we will soon have to send out to clean up the disasters Obama and the Democrats will inevitably wreak in our society.

Military Guest Commentary: Why I Will Vote Republican

* * * This insightful essay comes from a U.S. officer serving in Iraq. I quite enjoyed it, and hope you all will as well. Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A. * * *

By CPT. Hunter Hawke

The upcoming election is extremely important to everyone, but perhaps especially to members of the military. Thus, as a member of the military, drawing on the sum of my experiences, please allow me to explain why I will be voting Republican.

First, I believe the Democrats’ approach to foreign policy is both naïve and dangerous. Second, I simply do not believe the Democrats can do what they’re promising. They cannot continue to provide for a strong military, pay for their proposed entitlement programs, and not increase taxes. Third, they have not proved that they are capable of managing the military and our foreign policy competently.

To address my first point, I believe that a pragmatic approach to defense and foreign policy is the only reasonable one. My experiences in the military and Iraq specifically have left me doubting the good nature of man. I believe that the nature of man is not inherently good and the world is far more Hobbesian than most people would like to believe. Tribalism, corruption, cronyism, brutality and most every other vice known to man are prevalent throughout large portions of the world. You can see the symptoms of these base instincts in many other countries in the way they treat minority groups, woman, wealth distribution, elections, human rights, the press, the judiciary and so on. The governments of these countries are not equal partners with us, nor do they share the moral high ground. So when I hear the Democratic party in general and Senator Barrack Obama in particular talk about how we need to redefine our foreign policy by reaching out to these governments and people without these things in mind, it makes me ill.

The Democrats cite our standing in the court of world public opinion as evidence of the Bush administration’s disastrous handling of foreign policy. I think what they fail to understand is that the world is full of countries that would love nothing more than to see the end of American hegemony, be it economically, politically, or militarily. Some of their motives are not nefarious but rather that of a competitor. But what of those states who wish something else, something more sinister? An expansive Russia, a nuclear Iran, a radical Pakistan? Even today Zimbabwe, Sudan, North Korea, Venezuela, and countless others would love nothing more than to see an end to American hegemony. And who would suffer? Maybe we won’t, at least in the near term. But minority populations would suffer. Political dissenters would suffer. And American values such as woman’s rights, freedom of the press, an independent judiciary, and countless other values we hold dear would suffer. So to say that we are unpopular and use this as reasoning to fundamentally change our foreign policy is ridiculous. The question should be: are we doing what is morally correct?

What the Republicans have done and I strongly support is to undertake a program of aggressive engagement in foreign policy. Our military assistance abroad is a perfect example. Isolationism is no longer an option because power and influence have become a zero sum game. If we are not exerting influence or spreading American values, someone else is spreading theirs and it is to our collective detriment. We exert our influence, not to pander to our enemies, but to influence other countries to become something else, something better.

For example, over the last several years, we’ve undertaken a massive effort to combat AIDS in Africa and we’ve established an independent African military command to bolster the security of that continent. What we’ve done in Columbia is another example. I know a couple of guys who’ve spent years in Columbia training their Special Forces and intelligence organizations. What is underpublicized is the fact that the FARC, the strongest, most well equipped and well financed terrorist revolutionary organization in the western hemisphere, is now on the verge of total collapse. We didn’t negotiate with them; we defeated them.

A more specific example would be the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt as one of the culminating efforts of years of military assistance in Columbia. All of the resolutions in the parliaments of Europe, declarations of solidarity, and high level negotiations yielded nothing. She was rescued because the United States had aggressively supported the Columbian government for years. Now the Bush administration is trying to use Columbia as a template for the rest of South America and Africa. So it comes as no surprise that the countries most fearful and vocal about American power, like Venezuela, are also the ones who stand to lose.

That these countries stand up in the United Nations and decry our efforts around the globe is not only unsurprising but a testament of the great things we’re doing. Will we choose to ignore the world’s problems until they come knocking on our door? And what about the rest of the world? What are we going to do to ensure the security and prosperity of our allies and the innocent? Will we abandon them to appease our critics?

The Democrats offer the idea of soft power and negotiation as a means to accomplish our goals. But I would argue that soft power in a globalized world is largely a fraud because economic interdependence has made it increasingly difficult to employ. The Europeans refuse to stand up to Russia over the conflict with Georgia because Russia supplies most of their oil and natural gas. The Chinese oppose any intervention in the Sudan on the part of the United Nations because Sudan is one of their key trading partners. Are we going to abandon our allies and allow innocent people to be butchered because soft power is insufficient?

Europe, the center of soft power, is great at exercising their rhetorical skills, but what have they done for the people in Afghanistan, Columbia, Georgia, Darfur, and countless other countries? They can’t even send their own soldiers and humanitarian aid around the world unless it’s on board a US Navy destroyer or in an American C-130. The Europeans obviously lack the intestinal fortitude to do anything more than talk about their high ideals. That these same Europeans fall all over themselves to hear Sen. Obama speak should cast some doubt on their overwhelming support for him. Additionally, few of our allies have the resources or the commitment to do what we can. So it is left to the United States.

The Democrats say that we’re being too aggressive, but what’s the alternative? Certainly they offer nothing beyond soft power, rhetoric, and action in the United Nations. There are quite a few nations who stand to lose if we continue on our current path but I don’t believe we have another choice. These issues are too important and the consequences too grave to leave to a party that lacks the courage to do the right thing.

This leads me to the inevitable conclusion that the Democrats seemingly have no foreign policy goals beyond increasing our popularity abroad and maintaining some form of rudimentary security for the United States. This allows them to focus all of their efforts on their socialist domestic agenda but that’s another topic. The Democrats try to make their point by using Iraq as an example to show the failure of the republican approach. But they have neither a better approach to foreign policy nor a better plan for achieving our strategic goals.

President Bush was right to depose Saddam, but he went about reaching that objective with disastrous incompetence. Sen. Obama was wrong about the validity of deposing Saddam, in that it was deserving of our efforts, and even more wrong about the surge. If we had pulled out when he wanted and as he vigorously advocated, it would have resulted not only with Iraq being thrown into chaos, but the entire region may have erupted into a more widespread conflict. It also would have been tantamount to the betrayal of all the American service members who fought and died there.

Obama is trying to bolster his credentials to be commander in chief by saying that we’ve been distracted from our primary objective in Afghanistan. I remain unconvinced that he fully intends to follow through with the action plan his rhetoric has endorsed. Afghanistan is a tougher conflict than Iraq and will require additional years to sort out. I very much doubt that he has the spine for a protracted counterinsurgency and, even if he does, I doubt that his party does. At the end of the day, the fundamental difference between the foreign policy approaches of the two parties is that Democrats want to negotiate with our enemies while Republicans want to defeat them.

To address my second point, I have heard nothing from Sen. Obama about the importance he places on supporting the military beyond the opportunities he has to attack Sen. McCain on the topic. Furthermore, I’ve seen the effects of the Clinton administration on the military and I hope to God that it doesn’t happen again. During the Clinton years, budgets dwindled and manpower was slashed. Equipment was refurbished but no new equipment was procured. He took the Army that defeated the fifth largest standing army at the time in 100 hours and gutted it. He used the rational that the peace dividend brought about by winning the cold war more than justified the drawdown. Never mind the increasingly factitious and dangerous world that the fall of the iron curtain left behind.

Clinton and the Democratic Party, past and present, have never paid more than lip service to keeping a strong military. Their base demands expensive entitlement programs and the money has to come from somewhere. They can only raise taxes so much before the consequences, both political and economic, become too great. So the money comes from the most expensive government program that just so happens to be the most politically inconsequential for the Democrats. And since a strong military is not necessary to meet the Democratic foreign policy agenda, the temptation to slash military budgets is simply too great and the military’s ability to meet the enemies of our country suffers as a result.

Finally, I’ll use the Clinton years again to demonstrate that I don’t believe the Democratic Party can properly manage the military or foreign policy. Even more disastrous than the lack of financial and moral support for the military was the effect left by having a weak commander in chief. Because of Clinton’s past and the politics of his party, he could not politically afford to suffer military casualties abroad. This infused in the military a zero tolerance policy on casualties which resulted in an irrational approach to combat. We fight to win, not to avoid casualties. In combat, the mission always comes first and there is no substitute for victory. It might sound cliché but it’s the truth.

It has taken us years to overcome the Clinton mentality, and the last thing I want to see is a democratic administration take us back to the place where they cannot politically afford casualties so we either don’t fight or we do so in a cowardly and inept manner. We retreated from the field of battle in Somalia. We allowed more than half a million people in Rwanda to be butchered. We launched an ineffective and short lived humanitarian mission to Haiti that accomplished nothing. We did nothing to confront the rising threat of Islamic fanaticism. We abdicated our role as the leader of the free world. I do not believe that what we did then was the right thing and I believe that a democratic administration would take us down that same path.

If I had to pick a candidate based on my opinions on the military and foreign policy, without doubt, I would pick John McCain. I voted for him in the 2000 primaries and I think that, as a party, we made a mistake in picking Bush over him. After McCain, I would pick every single other Republican candidate. And after that, I would pick Joe Lieberman. And if I could pick none of the above, I would look into moving to Montana to ride out the coming storm.

Polite Persuasion: What Each Of Us Should Be Doing For John McCain

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends,

A guest at tea informed me that she enjoys our visits because they are among the few chances she gets to discuss politics openly. It seems that she refrains from any mention of politics at work, and even at dinner parties if she is not close to the guests. This disturbs me. How can we expect to win if we refuse to discuss politics for fear of being rude? Can we really expect our liberal friends to understand decent policy on their own? Not when they nominate Barack Obama for president.

Now, do not misunderstand me. As a staunch defender of etiquette, I do not want conservatives out preaching to everyone they meet. That would indeed be rude. Nor do I endorse political conversation if it is likely that you will end up shouting about how stupid the other person is. That could well get you fired. However, it is certainly possible to slip good political information into workplace conversation and unfamiliar social scenes without being boorish. If we intend to win, I think we had best start doing so quickly. Here is how.

As you come into the office and begin settling your things, remark, “Did you see that the Fed has increased its balance sheet by $5 trillion? Inflation is ballooning and we have almost doubled our national debt. Now I hear that Sen. Obama is proposing another $4.3 trillion in spending. Goodness only knows how we are ever going to afford all of this.” Next, you sigh, shake your head, and simply walk off to your office. Inevitably someone will pop his head in to ask where you heard such things. Smile and tell them you will send them a quick email. Just send the URL to the articles and let them chew on the information by themselves.

Later, try remarking that the world leaders are convening a meeting on November 15th to reform the world’s financial markets with a new Bretton Woods Agreement and possibly begin discussing an entirely new currency to replace the dollar. Europe is calling this the death of American Capitalism and the triumph of European style socialism. They are overtly rejecting U.S. leadership and demanding oversight of even our markets. We had best hope whoever wins is able to stand up to this.

Russia, Iran and Qatar are forming a new gas cartel to gain control of energy imports into Europe. This would give these nations enormous control over European affairs, especially since it would be backed by Russia’s formidable military might. At the same time, we have Joe Biden saying that Obama will be immediately tested by our enemies. We had best hope he is up to that immense challenge.

No one needs to wait about to argue. Just walk away and let others come to you. When they do, don’t argue. Just provide information, politely, and with a smile. If the other person becomes testy, shrug and say, “I hope you are right,” then walk away. The point is not to turn our workplaces and social engagements into political debates. The point is just to get people thinking about issues beyond the mindless faith in Obama’s “hope.”

As every conservative knows, hope is not a defense of our interests, and faith alone will not restore our economy. Though we know that Barak Obama is an overt socialist who would weaken us internationally and militarily while redistributing our wealth domestically, we need to do better helping others understand this. Every citizen has a responsibility to this country. If we are not doing everything we can to ensure it is in the best position to face what we know is coming, then we have failed in our responsibility. If we do not speak out in support of the principles we believe in because we cannot figure out how to do so politely and professionally, then we have failed in our duty. If Barack Obama is elected because we conservatives expect someone else to campaign against the socialist nonsense he represents, then we have abdicated our individual responsibility as citizens. As I said, we do not need to preach. We do not even need to argue. We do need to speak up and speak out—every one of us. Time is running out.

Could Obama Be Disqualified From The Election? The Federal Courts Will Decide

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

(For updated information on the Motion to Dismiss, click here)

Honorable Friends,

For those of you unaware, Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleging that Barack Obama is not eligible for the Office of the President because Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian citizen and naturalized in Indonesia. Berg further alleges that Obama followed her naturalization and failed to take an oath of allegiance when he turned 18 years old to regain his U.S. citizenship status. The case is Berg v. Obama.

It sounds crazy, I know. It becomes even stranger when you realize that Berg is a lifelong Democrat, the former Democratic Chairman of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, an 8-year member of the state democratic committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. This is not a simple crank, and after reviewing the court documents, I believe the case is fairly strong, and has amazing implications.

It revolves around Article II Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution which provides in pertinent part that:

“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.”

To better understand the case, I recommend reading the complaint, Obama’s Motion to Dismiss, Berg’s Response in Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss, and Berg’s Motion for Summary Judgment. You can also read news about the case or donate to the cause by visiting Berg’s webpage.

Of course, the case is still developing and it is doubtful there will be any resolution before the election. If Obama loses the election, the case may be deemed moot and dismissed. If he wins, however, and Berg turns out to be correct, it would mean that we not only elected a man unqualified to hold office under the Constitution – we would have elected an illegal immigrant, who would then be disqualified from serving.

You might be wondering how our officials could have missed something so major. It is easy to do though if you think about it. Obama’s mother certainly used to be an American citizen. When he returned to the U.S. from Indonesia, how many government officials would even think to ask, “While away, did you or your parents happen to renounce your U.S. Citizenship?” It simply would not happen. Our officials would have proceeded as if Obama was a child of a U.S. Citizen. No one would know the truth unless he or his mother willingly revealed the information, or unless they were specifically examining Obama’s background in great detail..

I cannot even imagine the pressure this judge must be feeling, along with the Justices of the Supreme Court who will ultimately hear the appeal. Can you begin to hear the enraged screams of the rioters? Our courthouses will have to turn themselves into fortresses.

El Presidente and I will certainly be keeping a close watch on this fascinating case and provide updates as it develops. For now, however, I will leave you with the most interesting part of Berg’s argument thus far, taken from his Response in Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss and appended below.

* * * * * * * * * *

Even if Obama was, in fact, born in Hawaii, he lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother re-married and moved to Indonesia with her Indonesian husband. In or about 1966, when Obama was approximately five (5) years old, his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, married Lolo Soetoro, a citizen of Indonesia, whom she had met at the Hawaii University, and moved to Indonesia with Obama. Obama lost his U.S. citizenship, when his mother married Lolo Soetoro, and took up residency in Indonesia. Loss of citizenship, in these circumstances, under U.S. law (as in effect in 1967) required that foreign citizenship be achieved through “application.” Such type of naturalization occurred, for example, when a person acquired a foreign nationality by marriage to a national of that country. Nationality Act of 1940, Section 317(b). A minor child follows the naturalization and citizenship status of their custodial parent. A further issue is presented that Obama’s Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, either signed an acknowledgement acknowledging Obama as his son or Lolo Soetoro adopted Obama, giving Obama natural Indonesia citizenship which explains the name Barry Soetoro and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.

Obama admits in his book, “Dreams from my father” Obama’s memoir (autobiography), that after his mother and Lolo Soetoro were married, Lolo Soetoro left Hawaii rather suddenly and Obama and his mother spent months in preparation for their move to Indonesia. Obama admits when he arrived in Indonesia he had already been enrolled in an Indonesia school and his relatives were waiting to meet him and his mother. Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian State citizen, could not have enrolled Obama in school unless Lolo Soetoro signed an acknowledgement acknowledging Obama as his son, which had to be filed with the Government. Under Indonesian law, when a male acknowledges a child as his son, it deems the son, in this case Obama, as an Indonesian State citizen. Constitution of Republic of Indonesia, Law No. 62 of 1958 Law No. 12 of 2006 dated 1 Aug. 2006 concerning Citizenship of Republic of Indonesia, Law No. 9 of
1992 dated 31 Mar. 1992 concerning Immigration Affairs and Indonesian Civil Code (Kitab Undang-undang Hukum Perdata) (KUHPer) (Burgerlijk Wetboek voor Indonesie) states in pertinent part, State citizens of Indonesia include: (viii) children who are born outside of legal marriage from foreign State citizen mother who are acknowledged by father who is Indonesian State citizen as his children and that acknowledgment is made prior to children reaching 18 years of age or prior to marriage; Republic of Indonesia Constitution 1945, As amended by the First Amendment of 1999, the Second Amendment of 2000, the Third Amendment of 2001 and the Fourth Amendment of 2002, Chapter X, Citizens and Residents, Article 26 states, “(1) Citizens shall consist of indigenous Indonesian peoples and persons of foreign origin who have been legalized [sic] as citizens in accordance with law. (2) Residents shall consist of Indonesian
citizens and foreign nationals living in Indonesia.”

Furthermore, under the Indonesian adoption law, once adopted by an Indonesian citizen, the adoption severs the child’s relationship to the birth parents, and the adopted child is given the same status as a natural child, Indonesian Constitution, Article 2.

The laws in Indonesia at the time of Obama’s arrival did not allow dual citizenship. If an Indonesian citizen married a foreigner, as in this case, Obama’s mother was required to renounce her U.S. citizenship and was sponsored by her Indonesian spouse. The public schools did not allow foreign students, only citizens were allowed to attend as Indonesia was under strict rule and decreed a number of restrictions; therefore, in order for Obama to have attended school in Jakarta, which he did, he had to be a citizen of Indonesia, as the citizenship status of enrolled students was verified with Government records.

Obama was enrolled by his parents in a public school, Fransiskus Assisi School in Jakarta, Indonesia. Plaintiff has received copies of the school registration, attached as EXHIBIT “4”, in which it clearly states Obama’s name as “Barry Soetoro,” and lists his citizenship as Indonesian. Obama’s father is listed as Lolo Soetoro, Obama’s date of birth and place of birth are listed as August 4, 1961 in Hawaii, and Obama’s Religion is listed as Islam. This document was verified by television show Inside Edition, whose reporter, Matt Meagher, took the actual footage of the school record. At the time Obama was registered the public schools obtained and verified the citizenship status and name of the student through the Indonesian Government. All Indonesian students were required to carry government identity cards, or Karty Tanda Pendudaks, as well as family card identification called a Kartu Keluarga. The Kartu Keluarga is a family card which bears the legal
names of all family members.

Since Obama’s birth was legally acknowledged by Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen, and/or Obama was adopted by Lolo Soetoro, which the evidence attached hereto supports, Obama became an Indonesian citizen and bears the status as an Indonesia natural child (natural-born). For this reason, Obama would have been required to file applications with the U. S. State Department and follow the legal procedures to become a naturalized citizen in the United States, when he returned from Indonesia. If Obama and/or his family failed to follow these procedures, then Obama is an illegal alien.

Regardless of whether Obama was officially adopted, (which required a Court process), by his Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, or his birth was acknowledged (which only required the signing of a birth acknowledgement form), by Lolo Soetoro, one of which had to occur in order for Obama to have the name Barry Soetoro and his citizenship status listed as “Indonesian”, in either and/or both cases Obama’s name was required to be changed to the Indonesian father’s name, and Obama became a natural citizen of Indonesia. This is proven by the school records in Jakarta, Indonesia showing Obama’s name as Barry Soetoro and his citizenship as Indonesian. Again, the registration of a child in the public schools in Jakarta, Indonesia was verified with the
Government Records on file with the Governmental Agencies.

The Indonesian citizenship law was designed to prevent apatride (stateless) or bipatride (dual citizenship). Indonesian regulations recognize neither apatride nor bipatride citizenship. In addition, since Indonesia did not allow dual citizenship neither did the United States, Hague Convention of 1930.

In or about 1971, Obama’s mother sent Obama back to Hawaii. Obama was ten
(10) years of age upon his return to Hawaii.

As a result of Obama’s Indonesia “natural” citizenship status, there is absolutely no way Obama could have ever regained U.S. “natural born” status, if he in fact ever held such. Obama could have only become naturalized if the proper paperwork was filed with the U.S. State Department, in which case, Obama would have received a Certification of Citizenship.

Plaintiff is informed, believes and thereon alleges Obama was never Naturalized in the United States after his return. Obama was ten (10) years old when he returned to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. Obama’s mother did not return with him, and therefore, unable to apply for citizenship of Obama in the United States. If citizenship of Obama had ever been applied for, Obama would have a Certification of Citizenship.

Furthermore, Obama traveled to Indonesia, Pakistan and Southern India in 1981. The relations between Pakistan and India were extremely tense and Pakistan was in turmoil and under martial law. The country was filled with Afghan refugees; and Pakistan's Islamist-leaning Interservices Intelligence Agency (ISI) had begun to provide arms to the Afghan mujahideen and to assist the process of recruiting radicalized Muslim men--jihadists--from around the world to fight against the Soviet Union. Pakistan was so dangerous that it was on the State Department's travel ban list for US Citizens. Non-Muslim visitors were not welcome unless sponsored by their embassy for official business. A Muslim citizen of Indonesia traveling on an Indonesian passport would have
success entering Indonesia, Pakistan and India. Therefore, it is believed Obama traveled on his Indonesian passport entering the Countries. Indonesian passports require renewal every five (5) years. At the time of Obama’s travels to Indonesia, Pakistan and India, Obama was twenty (20) years old. If Obama would have been a U.S. citizen, which he was not, 8 USC §1481(a)(2) provides loss of nationality by native born citizens upon "taking an oath or making an affirmation or other formal declaration of allegiance to a foreign state...after having attained the age of eighteen years”, in violation of 8 U.S.C. §1401(a)(1) Since Lolo Soetoro legally acknowledged Obama as his son and/or adopted Obama, Obama was a “natural” citizen of Indonesia, as proven by Obama’s school record attached as Exhibit “4”.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold: Our Government’s Lies and Manipulations in the Gold Market

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends,

We have all heard the old adage that when the market is down, gold is up. Well, the market is most assuredly down . . . but so are gold prices. Yet, strangely, demand for gold and other precious metals is skyrocketing, while supply is so low that people are being told they may have to wait six months or more for delivery. Even stranger, on eBay, prices for gold and silver coins and bars are well above the price they are being traded at on the commodities exchange in New York. So what is going on? That is the question some of my clients wanted answered as they fretted about their hedge investments. To answer quite simply, our government is actively working to suppress the gold market, and defrauding investors in the process. Now I will tell you why and how.

In the 1930s, we abolished the gold standard. Instead, we now have a fiat currency where money has value only because we say so. This allows the Federal Reserve to adjust the money supply without regard to a set amount of gold. Unfortunately, the Fed abused its power. Thus, every time we faced an economic hurdle, rather than allowing for market corrections, the Fed simply cut interest rates, printed more money, and inflated the problem away. It worked as long as people had faith in the currency.

As this behavior repeated itself over time, the central bank managed to encourage the unrestrained spending and overleveraging that has caused the economic crisis we face today. This time, though, the problem is not going away.

We are facing the accumulation of years of bad policy. People are beginning to see that the nation is so deeply in debt that the only way out is massive inflation and devaluation of the dollar. In an effort to preserve their wealth and hedge against this inflation, they turn to gold. This causes problems for the Fed and the other central banks.

Although our money is no longer backed by gold, the Fed cannot ignore gold entirely. If the value of the dollar drops too fast against gold, people begin to lose faith in the system. They buy gold instead of treasury bonds and the Fed and other central banks would be forced to stop their meddling in the markets and allow the money supply to readjust to the level it should be at. Thus, the Fed and other central banks have coordinated their efforts to prevent this.

First, as gold begins to rise, they release some of their own gold reserves into the market. The flood of new supply pushes down prices and allows them to continue with their operations. Of course, there is a danger. If they do this too often or too openly, people begin to see the manipulation and lose faith in the system. In recent years, as the increasing activity of the central banks has required more extensive manipulation of gold, the central banks have kept their hands clean by turning to private bullion banks. They have actually started paying these banks to lease gold and then sell it short on the market to keep the price down. Naturally, as an attempt to manipulate the currency, this is illegal for private entities — yet it is happening every day at the expense of investors.

Obviously, even the central banks do not have unlimited supplies of gold and cannot keep this up forever. The U.S. government, though, keeps its gold reserves a closely guarded secret and Fort Knox has not been audited since Eisenhower’s time. Yet, given the long waits for delivery and the high price of physical gold on eBay, we know that physical supply is short. So how do they continue to keep the price of gold futures contracts down on COMEX? They use naked short selling.

Few people ever demand delivery while trading on COMEX. Thus, it is remarkably easy to sell off more paper contracts than there is gold to back it. As long as few people demand delivery, the deception works. This, too, is criminal, but the law has not been enforced. We may see that begin to shift soon though. The manipulations have become so extensive that the difference in price between paper trading on COMEX and physical trading on eBay is becoming severe. People are beginning to notice. As early as December, we may see people demanding delivery on their COMEX contracts. When delivery cannot be met, this house of cards the Fed and other central banks have created will crash down.

So the government has fed us gilded lies while poisoning our market and actively undermining our hedge protections against inflation they created. Angry? You should be. But it will continue until we demand that it stop. Do so. First educate yourself. There is no better place to start than with the people at GATA. Then vote with both your money and your ballot. When you buy gold or silver, demand delivery. When you cast your ballot, vote against candidates who have fostered these manipulations and promised more. Vote against candidates who have benefited from the corruption through huge donations from the perpetrators. Vote against Barack Obama.

Free Trade? Obama Doesn't Get It

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends:

Several months ago, we heard Sen. Barack Obama mention that he might like to renegotiate NAFTA. This caused such a panic in Canada that his campaign called to assure them that Obama was just spouting campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken seriously. Though this is disturbing enough, the topic of free trade agreements came up again at the final debate, and it sounded like the Canadians have good reason to be concerned. Obama stated:

“I believe in free trade. But I also believe that for far too long, certainly
during the course of the Bush administration with the support of Senator McCain,
the attitude has been that any trade agreement is a good trade agreement. And
NAFTA doesn't have -- did not have enforceable labor agreements and
environmental agreements.“And what I said was we should include those and make
them enforceable. In the same way that we should enforce rules against China
manipulating its currency to make our exports more expensive and their exports
to us cheaper.“And when it comes to South Korea, we've got a trade agreement up
right now, they are sending hundreds of thousands of South Korean cars into the
United States. That's all good. We can only get 4,000 to 5,000 into South Korea.
That is not free trade. We've got to have a president who is going to be
advocating on behalf of American businesses and American workers and I make no
apology for that.”

Obama should apologize. He does not believe in free trade any more than he does in domestic capitalism. The concept of free trade requires that one reduce or eliminates tariffs and other government interference from the international market to allow producers to compete so that each nation can find its own competitive advantage and the consumers benefit across the world. It does not mean that you use trade agreements as weapons with which you bully or beat any competitive advantage out of your trading partners.

Obama is upset that our regulations and taxes have made it more expensive to produce cars here in the U.S. than in Korea. Thus, rather than reducing our own costs, he favors tariffs and additional labor regulations that will increase foreign costs and remove any advantage they may have. All this does is make things more expensive for the U.S. consumer, who then cannot afford to buy as many things, causing a net loss in our economy. Removing the tariffs does give the Koreans an advantage in cars, but our gain in lower prices is greater than our loss in jobs. Americans will focus on other industries, which we can produce better here. Over and over, we have demonstrated that free trade produces huge gains in our economy, but Obama wants to replace free trade with universal overregulation and American citizens will pay the price for it.

The Worst Is Yet To Come: Blame Congress--And Obama

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable Friends,

I hope you did not get too excited by the rise in the market yesterday. Our system is nowhere near stable, and even further from recovery. We have not even begun to address the fundamental problems that have come together in this crisis. What we have heard about is a large number of bad mortgage backed securities which created a strain on credit in the banks and spurred Congress to pass the foolish $850 billion bailout. The problem has now bled into the financial paper market, though. Without the financial paper market, and the short term loans it provides institutionally, credit in this country dries up entirely. Thus, the Fed is injecting an additional $1 trillion directly into the commercial paper market to try to keep things flowing. What you have not heard, is how terrifyingly extensive the disease actually is. Just listen to Bud Burrell’s interview to get a good idea.

We now have banks that are hugely overleveraged, often at a rate of more than 40:1 debt to assets. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae actually reached levels of almost 100:1. They also became hugely tied up with bad mortgage backed securities and other credit default swaps of derivatives, as did countless others. As we know, the consequences of this sort of behavior have been severe. However, the damage is much worse than the $850 billion bailout, or even the $1 trillion Fed remedy can handle. Over $58 trillion in derivatives liabilities has already been reported—and that covers only 10% of entities who engage in such trades. We have no idea how deep the poison really goes in the remaining 90%.

On top of this, we also have naked short selling (NSS) running through our ailing market like a fatal cancer. Short selling is where someone leases a security expecting its value to fall. He then sells the security to another. At the end of the lease, he repurchases the security, hopefully at a lesser price than it sold for originally, and returns it to the owner. NSS is similar, except that the seller sells the security before he is sure he can even lease it. As a result, people may pay for a security that cannot be delivered. This practice is illegal, but has not been enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This loathsome practice has contributed to the demise of Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, IndyMac, Lehman Brothers, and AIG. Its practitioners presume to sell stock in these companies without ever obtaining that stock. They then drive down the stock price, often without ever delivering a single stock certificate. The companies collapse -- not from any balance sheet problems -- but from these phantom trades of non-existent stock. It is even happening in commodities such as gold and precious metals, where people are selling ownership certificates without ever having the gold to back it, and the buyer is none the wiser unless he tries to claim the actual gold. As these problems converge now, they have the very real potential of utterly obliterating our economy and the value of the dollar itself.

Does it surprise you that this corruption has grown so large? It should not. Congress has done nothing but encourage it. Congress repealed of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, which allowed for the sale of mortgage backed securities and blurred the line between lenders and investors. They passed Sarbanes-Oxley in 2001, along with mark to market accounting. The hastily crafted Act required hugely expensive accounting processes that did little but drive small business out of public trading while doing nothing to curtail corruption in larger institutions. Mark to market accounting also forced assets to be valued at the last sale of similar type whether or not that sale was representative of the asset in hand, thus skewing valuation. Our government then lifted the leverage rules in 2004. Previously, banks were limited to a ratio of 12:1 debts to assets. With the lifted rules, they ballooned into 40:1 ratios or higher. Next, despite Regulation SHO prohibiting naked short selling the SEC has never enforced it, and even gone so far as to falsify reports playing down the dangers of the practice. Finally, let us not forget all the inflationary tinkering the Fed did to prevent any real adjustment in the market that could have purged these problems before they became behemoths.

The real root of the mortgage problem, though, began with the Community Reinvestment Act of the Carter administration in 1977 and amplified by Clinton in 1995. This encouraged loans to people with no money down, no assets, and no income. It also created the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which has been abused to support the activities of ACORN and its fraudulent voter registration drives. Incidentally, ACORN was also Obama’s first employer. Freddie and Fannie, operating under the goals of this Act, hid their losses through massive corruption. As they cooked the books, they funneled large donations into Congress to fend off oversight and reforms attempted by Bush in 2001 and 2003, and later by McCain in 2005. The second largest recipient of those corrupt donations was Barack Obama, and after only three years in office.

As Burrell notes, the legal system the Congress has created is one ideally designed for organized crime—not free markets. It has created a perfect economic storm that threatens to engulf the whole world. Those responsible for leading us here, especially Sen. Obama, who now presumes to lead us as president, should be held accountable for their reckless and irresponsible actions.

Getting the Government We Deserve: What The Government Should Do And Which Candidate Will Do It

By Julian Dunraven, J.D., M.P.A.

Honorable friends,

Yesterday, I was chatting about the state of our nation with a friend of mine serving as an Army Captain in Iraq. When I asked how he thought the elections would turn out, he made an ominous statement: "People generally get the government they deserve." Goodness help us if that is true. Just look at what our government is doing right now!

To perhaps no one's surprise save Congress and the Fed, the market sank still further yesterday and today. The Fed has begun to authorize up to $1 trillion to be used to help 'stabilize' the commercial paper markets and short term loans. Money Morning's Shah Gilani has a good explanation of this problem. He also has a bit to say on why the new rate cut won't be effective. Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now trying to push another $150 billion dollar 'stimulus' spending package. This bailout, she says, would be sent to help individual taxpayers. Do not expect it to stop there, though. AIG has already spent its way through almost all of its bailout money, and as we have already pointed out, the latest $850 billion bailout was nowhere near enough to cover all the bad debt sitting on the market, so we can expect another massive bailout package, this time probably including a citizen's stimulus check, sometime shortly after the elections. Much as the Speaker, Congress, and the President seem to think this is helpful, though, nothing could be further from the truth.

After my last few posts deriding the bailout, I received several letters asking what I thought the government should be doing to help. After all, these problems are severe and the collapse of the commercial paper market sounds especially dangerous. Isn't it good that the government is propping it up as a last resort? No, and it won't work. As I have stated before, this massive spending, none of which we actually have, just drives up inflation and devalues the dollar. It also massively increases our debt. That debt is already so large, though, that it is becoming clear that the only way we can pay it off may be to inflate it away. That reality is weighing heavily on our lenders, and they are far less willing to lend to us at all. Of course, that means inflation (money printing) is the only alternative we have to pay for these expenditures.

We are already dangerously close to collapsing the value of the dollar through inflation. Lower interest rates much more and that is exactly what will happen. Raise interest rates, though, and we will cripple the financial markets as the costs of doing business climb. Yet, we have to do one of the two in order to continue making these bailouts and propping up failed institutions. Of course, that also continues to lock up our capital in poisonous systems. By pouring money into these institutions, we prolong their existence and prevent their assets from being sold off, allowing them, over time, to slowly try to remove the poisonous assets (derivatives and other bad mortgage backed securities) from their books. Naturally, that means we often have to wait years, and continue to spend trillions, to facilitate that unnatural process. We then have to spend more years recovering from the inflationary damage we have done. There is an alternative though.

The government could do nothing at all. Faced with the unpleasant choice above, the government could simply stand back and let the market play out. Would there be widespread financial hardship as the market contracted? Absolutely. The failing entities would be torn apart, their good assets would be sold off to other, more stable and better run institutions while their bad assets were purged from the market. I stated in a prior post that money would be pulled back into savings and increase domestic capital. After some initial shocks and job losses, the market would readjust and begin to function far more healthily than it was before such a jolt. Best of all, this process could take as little as a few months. Thus, our economic recession could actually be reduced in duration and severity simply by doing nothing at all. The process of these recession and depression cycles, and what we can learn from them, are analyzed in depth by Murray N. Rothbard at the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Austrian School (free market) economics. Having seen how government actions actually worsened the crises in the Great Depression and other times of financial hardship, one would think Congress might start heeding the warnings of the Austrian School Economists. So far, though, they do not seem to be paying attention.

Our presidential candidates are not much better. However, there is some hope with McCain. According to Austrian School economics, if government wants to do anything at these tough times, it should work to reduce inflation, cut spending, and lower taxes to increase economic incentives for investment. McCain's proposals match those recommendations fairly well. He has called for a freeze on all unessential government spending. Though it is unlikely he will be able to classify much as 'unessential,' any success he has will be helpful. He has also called for an end to earmark spending, and would lower taxes across the board. This would also be helpful.

Obama's plans stand in stark contrast. He has called for spending for several new or expanded social programs, not one of which he has been willing to cut or drop. He voted against a bill prohibiting earmark spending during this last term in the senate. As for his tax plan, while he would lower taxes for most individuals, his hugely increased taxes (50%) on any business taking in over $250,000 per year in revenue (not profit) would be extraordinarily harmful to the economy as it would include more than 70% of all business. Compare the plans yourself at the Tax Policy Center.

Despite problems on both sides that leave me with little faith that either candidate would do much to actually help the economy, it is fairly clear to see which candidate would do the most damage to it. Barack Obama's commitment to increased spending and higher taxes, not to mention his dangerous rhetoric attacking free trade, makes him an economic nightmare for the United States. John McCain, on the other hand, by cutting spending and lowering taxes, may succeed in sparing us from a prolonged depression.

I know there are many who disagree, who would like to believe in Barack Obama's fine rhetoric and who feel that he is as inspiring as my recommendations are austere and dismal. I was told just yesterday that for the government to do nothing would be heartless, and that the people need to feel that their government is involved to protect them. Thus, to conclude, I quote Ayn Rand once more on the dangers of ignoring economic reality for what feels good:

"[W]hen we'll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart won't be of any earthly use to save them. And I'm heartless enough to say that when you'll scream, 'but I didn't know it!' - you will not be forgiven." Atlas Shrugged (New York: Signet, 1985), 385.

As my friend said, "People generally get the government they deserve."