America In Decline--More Evidence

We have written several postings to Conservative Musings regarding the decline we see in this country. It is getting worse and in the following post by Bob Livingston, he details incidents which show us as a country losing our way.  Where will it end and when, it still unclear, however, as President Obama stokes the fires of class envy, the anti-gunners try to remove guns from society and morals decline faster than a roller coaster, we believe the time is sooner rather than later.  Could it occur within the next five years, possibly? It definitely will in 20.

The US has seen its best days and our time as a leader of the free world is fading fast. We must repent from our evil ways and find our spiritual center otherwise, all will be lost. Take another look at our posting on December 19--"America's Decline Defined" http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4248793610847150213#editor/target=post;postID=7154073757341897643;onPublishedMenu=template;onClosedMenu=template;postNum=10;src=postname  . We think that you will find it speaks to our feelings about this country and the reasons for the decline.

For most of our life, we have been positive about the country and its possibilities, however, we have lost that energy, that emotion as we see life getting worse with each passing day. It may seem like the good 'ole USA, but it is not.

Conservative Tom

More Evidence Of Impending Societal Collapse

December 26, 2012 by Bob Livingston 

PHOTOS.COM

Manners, common decency and respect for others are lost American traits.

Interactions turn nasty at the drop of a hat. Name-calling and the violence now pass for discussion. Young children are resorting to theft.

I recently wrote about some of the signs of societal collapse here. Here are some more, taken from recent headlines:

A Pennsylvania man became irate after the replacement hamburger he requested contained a slice of cheese. The replacement was necessary because the first one he ordered at the drive-thru also contained a slice of cheese. He parked his car, entered the restaurant and demanded and received a refund. He then cursed the staff, knocked over a trash can and threw a children’s high chair across a room filled with diners. When he realized that a restaurant worker had followed him outside to get his license plate number, the man grabbed the female worker, put her in a headlock and smashed the phone she was carrying. He then threatened to fight another employee before leaving.

A 65-year-old priest waiting on a bus was attacked with pepper spray and robbed of $125 at a bus stop in Philadelphia in broad daylight.

A college student riding a Chicago Transit Authority train was attacked by a man who put asock filled with feces in her face and hair and on her clothes. The victim said she did not know the attacker and he uttered no words and did not demand her valuables. “I don’t know why he did it,” she said.

A diner at a Denny’s restaurant in San Antonia, Texas, became irate at being made to wait on his bill, so he set fire to the restaurant’s Christmas tree and left the restaurant. The flames caused $150,000 in damage to the business.

An 8-year-old girl was caught on a surveillance camera stealing a package off her neighbor’s porch in Clermont, Fla. Police investigating a spate of missing packages from the neighborhood believe the girl is responsible for all or most of them. Some of the stolen packages were found at a nearby abandoned house.

In Wentzville, Mo., barbershop patrons were discussing the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. One patron said the incident “makes me want to murder the suspect.” For unknown reasons, another patron took that as a threat against him. He retrieved a gun from his car and fired three times at the other patron.

In South Union Township, Pa., two women tussled over a shopping cart at the Wal-Mart Supercenter. When one of the women abandoned the cart and grabbed another, the other woman “still engraged” then “ran down” the first woman with the cart, pushed it onto her back and began punching her in the face.

On a single afternoon in Chicago, a city in the State with the Nation’s most restrictive gun laws, a series of eight shootings left at least 10 people wounded, including four teenagers.

We live in a Nation in which God has been removed from schools, prayers are banned from public places and babies are slaughtered by the thousands on a daily basis. Unemployment remains high and inflation is sapping the wealth of the elderly and savers. Politicians squabble over whether they are going to screw us out of a lot of money or a lot more while ginning up class envy and promoting hatred of one group over another simply on the basis of wealth.

We have become an entertainment-centric, me-first society that has gone from slouching toward Gomorrah to a full-on sprint. We are on the brink of societal collapse.

The President's Gun Control Plan

President Obama would like to do away with all guns and we believe that he will take the administrative route to that goal. He has shown that his interests are not with the rule of law or allowing Congress to create law. He wants to do what he feels is right and does not want to take the time to have the legislative process work. It is just too messy.

He could not pass the Dream Act so he did it administratively by issuing a Presidential finding. He will do the same with guns.  For those of you who think that he will ban guns, you would be wrong. An outright ban on guns would not stand Supreme Court scrutiny. His way will be more sneaky. He will call the FBI and order them to increase the fee for gun background checks to around $10,000.  Would you buy a gun if you had to pay that type of fee? For most, the answer would be no.

This action will stop all legal gun sales and shut down those dreaded gun shows. It will also kill the gun sale and manufacturing business in the US. The anti-gunners will view this as a success. It will not stop the illegal gun sales but heck, that only effects criminals and everyone knows they NEVER use guns!

With sales and manufacturing eliminated, the next step will be to force all gun owners to give up their guns. Again this will be done administratively. Through the FBI and the state and local gun registration systems, each gun owner will be assessed an fee for maintaining the system and documenting changes in "ownership." It will be sold as a "identification system" to quickly identify who is the actual owner of the gun.  The fee will be something like $500 per gun per year. Who would pay the fee for a gun that cost them $800?

Gun owners will be notified that if they do not pay the fee, local police will be notified and they will come and confiscate the weapon(s).  Those who do not want to pay the fee can simply turn in their weapon to the local police. (Who will sell it to gang bangers!!)

We expect that law abiding Americans will line up to turn in their weapons without a whimper! It would not violate the Constitution as it is a fee and if they pay the fee they can keep their guns.

This is what we can expect in the next couple months from the "dictator."  We hope you are ready to defend your home with a pitchfork, if it is not also taken from you!

Conservative Tom

No Time To Disarm America

December 18, 2012 by Sam Rolley 

UPI

In the wake of the terrible tragedy that occurred last week at a Connecticut elementary school, the opinions have begun following in from both sides of the gun control debate. The debate is sure to become increasingly fallacious and nasty in coming months as people on both sides make ridiculous claims to support their case.

President Barack Obama spoke over the weekend at a memorial service for the 26 victims of Adam Lanza’s horrifying shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School. His speech, some people (gun-control advocates, no doubt) gushed, was akin to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Here is part of the President’s speech:

We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law—no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that—then surely we have an obligation to try.

In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens—from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators—in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

The President is prepared to “use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens” to prevent further tragedies like what occurred in Connecticut. Because, he asserted, Americans must protect the children.

The President’s words are strong, and combined with his past positions there is little doubt that his plan involves launching anything less than a full on assault on Americans’ right to own semi-automatic weapons.

In a USA Today column last week, Glenn Reynolds channeled famed author and renowned gun activist William S. Burroughs in describing what the government’s most likely course of action will be:

“After a shooting spree,” author William Burroughs once said, “they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.” Burroughs continued: “I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”

Many Americans disagree with Burroughs’ opinion and are pushing for police and military personnel to be society’s sole armed protectors. And in gun-free zones, such as schools and many State and Federal properties, they are.

Those places have also become magnets for crazed gunmen. The cowardly mind-set of a man willing to kill at random — despite the anti-hero persona mainstream media seek to affix to these individuals — doesn’t lend itself well to ballsy attacks on rooms filled with armed men. Instead, they seek out the weakest or most unassuming targets imaginable: moviegoers in a darkened theater, attendees at a political rally, mall shoppers or schoolchildren.

And no matter what utopia the American left believes we inhabit, laws banning (and the all-out confiscation of) even every firearm manufactured will not stop the killing. Those capable of murder believe themselves to be far superior to any laws of man.

Perhaps a better option would involve a lessening of gun laws and an American realization that it is not up to the police, but to the citizen to ensure his own safety.

Speculation is reckless, but it is very tempting to fantasize about how Friday morning may have turned out differently if the school had been full of armed and trained teachers with easy access to firearms.

“Guns in schools, the horror,” liberal Americans might say. They may even venture to believe that frustrated armed teachers could be dangerous to students, though that seems very unlikely given the stories of teacher heroism coming from Connecticut where those educators likely wished they had tools at their disposal to better protect themselves and their students.

In 2008, the isolated Harrold Independent School District in Texas made an addition to its $100,000 state-of-the-art security system because administrators feared an armed intruder could do much damage in the 20 minutes it could take police to arrive. Feeling students and staff would be safer if on-site, trained staff members were equipped to handle a crisis at a moment’s notice, they decided to allow teachers to train and carry firearms to school.

In the years since, no gun has been brandished and no student hurt by an armed teacher. In fact, reports indicate that the students really didn’t have much at all to say about the policy. But the school district’s superintendent David Thweatt made a good point in 2009, a year after the policy went into place.

“We’re the first responders. We have to be,” Thweatt said. “We don’t have 5 minutes. We don’t have 10 minutes. We would have had 20 minutes of hell” if attackers had targeted the school.

Despite the President’s opinions, it is no time for gun rights activists to back off on the fight to keep and bear all legal firearms. We are all our own first responders and the protectors of those in our care who cannot defend themselves.

What Might Obama's Second Term Be Like?

In the following post, Walter Shapiro answers the question that most conservatives have been asking, will he tell us what his agenda is?  All we heard was his criticism of Romney'slack of details on his plan.  Kinda sounds like the "pot calling the kettle black!"

What will his agenda be and will we be privileged to know it before it is instituted?  Our answers are that we won't know what his plans are because we would not approve and would scream bloody h--l. We suspect that anything that Obama would pursue will be contrary to everything we hold dear. Trying to guess what he might do is very dangerous because he is dangerous.  Our only hope is that we do not have to experience it.

If we have to write that column, we will do it after the election is decided which could be weeks if it is going to be as close as some experts believe. In the meantime, if you have any ideas, please let us know here at Conservative Musings.  

Conservative Tom

If Obama wins, will he finally tell us his second-term agenda?

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Walter Shapiro's Yahoo! News column examines what we know about the character and personalities of the 2012 candidates. Shapiro, who is covering his ninth presidential campaign, is also a special correspondent for the New Republic.

By Walter Shapiro

LIMA, Ohio—Speaking at a rally here last Friday afternoon, Barack Obama stressed his old-shoe familiarity: “After four years as president, you know me.” That’s a standard stump speech line, but the more than 3,000 Democrats in local high-school gym burst into cheers, brimming with confidence that they knew the Real Obama.

But does anyone outside his family and the inner sanctum of the White House staff really know Obama—or have a clear handle on what he would do with a second term? This question is not designed to feed any off-the-wall conspiracy theories about a secret second-term agenda. Rather, it’s designed to underscore the perception that Obama remains more opaque than most presidents.

During his speech in this blue-collar pocket of Ohio, the shirt-sleeved Obama waxed populist as he decried the way that the voices of the American people have “been shut out of our democracy for way too long by the lobbyists and the special interests.”

Referring to this us-versus-them rhetoric after the speech, a reporter friend, traveling with the president’s press corps, said, “That’s the real Obama.” But was it? Or was this just a president in a tight race harking back to the citizens-versus-lobbyists language that propelled him into the White House?

In his speeches, including the one in Lima, Obama talks about his second-term vision as he says, “I want to recruit 100,000 math and science teachers. I want to train two-million Americans at our community colleges.” Obama echoes this theme in a 60-second closing argument commercial heavily broadcast on Ohio television. In the ad, Obama implies that the money could come “from ending the war in Afghanistan so we can do some nation-building here at home.”

But there’s a major roadblock: The odds are very high that the Republicans will retain control of the House, even if Obama is reelected.

If that occurs, the Tea Party naysayers of 2010 almost certainly would feel emboldened by their personal electoral successes—and become even more obstinate in their resistance to new domestic spending. With the “fiscal cliff” end-of-the-year budget negotiations looming, a reelected President Obama will be hard-pressed to maintain even the current levels of educational spending let alone create new programs.

It’s politically telling that the president never mentions health care in his final TV ad and only flicked at the topic in his stump speech in Lima. But with the Democrats likely to hold the Senate, the reelection of Obama would all but guarantee that his signature domestic achievement will be fully implemented. As a result, tens of millions of Americans would never have to agonize about health insurance coverage again.

Reelected presidents, stymied by Congress, often turn their full attention to foreign affairs. While this single-mindedness can lead to unexpected breakthroughs (Richard Nixon and China), often it ends in the kind of frustration that Bill Clinton experienced over his failure to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement at Camp David in the waning days of his presidency.

The most likely flashpoint for the next president (whether Obama or Mitt Romney) is, of course,Iran. All occupants of the Oval Office and all who aspire to that job have unequivocally declared that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable.

But what would that mean, in practice, in an Obama second term? Any temptation to categorize the president as a peacenik has to be squared against Obama’s enormous expansion of drone attacks against suspected terrorists. Even without a hawkish, even by Israeli standards, government in Jerusalem, the precise American response to a nuclear Iran would be hard for foreign-policy experts to game out in advance. For ordinary voters to do so at the frenzied end of a presidential campaign is well nigh impossible.

Maybe it’s unrealistic to expect a president running for reelection to be overly specific about his plans for a second term. Bill Clinton campaigned in 1996 on little more than the vague promise to build “a bridge to the 21st century.” And George W. Bush gave voters—and his fellow Republicans in Congress—little warning in 2004 that he intended to attempt to privatize Social Security in 2005.

Still, if Obama prevails on Tuesday (or survives a long count that stretches into Wednesday and beyond), I would be eager to read what he says in his post-election interviews. After a stealth reelection campaign, that might be the moment when we finally learn if Obama has fresh ideas for curbing the reign of special interest in Washington. Or how the soon-to-be two-term president intends to bridge the inevitably bitter stalemate in Congress.

In the end, it comes down to the elusive qualities of trust and character. Americans have had four years to make their own judgment about President Barack Obama. So, in fact, maybe we do know him as well as we ever will. Not as a friend or (in that awful cliché) a guy to have a beer with. But as a leader, who has sometimes stumbled but has mostly prevailed during four of the most arduous economic years in American history.

New Women's Video

If you compare the following posted videos to the "first-time" one that the President has inflicted upon us, we believe that you will find a significant difference.  Which video do you prefer? Which one will make more sense to women? Or men? Which one will work to elect it's candidate?

Let us know at Conservative Musings http://political-conservatives.blogspot.com

Conservative Tom

NEWS RELEASE: IWV's “Boyfriend” Series Part Of Largest Single All-Digital Advocacy Ad Buy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, October 29th, 2012 CONTACT: Victoria Coley info@iwvoice.org (Washington, DC) — Today, Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) releases two new ads in their “Boyfriend” series – “Feeling Guilty” and “Mr. Dependable” – as part of an unprecedented, multi-state, multi-million dollar online-targeted advertising buy to educate women about public officials and policies. IWV is one of several partners in the broad issue education campaign. At $7.4 million, it is the largest single all-digital advocacy online video buy in history, led by Let Freedom Ring (LFR). The campaign, which began this spring, was validated as highly effective by various focus groups, polls and online tests during the summer and therefore was slated for this massive online distribution effort. Geo-targeting to registered voting independents, the ad buy will run through Election Day in five battleground states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The ads tell a tale familiar to millions of American women. Women, who four years ago were overwhelmingly supportive of Obama, have come to feel disconnected from and let down by the President. His promises for new policies and a better direction have not matched the reality. It has now gotten to the point where women don’t feel obliged to defend his policies. In turn, women are chalking up their relationship with the President as an experience to learn from and a mistake they will not repeat. Women voters are ready to move on to someone who is more dependable. Independent Women’s Voice is a 501 (c) (4) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for mainstream women, men and families. IWV is an affiliate organization of the Independent Women’s Forum.

When Will The IRS Knock On Your Door?

Is Obama using his power as President to punish those who disagree with him politically?  That is the argument that Wayne Allyn Root expresses in the following post. If true, impeachment, conviction and resignation should follow.

It does seem ironic that friends, other conservatives, his accountant, and others are being targeted by the IRS. Has the country lost this much direction that we can expect a knock on our door by government agents if we write (or maybe even read) material unflattering to the President or his minions.   Have we gone away so far from the Constitution that it means nothing now?  Are our freedoms a distant memory?

We sure do hope not, however...

Conservative Tom

I Am On Obama’s Enemies List

October 25, 2012 by Wayne Allyn Root 

Hello. I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. Before I even begin my video commentary today, I’d like to read you a major part of the Articles of Impeachment that Congress leveled at President Richard Nixon:

He (Nixon) has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

My commentary this week is a personal story. It’s as personal as you can get. You see, I am on Barack Obama’s enemies list. I believe Obama is employing the same tactics as President Nixon. If so, he should meet the same fate: Congress should investigate and, if proven true, impeach Barack Obama for violating the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

Here’s my personal story. I’ve gone through an almost two-year ordeal with the IRS which, I believe, was triggered by my vocal criticism of the Obama Administration. Americans need to hear this story of a small-business owner — not a billionaire — with an unblemished tax record for 30 years suddenly facing this kind of harassment, persecution and intimidation.

If a President of the United States can go after me personally because he doesn’t like my political beliefs, then no one is safe. Today, it’s me; tomorrow it could be you. It doesn’t matter if the President is Republican or Democrat. This cannot be allowed to happen to anyone, regardless of his party or his beliefs.

But it is happening. I’ve done my own personal investigation, and I’ve found a pattern of abuse. This is happening all across America. Our Commander in Chief is a bully. Just like in the old Soviet Union, he’s using the power of the IRS and other government agencies to punish his political opposition and to try to intimidate and silence his critics.

It’s time for Congress to get involved. It’s time for Congressional hearings to determine if this is a widespread pattern of abuse. If this is a pattern of Obama using government to destroy his opposition, to destroy people’s lives, whether it is billionaires or small-business owners like me, Obama and his henchmen must be held accountable. The government of the United States has no right to persecute its citizens for political purposes.

This all started in 2008 when I became the Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee and was campaigning across America. I informed audiences that I was Obama’s college classmate, class of ’83 at Columbia University. I told audiences what I thought Obama’s goal would be as President. I predicted he’d follow the strategy taught by two former Columbia professors, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.

I predicted that Obama would promote policies that would damage the economy and bankrupt the business community, so as to cause doubts about capitalism — to shake our faith in the current system. I predicted that he’d accomplish all that by overwhelming the system with spending, addicting a record number of Americans to entitlements, exploding the debt, demonizing business owners and then trying to convince the masses to redistribute wealth (with massive tax increases). 

Sound familiar? It’s all happened exactly according to plan. My prediction was on the money (excuse the pun).

Over the past four years, my opinions critical of the Obama Administration appeared in newspapers across the country and many of the Internet’s most popular conservative websites (like Personal Liberty and FOX News), reaching tens of millions of Americans. I made frequent television appearances on networks like Fox News and CNBC and thousands of appearances on talk radio — always criticizing Obama and his anti-business, anti-capitalist policies.

Obviously, this caught the attention of Obama and his socialist cabal that was hell-bent on destroying capitalism — and anyone who got in the way. Obviously, Obama’s dirty tricks Chicago hit squad decided to intimidate and distract me, in the form of an unsettling call from the IRS.

In January of 2011, an IRS agent called my home and left a message. Without waiting for a response, he immediately called my accountant. We were both shocked at how eager and excited he sounded to get started. My accountant told the IRS agent that he had my “power of attorney” and he was to speak only with the accountant from this point forward.

Guess what this overzealous IRS agent did next? He immediately called me again.

My accountant remarked that in 30 years of dealing with IRS audits, he’d never heard of an IRS agent starting an investigation with a phone call to the taxpayer, then the taxpayer’s accountant and then the taxpayer again. The IRS always sends a letter asking the taxpayer to call them. That was the tipoff something was out of the ordinary. My conversation with the IRS agent seemed odd as well.

The agent let me know that he understood that my accountant had the power of attorney and he was not allowed to speak to me. But he said he just wanted to speak with me once because he was “my biggest fan.” He just had to tell me that he read all of my political columns and often listened to me on the radio. Then, he said he supported my politics and agreed with most everything I said. He said that he personally requested to be my auditor and it was a great “honor” to be auditing me.

I hung up the phone and felt a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. This was an unsettling conversation. It was clear to me that the IRS agent was trying to imitate “Columbo” (the detective from the 1970’s hit TV show). He was playing a game, trying to win my confidence, let my guard down, to hide a more sinister motive. I immediately thought to myself, “This agent is telling a story to try to throw me off the scent of what’s really happening — an attempt to persecute and intimidate a critic of President Obama, ordered by the Obama administration.”

Soon, my gut instinct was verified. My accountant called to say he’d had several conversations with the IRS agent and something seemed very different from any IRS audit he’d ever handled. This agent clearly had an agenda. He was unreasonable. He disregarded facts. He simply disallowed virtually all of my legal deductions. There was even a debate over my mortgage deduction. Soon, he was auditing a second year. It got worse with each conversation.

My accountant called and said, “Wayne, it is so clear that this IRS agent is out to badly damage you. You must hire a top tax lawyer. This is like nothing I’ve ever dealt with. This is not an ordinary IRS audit. You need legal representation right now.”

Please keep in mind, I’m no billionaire or big shot politician. I’m a small-business owner, home-schooling dad and citizen politician. With my many businesses and careers all struggling in this Obama economy, I was now facing a massive IRS attack, an unaffordable tax bill and huge legal fees to fight it.

Soon thereafter I found out that my accountant of 25 years — one of the finest, nicest, men I’ve ever met in my life — had also just received an IRS audit notice for himself only weeks after mine. Coincidence?

I got the message: This was an attack based on my political views. I researched tax attorneys and found the best one in the country. He agreed to handle my case. He looked over my tax records and assured me that he felt the IRS agent was 100 percent incorrect in his belief that any taxes were due. My attorney was also concerned that a review of the audit revealed a highly and unusually aggressive IRS position.

As such, my attorney immediately changed venue to Los Angeles (where he is based) and appealed the case to U.S. Tax Court in California. After almost 18 months of sleepless nights, lawyer bills I could not afford, accounting bills I could not afford, damage to my marriage and who knows how many years of my life reduced by stress, this past July we won a full and complete victory. Not a dime was owed. All of the IRS agent’s unreasonable and overzealous assertions were thrown out. Case closed. 100 percent vindication. Complete victory.

Except the story isn’t over. It gets far worse. I had five days to celebrate. Five days to feel like my life was mine again, with no cloud hanging over me. Five days to hug my wife, with both of us exhaling and repeating out loud: “No more IRS. No more cloud over our heads. No more legal fees!”

And then the unimaginable happened. My tax attorney called to say: “Are you sitting down? I have bad news. I don’t know what to say, but the IRS just contacted me. You’re being audited again.” 

We had just won a complete victory for the years 2007 and 2008 five days before. And now I was being audited again (for the 2009 and 2010 tax years) five days later. In all his many years of practicing tax law, my tax attorney has never heard of such a situation. Ever.

And the new IRS agent treated my attorney the same way: with disdain. He disallowed every legal deduction. It was the same treatment all over again.

Here’s some important personal history you need to know. I have a perfect tax history. Not a single blemish. Thirty years of filing taxes without a problem. I was chosen at random for two audits in my life and came out of both owing nothing — not one dollar. I’ve never been late with a tax bill in my life. I’ve never owed money on a payment plan to the IRS. Nothing. I’m a model citizen and taxpayer.

The odds of this being some random occurrence are zero. People with perfect tax records for 30 years don’t suddenly become an IRS tax target. And certainly not after winning a complete 100 percent victory in U.S. Tax Court only five days before. There is no such thing ever.

And I’m not a billionaire. I’m not wealthy at all. There’s nothing big to go after. This is not just a witch hunt, but a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. Why would the IRS be persecuting a small-business owner (twice) who happens to be a vocal critic of President Obama?

There’s the answer. The answer is my media megaphone.

That’s why this story is so chilling. If this is allowed to stand, then anyone who has an opinion that government or a politician doesn’t like is at risk of being persecuted, harassed, intimidated and ruined. Free speech is at risk. Today, it’s me; tomorrow it could be you — even if you’re just a small-business owner.

Remember the famous lesson of the Holocaust?

“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

I’m one of several who have come forward to call attention to this dangerous pattern of political persecution going on under Obama, but I’m betting that this is happening all across America to Republican and conservative critics and donors.

We know from media reports that virtually every Tea Party in the country is under IRS attack — not just simple harassment. The IRS is asking frightening questions, such as demanding the names of all members, donors and even speakers at Tea Party events. Are all of these critics of Obama being targeted for IRS persecution because of their ideological beliefs? And what are they doing with the names of Tea Party speakers? Let me give you two guesses: attacking them with IRS audits or attacking them with IRS audits?

We know Sheldon Adelson, the biggest GOP donor in America, is suddenly under Justice Department investigation. Coincidence? He calls it a “smear campaign” orchestrated by the Obama Administration.

Steve Wynn is another outspoken critic of Obama and a major GOP donor. He has been quoted as calling Obama the most anti-business President of his lifetime. Wynn says every business owner he knows is frightened by Obama. Days ago, it was disclosed in the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Wynn, too, is under Federal investigation. Coincidence? 

I’m sure the lawyers of billionaire CEOs like Adelson and Wynn have told their clients to no longer criticize Obama publicly. This is how Obama plays the game — like the Mafia. He learned it from politicians in Chicago. This is how you silence your critics.

I have had numerous conversations with high-profile friends who contribute to the GOP or are GOP bundlers, and they are also being audited by the IRS. One of my neighbors is a big GOP fundraiser and bundler, and he’s being attacked by the IRS. Several friends of mine know wealthy donors who received an IRS audit notice only weeks after making major contributions to Romney. One such donor has even gone public. His name is Frank VanderSloot. Just a few weeks after giving $1 million to Romney, he came under attack from both the IRS and the Labor Department. Coincidence?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell even recently accused Obama of using “Nixonian” tactics to target and silence Republican donors.

How many more victims of this Obama witch hunt are out there? I’m betting after my story comes out, thousands of GOP politicians, donors, Obama critics and conservative talk hosts come out of the woodwork to say that they, too, are under IRS attack. This is no coincidence. This can’t be an isolated incident. This is a pattern of abuse. It’s happening right now, right here in America under Obama.

It’s time for all of us to speak up now, before Obama is re-elected and we lose the right to speak out. Free speech and political expression are endangered in Obama’s second term. It is time for Congressional investigations. It is also time for Congress to pass a law that no Administration has the right to order the IRS to attack critics. It is time to reign in our government. It is time to demand an end to government witch hunts ordered by powerful politicians. It is time to shine the light of day on government attempts to intimidate and silence political opponents.

When President Nixon was found to be playing dirty tricks and targeting political opponents, the media screamed loudly about oppression, persecution and political intimidation and cried out for criminal investigations. Where is the media this time? It is time for the media to get outraged and demand Obama be held accountable, just as they did with Nixon.

Let me state this clearly. The IRS isn’t the problem. The IRS is filled with mostly good people, trying to do their jobs. They are just like you and me. But when they get a call from high above, from the office of the President of the United States or a close friend of the President, then they are fearful for their jobs. My outrage is toward President Obama and his henchmen. This is so wrong on so many levels.

But the bad news for Obama and his political mobsters is that they picked on the wrong guy. Not only have I never had a problem with the IRS in my life, I’m willing to do everything in my power to call out this political attack for what it really is. It is time for you to join me in asking questions about the harassment being aimed at critics of the Obama White House. It’s time for Congressional investigations.

I am on Obama’s enemies list. Next, it could be any one of us. It could be you. This cannot be allowed to go on in the United States of America.

I’m Wayne Allyn Root for Personal Liberty. I pray that none of you ever have to go through what I’ve been through for the past 22 months. No matter what your political party. No matter what your beliefs. Not in America. This cannot stand.

See you next week. Same time, same place. God Bless.

Is Obama About To Go Wacko

We have always enjoyed reading Mychal Massie and his latest posting is great.  Here is an African-American who is not restricted by political correctness to analyze what really is occurring with our President. Could he be right that the current occupant of the White House is about reading to implode? Time will tell but we think that his latest edicts (instituting the Dream act and stonewalling Congress on Fast and Furious) have shown that he is not interested in working with the other branches.


Conservative Tom

When will Obama crack in public?

By Mychal Massie

At a time when many Americans can barely afford Burger King and a movie, Obama boasts of spending a billion dollars on his re-election campaign. Questioned at a recent appearance about the spiraling fuel costs, Obama said, "Get used to it" – and with an insouciant grin and chortle, he told another person at the event, who complained about the effect high fuel prices were having on his family, to "get a more fuel-efficient car."

The Obamas behave as if they were sharecroppers living in a trailer and hit the Powerball, but instead of getting new tires for their trailer and a new pickup truck, they moved to Washington . And instead of making possum pie, with goats and chickens in the front yard, they're spending and living large at taxpayer expense – opulent vacations, gala balls, resplendent dinners and exclusive command performances at the White House, grand date nights, golf, basketball, more golf, exclusive resorts and still more golf. In the 1950's they called it acting NIGGER RICH.

Expensive, ill-fitting and ill-chosen wigs and fashions hardly befit the first lady of the United States . The Obamas have behaved in every way but presidential – which is why it's so offensive when we hear Obama say, in order "to restore fiscal responsibility, we all need to share in the sacrifice – but we don't have to sacrifice the America we believe in."

The American people have been sacrificing; it is he and his family who are behaving as if they've never had two nickels to rub together – and now, having hit the mother lode, they're going to spend away their feelings of inadequacy at the taxpayers' expense.

Obama continues to exhibit behavior that, at best, can be described as mobocratic and, at worst, reveals a deeply damaged individual. In a February 2010 column, I asked, "Is Obama unraveling? "I wrote that it was beginning to appear the growing mistrust of him and contempt for his policies was beginning to have a destabilizing effect on him.

At that time, I wrote that not having things go one's way can be a bitter pill, but reasonable people don't behave as he was behaving. He had insulted Republicans at their luncheon, where he had been an invited guest. I had speculated that was, in part, what had led him to falsely accuse Supreme Court justices before Congress, the nation and the world, during the 2010 State of the Union address.

It appeared, at that time, as if he were "fraying around the emotional edges." That behavior has not abated – it has become more pronounced. While addressing the nation, after being forced to explain the validity of his unilateral aggression with Libya , America witnessed a petulant individual scowling and scolding the public for daring to insist he explain his actions.

But during an afternoon speech to address the budget/debt, he took his scornful, unstable despotic behavior to depths that should give the nation cause for concern. Displaying a dark psychopathy more representative of an episode of "The Tudors" television series, he invited Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to sit in the front row during his speech and then proceeded to berate both Ryan and Ryan's budget-cutting plan. Even liberal Democrats were put off by the act. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough questioned the sanity of Obama's actions.

Today, criticism is coming from all sides. A senior Democrat lawmaker said, "I have been very disappointed in [Obama], to the point where I'm embarrassed that I endorsed him. It's so bad that some of us are thinking, is there some way we can replace him? How do you get rid of this guy?" ("Democrats' Disgust with Obama," The Daily Beast, April 15, 2011).

Steve McCann wrote: Obama's speech "was chock full of lies, deceit and crass fear-mongering. It must be said that [he] is the most dishonest, deceitful and mendacious person in a position of power I have ever witnessed" ("The Mendacity of Barack Obama,"AmericanThinker.com , April 15, 2011).

McCann continued: "[His] performance was the culmination of four years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call [him] what he is in the bluntest of terms: a liar and a fraud. That he relies on his skin color to intimidate, either outright or by insinuation [against] those who oppose his radical agenda only add to his audacity. It is apparent that he has gotten away with his character flaws his entire life, aided and abetted by sycophants around him..."

With these being among the kinder rebukes being directed at Obama, and with people becoming less intimidated by his willingness to use race as a bludgeon, with falling poll numbers in every meaningful category and an increasingly aggressive tea-party opposition – how much longer before he cracks completely?

The coming months of political life are not going to be pleasant for Obama. Possessed by a self-perceived palatine mindset, that in his mind places him above criticism, how long before he cracks in public? Can America risk a man with a documented track record of lying and misrepresenting truth as a basic way of life, who is becoming increasingly more contumelious?

More Bad News For Obama

Retail sales dropped by .2 percent in both April and May. This is not good news. It reflects the idea that the economy is NOT booming and contrary to what the President said "the private sector is doing good."  You can put lipstick on a pig, but it still is a pig. All the dressing up by the White House will not make things any different. This economy is a disaster and no one in Washington or on Wall Street knows what to do.

Every day we see the market either go down on news and then rebound 24 hours later on  stories which were exactly the opposite of the previous days news. This is ridiculous. Either the market is being fixed or Wall Street is manic.  We believe it is both.

As we saw in the Facebook IPO, small investors were not given the information that large wire houses gave their "A" clients.  Small guy gets stripped of his money while the big boys win. That is wrong. Although the market is supposed to be a level playing field, this example shows it is not and anyone playing the game, has to understand that. Unfortunately, most do not. The market is fixed against the small investor, period.

As far as being manic, there is way too much volatility in the market. It suggests to us that day traders and computers are in charge.  Bad news in Greece one day drops the market and the next day it turns around because the news is that Greece has solved its problems. No country can solve its problems overnight which suggests other things are occurring. We would suggest that when the bad stuff comes out, computers and traders dump stock only to turn around the next day and buy at a lower price.  It is just one manipulated market that has no sense of reality.

Agree? Disagree? We love to hear your arguments.

Conservative Tom

RETAIL SALES FALL AGAIN IN MAY

By: John Hayward 
6/13/2012 10:32 AM

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A new snapshot of economic collapse: The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatchreports “U.S. retail sales fell in May for the second month in a row - the first time that’s happened in two years - as consumers spent less to fill up their gas tanks.”

This led to a 0.2 percent seasonally-adjusted decline in retail sales for May, while April was also revised downward to a 0.2 percent loss, instead of the initially reported 0.1 percent gain.  It’s funny how everything seems to get revised downward these days.

If gas prices are taken out of the picture, May saw the same kind of weak 0.1 percent increase that was first reported for April… at least, it will until the inevitable “downward revision” hits next month.  Much of this was driven by “strong demand at auto dealers and Internet retailers,” according to MarketWatch.  The automobile increase is a bit puzzling, because unit sales actually slid significantly in May.  This would, taken at face value, suggest that auto dealers are selling fewer cars for higher prices.

Poring over the data, MarketWatch detects “a potentially worrisome sign,” which is the loss of sales at “virtually all of the establishments that tend to rely on discretionary income — extra money consumers have left over after paying for bills and necessities.”  This fits with recent reports of declining family net worth, and the dramatic loss of full-time jobs, to be replaced by part-time and temporary work.

These figures illuminate the complex relationship between energy prices, inflation, and consumer demand – a delicate system resolutely ignored by Obamanomics and its suicidal “green energy transformation” ideology.  Gas prices are falling because retail gasoline demand is down.  That’s a very bad sign during the big summer-vacation driving season.  Economic malaise and unemployment anxiety are shifting the consumer economy into a dangerously low gear, as it struggles to climb a terribly steep “recovery” hill.

This news is also a stunning repudiation of the wild rhetoric flung around by the Obama Administration over the last few months, when it was panicking over gas prices, and desperately insisting they were somehow immune to the laws of supply and demand.  That’s why developing American energy resources supposedly wouldn’t affect the price of gas at all, while skyrocketing gas prices were blamed on evil “speculators” by the President.

The corresponding drop in wholesale prices very clearly illustrates the way fuel costs influence the cost of virtually everything we buy.  It also provides a clear warning about the disaster awaiting us, if we give clumsy, politically blinkered central planners ever more control over a high-performance economy they will never understand.  They only know what they want out of the American economic machine, and they’re prepared to alternately kick it and pump it full of unstable “stimulus” and “bailout” fuel until it lives up to their expectations.