2009 Year End Review

Do you recognize the country from a year ago? Will you recognize America a year from now?

If I would have told you last year at this time that the government would own General Motors, Chrysler, many of the banks and financial institutions and AIG, that they would fire the CEOs, that they would threaten the banks, that they would shut them down unless they would take bailout money, that they would hire good people for places like AIG and pay them a dollar to fix the problem, a dollar a year, these people would volunteer; but they would also promise them, the government would, that they would promise them bonuses if they would just work for that dollar a year to fix the problem.

When that year came up, they would not give them that bonus, they would vilify them, send their minions (SEIU) out to protest in front of their homes for even wanting the bonus that they were promised by the government and then people in Washington would then set out to have a specific tax drawn up to penalize these people, would you have believed it?

Not only would the government take over GM, fire the first guy, the President of the United States would fire a second CEO (their hand picked replacement) but the third GM CEO under Barack Obama's term, and no one in the media would report that this guy is the man who helped the Chief of Staff (Rahm Emanuel) make $16 million in one deal.

In government structured bailouts, bondholders would lose their legal status and their investments in favor of labor union payoffs and the courts wouldn’t protect the bondholders. Citizens could lose your home and property through eminent domain and eminent domain would expand in staggering ways. California would decide to levy a 10% tax on its people and insist it's not a tax; it's just a forced loan and they (State of California) would issue IOUs instead of state tax refunds. New York would admit by the end of the year they would be broke so the State of New York would issue retroactive taxes. A tax fund for the poorest of Americans (from the Stimulus Bill) would not really be a tax refund (as issued) – instead, those poorest of Americans, would find out many months later that they had to pay income tax on that tax refund – would you have believed it?

That a job creating stimulus bill would be written, not read by congress, but not even written by congress -- it would be co-written by the Apollo Alliance, a special interest group whose New York chief was a co-founder of the Weather Underground and no one would care! $5-7 million of that Stimulus, taxpayer money, would be used to payoff Hillary Clinton’s campaign debt to complete the deal struck by the President, this under the guise of saving jobs.

If I told you we're going to lose 4 million jobs and the media would report that the White House has created or saved a million jobs even though on their website, Recovery.gov (a $20 million redesigned website) would show that a good portion of these jobs were in about 400 districts that don't even exist – would you have believed it? That they would hold a job summit and not invite the Chamber of Commerce

If I told you a year ago when gold was about $800 an ounce that it would be at $1200 an ounce, would you have believed it? That Dubai which a year ago was bailing out our banks would be on the edge of bankruptcy. That the chief of the treasury, who oversees the IRS, cheated on his taxes (as would almost everyone else in the cabinet) and month after month we are told, by those same tax evaders, that the economy is healing or recovering even though unemployment soars over 10% (nearly 16% for blacks) and the dollar begins to collapse. Bank of America and Citibank would report profits while still owing 40B and 50B in TARP funds. The ridiculous deficit from the previous administration would be quadrupled to record levels in just one year and the plan for 2010 is a 12-18% increase in spending. In fact, as 2009 rings to a close, Congress will submit a $1.1 trillion spending bill.

If I had told you these things a year ago, would you have believed me? Will you recognize America a year from now?

The number of czars would escalate to over 35, one would be a 9/11 Truther, a guy who believes the United States government blew up the World Trade Center, a self avowed communist, who preached police hatred while in prison, and who defended a guy who shot a cop in the head from point blank range, if I said he would be a high level advisor to the president of the United States, would you have believed it?

What if you were told that our science czar (John Holdren) would be someone who called for forced abortions and sterilization through the drinking water, who said that the redistribution of wealth would be necessary and it would happen through the environmental movement. That there would be a diversity czar at the FCC (Mark Lloyd) and he would say Americans have to decide soon which Americans would have to step down from their positions in order to give others a chance, that this same man said the revolution in Venezuela was incredible and that we should model our FCC and our programs after Venezuela and the revolution.

If I would have told you that the most frequent visitor of the White House, over the Secretary of State and the czars, is a labor union president who has repeatedly said workers of the world unite; and we know we've got a lot of illegal members, illegal aliens in our membership, but we also represent American workers -- that he would be the most frequent visitor at the White House, would you have believed it?

What if I told you a year ago that members of ACORN, would face voter fraud charges in nearly two dozen states, ACORN would be videotaped, not by a journalist but a citizen, assisting in tax evasion, prostitution rings and child exploitation and there’d be no backlash against the administration, former members of ACORN and the decision to cut ACORN’s federal funding would be contested in court.

If I had told you these things a year ago, would you have believed me?

What if I told you that a U.S. congressman would tell the American people that it's unreasonable to expect people in congress to read bills, and he would say that because our congress would pass two bills over 1,000 pages, that no one in congress had read -- one of them was over 2,000 pages – would you have believed it?

That people in congress would openly be praising Castro, Chavez, that the president would receive an anti-American book and a photo op from Hugo Chavez and then he would have a one-hour private meeting with Vladimir Putin where Putin claims he “taught” the president the history of the Cold War. Would have believed that our Secretary of State would meet with the Russian leadership with a metaphoric “Reset” button, but erroneously use the Russian word for “escalate” instead of reset?

Would you have believed that the President of the EU would say that 2009 was the year of establishing a global government through the EU and that the climate change treaty would be the next step in one world government, that there would be a call for the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency by several massive countries and that the leader of Russia would hold up a coin in front of the cameras and say here's a prototype of the new global currency – could you have believed it?

If I told you that the symbol of capitalism, the Empire State building, would be lit in colors of communist China, that the President would make appearances on David Letterman but couldn’t find time to meet with the Dalai Lama or that petitioning for the Olympics would take precedent over meeting with his appointed general in the war in Afghanistan.

Would you have believed that it would be Michael Moore, not Code Pink or Cindy Sheehan that would challenge the President, label him the “War President”, when he agreed to ad troops to the Afghanistan War? This coming after hand picking a General for leadership, dithering for months before making that decision to increase troops not withdraw. This announced escalation would come within days of the President receiving the Noble Peace Prize – would you have believed it?

Would these things sound impossible a year ago?

Would you have believed that our president would give an iPod of his speeches to the queen of England or that he would return the bust of Winston Churchill, which was a gift from the people of England after September 11th? Our President’s gift to the British Prime Minister was a set of DVDs (American Classics), but those discs wouldn’t even work because they were the wrong region – would you have believed it?

If I said the President would come out in a speech and announce that although he didn’t have all the information, but the cops acted stupidly because they caught a his friend apparently breaking into his own home. The cops didn't act stupidly, they just did their job and the President would NEVER apologize, instead he would invite them all for a beer summit and use it as a learning experience about diversity, would you believe it?

That Air Force and two fighters would be the subject of a photo over New York, scaring the residents and costing tax payers over $350,000 or that the President would play more golf than the previous President (who always seemed to be on vacation) did in 2 ½ years – would you have believed that?

What will America face next year?

That the U.S. would have a two-day summit to discuss the role of government in journalism and be discussing a government takeover of journalism but no journalist would actually report on that. Several members of the White House staff and the President would speak out against a major news network, even declaring “War on” this network without any outcry from the other networks.

That public school children would be taught songs promoting the President and his policies and that the media would dismiss it, that the President address those school kids, asking for their support through an essay assignment or that the National Endowment of the Arts would organize artists to develop various forms of art (propaganda) to promote the President’s policies – would you have believed it?

That the global warming hockey stick chart would be discredited, as would its founder, along with another leader of the global climate change movement who manipulated data, deleted e-mails and information to avoid Freedom of Information Act, that these same scientists would do everything they could to discredit the peer review process to make sure it remained pure for their ideological purposes, and yet the media wouldn't report on it and we'd still be headed to Copenhagen with a President the who was going to present a 17% reduction in carbon. Would you have believed it?

Healthcare would be at 36% approval rating, which is lower than Hillary Care, but that those in congress and the White House would still be jamming it down your throats. Congress would vote to federally cover abortions while demanding insurance companies spend 90% of the premiums on coverage. Would you believe that the Senate majority leader would compare opposition to healthcare reform to slavery? The deciding vote in the Senate would be held on a Sunday 1:30 am…

If I had told you these things a year ago, could you have believed me?

If I told you that there would be hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in peaceful protest in a National Mall in D.C. and the media would not only dismiss them but the government, the president and the media would deem them a danger to the United States. Homeland security would include former veterans and people apposed to abortion on the same watch list as terrorists. Would you have believed that an American shock jock, guilty only of free speech, would be banned from Britain with other terrorists and criminals – and no one would come to his defense?

That two uninvited people could get into the White House state dinner, chat with the President, be near the prime minister of the largest democracy on the planet and that the response from the White House would dismiss the incident and proclaim to do a better job with security.

If I would have told you that there would be a Muslim terrorist and that he would shoot and killed soldiers at Fort Hood, would you have believed it? If I told you then that, yes, the president will make a statement but he will spend two minutes prior to giving a “shout out” and talking about the conference he had with the American Indian organization, would you have believed it? If I then told you after that two minutes he would then say then, oh, and also there's been a shooting of our military but let's not jump to conclusions. And then his Homeland Security director would be over in the Middle East and she would say, don't worry, we're working on things to stop the violence against Muslims in America, would you have believed it?

What if I told you that we paid another country their entire years GDP to take 11 prisoners from the Gitmo prison and then Attorney General’s office would move the most extreme 5 terrorists, including the mastermind of 9/11, to New York city to stand trial? The Attorney General Eric Holder would proclaim that we would prosecute these terrorists to the full extent of the law, but that this is the same AG whose firm defended the Gitmo prisoners, filing lawsuit after lawsuit trying to protect their civil rights – could you have believed it?

Looking at that list, do you recognize the country that you live in? Is this the same country that you lived in a year ago?

I don't think so. I don't recognize it.

I can be wrong on an awful lot of things, but when will people in this country, when will the media, at least question the direction of our country and the one this President keeps laying out.

I began writing a year end list of different incidents and was inspired by a Glenn Beck rant which I incorporated into this theme. If I had told you that Glenn Beck would be on the cover of TIME magazine, listed as one of the most fascinating people of 2009, you’d be asking what the heck happened – wouldn’t you?

I know I am.