Imagine, if you will, that you are a public official in the state you live in. As an elected official, you are responsible for carrying out the duties of your office, as best you see fit. If your constituents, ie. the people who elected you, have a problem with the way you conduct their business, they have recourse. They can recall you in another election, or they can simply vote someone else in to fill your position. In other words, they can fire you. They also have the right to protest your actions in a number of various and very public ways.

Still using your imagination, stop and think about something for a moment. What would your reaction be if those protests spilled over into your private life, onto your private property? How would you feel if someone trespassed onto your property, just to make sure you knew they vehemently disagreed with how you were conducting the business of the office to which you were elected? If you can not imagine the scenario, I would suggest you call Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and ask him. He has first hand experience with just such an incident.

Kris Kobach has made a name for himself by being a strong advocate for enforcing our current immigration laws. He is extremely tough on illegal immigrants. For some reason, he believes they should be following the laws in America. Of course, the people of which he speaks are already here illegally, having broken the law by coming across the border illegally, so asking them to change their habits and follow the rest of the law may be too much to ask. After all, we can’t afford to inconvenience them. But, I digress.

It’s probably a good thing that Kris Kobach and his family were not at home last Saturday. Someone, in their infinite wisdom and knowledge, thought it would be a good thing to bus over 200 members of Sunflower Community Action to his front door to protest his tough stance on enforcement of America’s immigration laws. They seem to think it is just terrible that he wants to deport illegal immigrants who are arrested. These people marched up his driveway and stood on his front porch with megaphones. They trespassed on his private property, breaking yet another law. I wonder how many of them were actually illegal immigrants and how many were just fools who believe illegal immigrants need an advocate? To help make their point, they left behind several pairs of shoes, signifying families that have been broken up by Kobach’s aggressive deportation policies.

Kris Kobach isn’t exactly happy with what happened. He has asked local and county officials to investigate the incident and he has also issued a warning to the protesters, saying actions such as theirs is why we have the Second Amendment. You can imagine the uproar that caused.

Huffington Post – “If we had been in the home and not been armed, I would have felt very afraid — because it took the police 15 minutes to show up,” Kobach, a renowned immigration hardliner, told Fox News. “It’s important we recognize there’s a reason we have the Second Amendment. There are situations like this where you have a mob and you do need to be able to protect yourself.”

Kobach said he was “appalled” by the action, arguing that the decision to show up on his property instead of at his office constituted a sort of “intimidation.” He also suggested the crowd was made up of undocumented immigrants and raised the specter of one of the protesters trying “to break into the house.” Kobach is also reportedly considering filing criminal charges against the reform advocates.

From that statement, Kobach’s detractors are saying they are appalled that he would threaten to shoot peaceful activists. I don’t get that from what he said, but Kobach did make it clear that the protesters had no business coming to his private property. It doesn’t matter if they are peaceful or not, that is his property, not theirs. That is where his family lives, where his four daughters play on the sidewalk. If you think that’s nothing to be concerned about, use your imagination again and ask yourself how your children would feel, were they to be confronted by 200 people, who aren’t exactly enamored with you, coming up your driveway to protest against you. If you still say it is no big deal, then you lack more than a few brain cells that are capable of simple logic.

These kinds of actions are nothing new and are eerily familiar. Remember how ACORN ran their protests against bankers who dared to go against them and refused to make bad loans to people who couldn’t repay the money? They didn’t stick to protesting in public places. On more than one occasion, they protested at the homes of the banking officials who stood in their way. It also bears a striking resemblance to the protests President Obama stirred up against corporate executives who were making too much money. For weeks and months, all he could talk about in his speeches was how some of the Wall Street executives were bring home bonuses. Some people were so stirred up that they loaded up buses and protested in the neighborhoods where these executives lived. Remember Occupy Wall Street? Community action and organizing, at its finest. Throw in a little intimidation and you have a nice little recipe for disaster.

One of our disagreements with President Barack Obama has to do with the usage of the natural resources we have in America. Many of us would like to see them better utilized. It is worthy to note that the desire to see this happen started long before Obama moved into the White House, or even before he came on the political scene. We have continually stated that we should develop all of our natural resources and do our best to move away, as much as possible, from using foreign sources of oil. With the amount of oil we have in this country, as well as all the other natural resources, it just makes sense to many of us. President Obama doesn’t necessarily abide by that line of reasoning.

Throughout his first term in office, Obama was not bashful about touting his accomplishments in the area of natural resources. He loved making the claim that his administration had approved more drilling leases than ever before. When he was faced with questions about that claim, as he was during one of the presidential debates of 2012, he just falls back into his same mantra of denial. Mitt Romney tried to show the President was lying, but between the media and Obama’s refusal to own up to his lies, the truth never got traction in the sand of the media coverage surrounding the election. As it turns out, Mitt Romney was right and once again, President Obama has been caught lying to the America people.

Maggie’s Notebook – In the October 16, 2012 Presidential debate, candidate Mitt Romney accused Barack Obama of cutting new permits and new oil leases for offshore oil and gas drilling by half. In fact, those permits and leases fell by more than half. Romney also claimed that domestic oil production on federal lands decreased by 14 percent. Obama said that “just wasn’t true,” but it was true. During Obama’s first term in office, only 1,304 new offshore leases were issued – a third of that of the G. W. Bush second term and a decrease of 61 percent.

The Washington Free Beacon in March 2013 pointed to a Department of Agriculture Inspector’s General report showed of 1,881 applications for drilling permits on public land, fewer than 4 percent were “recent” or filed in the last 180 days. The remainder had been in the government pending file for what the report refers to as “prolonged delays.” Not only were revenues not forthcoming, but prevented the “efforts of the private sector to provide energy to the public.”

We should not be surprised at the truth of the matter. Generally speaking, if President Obama is touting some statistic or another, discovering the truth is a simple matter. Just turn around 180° and look in the opposite direction of where the President is pointing. The truth will usually be around there somewhere. I would suggest you read the entire post from Maggie’s Notebook to see exactly how much America’s usage of our own natural resources has declined. The list will astound you with the clarity it provides to the agenda President Obama has embarked on from Day One of his presidency.

Did the President not say his energy plan would necessarily bankrupt the coal companies? How many times have we heard the President demonize the oil and gas companies? The budge he proposed in February of 2013 actually calls for $66 billion in new taxes on the oil and gas industry. I would humbly suggest that coal companies are not the only companies that should be worried about Obama’s energy agenda. To say he isn’t friendly to the companies that develop our natural resources is an understatement. How much longer must we sit still and listen to the President make proclamations that are simply not true? Representative Joe Wilson was much closer to the truth than many would give him credit for, when he pointed at President Obama and shouted “you lie”. The truth in those two words is becoming more apparent every day.

I’ll be the first to admit I have not followed the current attempt to pass immigration reform as closely as I should. I have focused on other issues and between that and me having a real life, immigration reform has been on the back burner for me. Not that it isn’t important, but other things have taken precedent. That doesn’t mean I am not aware that the powers that be in both parties are trying to force a bad bill down our throats.

I almost feel sorry for Marco Rubio. I am certain he started off with good intentions. He has said all along that border security has to come first, but the gang of Senators he joined to work on immigration reform seemed to have other ideas. As it has been for decades, their idea of immigration reform is to transform the millions of illegal immigrants in America into legal residents, overnight. That’s where they want to start and everything else comes second. I can’t help but wonder if border security even enters into the equation for someone like John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

Senator Graham seems to be trying to get out in front of the debate, but he is doing so in a most asinine manner. I’ll let you read what he said for yourself.

Fox News – “After eight years of President Obama’s economic policies, and quite frankly foreign policy, people are going to be looking around,” he said. “But if we don’t pass immigration reform, if we don’t get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn’t matter who you run in 2016. We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who we run.”

In those few short sentences, Senator Lindsey Graham shows us exactly where his priorities are. He is less interested in what is good for America than he is in what is good for the Republican Party. I can’t help but question the wisdom of the good people in South Carolina who continue to send him back to Washington. He sounds firmly convinced that the GOP is dead on arrival in 2016, if they fail to vote for immigration reform, in whatever fashion or form it comes before them. Is this another time when we have to accept what the liberals propose? Are we going into a cycle similar to the debt ceiling and budget debates, where the GOP will be blamed for whatever happens, no matter what the real circumstances are? I would suggest that Senator Graham needs to wise up to the tactics being employed by the liberal Democrats in his esteemed body of legislators.

Is what the good Senator from South Carolina is saying true? Ever since the election in November 2012, we have heard how the GOP has to be more inclusive. The main focus of that inclusion has been Hispanic voters. The media and the leaders of the GOP act as if that is a foregone conclusion. I question if that is really the case and I am not the only one. Allow me to use the words someone who has already done the research.

Sentry Journal – From the moment Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election the left with the help of the mainstream media has been shaping and advancing the narrative that the reason the Republicans cannot win elections is because they’re losing more and more of the Latino vote due to their position on immigration reform.  They claim that the more Republicans stand against immigration reform the more they will lose the Latino vote.  But how can you lose something you never had to begin with?  This narrative that the left is pushing is completely false and its real purpose is to place enough doubt about the trend of the Latino vote in the minds of Republican leaders so they will act out of fear and pass an immigration bill that grants backdoor amnesty without border security.  Once again the Republicans have failed to do their homework and are dancing to the tune the Democrats are playing.  So let’s break it down and explain why this narrative is false.

In order to lose something you must first possess it.  The Republicans can’t lose the Latino vote because they have never possessed it.  Let’s take a trip back in time in Mr. Peabody’s “Way Back Machine” to the 1976 Presidential Election.  Latinos made up a meager one percent of the electorate, but voted overwhelmingly for Jimmy Carter.  Carter garnered 83 percent while the Republican candidate Gerald Ford managed to capture only 18 percent of the Latino vote.  Remember this election was the first election after the end of the Vietnam War, Nixon resigning in disgrace, and terrible economic times.  Four years of Carter brought us the Misery Index, high inflation, high unemployment, the Iran hostage crisis and a military force that was rapidly deteriorating.

As bad is things were in 1980, Jimmy Carter still managed to capture 56 percent of the Latino vote as compared to the 35 percent Ronald Reagan received; a Democratic advantage of 21 percentage points in bad times.  In fact the highest percentage President Reagan ever achieved was 37 percent in 1984.  These numbers would not improve in the future.

You should go and read the rest of the post from Sentry Journal. John Carey lays it out exactly as it is. Even though the GOP is closer to Hispanics on social issues, ie. abortion, homosexuality, religion, etc., they have never captured the majority of Hispanic voters. I do not believe that will change, just because they choose to support an immigration reform bill that is seriously flawed. Even if we threw ourselves to the wolves and granted amnesty to every illegal immigrant in America, with no future promise of border security, the demographics will likely remain the same. The GOP needs to do what is right for America and forget about the demographics. Doing anything less will surely move us into irrelevancy, permanently.

I wrote last week about how the Obama administration has specifically forbade federal law enforcement officials from spying on Mosques. That news came as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to how Obama has conducted himself during his first term in office. In one of the comments on that post, it was said that we all know there are evangelical conservatives who are issuing veiled threats against our democratic process when they do not like the majority’s decisions. That must be why the IRS, under President Barack Obama, has been targeting churches for investigation. Hat tip to The Gateway Pundit.

Examiner – On Thursday the Examiner provided an exclusive report indicating that the Obama administration had implemented a covert program beginning in 2009 that was intended to spy on conservative, evangelical Christian churches.

That program involved infiltration — sending in government operatives to join churches for the purpose of data collection. The government snoops would keep their eyes and ears open for criticism of the Obama administration, talk of Tea Party participation, conversations about gun ownership, and a number of other issues.

But a special report issued today by Fox News indicates that the program went far beyond infiltration and snooping. The IRS was used to harass Christian churches if they were identified as places where large numbers of anti-Obama citizens congregated for worship.

The Obama administration, according to the report, considered any public criticism of administration policies to be political in nature and should therefore impact whether or not these congregations were allowed to gain or keep their tax exempt status.

I am not trying to claim the IRS targeting of religious and other non-profit organizations is a new thing. The Fox News report referenced in the post from Examiner makes it clear that isn’t the case, but none of us need a new report to tell us that. The IRS is notorious for its actions, both in the past and in the present. That does not mean, however, that President Obama should be given a pass for the actions of the IRS under his watch. Just because it has happened before does not make it right or the proper thing to do.

For far too long, decades, the IRS has acted with little or no repercussions to its authority. What this tells me is that this particular government agency, like so many before and after, has expanded to duties that are far beyond its original intent. It has used its authority as a bully club against American citizens and groups they believe are stepping outside the boundaries set for them by the government. I guess they must have skipped the Bill of Rights in civics class.

I want to quote a portion of the Fox News article referenced by Examiner. I believe it lays bare the basic argument that is underlying in this entire debate.

But not do what again? Not preach about moral matters that have a political connection? That would mean that religious issues stop being religious once a politician starts talking about them. More importantly, where does the IRS get the authority to override the First Amendment?  If freedom of speech and freedom of religion are to mean anything, government bureaucrats can’t be allowed to decide what rabbis, priests, imams, and pastors  can preach.

Religious people can and do disagree over whether pastors, priests, or rabbis should preach about the political issues of the day. That is their right. But surely all Americans can agree — especially after the abuses that have come to light in the past week–that the time for the tax man to censor sermons must come to an end.

I could not agree more with what those two paragraphs state. We have allowed the federal government to expand far beyond its boundaries. It has, and continues, to use every means at its disposal to tell us what we should or should not say or think. Those means include the IRS telling churches, Christian or not, what they can or can not say in their sermons. Enough is enough! It is time for the federal government to be reined in, along with its various departments and agencies.

The news has been chock full of scandals for the past few weeks. Anyone who is paying attention can easily tell the Obama administration is finally showing their true colors. While they may not be in danger of complete collapse, especially if the main stream media continues their support, they are clearly hurting. If they were in the stock market, I wouldn’t want to take their stock options. It wouldn’t be a safe bet.

In light of that, the question begs to be asked. Why is all of this coming to fruition at the same time? Even the sturdiest tower will start to shake, if enough weight is placed on its walls. Maybe that is what is happening with the Obama administration. Sooner or later, all things will come to light, no matter how much some people try to keep them hidden. I believe that is the case here. The weight of these scandals is simply too much to keep hidden any longer.

I want to share a post from Capitol Commentary. It isn’t a long post, but it is well worth reading. In just a few paragraphs, Harrison lays bare the reason the Obama administration is having so much trouble as the first black American President heads into his second term.

It’s getting tough to keep track of all the scandals that have emerged since Obama has become president.  Last year his EPA head, Lisa Jackson, was caught using a fake email under the name “Richard Windsor” so FOIA requests wouldn’t find her.  She left her post.  Then we had Benghazi.  Fast and the Furious is still ongoing.  Or what about the Black Panthers?  Or maybe the ongoing wiretapping/email reading?  Or maybe the IRS scandal?  Or the latest one about how the EPA stands accused of waiving FOIA fees for Liberal groups but not for Conservative ones?  Or the emerging insider trading scandal involving Government insiders and Medicare?

Even the most hardened Obama-hater would have difficultly keeping track of all the scandals.

Even the most overly manufactured scandals involving the Bush administration couldn’t match, for sheer number, what we’re now seeing under Obama.

So the question is:  Why?

The answer’s easy:  Obamabots didn’t want to see the truth about their Savior and the Press surrendered their 4th Estate duties when a half-black ran against a woman.

The American public hasn’t had any serious coverage or critical examination of American Democratic politics since the primaries back in 2007.

Hillary Clinton groused about the unfair coverage… Saturday Night Live did a skit about it but it’s the American public who got the short end of the stick.

Journalists (not JournoLists) are supposed to take a highly critical eye towards politicians and dig deep and come up with some dirt.

Except for Conservative blogs and some magazines, this has not happened with Obama and it’s allowed a monster to go wild.

Politicians always seek as much power as possible.  Government grows as much as possible.  Only citizens and journalists have the power to limit growth.

But this monster was allowed to grow so large because Obama’s supporters who were so critical of Bush stayed silent.  Now, with the latest spying revelations the cat is out of the bag.

But, in the end, it is the press and Obamabots who are to blame.

Hope and Change, indeed.

I look forward to reading your reactions in the comments. Personally, I believe Harrison is spot on with his argument.

When the revelations first came out that the NSA was spying on Americans by collecting phone records from Verizon, the Obama administration has defended their actions. They have made the claim, repeatedly, that the program was vital in their efforts to stop terrorists from doing their deeds of destruction. They have made the same claim about PRIZM, the program that allows the federal government to search through Internet traffic. As they have made these claims, some of us have asked the obvious questions. If the programs are so vital in the efforts to stop terrorism, why did they fail to stop the Tsarnaev brothers before they bombed the Boston Marathon? As it turns out, there’s a good explanation for that. Since 2011, well after President Bush had moved back to Texas, spying in mosques has been restricted. Hat tip to Fire Andrea Mitchell.

Investors – Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

I don’t know what the exact percentages are, but over the past several decades, the majority of terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by one group, men of the Muslim faith. This is true, no matter where the attackers resided or originated. Much of their radicalization took place in mosques. Considering that fact, why would we put them in the no fly zone for the FBI and other government authorities who are trying to prevent another 9/11? Could it be that the federal government is too busy twisting the facts to make it look as if conservatives are the real threat? That’s possible and it has been done, but there is another theory that is probably closer to the truth, one that troubles me even more.

Could it be that President Barack Obama is really what so many have claimed all along, a Muslim sympathizer? For some time, it has appeared to me that Islam holds more than a small place in the heart of the President. He has defended the religion of peace, both in his idle remarks and in his public speeches. He has made it plain that we can not accuse Muslims of anything untoward, without risking a violation of their civil rights. With the evidence we have in hand, it would now seem that President Obama may have a much deeper affinity for the Muslim faith than many of us first believed.

Yes, I realize my last paragraph makes at least two assumptions, but the evidence is overwhelming. The Obama administration has acted proactively to protect Muslims and their places of worship. No doubt, they consider mosques to be off-limits for the prying eyes of the FBI and the NSA. I wonder how many more people have to be blown up by radical Islamic terrorists before the Obama administration stops their ridiculous attempt to insist that Islam has nothing to do with the actions of the members of its faith? How many more people have to die at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists before they stop blaming the attacks on America?

President Obama came out last Friday and defended his administration’s unprecedented grabbing of phone records and Internet data. He basically said we could not have 100% security and expect to keep 100% of our privacy. He said we should just trust him and his administration to do the right thing. Excuse me while I go gag on that proposition…Now that I have composed myself, let’s deal with this issue of trusting the Obama administration to do the right thing with the information it is collecting.

First of all, Obama is fond of saying Congress has oversight of the program and has repeatedly reauthorized it. He is also fond of pointing out that the government is not listening to our phone calls, they are only logging the metadata of the calls. They record the phone numbers, date and time of the calls, and probably the location of the calls. This is done, supposedly, to help them track suspected terrorists and Obama says it has been going on for some time. With that in mind, he should expect to give an answer to this question. If this program is so important to our security, so needed to stop terrorist attacks, how in the world did Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev escape detection by the NSA and other government agencies charged with sifting through the data? I mean, the Russians were even warning us that the brothers were trouble, but we scrubbed their data and gave them a clean slate. If this program is supposed to be watching for terrorists, it was an abject failure in Boston. Yes, let’s just trust Obama and company to get it right.

Going back to the issue of Congressional authorization, that seems to be nothing more than one more smoke screen thrown up by the Obama administration. In truth, the Patriot Act, which is being used to authorize the NSA seizure of the records in question, was not intended to allow such a wide-spread dragnet. Read this editorial from the author of the original Patriot Act,Jim Sensenbrenner.

The Guardian – In his press conference on Friday, President Obama described the massive collection of phone and digital records as “two programs that were originally authorized by Congress, have been repeatedly authorized by Congress”. But Congress has never specifically authorized these programs, and the Patriot Act was never intended to allow the daily spying the Obama administration is conducting.

To obtain a business records order like the one the administration obtained, the Patriot Act requires the government to prove to a special federal court, known as a Fisa court, that it is complying with specific guidelines set by the attorney general and that the information sought is relevant to an authorized investigation. Intentionally targeting US citizens is prohibited.

Technically, the administration’s actions were lawful insofar as they were done pursuant to an order from the Fisa court. But based on the scope of the released order, both the administration and the Fisa court are relying on an unbounded interpretation of the act that Congress never intended.

The released Fisa order requires daily productions of the details of every call that every American makes, as well as calls made by foreigners to or from the United States. Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations. How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?

This is well beyond what the Patriot Act allows.

Remind me again of how we should trust the Obama administration to do the right thing. Clearly, they are abusing their power and are using legislation previously passed into law to authorize that abuse. This certainly isn’t the first case of such abuse, but it would appear it is one of the most egregious breaches of trust our government has ever performed. What’s even more troubling is Obama’s attitude toward this issue. Here is what he had to say.

If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.

Sorry, Mr. President, but you’ll just have to forgive me if I can not bring myself to trust you, Congress, or the federal courts. Your actions have spoken much louder than your words. Being able to trust you doesn’t even enter into the equation.

I do not consider myself a naive person, in that I understand our government can not tell us everything it is doing. There are sometimes, realities that can not be ignored, and national security dictates that secrets be kept from the knowledge of the general public. There is no doubt we are living in a changed country. The realities that surfaced after the attacks on 9/11 made us all realize just how deeply that change runs. As a result, we now have the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The phone and internet record gathering programs that were leaked to the public yesterday are a direct result of both laws.

What we have done is simple in one way, yet complicated in another. We were frightened after we were attacked by Muslim terrorists. Our government told us we had to react, which was true enough. The changes were sweeping, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of the Patriot Act and the adjustment and extension of FISA. Because of those actions, the NSA was able to obtain a secret court order that allowed them to gather the phone records of every call made on the Verizon network in the United States. The court order only mentions Verizon, but who knows how many other communication companies are allowing the same thing, either through a court order or willingly. It was also leaked that the major Internet companies, including Microsoft, Facebook, and Google, were allowing backdoor access to their Internet systems and data.

All of this is being done for reasons of national security. After the uproar of the past couple of days, National Intelligence Director James Clapper has made the unprecedented move of declassifying documents pertaining to both programs. He isn’t happy about the leaks and says the government’s ability to protect our country has been severely hampered by the public knowledge of the programs. In other words, he would rather they be kept secret so our government could continue doing what it is doing, without hindrance.

To be sure, both programs have had oversight. A secret court considers issues like this and certain members of Congress were briefed on the programs. That might give us some room for comfort, were it not for the secrecy and the attitude by certain elected officials. Senator Lindsey Graham plainly said yesterday that he had no problem with the collection of Verizon’s phone records because he wasn’t talking to terrorists. Well, I am not either, but that doesn’t make it right for our government to collect millions of phone records in a wide-sweeping net, with no specific target in mind. They claim they kept it secret because it would hamper their ability to protect America, but I wonder if the secrecy didn’t have more to do with how they knew many Americans would respond to such a data grab.

I am reminded of a post I wrote in 2010, wondering how much we trusted our government. At the time it was written, we had just had the healthcare mandate shoved down our throats and it was becoming clear that the IRS was going to be charged with the enforcement of said mandate. This is part of what I had to say then.

Part of the distrust that is now leveled at the Obama administration has to be blamed on the way the health care legislation was rammed through Congress. Also, consider how said health care legislation is going to be implemented and the mandate enforced. The enforcement is to rest solely with the most hated and distrusted government agency in our country, namely, the Internal Revenue Service. That alone is enough to make me want to run as far away as possible.

The distrust of the Bush White House arose from the feeling that the American people had been lied to, as I have already alluded. The distrust that is now arising against the Obama White House comes in large part from the feeling that the American people have just had an unconstitutional mandate pressed upon them by a government that has refused to listen to it’s own people. Put the IRS into the mix and is it any wonder that the level of distrust is at it’s highest point since the end of the Bush era? I think not.

Looking back on the years that I have followed politics and watched closely how our government works, I have come to one conclusion. It seems to matter not which political party is in power, be it the Republicans or Democrats. Washington seems to never change and until it does, the level of distrust aimed in their direction is going to ebb and flow. Right now, it is mostly ebbing.

Given the events of the past several months, I would contend that the distrust many of us have in our government is justified. President Obama came into office saying his administration would be the most open and honest in our history. We all know that has not been the case. They have lied to us, time after time. The distrust in the IRS that I voiced in 2010 has been shown to be no idle fancy. They have proven themselves to be worthy of that distrust. Secrets have been kept and then revealed. It makes me wonder what else our government is keeping secret. Does there not come a time when the secrecy is too much? How close is the secrecy to overwhelming the freedoms and liberties we used to enjoy as Americans? It’s time for us to give serious thought to the secrets our government is keeping and how those secrets are affecting a country that used to pride itself on being free.

I haven’t followed the court proceedings concerning Major Nidal Hasan as closely as some. I do know he is facing a court-martial for killing 13 and wounding 32 others November 5, 2009. There are a couple of very odd things about this. First, he has stated that he wants time to prepare a new defense strategy. He has admitted to the shooting, but he says he was acting “in defense of others” when he stepped into the room and began shooting. Namely, he has said he was defending “The leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban” and its leader Mullah Omar”. The second odd thing is why the government has refused to classify the shooting as a terrorist attack. Instead, they are calling it an act of workplace violence, which I believe is the result of the Obama administration’s refusal to deal with Islamic terrorism head on and to call it what it is. That is troubling, given that Nidal Hasan has declared what his motives were, and it isn’t sitting well with the victims of attack.

ABC News – “However, now the government’s ‘workplace violence’ lie has been fully exposed,” said Neal Sher and Reed Rubinstein, legal representatives for the Fort Hood victims and their families. “By his own admission, Hasan was a jihadist who killed innocent Americans to defend the Taliban.”

“We call on the Army to… admit that the Fort Hood attack was terrorism; and finally provide the Fort Hood victims, survivors and families with all available combat-related benefits, decorations and recognition,” they said.

If that isn’t enough insult on injury, consider this information. The judge sitting in these proceedings has granted Nidal Hasan’s request to act as his own attorney, provided that his military attorneys are standing by to offer assistance and advice. I’m sure Judge Col. Tara Abbey Osborn gave all due consideration to the case and to Nidal Hasan making this ruling. According to the reports I have read, she spent most of her time trying to persuade Hasan to not follow through with the request. She told him he would be better off relying on a trained lawyer who understood the court martial proceedings. In the end, she granted his request. Here is a commentary on the ruling that I found very compelling.

Mike Huckabee – It’s official: the “Accused” Fort Hood shooter now has a fool for an attorney…Major Nidal Hasan has drawn over a quarter million dollars in Army salary while awaiting trial on charges of mowing down a cafeteria full of people in 2009. Apparently, he’s so overpaid, he’s decided he must be a lawyer. Monday, a military judge granted Hasan’s request to act as his own attorney after repeatedly trying to talk him out of it, since he’s never even defended a traffic ticket before. She agreed only if his team of military attorneys stand by to advise him and take over if he violates court rules. It’s tempting to think, “Good. He deserves to have a fool for a lawyer.” But it allows him to speak openly in court, and to cross-examine the shooting victims. Yes, he’ll actually be given the chance to assault them again, and they’ll be forced to sit and take it. One victim says he fears Hasan will have access to the victims’ home addresses, and will send coded messages to other terrorists. You see, to his victims, he’s not a lawyer, or a disgruntled co-worker. He’s a terrorist. Even if the government refuses to admit it.

Huckabee’s commentary highlights a part of this case that many seem to have overlooked. In granting Nidal Hasan’s request to act as his own attorney, the judge has given him the opportunity to question the survivors of the shooting. Stop and think about that for a moment. Imagine that you were at your place of work and someone, one of your co-workers perhaps, came into the room and started shooting. Imagine that you were one of the lucky ones to survive the attack and were asked to testify at the trial of the shooter. Imagine how you would feel if you were required to give your sworn testimony to the very man who killed your co-workers and tried to kill you. I can’t imagine a worse scenario and for that reason alone, I believe the judge’s ruling is in error.

We know that the Department of Justice has been after phone records at the Associated Press and Fox News. We know they  used a court order, one they attempted to keep secret, to obtain the emails of James Rosen. If those two items trouble you, this next item should make you start looking over your shoulder with more than a little trepidation. According to new reports, the Nationals Security Agency has a secret court order to collect phone records from Verizon. This court order is indiscriminate in nature, meaning they are collecting more than a few phone records. From what I understand, they are collecting every phone call on its system. That isn’t a pleasant thought.

The Guardian – The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government’s domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

I didn’t like this practice when the Bush administration was engaged in it and I like it even less now. I have briefly read through the court order which can be read at the link included in the quote from The Guardian. It is only four pages long and does not include the reasons given for the court order. We do not know why the NSA and the FBI requested this collection of phone records, why they chose to collect information only from Verizon, or why Judge Roger Vinson granted their request. I would like to see all that information, as I think it would make for some interesting reading.

I can’t wait for the Obama administration to be forthcoming with their reasoning behind this court order. I wonder what their excuse will be this time?