Trickle Up Poverty (38 page)

I must ask the deeper question that nobody is asking.

We’re not at war with Russia, are we?

Isn’t Russia our friend?

If Russia is our friend, then why do they need us to cut our nuclear arsenal? If they’re our friend, and if they have no harmful intentions toward us, why do we need to cut our nuclear arsenal to convince them that we’re their friend? After all, we’re trading partners with this former Cold War enemy. The Russians export oil and petroleum products, aluminum, semi-finished iron and steel, precious metals, and railway equipment among other things to us. United flies in there every day. Delta flies in there the last I checked.

Why, then, is our President suddenly signing a peace treaty with Russia when we’re not at war with them?

If we had been at war and the hostilities had ceased, it would be understandable to craft some sort of postwar arrangement that included the disarming of various weapons. Remember what Germany had to do after World War I? At the Treaty of Versailles, the Germans had to abandon their Air Force. They had to shrink the size of their Navy by sinking most of their fleet. They were forbidden to have any submarines, tanks, or even armored cars. Why? Because they lost the war and those were the terms hammered out by the Allied Forces. If they hadn’t lost, do you think the Germans would have laid down their weapons and compromised their defenses?

Why, then, are we disarming?

Did we just lose some war that I don’t know about?

Did Obama lose a war somewhere that I missed while taking a nap?

The only explanation is that this move by Obama is a unilateral decision to demilitarize the United States of America. And in the background, while we’re jettisoning our jets, missiles, subs, and nukes, the Dragon is rising. Is China cutting its nuclear arsenal? Did China agree to cut back on its launchers? Did China agree to stop developing ballistic submarines? Did China agree not to expand its Navy? I don’t think so. How is Obama getting away with this?

I have to go back to my initial statement. Obama is the Destroyer.

Which is why Congress must not ratify START.

Yes, there is one remaining opportunity to end this radical agenda of appeasement and destruction. It resides in the U.S. Senate that, by law, must ratify it by a 67 percent majority. That means sixty-seven votes must say, “yes we agree to cut our military and our national security.” Not by 51 votes, but 67 percent of the Senate has to go along with this. Obama could be stopped in the Senate. But I ask you where is the Republican opposition? Where are the Blue Dog Democrats? Each day, it’s as if a hostile foreign power has taken over the United States of America and our elected officials don’t have the spine to stop it.

We must remind Congress of something that should be obvious:

One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day.

Obama the Space Cadet: Houston We Have a Problem

We know Obama is taking apart America’s military infrastructure. And yet this man, who has created nothing in his life except absolute chaos, anger, divisiveness, and fear, as well as trillion dollar deficits designed to break the backs of the middle class, can’t restrain himself from destroying the centerpiece of American technology and accomplishment: the NASA space program. As you’ll see, dark implications for America’s national security interests are beneath this move, and a troubling money trail that the Savage Spotlight will illuminate.

On April 15, 2010, Obama the Space Cadet delivered a speech at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in which he announced his plans to scrap NASA’s current space exploration program. He goes to the Mecca of space travel and announces with a placid smile on his face that he’s about to tear the program apart. Why would he destroy NASA? Don’t we already have the best aeronautical program in the world?

We do. Do I need to point out that it’s one of the few government programs with direct benefits to the taxpayer? Thanks to NASA’s research and development, we now have a list of inventions that enhance and protect our lives. Among them is the TV satellite dish, fail-safe flashlights with system redundancy, shock absorbing helmets for sports and biking enthusiasts that use Temper Foam (first developed for aircraft seats), edible toothpaste, “space pens” that can be used to write upside down, cordless tools (originally developed to help Apollo astronauts drill for moon samples), smoke detectors first used in the Skylab space station, ear thermometers that don’t use mercury, and joystick controllers created for the Apollo Lunar Rover.31

Why does Obama the Space Cadet want to fix what isn’t broken?

Evidently, Obama thinks private companies can build the current space shuttle’s replacement quicker and more cost-effectively than NASA. Really? So this is all about saving money? Retired astronaut John McBride points out, “Back in Apollo days our space budget for NASA was three to four percent of the federal budget. Today it’s less than one percent.”32

That doesn’t sound like NASA is breaking the budget, Mr. Obama.

Let’s set aside the fact that Obama dismantled the private sector healthcare system because he believes the government can do a better job, but now he thinks the private sector is suddenly better positioned to tackle space. Why the double standard? Leave it to Doc Savage to break down the truth for you. As I’ve often said, follow the money. To fund the civilian development of the next shuttle, Obama intends to hand $6 billion dollars to private companies to do the job instead of NASA.

Just who are these companies?

Lockheed Martin is one.

On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with that pick, right? Lockheed Martin does a fantastic job building aircraft. But did you know that in 2010 they’ve given $800,000 in campaign contributions to Democrats? Then there’s the Chicago-based Boeing Company, which, as of this writing, has already dished out $900,000 to the Demoncats in 2010. Why does any of that matter? Consider this: although Obama is increasing NASA’s budget by $6 billion, most of that money will go to “seed commercial development.” In other words, it will go to pay off the same companies that just contributed to Obama’s friends in Congress. Are you starting to get the picture? He’s using NASA to fund a massive payoff of his campaign contributors.

Give a million; get a billion.

Not a bad investment for Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Beyond that payback scheme, Obama the Space Cadet is destroying the space program—which wasn’t broken—while making us fully dependent on Russia. How so? This Space Cadet is proposing that the USA buy tickets on a Russian rocket to get our astronauts and cargo into space. In fact, he proposes that we buy six seats a year on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft—at $56 million per seat33—for however long that it takes for the private sector to build a replacement.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with that? Isn’t Russia the same nation we fought for decades to win the space race? Won’t this give the edge to Russia when it comes to weaponizing space? Since Russia will be providing the ride, they get to dictate the terms of what our astronauts can and cannot do, how much gear they’re permitted to bring, and how much they can bring back.34 And Russia gets to eavesdrop on their activities.

Thanks to Obama, Russia now holds all the cards in terms of space exploration. What’s more, in the best-case scenario, the soonest a privately built space shuttle can be ready is 2014. In an attempt to quell criticism of this move, Obama said:

Nobody is more committed to manned spaceflight, to human exploration of space, than me. But we have got to do it in a smart way, we can’t just keep doing the same old things that we’ve been doing and thinking that somehow that’s going to get us to where we want to go.35

The same old things? Look, we all know NASA has made their share of mistakes. But that’s not reason enough to scrub their mission. Even a reporter for the New York Times was left scratching his head about Obama’s decision. He writes, “In place of the Moon mission, Mr. Obama’s vision offers, at least initially, nothing in terms of human exploration of the solar system. What the administration calls a ‘bold new initiative’ does not spell out a next destination or timetable for getting there.”36

Meanwhile, astronauts Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, and Eugene Cernan, the last to set foot on its rocky soil, made a prediction about the impact of Obama’s plan: “the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity. America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space.”37 I couldn’t agree more.

Obama doesn’t want us to go to the moon.

He wants America to be damned.

Remember Reverend Wright’s sermon? “Not God Bless America,” Wright roared into the young, community activists’ ears, “God DAMN America!” To put it another way, Obama clearly concurs with something his Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has said:

“God bless the America we are trying to create.”38

Shooting Stars: From Leathernecks to Rubberneckers

Obama’s war on the military and America’s national defense continues to defy logic. Perhaps no better example exists than the treatment of our brave heroes on the front lines. The case of Captain Matthew Myers comes to mind. Myers, who won the Silver Star for bravery in action when his men were surrounded and outnumbered, was also reprimanded for not doing enough to prevent the attack! Did you hear about that one?

In the battle of Wanat, one of the deadliest to date in the Afghan theater of operations, Captain Myers and his troops were manning an outpost deep inside the enemy’s position. According to a CBS News account, the Taliban had surrounded the outpost and were “shooting down on U.S. soldiers like fish in a barrel. When it was over, nine Americans lay dead.”39 It was a surprise ambush in which hundreds of Taliban fighters far outnumbered our forty-nine men assigned to the outpost.

Not only were our men outflanked, they were short on supplies, running out of water, and were without overhead surveillance when the unmanned drone providing data to the troops’ position was reassigned to a different mission. CBS reports the dire straits Myers and his men found themselves in. In this exchange, Myers is talking via radio to U.S. Apache gunships calling for help:

Be advised, we’re in a bad situation,” Myers said. “Need you to come in hot immediately.” The enemy was so close that Myers told the incredulous pilots to lay down fire within 10 meters of his position. “I know it’s high risk, but we need to get these guys off of us,” Myers said. “Ten meters,” the pilot replied. “You got to be kidding me.40

It took over an hour before the Apache helicopters arrived to drive back the enemy. Although nine were killed and twenty-seven were wounded, Myers’ leadership saved the entire fort from being overrun by a much larger enemy force. He was rightly awarded the Silver Star. So far so good.

But in the upside-down world of Obama’s military, Myers was also blamed for not having established enough of a defense to prevent the attack—a function that wasn’t even his job. It gets worse. The men whose job it was to prevent the attack were promoted up to the higher levels of command. Lieutenant Colonel William Ostlund was promoted to colonel while brigade commander Colonel Chip Preysler got a cushy job working for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon.41

How much crazier does it get than this? A hero who fought back the attack gets a career-ending letter while his superior gets promoted to the Joint Staff! If we had these rules of engagement in World War II, rules introduced under George Bush, now magnified under BO, and if these rules had be pro-actively applied to WWII, half the men buried in Arlington Cemetery would have to be disinterred and their medals taken away from them.

This is not the only case. Nor did this insanity start under Obama. Even George W. Bush blew it with the persecution of Marine Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani. In this case, which dragged on for four years, the government wasted millions of taxpayers’ dollars investigating and prosecuting this soldier for the “Haditha Massacre.” Remember that one? Although Chessani wasn’t present for the events that led to the deaths of a number of Iraqi civilians, he was charged for failing to launch an investigation.

Long before the facts were compiled, U.S. Representative John Murtha, the now deceased blowhard Demoncat, blasted our troops claiming they had “overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”42 This lie was based on false reporting by TIME magazine’s Tim McGurk. Murtha’s fiery rhetoric unnecessarily ramped up hostilities in Iraq and sparked enemy retaliation.43 In turn, Chessani became the political scapegoat. In the end, the Navy named a ship after Murtha! How’s that for justice? Realizing the raw deal that Officer Chessani was getting, I took his case to the Savage Nation who, in turn, joined me in raising tens of thousands of dollars for his legal defense.

Or take the case of Army Ranger Lieutenant Michael Behenna. In short, Ali Mansur, a known terrorist member of an al-Qaeda cell, was captured by Lieutenant Behenna’s platoon in Iraq an April 21, 2008. Mansur was suspected of organizing an attack that killed two U.S. soldiers from Behenna’s platoon, two Iraqi citizens, and injured two more American troops. Lieutenant Behenna was personally ordered to return the terrorist to his home and release him.

Let’s set aside the fact that, from a layman’s point of view, it makes no sense that we’d catch and then release a known terrorist. According to Lieutenant Behenna’s account, Mansur lunged for Behenna as he was being returned home and Behenna shot him in self-defense. Though an expert witness for the government supports Behenna’s version of events, the government refused to hear this testimony! Now Behenna, who is rotting in a cold cell, has been sentenced by his government to serve fifteen years in prison for killing a terrorist.

Behenna’s case is currently in the Army Court of Appeals.

According to his girlfriend, Shannon Wahl, Behenna remains imprisoned at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, with no access to the Internet or e-mail and he is not allowed to have any phone calls or visits from anyone he didn’t already know before he was jailed. Wahl told me that contact with the media could potentially get him moved to a maximum-security facility. This is the same Army that gives all the rights in the world to Major Hasan who, as I pointed out in the last chapter, murdered twelve soldiers in the Fort Hood massacre.