Administration says war on terror is over? Signs say no

I'm confused.  A few days ago a senior State Department official said "the war on terror is over." “Now that we have killed most of Al Qaeda, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into Al Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.”

All of America heaved a great sigh of relief....Finally peace in our time, thanks to the efforts of President Obama.

Yet that short lived sense of peace was shattered when White House spokesman Jay Carney warned there is increased security precautions due to the fact we are close to the one year anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  

Security experts are nervous.  Their sources say master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri has re surfaced after being thought dead in a drone strike that killed terror master mind Anwar al-Awlaki.  Al-Asiri is the same bomb maker who invented the underwear bomb and various parcel bombs. They say there are indications that elements of Al Qaeda are looking for some payback in a spectacular manner.  The word is that the soft target of preference will be American civilians.

To further dispel our short lived sense of security, Iran announced  it was building an army of computer hackers to attack American infrastructure.  Attacks would include knocking out our power grid, disabling our water supplies and causing great havoc to anything that computers have control over, which is just about everything these days.  I call this terrorism.

There seems to be no let up in the Iranians feverish quest to  obtain the material necessary to construct a "peaceful" nuclear program.  Iran is the chief sponsor of terror in the world and there is little doubt in many security experts opinion that a nuclear armed Iran would be a real threat to world stability. 

In the homegrown domestic front according to reports, the Occupy movement announced a new spring offensive to kick off the "occupy" season.  There were reports that on May 1, they would team up with labor movements to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge.  Although the shutdown didn't materialize due to heavy police presence, other occupy movements caused disruptions throughout the country.

This war against us is far from over, no matter what the government may decree.

Trayvon Martin shooting was not an act of racism, but a community trying to defend itself

The sensationalism against George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin, clouds the real reason this tragedy occurred in the first place.

The pundits, the community organizers, the pot stirrers,  are all trying to find a scapegoat and the convenient one to blame is George Zimmerman.  George Zimmerman  is but the symptom of a government failing in its prime function:  To provide protection and security for its citizens. If government does not provide protection for its citizens, then the citizens will provide it for themselves...and what the citizens provide will not be as professional and polished as a trained police force.

The gated community that George Zimmerman is a resident, has been the repeated target of crime.  Zimmerman himself had made repeated phone calls to the local police to report suspicious behavior/crime as had been requested by that department.  Other members of the community had made calls as well.    As far as the cops were concerned, that wasn’t excessive in a neighborhood fighting petty crime.

The neighborhood was on edge, particularly since they had suffered 8 burglaries in the past 14 months. Including the terrifying experience of resident Olivia Bertalan:

21 year old Bertalan was home alone with her infant son one morning last August when a man came to her door, knocked, and rang the bell. She peered out the window and didn't recognize the man. But then called police when another man came to her back door.

She ran upstairs clutching her son and locked herself in a bedroom as the second man entered her home. Terrified, both she and her son cried as the man tried to enter through the locked door of the bedroom. Both men ran when police arrived, but not before stealing a laptop and digital camera.

After the crime she was afraid to come home. She and her husband got a dog, as advised by police. "It was terrible," said Bertalan, who moved from the neighborhood last month because of this and other burglaries. 

"There was definitely a sense of fear in the neighborhood after all of this started happening, and it just kept on happening. It wasn't just a one time thing. It was every week," she said. "Our next-door neighbor actually said if someone came into his yard or house  he would shoot him. Everyone felt afraid and scared."

For years, Twin Lakes has been beset by crime which finally lead them to start a neighborhood-watch organization last September.  The burglary of Olivia Bertalan’s home in August seems to have been a catalyst

There was a large sign post at the entrance of this gated community saying it had neighborhood watch and suspicious people would be reported to 911. This should give someone new in the neighborhood fair warning as to why they may be followed or watched and should invoke a sense of cooperation and understanding from those visiting.
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Read more

Brave mom protects her infant and shoots intruder

Americans want the 2nd Amendment under their Christmas tree
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As state and local governments drown in debt, they are cutting back.  The California town of Vallejo went bankrupt due to spiraling costs.  As a result city managers asked for concessions from public employee unions to help get the city back on sound fiscal footing. The unions wouldn't give up benefits or wages, as a result the town had to lay off police and fire forces and is now skeleton staffed with less, but more expensive personnel.

Oakland California, a financial basket case, did not have enough police officers last fall to respond to a violent beating which resulted in a death of one of its citizens in their own front yard.  Police forces were busy patrolling the Occupy Oakland gathering.

These stories will be repeated around the country as budgets get tightened.  Critical numbers of law enforcement will be reduced and response times to crimes will be lengthened.  Some jurisdictions will no longer respond to certain types of crime because they just can't afford to hire enough police to respond. Revenue enhancement policing will be increased as municipalities struggle to bring in more money to their coffers.  Speed traps are on the increase and traffic violations are watched for with an eagle eye as they bring in fines. 

Communities are having to come to grips with the costs involved of protecting their citizens.  Some communities are trying to cut costs by having non police dept technicians collect evidence at crime scenes. There is also talk of privatizing some segments of police work, such as traffic enforcement and other non violent crime areas.

Some communities are getting rid of their local departments of police and fire altogether, finding them too expensive to maintain, they are sub contracting with regional sheriff and fire depts to serve their needs. Many communities are now using private fire fighting services and considering using private security companies to provide basic protections.

All of this doesn't bode well to the citizen that think instant help will be there with a 911 call.  In many cases when danger is seconds away, the police are just minutes away and the difference between you living to be able to defend yourself in court, or dying and being carried away in a casket....is your right to bear fire arms.

There will be calls for tighter gun controls because of the Trayvon Martin shooting, but more restrictions only give the criminals a bigger advantage. Look at the cities with the tightest gun controls, it doesn't put a dent in the criminals owning guns.  As a result citizens feel the need to enhance their security with more neighborhood watches and by purchasing fire arms for their personal protection. 

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Would There be Room for JFK in Todays Democrat Party?

Recent polls show there is a strong backlash building against the Occupy Movements springing up around the country. One poll showed 64% of the American public disapprove of the movement and ominously for Democrats, the public is linking the OWS movement to the Democrat Party.

Probably what disturbed many Americans about this movement, besides turning our cities into squalid campsites, was the outward show of support for communism. Militants in the streets demanding "rights" while wearing Che Gueverra T shirts and communist party emblems, openly and brazenly.

The fact that President Obama and Nancy Pelosi have tacitly endorsed this movement at the same time it has been endorsed by the American Nazi Party, the Communist Party and former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, creates a sort of surreal group of strange bedfellows.

I feel like a spectator to a tragic car crash when I watch these protests start to turn militant and violent. I don't want to look, but can't help see how our culture seems to be disintegrating in some of our cities. It looks as if there is a concerted effort to bring mob rule to the forefront, rather than the rule of law. Why would our nations leaders endorse a tactic which is against the grain of working within the system, a system they themselves are a key part of? A system which produced them?

If John Kennedy were around today would he be a member of the Democrat Party? After all his motto was "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country." Even his "Rising tide will lift all boats" showed his laissez faire attitude of unleash the private sector and it will bring forth prosperity to everyone. Of course one of the first moves he made as president was to lower the tax rates to help spur private sector prosperity.

Does any of this strategy and thinking resemble todays entitlement mentality embraced by todays Democrat party? If you look at it from this perspective, John Kennedy probably would have been a founding member of the American Tea Party.

But I can't help but wonder what John Kennedy would think today if he were around. He was probably the worst enemy the Communist Party every had, he hated communism and everything it stood for. He most definitely would be astonished to see them marching in the streets proudly wearing their colors.

Of course President Kennedy risked his life fighting a war which eventually crushed the Nazi's and he most certainly would not have tolerated the site of the Swastika being associated with anything American.

President Kennedy was also a strong champion of civil rights and didn't tolerate for a minute racism, or any type of intolerance against others, so he most certainly would be aghast at seeing mobs knotting up our cities, that were endorsed by a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sure times have changed from the 60's when President Kennedy was here, but the aforementioned groups goals and aims have not and John Kennedy, in his elderly state, would be standing up and speaking out about this.

Makes you wonder if the conservative JFK would be even welcome in today's Democrat Party?

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Time for Occupy Wall Street to leave, they are not the Tea Party

No matter how you spin it, "Occupy Wall Street" is not comparable to a Tea party grass roots gathering. I have been listening lately to those on the left who say it is their version of the Tea Party, but as many see it ,there is no comparison.

The Tea Party has a clear unified message: Lower taxes and smaller government. It's not complicated and hard to figure out, you can ask almost any participant and you will get that same general answer.

When there is a Tea Party event, people gather at a place that does not interfere with the ongoing commerce and business of a city it is being held in. There are never any arrests and people are usually very respectful. At the end of the day they, clean up any trash that may have accumulated, return to their homes, take a shower and get on with their normal lives. Tea Party members made their voices heard at the voting booths by turning the elections on their head last November.

The only people the Tea party gatherings inconvenience are the Tea Party participants themselves, who have usually taken time off of work and traveled long distances at their own expense to attend these one day events.

But the citizens of New York are not seeing the respect from the Occupy Wall Street Crowd that they would expect from the Tea party. These "occupiers" are not here for the day to gather peacefully, make a statement and leave. They are camped out in the midst of the city and want to annoy, disrupt and inconvenience the citizens of New York city.

Their general beef seems to be that corporations are evil. They have some validity to the close ties between Wall Street and Washington DC. We get it, we want change too. But the core source of the problem is Washington DC and that's where the eye should be directed. Evidently many of them have the time and outside sources of income to hang out in the city for almost a month.

Along with the general message that corporations are evil, some are demanding free medical, free educations and a living wage of 20.00 per hr. whether working or not. Also heard is the demand of canceling out of their debts and raise taxes on the "rich".

Of course Michael Moore, Inc., champion of the poor and downtrodden, has been making appearances shaking his fist at the "rich" and leading the crowds with Marxist style chants. Does anyone in the crowd know that M. Moore, Inc. is worth about 53 million himself? That could pay for quite a few living wage jobs.

Fabulously wealthy, capitalist Russell Simmons, owner of several evil corporations himself, including a debit card company, was there to speechify and condemn the "greed'.

This demonstration could have accomplished in one day some attention and support. But it is now garnering resentment from the businesses and citizens of New York who are being displaced and damaged by this invasion and occupation of their city.

Who is supposed to be watching out for the citizens of New York City? Seems city officials think the occupiers"rights" are precious. How about demanding and making sure the occupiers show some respect and responsibility to go along with those "rights"? One way to show that is by leaving the city as they found it and going to their respective homes to work within our system for change, if they don't like the way things are. Responsibilities are supposed to march shoulder to shoulder with rights.

There is a forecast of rain, is that what it's going to take to release New Yorks citizens from being hostages? Or will the Mayor step up to the plate and protect the citizens of the city he has sworn to protect?

For other points of view visit Carroll Standard: www.carrollstandard.com