Troubled and Afraid

            I'm troubled and I'm afraid. I'm troubled by what is happening to our country under the present leadership. I'm afraid it's only going to get worse if we don't make a drastic change in November.

            Candidate Obama promised he would bring fundamental change to this country. Hardly anyone knew what kind of change. Now we know.
            We know that President Obama does not like America and feels he has to apologize for it. He dislikes capitalism because it relies on the individual rather than the government; he despises the rich and successful and seeks to tax them to death; he disdains the entrepreneurial spirit and the freedom that makes it possible; and he does not believe in our nation's exceptionalism. He prefers European-style Socialism, the redistribution of wealth, government solutions for every perceived ill, and a New World Order to override our Constitution.
            Another four years under this president will be catastrophic. Some have called it the Imperial Presidency. I call it simply tyranny. Obama aspires to despotism, a system of absolute power where he alone decides what's good for the country. He has already shown how little respect he has for the law and for court judgments in,  for example, his rewriting of immigration laws and his refusal to abide by court directives to lift the drilling moratorium. Now he has gutted the work requirement of welfare law with complete disregard for Congress. He continues to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on green enterprises after so many of them have failed, while at the same time doing everything he can to prevent an increase in our supply of fossil fuels.
            Having already proven how Congress is powerless and marginalized, he will continue to spend money he doesn't have, driving us further into debt. He will continue to choke our free enterprise system with increased regulations and crushing taxation. He will drive even more Americans into the slavery of dependency. He alone will decide who benefits from his largesse. He will continue to fly around the country on Air Force One to smile and to tell adoring fans how well we are doing. And they will believe his lies because he, after all, is taking care of them.
            Meanwhile, Iran will have nuclear weapons, Israel will face destruction alone, and the United Nations will govern the seas and the environment, while mouthing platitudes about peace among nations, even as jihadist genocide spreads its plague around the world.
            How can I be anything but afraid for my country. More than afraid, I am terrified.

A Little More Class, Please

            It may not qualify as a major gaffe, but it certainly showed a lack of class. We are now reminded of it nearly four years later by none other than Mitt Romney.

            On his recent visit to London, Romney told the Brits that he would be happy to have the bust of Winston Churchill returned to the White House. He was referring to one of the first actions Barack Obama took after his inauguration as President of the United States: he ordered the bust of Churchill, a gift from Great Britain which had been in the Oval Office since Nixon, to be returned to the British. The reason, it was rumored, was that it was in retaliation for the treatment of Kenya by the British during the colonial era. True or not, the action was a gross insult to our greatest ally. And it showed an utter lack of class by the president.
            Reminded now of the gaffe, the White House scurried to deny it, saying that the bust was still in the White House, that it had never been returned. This proved to be false. The bust had indeed been returned and is now in the British embassy in Washington.
            It has been clear from the beginning of his term that Obama does not stand with the country's closest allies. I recall another slap at the British when the White House telegraphed his preference for Argentina's position on the Falkland Islands by calling them the Maldives, Argentina's appellation. To top it off, Obama himself displayed his ignorance by referring to the islands as the Malvinas. Not as bad as calling the Marine Corps the Marine corpse, but just as embarrassing.
            Romney's next stop was Israel, an ally that Obama has never deigned to visit. Indeed, he bypassed Israel on his first trip abroad to bow down before a Saudi prince. He has preferred to insult Prime Minister Netanyahu in the White House, all the while siding with the Palestinians by insisting on a return to the pre-1967 borders.
            Speaking of the White House, which we Americans rightly feel is Our House, this president has been photographed again and again with his feet up on the furniture, including the Oval Office desk used by President Kennedy and President Reagan, among others.
            He has also been photographed covering his crotch during the singing of the National Anthem, while others around him saluted the flag.
            Do we not have the right to expect a little more class from the leader of our great country?

Cries from Woonsocket

            I was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, an old mill town astride the Blackstone River in the northeast corner of the state. The city once had the greatest percentage of French-Canadian immigrants in the country. It had a French newspaper, a French radio station whose theme song I can still remember, and many churches where only French was heard from the pulpit. In 1950 Woonsocket was designated an All-American City. It had good schools, a thriving Main Street, and full employment in the many wool and cotton mills that stood like giant red cliffs along the fast-flowing river that supplied their power. But then the textile industry moved south to more favorable economic climes, and Woonsocket gradually became a shell of its former self.

            The city of my birth has never recovered. With high unemployment, an aging population, and a shrinking tax base, Woonsocket can no longer fulfill its long-term contractual obligations and is now facing bankruptcy. Downriver Pawtucket is also close to declaring bankruptcy, while nearby Central Falls already has.
            These are but three of the many troubled cities that are popping up like mushrooms all over the nation's map. Already In bankruptcy are Stockton, San Bernadino, and Mammoth Lakes in California alone. Not far behind are San Diego and San Jose, as well as Las Vegas and Reno next door in Nevada. Even Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York are experiencing daunting fiscal crises. And, closer to home, our northern neighbor Norfolk is not in such great shape either. Can we imagine the outcry if the mayor of Norfolk reduced all public employee salaries to the minimum wage like the mayor of Scranton did?
            These cities are but a microcosm of what is happening on the national level with unbridled entitlements exploding the national debt by over $4 trillion in just the last three years. Yet all attempts at reform are met with accusations of pushing grandma off the cliff or starving the poor. Heaven forbid! And while we're at it, let's add on another trillion for Obamacare. The country can't go bankrupt. All we have to do is print more money and borrow the rest from China. Anybody else want food stamps?
            Can't our leaders smell the rot in the system they've created? Haven't they seen the disastrous consequences of Socialism in Greece, Spain, and Italy? Can they not hear the moans of despair from Woonsocket?